119： Back From the Darkness ｜ Navy SEAL Joost Janssen
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Summary
There is no doubt that all of us have been through some difficult challenges in our lives, some more than others. Whether it s a loss of a loved one, a disease, illness, bankruptcy, or divorce, your ability to adapt and overcome spells the difference between those who crumble and those who thrive. My guest today, Navy SEAL Yost Jansen, talks with us about enduring and even enjoying pain, the power of deciding early, how to harness tragedy and the negativity of others, and how to come back from the darkness.
Transcript
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There is no doubt that all of us have been through some difficult challenges in our lives,
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some more than others. Whether it's a loss of a loved one, a disease or illness, bankruptcy,
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a divorce, your ability to adapt and overcome spells the difference between those who crumble
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and those who thrive. My guest today, Navy SEAL Yost Jansen, talks with us about enduring
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and even enjoying pain, the power of deciding early, how to harness tragedy and the negativity
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of others, how to come back from the darkness, and more importantly, how to thrive through
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hardship. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly
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chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
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You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This
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is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said
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and done, you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name
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is Ryan Mickler, and I am the host and founder of the Order of Man podcast. If you are listening
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in for the first time or the hundredth time or more, you are in the right place if your
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goal is to be the best man that you can be. That's what we're all about here. The Order
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of Man is about being a better man. It's about connecting with great men, having some powerful
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conversations with them. We're extracting their hard-fought and hard-learned lessons and delivering
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them straight to you. The goal is that hopefully you and I can learn some new skills, tools, tips,
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tactics, strategies to improve in our lives the easy way rather than doing everything
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the hard way, which I'll admit sometimes I like to do it seems. A couple of quick resources
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that you will want to know about. I've been talking about this for a month now, and as
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much as I like sharing with you digitally here on the podcast and in the Facebook group
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and online and everywhere that you might be able to find us, I have found that nothing
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can replace the one-to-one, the face-to-face meeting, which is why we're going to be hosting
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an Order of Man meetup in Kansas City, August 12th, 2017. Stephen Mansfield, he's the author
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of Mansfield's Book of Manly Men. He's going to be there. I'm going to be there. We're going
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to have a copy of his book, Building Your Band of Brothers, available to the first 50 men
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who register for the event. So do that quickly. We are going to sell out on that. Make sure
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you do that at orderofman.com slash event. Now, the other resource I wanted to share with
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you is our exclusive brotherhood, The Iron Council. And speaking, of course, about Building
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Your Band of Brothers, this is, again, a digital band of brothers, but it goes so much deeper
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than just a digital band of brothers. I'm seeing guys forge bonds. I'm seeing them lose weight.
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I'm seeing them connect regionally. I am seeing them make more money. I am seeing them get
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promotions. It is pretty incredible what is going on inside of the Iron Council and the
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Brotherhood there. If you are interested in learning more about what we're doing, you can
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find out at orderofman.com slash ironcouncil. With that said, guys, I am stoked to introduce
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you to my guest, Navy SEAL Yost Jansen. Him and I were introduced by a mutual friend and
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Yost and I immediately hit it off as he shared some of his personal story of tragedy and loss
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and hardship and more importantly, overcoming those things. But what I found is that the
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hardships that seem to bond men more closely than anything else. Yost is well known for his
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work as a military advisor. You might have seen the movies 13 Hours, Transformers, Iron
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Man. He worked on those three movies and more, but more importantly, this guy has learned his
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lessons on the battlefield as a member of the Navy SEALs and special operations community
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with several government agencies. Today though, he's here to talk with us about turning tragedy
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into fuel and coming back from the darkness. Enjoy this one guys. What's going on, man? Thanks
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for joining me on the show today. Ryan, how are you doing? Thanks for having me on.
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Yeah, I know this has been a long time in the works. I usually like to jump right into these
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things because I know there's so much information you have to share and for the sake of time,
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I do want to delve right into this because I want to talk with you today about surviving and thriving
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through hardship. And I know you've obviously been through some difficult times specifically with
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the SEAL teams. I'm really interested to know from your perspective, what separates somebody who
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makes it through the training and becomes a SEAL and somebody who does not? Well, Ryan,
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the Navy has spent millions to try to figure out who would be the best recruit and so far with
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very little success. So my opinion is it's the willingness to endure pain and enjoy the process.
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The problem with that is you can't measure that in somebody. You almost have to put them through
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the process. To give you an example, if you're not enjoying it somehow, the pain will overcome you.
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When I was in hell week, I ended up on Wednesday night, the boat hit the back of my head and tore
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some tendons and ligaments. And I had to go through the last two days holding my head up. I could not,
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my muscles just refused to work. And the entire time I was like the butt of all the instructors'
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jokes. I would have to like use one hand to hold my head up and I had to drop my food, stop eating,
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hold my head up, talk to the instructors, convince them I was still coherent because if not,
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they would just say, Hey, sorry, try again next time. Right. So how do you, because I imagine too,
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they focused a lot of attention on you probably at that point trying to weed you out. Is that right?
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Yes. That's their main focus. It's a selection process and screening process. So hell week
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is typically the fifth week of training and first phase and no other service has anything like it.
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You're awake for the most part for five and a half days. You've got about two, one hour sleeping
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sessions scheduled later in the week. And those sometimes make you feel worse than not sleeping
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at all. I imagine those are just in place just to keep you alive. Is that correct?
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They can be. Sometimes though, I remember I stayed awake for one of them because the first time I
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slept and I couldn't move when I woke up an hour later, I was just a ball. So the second session of
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sleep, I'm just, I'm just going to stand in a corner. I don't want to risk not being able to get
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up off that cot and finish. How do you enjoy the pain? That was a really fascinating phrase
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that you use because we've always heard things like embrace the suck is a big motto that I've
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heard a lot. And that, that doesn't say enjoy. It basically means just get through it. And you're
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talking about enjoying it. So talk to me about the distinction. If you don't enjoy the journey,
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it's you'll never finish typically. So if you can't see the humor, there's so much fun stuff that
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happens in the midst of misery. Whenever I get back with my old friends, or I went through SEAL
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training with me, just a story after story, how this ridiculous stuff happened. And it's just so
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humorous. And if you can't laugh, there's guys that you can tell they go really dark when it gets
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painful. And that works for a while. But if you can't get past that and start laughing, enjoying,
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and just building that bond with the guys around you, if you go dark, you're not building good bonds.
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But if you keep it light, keep it fun, then that strength together will take you a long way.
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What do you mean by they go really dark? What does that actually look like?
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Did you ever see somebody that kind of shut down when things got hurt? For example, like
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we just got back from hiking a section of the Pacific Crest Trail as a family,
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and we didn't expect rain or anything. We weren't prepared. You know, you could see like,
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I'm looking at my wife and she's getting quiet. And yeah, sure.
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My kids too. And you know, it's cold and you know, I've been used to that kind of stuff. But it's my
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job then to say, hey, like, stop internalizing and don't gut it out. Like, let's see how funny,
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let's laugh about it. Let's see how funny it is. Because once you go quiet, once you stop communicating,
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once you think too much, and then you just go deeper and deeper and focusing on the pain rather
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than, you know, hey, this is going to make a good story someday.
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Yeah, I mean, I even experienced this to some degree with my two oldest boys, baseball teams,
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like I can feel when they're getting down on themselves or in their, they're in their heads,
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and it gets really quiet. And I'm trying to encourage these boys to talk and communicate and,
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and bounce ideas off each other and be moving around. So I think I can see why this is so critical
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to a certain degree, obviously, not the same context we're talking about with your training.
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Right, right. Yeah, it's, it's, it applies to every part of life. Some of the stuff I really
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hate doing, you know, like writing, and when I was trying to finish my degree and things like that.
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So I, you know, I have tried to have fun with all the stuff I hate. And it just time goes by,
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So with your torn ligaments, then is that did that recover fairly quickly? Or how did that work? Or did
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you just suffer through it or enjoy through it, I guess you'd say? And then it healed? Walk me through
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that. Yeah, it healed. I had a longer chance to heal. I after hell week, I also had a stress
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fracture in my femoral head and then in my tibia as well. So after a few weeks, I just couldn't stand
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up anymore. And they did the bone scan and rolled me back to the next class. So goodness, everything
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healed again, you can you can actually go quite a ways without your neck, or you know, the muscles in
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your neck working good. But once you have a fracture in your femoral neck, then that's it,
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you got to you got to roll back, heal up and hit it again.
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So you obviously knew to some degree was the expectation on point? Or were you pretty far
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off with your expectation of what would be required mentally and physically?
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I really had no expectation. Because when I joined the SEAL teams, you know, there were very
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little information out there. I remember listening to a radio show, G Gordon Liddy, his son was a SEAL.
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And he just mentioned on the radio is like, yeah, you can, he had a guest on that was a SEAL as well.
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And he said, yeah, you could just go to boot camp and go straight to SEAL training. And that's what
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piqued my interest. Because I didn't want to join the military and do four years of chipping paint,
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and then maybe go to SEAL training. I wanted to just get going.
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Right. So is that what you did? Did you just jump right into it then?
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I went in, I decided at the last minute to go to what's called an A school. So you have a rating.
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And since I was already a paramedic, I decided just to be a corpsman, which is like a medic in the Navy.
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So I went through three months of corpsman training and then straight to SEAL training after that.
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So what kept you going? I mean, obviously, you know, you're talking about I didn't have an
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expectation. I got into this thing. There was some difficulty physically, I'm sure mentally as
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well as exhausting. What kept you going? Is this something that you've always wanted to do? Have
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you always wanted to serve in some capacity? Or where did this actual desire come from?
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For me personally, I was it was not on my radar. I was living a great life in Michigan. I was a
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paramedic, been married for two years to my soulmate. And then out of the blue, she got into a car
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accident on the way to work one morning and went off the road and was killed. And that kind of changed
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everything for me. And what I imagined my life was to what it became, you know, I went into my dark
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place at that point. You know, after being kind of self destructive for a year or so, I just woke up and
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go, hey, this is not what she would have wanted. And I tried to look for the most difficult pain I can put
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myself through and use that as therapy. And my answer was, let's join the Navy SEALs.
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When you talk about going into a dark place and being destructive, what did that actually look like? If you
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I stopped caring about my future. I felt like I didn't have a future. If somebody is like, hey, let's throw a
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party. I would say, sure, you know, everybody come to my house. Next thing you know, there's 250 people,
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half of them underage, the cops show up. And whether I got thrown in jail or not meant very
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little to me at the time. Then afterwards, I'm like, you know, I just what am I doing? Or at work,
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I stopped caring about my up to that point stellar performance. I would, you know, I missed the shift
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here and there. Like, I just wasn't myself. And I just didn't have, in my mind, a future. So I needed to
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How long did that process take you? I mean, I don't know if there's a definitive end. Obviously,
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there's a start to that. And you can pinpoint what that experience was like. But was there a
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definitive end where you just finally put your foot down? Or was this a gradual process?
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It was gradual. The first thing I started doing is, you know, at the time, my wife and I had just
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bought a foreclosed, really, really old house. And our plan had been to redo it top to bottom. And she
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died before we even got started. But I decided to, hey, I'm going to start working on the house.
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Nine months later, so the house is almost done. And then it's like, okay, I need something else
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bigger, you know, I need something bigger. But the interesting thing is, like, most
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seals you talk to, you know, and it's not really a rule, but you'll find this very common,
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they have something in their past, some kind of strategy or something that
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I have heard that most people. Yeah, you know, I have a friend whose dad and brother died in a
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plane crash when he was younger. And he ended up joining. I mean, there's just always something
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and it's not maybe that big. Maybe it's something personal. Maybe growing up in school, you faced
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bullying, or you faced a lot of challenges that other kids didn't face. So now you're stronger for
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it as an adult. It sounds to me like you gave yourself you talk about the house, you talk about
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joining the seals. It sounds like you gave yourself projects as maybe even a way to distract
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yourself. I don't want to put words in your mouth. But is that accurate? Or am I off on that?
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No, that's, that's very true. And even now, if I don't have projects, I don't do well with idle time.
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Sure. Yeah, I'm with you on that. What are your projects look like now?
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My family, we just decided to my kids are sorry, my kids are 10 and 11, two boys. And they like any
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kid, man, they have got a pretty cush, easy life. I mean, we make them do CrossFit and we do stuff. But you
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know, they really are attracted to their iPads and electronics.
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I think, you know, one day I was just looking and seeing like, you know, I didn't like where
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we're going with the kids. So I'm like, you know, we're just going to start hiking. And I know that
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2,650 miles to get from the Mexican border to Canada is a long way on the Pacific Crest Trail.
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And our goal is to finish before the oldest graduates high school section at a time. So we've got to go
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through, you know, all kinds of environments. So through California, through desert, through
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mountains, through snow. And I think if we can do that, you know, my wife and I can give them
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something that most kids don't get, they're going to have a base to work from. Rather than being an
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expert Minecraft player that does nothing for him growing up.
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Sure. So have you already started sections of this then?
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We just got back from the first section. And it was, we split it up in the, we did a three day trip,
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about 26 miles. And, you know, it was supposed to be sunny and relatively mild temperatures. You
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know, it was May down in San Diego and first day was great. And then, then the rains came and then
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the cold front hit and then elevations and we weren't dressed properly for it. So, and then there's
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two streams that weren't on the map, but because of all the rains, we had to forge across two rivers
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unexpectedly. So by the time we finished, it was, you know, we looked at my wife and I look at each
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other. It's like, wow, this is, uh, I think we're better prepared. It's probably good that we didn't
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have a nice cushy first leg of the journey. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the framework for the rest of
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the track, right? It does. It does. And you know, the big thing is, is I'm not, I don't really care if
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we finish this thing or not, but the fact that we set this goal and we're going to work on it
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means something. If we just said, it's like, Hey, we should just do more hiking as a family.
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And we would randomly like pick some stuff we wanted to do that. We felt like we would do some
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hiking. Yes. But we wouldn't have that same experience. We wouldn't build that kind of
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character in our kids as having to actually finish a goal. Yeah. Yeah. I can see how that would be
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true. It sounds like you went through what is a Murphy's law or anything that can go wrong will go
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wrong. Sounds like that's what happened. It kind of did, but still I'm impressed. My kids, you know,
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they, they complain actually more on the sunny warm day than they did on the, on the next two days.
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Cause I think mentally it was, it was a shock to their system as like, Hey, we're walking 12 miles
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up and down mountains the first day. They've never done that before with a 21 pound backpack and
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everything on. But once they mentally got past that, they were good. You know, they, they kind of
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started embracing it. So this leads me to one of the conversations that you and I have had in the
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past, which is trying to make a decision, not even trying, just making a decision prior to getting
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involved in something. I think it's very easy for guys just to make a quick choice. And then we don't
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even realize the expectations or we're not completely truthful about what it will take. And we end up
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waffling or floundering because we don't really know what it is we're doing. And we haven't made
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that decision beforehand. Walk me through that. This is a process I like doing. And it starts with
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looking at where you want to go and what your goal is, and then sit down and be honest with
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yourself. Where do you really want to go? It will be nice for everyone to be a millionaire,
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but not, and everybody wants to be a millionaire conceptually, but very few people are willing to
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do what it takes to get there. Find out what your goal really is. Like, what do you really want your
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life to be like? And once you find that out, you make a decision to go for it. If you take a goal,
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if I take your goal to be, you know, like, like an awesome podcaster and have all this influence,
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my heart's not really in it. So I will never succeed. Cause that's your goal, not my goal.
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Even though many people will just copy somebody else's goal. Like everybody's like, man, I would
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like to be a seal. And I'm like, no, you wouldn't. Yeah, sure. You like the idea of being a seal.
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Like the idea. And a lot of people, they go a hundred miles an hour towards something that they
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actually like the idea of, but they don't really want, they don't want the end result.
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How do you distinguish between liking the idea of something and then actually knowing that this
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is the course I want to take? Trial and error. Like that goes to making a decision. Once you
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decide that this is my goal and that decision is made, you kind of lose the option to waiver
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when it gets hard. You know, that time to not do it was before. Make a decision before you start
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and decide only on what you can control. And I'll give you an example. Like for seal training,
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I can control myself whether I quit. If you ring the bell three times, you're done. You quit.
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Drop on requests. You go back to the fleet. Now you can control that. Now, can you control
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getting thrown out of a rubber boat, hitting the rocks and breaking your back? It's very little. You
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can't control that. So you can't really make a decision. I'm going to be a seal, but you can make a
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decision. I'm not going to quit. And then identify everything you can do to help. And another
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example is like we lose really good guys because they went out on the weekend and drank and got a
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DUI or something right in the middle of seal training. Yeah. Why would you? You can be 100%
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in control of that. Why would you put yourself in a situation where that could happen or they get
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into a fight in a bar? And it's one thing you do after you're a seal, but in the middle of training,
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no, you can't be doing that kind of stuff. And then when the hardship hits, then your decision
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is made. You don't waver in your mind. That comes from building over time, being honest
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with yourself. Like if I decide, you know, like Ryan and I, you and I are going to do this
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CrossFit. So we write up all these cool stuff on the board. We're going to do a Murph followed
00:19:03.380
by an extra tire drag up and down the street. And it sounds really awesome.
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But you know, I can't either. But the point is sometimes man, you get excited and you come up
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with a goal. Now halfway through the workout, we look at each other and go, wow, this was stupid.
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And by the way, this is not good for our bodies because we're tearing ourselves down. So we could
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say it's like, you know what? It's been a good workout. We got the Murph part done. So creds the
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Murph. So we can do good enough. We can quit. But once you decide you finish within your own
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control, if it starts sucking and you quit, you quit because it just got hurt. If you get hit by
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a truck on a run, it's outside of your control. So you can't, you don't have the option, but you
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can decide that, oh, just because I got a blister, you know, my calves are tight or something like
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that. That's not good enough reason to quit on yourself. If I tell you, Ryan, I'm going to be
00:20:02.140
somewhere tomorrow and feel some obligation or get together. Like I will be there, but
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a lot, and a lot of people will, but that same person who will never stand up a friend will
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do it to themselves every day. They'll say Monday, I'm going to start, I started diet. And then
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Monday rolls around and they don't. And then when you call them on it, they don't even think
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it's that big of a deal. And I'm like, well, you just, you just deceived and lied to yourself.
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Like I'd rather somebody lie to me than lie to themselves.
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Is there a point just to give the other perspective on this where it is a healthy decision to maybe
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throw in the towel, isn't the right word, but to make a decision to either pivot or decide
00:20:44.260
There is obviously not everything you do. You should never quit because of your personal
00:20:49.760
weakness. Now, when you decide that, Hey, this goal I have, and for example, I wanted to
00:20:54.680
be a real estate mogul and I got 13 properties into it in four different countries. And I
00:21:01.000
made a decision to not keep going because my life was not what I thought it would be doing
00:21:06.820
that. And I learned a lot about myself, but every decision to quit should hurt you a little
00:21:12.160
bit. You know, it should, it shouldn't be like, like, Oh, I've got a phone call. I've got
00:21:16.720
to quit. You know, like, it's hurt within your core that, that, Hey, I have to quit, but
00:21:24.520
also it's the right decision. And you know, the difference between quitting because it's
00:21:30.040
the right thing to do, you know, like a business fails, like, like you quit, start over again.
00:21:35.760
You've already been through the journey. You don't sit there and hang in there and keep
00:21:41.780
Right. Right. Yeah. But you know, you didn't quit because it was hard. You quit because the
00:21:47.420
information changed, the situation changed and your, your idea is no longer viable.
00:21:53.560
Gentlemen, let me take a quick break to tell you about our brotherhood, the iron council.
00:21:57.260
A lot of you guys have heard of it by now, but what you may not know is that we're going
00:22:01.520
through a complete overhaul. We've added a 30 day quick start to get you up and running
00:22:05.800
on a new way of operating in your life. We've added some new tools and resources, some new
00:22:11.020
systems that you'll have access to 24 seven. And we're building out the battle teams more
00:22:15.500
effectively so that you can operate in smaller, more tight knit units within the iron council.
00:22:20.220
You'll still have the accountability. You'll still have access to me, but you'll have access
00:22:23.960
also to the other 290 men inside of the IC. And at the end of the day, all of this is designed
00:22:28.980
to help you level up your relationships and your fitness and nutrition, your finances,
00:22:33.400
business, whatever it is you're trying to improve upon in life. We're going to give you
00:22:36.800
some tools and the accountability to help you do that. So if you want to learn more and reserve
00:22:41.640
your seat at the table with the men inside of the iron council, you can do that at orderofman.com
00:22:46.260
slash iron council. Again, orderofman.com slash iron council. Now let's get back to that
00:22:51.600
conversation with Yost. I imagine along the way, and here's an interesting perspective I've actually
00:22:58.060
had with a lot of my guests. I'm really curious about your answers because as I started order of
00:23:01.960
man and I've, I've taken on other projects in my life, I've had people in my corner and I've had
00:23:06.880
people who are not in my corner. And I'd be really curious how you deal personally with those people
00:23:13.520
that are not in your corner, the naysayers, the haters, quote unquote haters, if you want to call
00:23:18.460
them, whatever it may be that discourage you from accomplishing these goals that you're,
00:23:22.860
you're setting out to accomplish. For me, naturally, I was very used to people telling me I
00:23:28.760
couldn't do it. Yeah. I, you know, nobody's ever accused me of being a great athlete growing up.
00:23:33.620
So when I, when I told some friends, yeah, Hey, I want to be a seal. I mean, they just couldn't
00:23:37.920
stop laughing. They thought it was hilarious, but that gave me, you know, I'm stubborn and everybody
00:23:42.800
has an ego. And, but you tell me I can't do something all of a sudden I'm twice as interested
00:23:48.480
in doing it with anything in my life. I love it. Like I gained power from that. And some people
00:23:54.280
aren't, you know, I've talked to friends that at the first person that tells them, no, you can't do
00:23:58.680
that. They're like, yeah, you're right. I can't do that. Let me go sit on the couch again.
00:24:02.840
Right. It's something that needs to shift in you. So if you're not naturally that person,
00:24:07.860
you know, I'm sure when you started ordering a man, not everybody was a big fan and told you
00:24:12.120
you could do it. I'm really curious though, on the other side of this, because I've always heard,
00:24:17.400
you know, you hear people say things like, Oh, tell me I can't and I'll prove you wrong. And that's
00:24:21.480
motivates me more than anything. But from my perspective, I wonder how strong of a position that
00:24:25.640
actually is versus some sort of internal drive rather than let me prove everybody wrong and
00:24:31.880
external drive. What's your experience with that? For me, everybody's different, but for me,
00:24:36.480
it's something I had since I was a kid. When I was a kid, I didn't know how to swim. We were an
00:24:41.560
immigrant family, immigrated from Holland to Canada, not a lot of money and money we did have was never
00:24:47.660
spent on frivolous things like toys and going to learn how to swim or anything like that. So yeah,
00:24:52.940
I had this moment where we had a class party at a lake. And I was like one of the few kids who
00:24:59.180
couldn't swim out to the floating pier and dive off or anything. And, but it built in me a resolve,
00:25:05.280
you know, even that, you know, I was like 10 years old or something, but I built in me resolve,
00:25:08.460
like I will beat this and I will learn how to swim. And nobody around me was telling me,
00:25:13.360
you can't do it besides myself. Sure. And it ended up, you know, the first opportunity I had
00:25:19.920
when there was a junior lifeguard program at our local pool. And I'm like, I'm doing it. I'm signing
00:25:25.880
up. And they're like, well, you got to pass the swim test. And so they were nice enough to put me
00:25:30.840
in with some seven-year-olds. I was 13 at the time. So I'm taking lessons with seven-year-olds
00:25:34.980
just to work my way up through the colors to get good enough to be a lifeguard. And, and that ended
00:25:40.320
up being an ocean lifeguard by the time I was 16, 17, and eventually being a Navy SEAL. And if it
00:25:46.140
wasn't for that one moment, I could have let that beat me at 10 years old, everybody's swimming. I
00:25:51.560
didn't know how to swim. I could have made any excuse in the world. It's like, yeah, I didn't
00:25:54.620
grow up next to water. Sure. Parents never took me to the pool. And I could have started avoiding.
00:26:00.080
That's what people do is something that they're not comfortable with something. They can't,
00:26:03.700
don't think they can be, they'll just avoid. And in this current life, man, you can avoid all the
00:26:07.980
whole way through and nobody will take any notice to it besides you. It sounds like you've got this
00:26:12.700
built-in competitive nature. I have that as well. Is that what it is? Is it just a competitive nature
00:26:17.680
or is there more at work here? I don't think of myself as competitive, but I hate seeing myself as
00:26:24.840
weak or not being able to accomplish something. So when something pops up, you know, the same thing
00:26:30.100
going to Hollywood, it's like, I am not gifted in that area at all. And that's another example.
00:26:36.300
Somebody is saying, it's like, ha ha ha. Yeah, sure. Whatever. You're going to go to Hollywood and do
00:26:39.700
something. It seems so out of reach to me that I'm like, you know, I'm just going to try. I'm going
00:26:44.300
to try and try is not a bad word. And just having the goal and working one step at a time towards it
00:26:50.040
is more than most people do. Like I, I don't have that same burning desire that to do that as I did
00:26:55.440
have to be a seal because it's not, you know, all you have to do is not give up a little bit in
00:26:59.840
Hollywood and you'll have some level of success. Along the way, I started, you know, 10 years ago and
00:27:04.800
just as an opportunity came up, I took advantage of it. I just didn't say, no, I don't care if I was
00:27:10.180
getting paid, not getting paid. If I get a chance to do something, I took it and it ended up turning
00:27:16.240
into a small little career at this point in my life. So you said something interesting to me.
00:27:21.680
You said this opportunity came up. I believe personally in my experience, opportunities don't
00:27:26.100
just present themselves without some effort towards that thing. What did that look like for you? Or maybe
00:27:31.440
I'm wrong. Maybe it did. Luckily, you know, being a seal opens a lot of doors. And I remember in 2007,
00:27:37.500
they were filming the first Transformers and they were looking for some authentic people to basically
00:27:43.240
run around with a gun in their hands and they're called special ability extras. And, uh, so a couple
00:27:49.020
of friends had, had done it. So I'm like, Hey, you know, this sounds kind of fun. I know that was one of
00:27:53.700
my goals a long time ago to get involved in that. So if an opportunity comes up, let me know. And
00:27:58.260
that's the best you can do at that point. And then all of a sudden they say, Hey, we're short a guy. Can you
00:28:02.860
get up there? And of course I'll move to heaven and earth to get up to LA and show up. And that was, that
00:28:08.780
was my wonderful start. And then, you know, you can make a few more connections and it's not a career
00:28:13.780
that's, you know, it's very secure or necessarily pays a whole lot. It's very inconsistent. There's a huge
00:28:20.220
lot of dry spells and most people that haven't already set up their lives a little bit financially will
00:28:25.660
struggle in that industry. So are, so are you in that movie? I know you've been consulting and I know you've
00:28:31.440
done some other things like that, but are you, are you in Transformers? Yeah, you won't see me cause I'm just
00:28:36.500
in the background running around with a gun. Okay. Yeah. One of the sector seven guys. And then I did some, some
00:28:42.460
double work for one of the main actors as well. Um, I've flipped back and forth, but it was my first exposure,
00:28:48.340
my first time on a movie set and you know, doing a little bit of that. So after contracting for five years,
00:28:54.380
I took a break from Hollywood. And then when I came back, I'm focusing now on being what's called
00:28:59.080
a military advisor and helping train the actors and just keeping the production authentic when it
00:29:05.080
comes to tactics and weapons and things in that area. How much of your training with working in a
00:29:11.080
team environment has transferred over now? Because I'm not sure how, how it looks in, in Hollywood and
00:29:16.240
the work you're doing now with, with teams necessarily, but are there some things that have
00:29:20.260
transferred over from working closely with, with an elite group of men? Things do transfer
00:29:24.960
over it. I have very limited time. Sometimes I got going to a movie set and the main actor
00:29:30.040
has got, you know, they schedule him for an hour because people want, even before filming starts,
00:29:36.340
like stunts wants time from him. The director wants time from him. Production wants time from him.
00:29:41.480
And I get them for like an hour. And sometimes they're so excited to go play with guns. And other times
00:29:46.160
they're like, Hey, let's just get through this. And I learned, obviously being a CEO gives you some
00:29:51.400
kind of resume going into it. So you've got some credibility there. Yeah. So nobody's going to blow
00:29:55.920
you off entirely, but my job is to build trust very quickly. So I need to, you know, I need to
00:30:01.680
communicate to them and say, Hey, when we start filming, I have your best interests in mind. I want
00:30:06.700
you to look good on camera. And the first time I meet an actor, that's really what I'm trying to do.
00:30:11.940
Because if they don't trust me, they're going to question everything I say in the moment.
00:30:15.240
Right. Once the cameras are rolling, there is no time to explain exactly why you're holding your
00:30:19.660
gun this way and doing it that way. You just have to do it and, and know that you're going to look
00:30:24.940
better. Are these guys picking the skills up fairly quickly or is it a lot of, is it a challenge?
00:30:29.880
That's just a, just a question I had. Most guys do. I mean, obviously if you're, you know,
00:30:34.880
an actor nowadays, you are very good at morphing yourself into basically another person.
00:30:41.180
Sure. That makes sense. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm very impressed. And sometimes
00:30:45.200
like when we filmed the movie 13 hours and you know, the Benghazi movie, we had the actors for
00:30:50.860
the better part of a week sequestered, not allowed to go home. And we did like a bootcamp style
00:30:57.060
training, you know, live fire. They went through the whole works. I mean, I've never, ever been able
00:31:02.880
to train actors to that extent before. And the six main actors, now we all stay together and
00:31:09.000
built a, built a bond that's similar to the real life bond that is created, you know, in,
00:31:15.660
in comp or in the seal teams or going overseas and things like that, because they were, you know,
00:31:19.900
long days, long hours, they're way out of their comfort zone. They're not necessarily used to that
00:31:24.960
kind of pace. The six of them kind of clicked and bonded together. And when filming started,
00:31:30.280
you could sense that you can sense that time was well spent and, and you can feel like they were
00:31:36.360
really authentic in the movie. This is actually really fascinating because you're talking about
00:31:40.840
adapting and modeling very quickly. And I think, and I think this is an area that a lot of guys get
00:31:46.760
hung up and I do as well in certain areas. Like we get so down on ourselves or we beat ourselves up
00:31:51.380
over something that we, we can't seem to figure out. And then we get discouraged and then we quit.
00:31:56.240
And everything that I know about you and everything you're talking about right now is
00:31:59.480
learn the lesson, adapt it and, you know, implement it in your life and then drive on with the
00:32:04.520
mission. Talk to me about that. Yeah. I call it accepting your new reality
00:32:08.400
quickly. When something happens, especially something outside your control, don't dwell on
00:32:13.460
it. You know, the past is the past and you got to accept it, figure out a way to deal with it and
00:32:19.000
move ahead. People get stuck in that, what I call the denial phase. Back in my life, I got to remember
00:32:24.240
I lost a lot of money in one bad financial decision about 10 years ago. And I was with four other
00:32:30.480
partners in this huge real estate deal and we all lost roughly a quarter million dollars together.
00:32:35.420
And when it happened to happen and, you know, there's always a chance to somehow get your money
00:32:39.960
back in court and things like that. But I knew it was a long shot. So I was the first one to say,
00:32:45.320
Hey, I'm signing away my rights. I'm taking a loss. I'm moving on. And even though it was devastating
00:32:51.820
financially for my family, it was the best thing that ever happened. So many other guys just hung in
00:32:57.200
there and decided to keep pursuing going after it. And just almost that very thing destroyed their
00:33:04.160
lives where for me, I use it as a platform to actually understand what went wrong and how it
00:33:09.460
can never happen to me again. Yeah. And that's certainly been the case for me. The quicker that
00:33:14.140
I accept and cut my losses in certain areas, I guess, how do you know when you should cut your losses
00:33:18.780
and accept reality versus maybe this is true? Maybe this is not. I got to go deeper in the rabbit
00:33:24.240
hole to figure this thing out. If something is bothering you, it needs to be addressed.
00:33:29.420
Like if you ignore an injury, what's going to happen, Ryan? You say, hell, all of a sudden,
00:33:32.940
as you get this sudden sharp pain on the side of your knee, oh, it'll go away. It'll go away.
00:33:37.340
It'll go away. And then all of a sudden you wake up one day and your leg doesn't straighten out anymore.
00:33:42.420
Right. But accept that that something's wrong. I'm not saying like immediately run to the hospital
00:33:46.300
or to the chiropractor and fix it, but at least accept that, hey, there's something wrong.
00:33:50.560
When you're for sure that something's wrong, you need to accept it. And now you need to put all
00:33:54.080
resources into fixing it. Typically, I noticed a lot of people will just put something, the obstacle,
00:34:01.680
whatever it may be in a box somewhere else and keep living like that thing does not exist.
00:34:07.580
And that's an issue if you got to attack it. Yeah. And I've noticed what a lot of guys will
00:34:12.240
do too, is they'll isolate certain elements of their life and everything can be summed up when we
00:34:16.760
hear people say, oh, I've got to put on or wear this hat. Like I'm a dad now and I'm a business owner
00:34:21.720
now and I'm this now. When in all reality and in my experience, there are no hats, there's just
00:34:26.720
your life and you should work to create congruency between everything that you're doing in life.
00:34:31.760
Yeah, that's very true. Except, you know, I don't like to use the word, ever say, hey,
00:34:36.420
you got to balance your life though. But people that do great things have very little balance.
00:34:40.840
And so when it's time to go after something, I get obsessive. Yeah, I'll pick up a hobby like
00:34:47.940
building electric bikes and I will become an expert in a few weeks. You know, the internet's
00:34:54.040
out there, everything's out there. And if I obsessively stay up 18 hours a day going after
00:35:00.020
something, I can become very accomplished very quickly. But without that obsession, if I was a
00:35:04.980
balanced husband and a balanced father and a balanced student and do everything else and kept up my
00:35:10.500
workouts during that whole time, I would never gain that level of accomplishment or expertise in
00:35:15.720
whatever I'm interested in at the time. And that works for me. Everybody's different. But if I don't
00:35:20.020
get obsessive, then I end up with a subpar unsatisfying performance in that area.
00:35:25.980
Yeah, this makes a lot of sense. And I can even see it being specific throughout the day. For example,
00:35:30.400
I might show some level of obsession doing this podcast where I'm not distracted by a thousand other
00:35:35.860
things and I'm very present in this conversation. Or it might be, for example, I'm on the baseball
00:35:42.400
field with my son, my oldest son, and we're playing baseball and I don't have my phone going off every
00:35:46.660
two minutes and wondering about what we're going to eat. Like I'm very present in the moment being
00:35:50.580
obsessed with that one thing at any given point. That's awesome. That's exactly what I'm saying too.
00:35:56.080
And what people sometimes call that obsession nowadays. Obsession used to be like a way of life. And now
00:36:02.380
it's looked down on because, hey, you're not balancing. It's like, you know, if my kid comes
00:36:06.740
up to me right now and say, hey, can I have something to eat or something? You know, that's
00:36:10.900
not cool. They need to understand like, hey, this is now my obsession hour. You need to stay away.
00:36:16.840
You got your hour later in the day. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, these are the boundaries that we create in
00:36:20.740
order to be productive in certain elements of our life. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly what it is.
00:36:26.160
We're bumping up against time here. I want to ask you a couple additional questions as we
00:36:31.000
wind things down and one that I did prepare you for somewhat. And that question is, what does it
00:36:35.940
mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a man? I actually wrote down three different answers and
00:36:41.640
I settled on one. Okay. All right. I'm anxious to hear what it is. You're a man that's prepared and
00:36:46.980
I do appreciate that. Yes. I'm prepared for this one. And it kind of plays into my answer. I call it
00:36:53.400
gather, analyze, and decide. Where I see a weakness in men nowadays is the ability to make
00:37:00.220
a wise decision or the ability to make a decision at all on something. So the gather part is gather
00:37:06.280
as much information. If you need to make a decision on, let's say, hey, should I buy this
00:37:10.860
house? I'm just throwing, you know, pulling something from the air. Gather as much information
00:37:14.720
as you can. Know everything you can about the zip code, the schools, everything. There should
00:37:18.760
not be any excuse for lack of information because that's just laziness. Then sit down and analyze
00:37:24.280
that. And then as soon as you analyze, don't delay, decide. You know, a lot of people will stop
00:37:29.820
and delay between gathering, analyzing, and then put this decision off. There's no reason to delay it.
00:37:35.100
Once you decide, now you can focus on something else and decisions are made every day. And lack
00:37:39.800
of decision-making is decision-making. That's the worst kind. One example, a guy that taught that to me
00:37:45.260
was my first platoon commander. He was a lieutenant, like an O-3 as a lieutenant in the Navy,
00:37:51.180
already has several years experience in the fleet as a leader. And they put him as our platoon
00:37:56.340
commander. And typically, they don't do that because no experience at all as a SEAL. So they
00:38:01.640
would, you know, they would typically take a guy and say, hey, you just hang out in the platoon and
00:38:05.900
learn how to be a SEAL first. But they made him a platoon commander. And I saw his process. So a lot
00:38:11.140
of guys weren't happy with him coming into our platoon. I'm sure. Yeah. And he went ahead and I saw a
00:38:18.080
cross. So he would, you know, he's a decision maker, and he owned it. A lot of guys will defer
00:38:22.180
it, go, hey, I don't have the experience, you know, platoon chief, you make the decision. But he
00:38:25.800
would take everybody's input. It doesn't matter who you were. If you're in that platoon, and you
00:38:30.360
wanted to have input on a decision, he took it, he analyzed it, and he made a decision. And he did not
00:38:36.380
just make a decision. He confidently made that decision. And then you own the consequences. Like
00:38:41.980
every decision you make, it's not right or wrong. It's just the best decision you have with
00:38:45.360
the information available. And then own the consequences. If it's wrong, it's wrong. Sorry,
00:38:50.320
guys, I was wrong. It's not like, well, this excuse and that excuse is like, it's your decision,
00:38:55.060
take ownership and learn from it and do better next time.
00:38:58.520
This sounds really familiar. It sounds a lot like the OODA loop, if you're familiar with that.
00:39:02.660
It's observe, orient, decide, act. And I've been fascinated with that process. So yeah,
00:39:09.040
it sounds very similar to what you're talking about here.
00:39:12.320
Well, powerful stuff. I appreciate you taking your time. If we can connect with you,
00:39:16.580
if we want to reach out, I know that you don't do a whole lot that way. And you just wanted to
00:39:20.560
come on and share some of your story, which I do appreciate. Is there a way that we can reach out
00:39:23.800
and connect if that's something you're interested in?
00:39:25.680
Yeah, yeah, definitely. For now, the best way is like I do some coaching of things through
00:39:30.480
the billion dollar body. And then if anyone wants to reach out to me, just go to the billion dollar
00:39:36.120
body. You know, Nicholas and Amanda are at this great, both podcasts and coaching program going on.
00:39:41.660
And so I do a lot of stuff from them. And if anybody wants to get ahold of me,
00:39:45.260
just you can reach out through the billion dollar body.
00:39:47.820
Right on. We'll connect there. And Nicholas was on the podcast not too long ago. So we'll make sure
00:39:51.940
we link that up. I've got to tell you, I appreciate you. Obviously, I appreciate,
00:39:56.040
hopefully it's obvious that I appreciate your service to our nation and you imparting some
00:40:00.140
of your wisdom today. Thanks for being on the show.
00:40:02.140
Ryan, thanks so much. I love what you're doing. It's exciting. And you know,
00:40:05.820
men need this right now. That's for sure. Thanks, man.
00:40:10.460
There it is, man. My conversation with Navy SEAL Yost Jansen. I hope that you enjoyed this one,
00:40:14.860
guys. Obviously, it was a great discussion of overcoming setbacks and coming back from the
00:40:20.060
darkness, which all of us have or at some point will have to do within our lives. So hopefully,
00:40:24.880
we've given you some tools to make that a more effective process for you. As we wind things down
00:40:31.140
today, again, I want to make mention of our exclusive brotherhood, the Iron Council. I have
00:40:34.880
found that surrounding myself with the right people has been such a blessing in my life. And
00:40:40.300
anything that I've had worth anything has been because I've surrounded myself with good people.
00:40:44.840
And you are definitely going to find good people, good men inside of the Iron Council. Go to
00:40:50.340
orderaman.com slash Iron Council to learn more. Guys, I will look forward to talking to you on Friday
00:40:56.060
for our Friday Field Notes. But until then, take action and become the man you are meant to be.
00:41:01.560
Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of your life and be
00:41:06.680
more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.