Order of Man - 119： Back From the Darkness ｜ Navy SEAL Joost Janssen

00:00:00.000 There is no doubt that all of us have been through some difficult challenges in our lives,

00:00:04.100 some more than others. Whether it's a loss of a loved one, a disease or illness, bankruptcy,

00:00:09.160 a divorce, your ability to adapt and overcome spells the difference between those who crumble

00:00:14.740 and those who thrive. My guest today, Navy SEAL Yost Jansen, talks with us about enduring

00:00:19.440 and even enjoying pain, the power of deciding early, how to harness tragedy and the negativity

00:00:24.200 of others, how to come back from the darkness, and more importantly, how to thrive through

00:00:28.360 hardship. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly

00:00:33.740 chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.

00:00:39.440 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This

00:00:45.880 is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said

00:00:50.940 and done, you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name

00:00:55.660 is Ryan Mickler, and I am the host and founder of the Order of Man podcast. If you are listening

00:01:00.240 in for the first time or the hundredth time or more, you are in the right place if your

00:01:05.140 goal is to be the best man that you can be. That's what we're all about here. The Order

00:01:08.880 of Man is about being a better man. It's about connecting with great men, having some powerful

00:01:13.640 conversations with them. We're extracting their hard-fought and hard-learned lessons and delivering

00:01:18.320 them straight to you. The goal is that hopefully you and I can learn some new skills, tools, tips,

00:01:22.720 tactics, strategies to improve in our lives the easy way rather than doing everything

00:01:27.420 the hard way, which I'll admit sometimes I like to do it seems. A couple of quick resources

00:01:31.860 that you will want to know about. I've been talking about this for a month now, and as

00:01:36.680 much as I like sharing with you digitally here on the podcast and in the Facebook group

00:01:40.380 and online and everywhere that you might be able to find us, I have found that nothing

00:01:44.140 can replace the one-to-one, the face-to-face meeting, which is why we're going to be hosting

00:01:49.480 an Order of Man meetup in Kansas City, August 12th, 2017. Stephen Mansfield, he's the author

00:01:56.040 of Mansfield's Book of Manly Men. He's going to be there. I'm going to be there. We're going

00:02:00.300 to have a copy of his book, Building Your Band of Brothers, available to the first 50 men

00:02:04.100 who register for the event. So do that quickly. We are going to sell out on that. Make sure

00:02:08.660 you do that at orderofman.com slash event. Now, the other resource I wanted to share with

00:02:13.200 you is our exclusive brotherhood, The Iron Council. And speaking, of course, about Building

00:02:17.940 Your Band of Brothers, this is, again, a digital band of brothers, but it goes so much deeper

00:02:23.440 than just a digital band of brothers. I'm seeing guys forge bonds. I'm seeing them lose weight.

00:02:29.180 I'm seeing them connect regionally. I am seeing them make more money. I am seeing them get

00:02:33.980 promotions. It is pretty incredible what is going on inside of the Iron Council and the

00:02:37.700 Brotherhood there. If you are interested in learning more about what we're doing, you can

00:02:41.820 find out at orderofman.com slash ironcouncil. With that said, guys, I am stoked to introduce

00:02:48.500 you to my guest, Navy SEAL Yost Jansen. Him and I were introduced by a mutual friend and

00:02:53.140 Yost and I immediately hit it off as he shared some of his personal story of tragedy and loss

00:02:58.700 and hardship and more importantly, overcoming those things. But what I found is that the

00:03:02.440 hardships that seem to bond men more closely than anything else. Yost is well known for his

00:03:07.540 work as a military advisor. You might have seen the movies 13 Hours, Transformers, Iron

00:03:13.580 Man. He worked on those three movies and more, but more importantly, this guy has learned his

00:03:17.880 lessons on the battlefield as a member of the Navy SEALs and special operations community

00:03:22.300 with several government agencies. Today though, he's here to talk with us about turning tragedy

00:03:26.840 into fuel and coming back from the darkness. Enjoy this one guys. What's going on, man? Thanks

00:03:33.180 for joining me on the show today. Ryan, how are you doing? Thanks for having me on.

00:03:36.400 Yeah, I know this has been a long time in the works. I usually like to jump right into these

00:03:41.340 things because I know there's so much information you have to share and for the sake of time,

00:03:44.860 I do want to delve right into this because I want to talk with you today about surviving and thriving

00:03:50.400 through hardship. And I know you've obviously been through some difficult times specifically with

00:03:55.640 the SEAL teams. I'm really interested to know from your perspective, what separates somebody who

00:04:00.880 makes it through the training and becomes a SEAL and somebody who does not? Well, Ryan,

00:04:05.120 the Navy has spent millions to try to figure out who would be the best recruit and so far with

00:04:11.000 very little success. So my opinion is it's the willingness to endure pain and enjoy the process.

00:04:18.560 The problem with that is you can't measure that in somebody. You almost have to put them through

00:04:23.100 the process. To give you an example, if you're not enjoying it somehow, the pain will overcome you.

00:04:29.460 When I was in hell week, I ended up on Wednesday night, the boat hit the back of my head and tore

00:04:34.520 some tendons and ligaments. And I had to go through the last two days holding my head up. I could not,

00:04:40.900 my muscles just refused to work. And the entire time I was like the butt of all the instructors' 0.97

00:04:46.040 jokes. I would have to like use one hand to hold my head up and I had to drop my food, stop eating,

00:04:51.540 hold my head up, talk to the instructors, convince them I was still coherent because if not,

00:04:56.000 they would just say, Hey, sorry, try again next time. Right. So how do you, because I imagine too,

00:05:01.180 they focused a lot of attention on you probably at that point trying to weed you out. Is that right?

00:05:05.460 Yes. That's their main focus. It's a selection process and screening process. So hell week

00:05:10.340 is typically the fifth week of training and first phase and no other service has anything like it.

00:05:18.040 You're awake for the most part for five and a half days. You've got about two, one hour sleeping

00:05:23.980 sessions scheduled later in the week. And those sometimes make you feel worse than not sleeping

00:05:29.200 at all. I imagine those are just in place just to keep you alive. Is that correct?

00:05:33.920 They can be. Sometimes though, I remember I stayed awake for one of them because the first time I

00:05:41.220 slept and I couldn't move when I woke up an hour later, I was just a ball. So the second session of

00:05:46.400 sleep, I'm just, I'm just going to stand in a corner. I don't want to risk not being able to get

00:05:50.160 up off that cot and finish. How do you enjoy the pain? That was a really fascinating phrase

00:05:55.460 that you use because we've always heard things like embrace the suck is a big motto that I've

00:06:00.000 heard a lot. And that, that doesn't say enjoy. It basically means just get through it. And you're 0.51

00:06:04.920 talking about enjoying it. So talk to me about the distinction. If you don't enjoy the journey,

00:06:09.600 it's you'll never finish typically. So if you can't see the humor, there's so much fun stuff that

00:06:15.480 happens in the midst of misery. Whenever I get back with my old friends, or I went through SEAL

00:06:21.140 training with me, just a story after story, how this ridiculous stuff happened. And it's just so

00:06:27.620 humorous. And if you can't laugh, there's guys that you can tell they go really dark when it gets

00:06:31.920 painful. And that works for a while. But if you can't get past that and start laughing, enjoying,

00:06:39.420 and just building that bond with the guys around you, if you go dark, you're not building good bonds.

00:06:45.120 But if you keep it light, keep it fun, then that strength together will take you a long way.

00:06:51.460 What do you mean by they go really dark? What does that actually look like?

00:06:54.560 Did you ever see somebody that kind of shut down when things got hurt? For example, like

00:06:58.440 we just got back from hiking a section of the Pacific Crest Trail as a family,

00:07:02.760 and we didn't expect rain or anything. We weren't prepared. You know, you could see like,

00:07:08.700 I'm looking at my wife and she's getting quiet. And yeah, sure.

00:07:13.060 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

00:07:18.740 job then to say, hey, like, stop internalizing and don't gut it out. Like, let's see how funny,

00:07:24.600 let's laugh about it. Let's see how funny it is. Because once you go quiet, once you stop communicating,

00:07:29.220 once you think too much, and then you just go deeper and deeper and focusing on the pain rather

00:07:35.380 than, you know, hey, this is going to make a good story someday.

00:07:38.100 Yeah, I mean, I even experienced this to some degree with my two oldest boys, baseball teams,

00:07:43.560 like I can feel when they're getting down on themselves or in their, they're in their heads,

00:07:47.400 and it gets really quiet. And I'm trying to encourage these boys to talk and communicate and,

00:07:51.820 and bounce ideas off each other and be moving around. So I think I can see why this is so critical

00:07:56.220 to a certain degree, obviously, not the same context we're talking about with your training.

00:08:00.400 Right, right. Yeah, it's, it's, it applies to every part of life. Some of the stuff I really

00:08:05.440 hate doing, you know, like writing, and when I was trying to finish my degree and things like that.

00:08:10.160 So I, you know, I have tried to have fun with all the stuff I hate. And it just time goes by,

00:08:14.960 and it's a lot more enjoyable.

00:08:16.300 So with your torn ligaments, then is that did that recover fairly quickly? Or how did that work? Or did

00:08:22.160 you just suffer through it or enjoy through it, I guess you'd say? And then it healed? Walk me through

00:08:26.800 that. Yeah, it healed. I had a longer chance to heal. I after hell week, I also had a stress

00:08:33.160 fracture in my femoral head and then in my tibia as well. So after a few weeks, I just couldn't stand

00:08:39.280 up anymore. And they did the bone scan and rolled me back to the next class. So goodness, everything

00:08:45.720 healed again, you can you can actually go quite a ways without your neck, or you know, the muscles in

00:08:50.860 your neck working good. But once you have a fracture in your femoral neck, then that's it,

00:08:55.600 you got to you got to roll back, heal up and hit it again.

00:08:59.080 So you obviously knew to some degree was the expectation on point? Or were you pretty far

00:09:04.500 off with your expectation of what would be required mentally and physically?

00:09:07.740 I really had no expectation. Because when I joined the SEAL teams, you know, there were very

00:09:13.260 little information out there. I remember listening to a radio show, G Gordon Liddy, his son was a SEAL.

00:09:19.960 And he just mentioned on the radio is like, yeah, you can, he had a guest on that was a SEAL as well.

00:09:25.180 And he said, yeah, you could just go to boot camp and go straight to SEAL training. And that's what

00:09:29.060 piqued my interest. Because I didn't want to join the military and do four years of chipping paint,

00:09:34.300 and then maybe go to SEAL training. I wanted to just get going.

00:09:37.580 Right. So is that what you did? Did you just jump right into it then?

00:09:40.640 I went in, I decided at the last minute to go to what's called an A school. So you have a rating.

00:09:46.080 And since I was already a paramedic, I decided just to be a corpsman, which is like a medic in the Navy.

00:09:51.380 So I went through three months of corpsman training and then straight to SEAL training after that.

00:09:56.380 So what kept you going? I mean, obviously, you know, you're talking about I didn't have an

00:10:00.220 expectation. I got into this thing. There was some difficulty physically, I'm sure mentally as

00:10:04.140 well as exhausting. What kept you going? Is this something that you've always wanted to do? Have

00:10:09.200 you always wanted to serve in some capacity? Or where did this actual desire come from?

00:10:14.020 For me personally, I was it was not on my radar. I was living a great life in Michigan. I was a

00:10:20.320 paramedic, been married for two years to my soulmate. And then out of the blue, she got into a car

00:10:26.900 accident on the way to work one morning and went off the road and was killed. And that kind of changed

00:10:32.420 everything for me. And what I imagined my life was to what it became, you know, I went into my dark

00:10:39.400 place at that point. You know, after being kind of self destructive for a year or so, I just woke up and

00:10:46.340 go, hey, this is not what she would have wanted. And I tried to look for the most difficult pain I can put

00:10:53.540 myself through and use that as therapy. And my answer was, let's join the Navy SEALs.

00:10:59.360 When you talk about going into a dark place and being destructive, what did that actually look like? If you

00:11:05.400 don't mind sharing?

00:11:06.360 I stopped caring about my future. I felt like I didn't have a future. If somebody is like, hey, let's throw a

00:11:12.520 party. I would say, sure, you know, everybody come to my house. Next thing you know, there's 250 people,

00:11:17.820 half of them underage, the cops show up. And whether I got thrown in jail or not meant very

00:11:22.560 little to me at the time. Then afterwards, I'm like, you know, I just what am I doing? Or at work,

00:11:28.100 I stopped caring about my up to that point stellar performance. I would, you know, I missed the shift

00:11:33.820 here and there. Like, I just wasn't myself. And I just didn't have, in my mind, a future. So I needed to

00:11:41.140 find another reason to live, basically.

00:11:43.740 How long did that process take you? I mean, I don't know if there's a definitive end. Obviously,

00:11:48.540 there's a start to that. And you can pinpoint what that experience was like. But was there a

00:11:52.100 definitive end where you just finally put your foot down? Or was this a gradual process?

00:11:56.240 It was gradual. The first thing I started doing is, you know, at the time, my wife and I had just

00:12:00.860 bought a foreclosed, really, really old house. And our plan had been to redo it top to bottom. And she

00:12:07.940 died before we even got started. But I decided to, hey, I'm going to start working on the house.

00:12:13.240 Nine months later, so the house is almost done. And then it's like, okay, I need something else

00:12:17.640 bigger, you know, I need something bigger. But the interesting thing is, like, most

00:12:22.400 seals you talk to, you know, and it's not really a rule, but you'll find this very common,

00:12:27.340 they have something in their past, some kind of strategy or something that

00:12:31.160 I have heard that most people. Yeah, you know, I have a friend whose dad and brother died in a

00:12:36.700 plane crash when he was younger. And he ended up joining. I mean, there's just always something

00:12:40.600 and it's not maybe that big. Maybe it's something personal. Maybe growing up in school, you faced

00:12:45.580 bullying, or you faced a lot of challenges that other kids didn't face. So now you're stronger for

00:12:50.560 it as an adult. It sounds to me like you gave yourself you talk about the house, you talk about

00:12:54.840 joining the seals. It sounds like you gave yourself projects as maybe even a way to distract

00:13:00.840 yourself. I don't want to put words in your mouth. But is that accurate? Or am I off on that?

00:13:04.640 No, that's, that's very true. And even now, if I don't have projects, I don't do well with idle time.

00:13:11.520 Sure. Yeah, I'm with you on that. What are your projects look like now?

00:13:15.000 My family, we just decided to my kids are sorry, my kids are 10 and 11, two boys. And they like any

00:13:22.100 kid, man, they have got a pretty cush, easy life. I mean, we make them do CrossFit and we do stuff. But you

00:13:28.120 know, they really are attracted to their iPads and electronics.

00:13:31.500 Of course, of course.

00:13:33.080 I think, you know, one day I was just looking and seeing like, you know, I didn't like where

00:13:38.820 we're going with the kids. So I'm like, you know, we're just going to start hiking. And I know that

00:13:43.400 2,650 miles to get from the Mexican border to Canada is a long way on the Pacific Crest Trail.

00:13:50.180 And our goal is to finish before the oldest graduates high school section at a time. So we've got to go

00:13:55.900 through, you know, all kinds of environments. So through California, through desert, through

00:14:00.020 mountains, through snow. And I think if we can do that, you know, my wife and I can give them

00:14:05.580 something that most kids don't get, they're going to have a base to work from. Rather than being an

00:14:11.520 expert Minecraft player that does nothing for him growing up.

00:14:14.780 Sure. So have you already started sections of this then?

00:14:17.760 We just got back from the first section. And it was, we split it up in the, we did a three day trip,

00:14:23.220 about 26 miles. And, you know, it was supposed to be sunny and relatively mild temperatures. You

00:14:30.140 know, it was May down in San Diego and first day was great. And then, then the rains came and then

00:14:35.560 the cold front hit and then elevations and we weren't dressed properly for it. So, and then there's

00:14:41.100 two streams that weren't on the map, but because of all the rains, we had to forge across two rivers

00:14:46.620 unexpectedly. So by the time we finished, it was, you know, we looked at my wife and I look at each

00:14:53.200 other. It's like, wow, this is, uh, I think we're better prepared. It's probably good that we didn't

00:14:58.000 have a nice cushy first leg of the journey. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the framework for the rest of

00:15:02.380 the track, right? It does. It does. And you know, the big thing is, is I'm not, I don't really care if

00:15:08.360 we finish this thing or not, but the fact that we set this goal and we're going to work on it

00:15:13.680 means something. If we just said, it's like, Hey, we should just do more hiking as a family.

00:15:18.560 And we would randomly like pick some stuff we wanted to do that. We felt like we would do some

00:15:23.860 hiking. Yes. But we wouldn't have that same experience. We wouldn't build that kind of

00:15:27.840 character in our kids as having to actually finish a goal. Yeah. Yeah. I can see how that would be

00:15:32.360 true. It sounds like you went through what is a Murphy's law or anything that can go wrong will go

00:15:37.080 wrong. Sounds like that's what happened. It kind of did, but still I'm impressed. My kids, you know,

00:15:41.960 they, they complain actually more on the sunny warm day than they did on the, on the next two days.

00:15:47.560 Cause I think mentally it was, it was a shock to their system as like, Hey, we're walking 12 miles

00:15:52.460 up and down mountains the first day. They've never done that before with a 21 pound backpack and

00:15:57.340 everything on. But once they mentally got past that, they were good. You know, they, they kind of

00:16:02.540 started embracing it. So this leads me to one of the conversations that you and I have had in the

00:16:07.380 past, which is trying to make a decision, not even trying, just making a decision prior to getting

00:16:13.700 involved in something. I think it's very easy for guys just to make a quick choice. And then we don't

00:16:18.760 even realize the expectations or we're not completely truthful about what it will take. And we end up

00:16:23.460 waffling or floundering because we don't really know what it is we're doing. And we haven't made

00:16:28.000 that decision beforehand. Walk me through that. This is a process I like doing. And it starts with

00:16:33.220 looking at where you want to go and what your goal is, and then sit down and be honest with

00:16:37.500 yourself. Where do you really want to go? It will be nice for everyone to be a millionaire,

00:16:42.000 but not, and everybody wants to be a millionaire conceptually, but very few people are willing to

00:16:47.060 do what it takes to get there. Find out what your goal really is. Like, what do you really want your

00:16:51.680 life to be like? And once you find that out, you make a decision to go for it. If you take a goal,

00:16:57.920 if I take your goal to be, you know, like, like an awesome podcaster and have all this influence,

00:17:04.320 my heart's not really in it. So I will never succeed. Cause that's your goal, not my goal.

00:17:09.680 Even though many people will just copy somebody else's goal. Like everybody's like, man, I would

00:17:13.720 like to be a seal. And I'm like, no, you wouldn't. Yeah, sure. You like the idea of being a seal.

00:17:19.280 Like the idea. And a lot of people, they go a hundred miles an hour towards something that they

00:17:24.260 actually like the idea of, but they don't really want, they don't want the end result.

00:17:28.700 How do you distinguish between liking the idea of something and then actually knowing that this

00:17:33.100 is the course I want to take? Trial and error. Like that goes to making a decision. Once you

00:17:37.980 decide that this is my goal and that decision is made, you kind of lose the option to waiver

00:17:43.440 when it gets hard. You know, that time to not do it was before. Make a decision before you start

00:17:49.740 and decide only on what you can control. And I'll give you an example. Like for seal training,

00:17:55.240 I can control myself whether I quit. If you ring the bell three times, you're done. You quit.

00:18:01.480 Drop on requests. You go back to the fleet. Now you can control that. Now, can you control

00:18:06.580 getting thrown out of a rubber boat, hitting the rocks and breaking your back? It's very little. You

00:18:11.660 can't control that. So you can't really make a decision. I'm going to be a seal, but you can make a

00:18:16.060 decision. I'm not going to quit. And then identify everything you can do to help. And another

00:18:22.260 example is like we lose really good guys because they went out on the weekend and drank and got a

00:18:27.080 DUI or something right in the middle of seal training. Yeah. Why would you? You can be 100%

00:18:31.960 in control of that. Why would you put yourself in a situation where that could happen or they get

00:18:36.200 into a fight in a bar? And it's one thing you do after you're a seal, but in the middle of training,

00:18:42.100 no, you can't be doing that kind of stuff. And then when the hardship hits, then your decision

00:18:48.100 is made. You don't waver in your mind. That comes from building over time, being honest

00:18:54.520 with yourself. Like if I decide, you know, like Ryan and I, you and I are going to do this

00:18:58.360 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.

00:19:08.100 And doing extra. I'm like, I'm lucky.

00:19:12.600 But you know, I can't either. But the point is sometimes man, you get excited and you come up

00:19:17.340 with a goal. Now halfway through the workout, we look at each other and go, wow, this was stupid. 1.00

00:19:23.520 And by the way, this is not good for our bodies because we're tearing ourselves down. So we could 0.99

00:19:28.900 say it's like, you know what? It's been a good workout. We got the Murph part done. So creds the 0.75

00:19:34.120 Murph. So we can do good enough. We can quit. But once you decide you finish within your own

00:19:40.640 control, if it starts sucking and you quit, you quit because it just got hurt. If you get hit by 0.85

00:19:46.480 a truck on a run, it's outside of your control. So you can't, you don't have the option, but you

00:19:52.480 can decide that, oh, just because I got a blister, you know, my calves are tight or something like

00:19:56.780 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

00:20:08.100 a lot, and a lot of people will, but that same person who will never stand up a friend will

00:20:13.880 do it to themselves every day. They'll say Monday, I'm going to start, I started diet. And then

00:20:18.620 Monday rolls around and they don't. And then when you call them on it, they don't even think

00:20:24.180 it's that big of a deal. And I'm like, well, you just, you just deceived and lied to yourself.

00:20:28.080 Like I'd rather somebody lie to me than lie to themselves.

00:20:31.780 Is there a point just to give the other perspective on this where it is a healthy decision to maybe

00:20:37.480 throw in the towel, isn't the right word, but to make a decision to either pivot or decide

00:20:42.140 this isn't the direction I want to go.

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

00:21:40.260 working on something that's not working.

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 0.71

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.

00:39:11.300 Awesome. I love it.

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.

Order of Man - June 27, 2017

119： Back From the Darkness ｜ Navy SEAL Joost Janssen

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