REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 288. American Revival Part 3 Ft. Eric Greitens

00:00:00.000 What is up guys, it's Andy Priscilla and this is the show for the real, let's say goodbye 0.99

00:00:20.860 to the lies, the fakeness and delusions of modern society and welcome to motherfucking 0.99

00:00:24.920 reality. Guys, today we have not CTI. Now I thought you, you probably thought we were going 0.98

00:00:32.000 to do really cool intro like we always do and you're going to laugh and think about how

00:00:35.280 awesome we are, but not today. Today we were going to do CTI, but one of my good buddies

00:00:41.360 stopped in and I figured it's a good time to have a conversation. So we're going to do

00:00:45.740 that. But before I introduce our special guest, DJ, tell them about what we got going on here.

00:00:52.280 Guys, this is, this is our full length episode. Yeah. You got, it's been a minute too, by

00:00:57.200 the way. Yeah, it has, it has been a minute, but this is our full length where we, we bring

00:01:00.160 on fucking cool people and we talk about winning. We talk about fucking life. We talk about 0.99

00:01:05.280 the world and just get an interesting perspective. And I think you'll definitely get that today.

00:01:09.500 So, and then there's a fee, there is a fee, there is a fee. So if you did take something

00:01:13.320 away from this episode, all that we ask is you share the show. We don't run ads. We

00:01:16.980 don't blog your mind up with ads and advertisements. So if you learn something from the show, if you

00:01:22.220 got better, if you laughed, share the show, that's the fee. That's it. Or you could cash

00:01:26.100 at me. Yeah. Cash at you. I see how that works. All right. So welcome to the show. My good

00:01:35.340 buddy, Eric Gritens. What's happening, bro? What's going on, man? How are you? It's good

00:01:39.020 to be here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, you're welcome. You're

00:01:42.740 swinging through the neighborhood today and I figured it'd be a good time to bring them

00:01:46.540 in. You know, last time we were in, we got to talk about some issues, but we didn't really

00:01:49.300 talk too much about, you know, your story and where you come from and why you want

00:01:55.200 to do what you're, what you're going to do. Um, so I figured that'd be a good thing to

00:01:59.260 talk about, but I mean, what, what's going on with the campaign trail, man? Everything

00:02:02.660 good. Things are really strong, really, really strong right now. I mean, the 32nd update is

00:02:08.720 that we continue to dominate the polls. We've got all the grassroots with us. People have seen

00:02:13.540 through all of their lies and their nonsense, which was all disproven again. And if anything,

00:02:19.500 you know, people have said, Hey, Eric has all the right friends. He's got all the grassroots,

00:02:24.400 true Patriots, and we've got all the right enemies. Yeah. George Soros hates us. We got

00:02:28.960 Karl Rove and Mitch McConnell coming after us. We've got the mainstream media attack, I guess.

00:02:33.100 So, so, you know, Patriots in Missouri looking at this and they're like, yeah, Eric's, Eric's

00:02:37.140 the guy. He's the threat. For those of you guys that are unfamiliar, Eric's a good buddy

00:02:41.360 of mine has been a good buddy of mine for a long time. Um, I can read his, we'll get

00:02:46.780 into a story here in a second, but he's the former governor of Missouri. He's currently

00:02:50.320 running for a United States Senate, um, as a Patriot, you know, uh, I think one of the

00:02:58.100 things that's important to remember, uh, here in America is, you know, we may not all agree

00:03:03.440 on every single issue that there is, you know what I'm saying? But we need to be voting the

00:03:07.180 best people in that are going to take on this corrupt government. And, and I think

00:03:11.280 everybody at least from my observation over the last couple of years, it seems like people

00:03:17.740 are starting to wake up to what the actual issue is. They're not seeing it as just Democrat

00:03:22.340 and Republican anymore.

00:03:23.340 A hundred percent, man.

00:03:24.560 Is that true?

00:03:25.060 A hundred percent. No. When we go out, we just did two rallies just the other day. Okay.

00:03:30.320 At both of them. This is people's assessment. The left nuts. Okay. Crazy. Critical race theory,

00:03:38.380 open borders, defunding the police. They see, they see, see the nuts and the right.

00:03:42.120 Systematically dismantling our entire country.

00:03:44.840 Dismantling, attacking, and trying to destroy the country. Yeah.

00:03:47.620 Then they look at the Republicans and they see corruption and cowardice.

00:03:50.940 They see corruption and cowardice through the Republican party. So we are at a transformative

00:03:55.500 moment in the United States of America where people are coming up to me at events. Obviously,

00:04:00.600 I'm a Republican though, but they come up and they say, man, I don't know if I'm really a

00:04:04.340 Republican. Like I'm a patriot. Yeah. I believe in freedom. I want to fight for this country,

00:04:10.200 but they look at what the uniparty has done. They look at what the establishment has done to this

00:04:18.200 country and they are disgusted by it. And the good news though, is it like people of real courage,

00:04:25.080 real compassion, and a lot of clarity. People are seeing the truth now and they're not fooled

00:04:31.620 anymore and they're stepping up and they're, they're, they're, we're going to take the country

00:04:35.300 back. I think so too. Do you, do you, go ahead, DJ. I was going to say, I mean, I think it goes back

00:04:40.240 to, to just like, and you talk about all the time, just being authentic. You know what I'm saying?

00:04:44.160 So Eric, I met you in 2015 is when we first met, he came to the police academy and, and like,

00:04:49.740 no, at that time I'd never really had like what side I was on and ever, right. Like I was still under

00:04:54.280 that old school mentality. Dude, you're trying to figure it out. You're a young man. I was super young.

00:04:58.620 You know what I'm saying? And so, but I remember when Eric came in and there was just this,

00:05:02.860 this aura of just authentic, genuine human. You know what I'm saying? Like, and you could

00:05:10.080 sense that immediately. And then, and then I learned this, he's pretty fucking fit guys. I 0.98

00:05:13.860 know you guys, if you can't see him, he's pretty fucking fit. Cause he took us through a workout 0.93

00:05:17.180 and shit. Um, he's fucking fit. Yeah. You know, but, but, um, you know, but, but I met this man 0.99

00:05:24.100 and here's a guy, you know, you gotta think about it. 2015, this is post Mike Brown, right? Like we got

00:05:28.260 the, the, the, the police environment was, was wild, you know? And so he comes in and

00:05:33.000 talks to our class and then, you know, to, to hear somebody tell us like, Hey, I'm

00:05:36.500 going to have your back. That was a big deal for us. Like it was a big deal for me. You

00:05:39.860 know what I'm saying? So I didn't care if it was, you know, R or D I didn't care. I, I'm 0.93

00:05:44.140 like, damn, we got support. This man's running for governor. Great. And then we actually, I 0.99

00:05:47.840 came to your inauguration too with my class. It was pretty cool. You know, but like, I

00:05:51.500 mean, I think that's really the important thing. And I think that's what a lot of people

00:05:54.600 are realizing that that authentic, genuine, good human, that's who people are going to

00:05:59.560 vote for. Do you feel like, do you, do you feel like you're seeing that like in

00:06:03.440 your, in your family and friends and stuff? It's the same thing. Like, like the D and

00:06:07.120 the R is, it means nothing anymore. Yeah. It really does it because like, there's so

00:06:10.960 much, there's so many gray lines in this gray mush that kind of like, you know, like

00:06:15.500 you said, you see it on both sides. So I think people, at least the ones that I talk to

00:06:19.300 on a daily basis, they're done with that. They're done with that two party thing. Yeah. They

00:06:23.000 just want real humans. Yeah. They want more real people, authentic people that are

00:06:26.560 genuine and that, that act like you, and you know that like you, you can fake it.

00:06:30.660 People try to fake it all the time. Right. But we know what they sound like. We

00:06:33.560 know what they look like. People want real humans. Yeah. And I think like, I mean,

00:06:37.360 Eric, you're, you're a great representative of that. Well, thanks brother. Yeah. You

00:06:40.140 know, people can literally smell the fake. Yeah. Right. And, and you come in and you

00:06:44.840 people see these career politicians. You literally look like mummies. Yeah. They're 0.79

00:06:50.020 masked. There's no compassion. There's no heart. There's no soul. Their heart is

00:06:55.160 closed. Right. And, and normal, like regular people, they have an open heart. They

00:07:00.660 have curiosity. They're still willing to learn about the world. They care about

00:07:05.220 people. They want to connect to people. And what I have always found, and when,

00:07:09.720 yeah, we can talk more about my, my story later, but in any endeavor, if you have an

00:07:14.740 open heart and you're curious, and if you really care about people, you'll find ways

00:07:19.560 to work with other people. You can find ways to solve things. What people are

00:07:24.460 disgusted by in Washington, DC is that it's very clear. All of those people are up

00:07:30.080 there to serve themselves. It's all about serving themselves. And so, yes, you've got

00:07:36.360 the left's craziness, and then you've got the Republican party's corruption and 0.96

00:07:40.400 cowardice, and people are disgusted by it. They want authentic, real people.

00:07:44.940 I mean, are you hearing that like face to face? 100%. Yeah. 100%. I think so

00:07:49.920 too, man. You know, I, I think one of the best things has happened, this is going to

00:07:53.940 sound sort of counterintuitive, but sometimes for things to be appreciated, you

00:07:58.080 got to lose them. And I think one of the best things that happened to our

00:08:01.220 country, um, because I'm starting to see what's starting to form is that Trump 1.00

00:08:07.720 lost that election because dude shit has gotten really fucked up. And, and there's a 1.00

00:08:12.860 lot of people who, who before that happened, um, I was not even able to really have a

00:08:19.980 conversation because of my beliefs and their beliefs, right? People may be in my

00:08:24.340 family, you know? Um, and, and dude, I find myself having real conversations with

00:08:30.960 people that I generally have disagreed with who have now come to the, the 0.98

00:08:34.820 understanding of holy shit. Our votes really matter. And we have to like really 0.99

00:08:39.560 discern who we put in there. Um, regardless if we agree with every issue

00:08:46.600 that they stand for or not.

00:08:48.460 One hundred percent. So you were with me when we were, when DJ was too, and we were

00:08:52.640 shooting with Donald Trump Jr. He said the same thing. He said, maybe this is what

00:08:57.580 it took. Maybe this is what it took. Seeing Joe Biden and the Biden

00:09:02.840 administration and this amazingly swift destruction of so many things that so

00:09:08.920 many people in America, what was that?

00:09:11.080 Intentional destruction.

00:09:11.680 Intentional, intentional destruction, intentional attack to destroy our country

00:09:17.920 from our own government, from Joe Biden. And people have, have woken up now. And

00:09:23.940 you know, and what, what's interesting is that everywhere you go, people are

00:09:29.140 engaged.

00:09:29.800 Yeah.

00:09:30.000 And, and look, even kids who are 16, 17, 18 years old, they had to live through all

00:09:35.560 of this coronavirus nonsense. They had to live through all the COVID tyranny where 0.93

00:09:40.020 they couldn't play football games. And, and all of that nonsense has made

00:09:45.200 everybody say, you know what, man, we got it. We got a gang game.

00:09:48.280 Yeah. I think it's like a near death experience almost.

00:09:50.840 Yeah.

00:09:51.320 You know what I'm saying? Like, like, like you, you know exactly what the fuck 1.00

00:09:53.820 that is, right? 0.92

00:09:54.280 Like people that go through near death experiences, if you talk to them, listen

00:09:58.640 to how much more they appreciate life.

00:10:00.340 A hundred percent. 1.00

00:10:01.280 And so it turns the volume down on the shit that doesn't matter. 1.00

00:10:05.040 Right. 0.99

00:10:05.120 Like you were able to, like one of the things that happened to me from, from both

00:10:08.540 those situations that I've talked about on the show, um, was it gave me an 0.98

00:10:14.300 ability to turn the volume down and rank the, the level of importance of shit 0.96

00:10:19.820 that I actually cared about very quickly. Um, and there's no shame in that, you 0.99

00:10:24.860 know, like I think, and it's frustrating, like right now it's, it's Roe V Wade in

00:10:29.920 the news everywhere. Right. And everybody's talking about it and, and

00:10:33.880 everybody's failing to understand that these are all narratives that they're

00:10:37.380 pushing to the forefront to get us to argue. And we have to be able to discern,

00:10:42.800 is this really the most important issue to what's going on? Because in my

00:10:46.880 opinion, the most, nobody really cares about Roe V Wade when they can't afford 0.99

00:10:51.500 to fucking eat. Right. 0.99

00:10:52.900 You know what I'm saying? Or you have mass unrest or, or all of these things.

00:10:56.480 And so, you know, when, when, when you come close to like checking out, bro, you

00:11:03.500 develop an ability to say, okay, these are my priorities and I do care about

00:11:07.500 this, but it's, it's here and it's not number one. And what I, what I see

00:11:12.020 happening in America, man, which is really puzzling to me is that a lot of

00:11:16.580 people, like whatever issue they're served up on the day becomes the number

00:11:21.640 one issue, like immediately today. And it's weird because like, I think it's

00:11:26.060 like, let me change my hat. Yeah. But if, yeah, right. Like it would be like if I

00:11:29.680 was in the, in my office over there and you know, every single issue that was

00:11:34.300 brought to my attention was now, you know, number one priority. You can't

00:11:37.880 operate like that.

00:11:38.900 Well, and I think that's the key point is it goes to leadership.

00:11:42.420 Yeah.

00:11:42.780 Right. When you have a strong sense of leadership, where are we taking the

00:11:47.220 country? What are the threats? What are the opportunities? Where are we

00:11:51.740 going? Are we going to try and become energy independent again? What's our

00:11:56.440 relationship like with our allies? What does it mean to be strong overseas? What

00:12:01.320 does it mean to build a strong functioning economy? What does it mean to have

00:12:05.680 true freedom here at home? When you have strong leadership, then all of these

00:12:11.380 other issues that come up, they can kind of fit into a larger framework. What's

00:12:16.920 missing fundamentally right now is people don't see any leadership at all from

00:12:23.520 Biden. And so anything that comes to the forefront is emergency. Oh, they're

00:12:28.500 focused on this. They're focused on the Ukraine. They're focused on, and you kind

00:12:32.300 of jump from headline to headline. And then of course you have the, uh, the

00:12:36.800 media, which actually also wants to focus on skipping people's attention from

00:12:43.360 this to this, to this, to this, to this, to all the, get the new clicks instead of

00:12:47.200 having, and that's why people listen to your podcast. It's why podcasts are taken

00:12:51.700 off. People want intelligent conversation. They want to be able to call it

00:12:56.140 intelligence, but, but people do, they want to be able to have a real conversation. And

00:13:05.860 obviously the media like is served by like skipping from issue to issue. I mean,

00:13:09.860 you know, most journalists don't even read, like they literally don't even read.

00:13:14.600 And so the fact that like people can, or people are going and searching for places

00:13:19.380 where they can have conversation because they recognize this is a tough time. And if

00:13:24.220 you're going to meet a tough time, you have to have depth, you have to have strength, you

00:13:29.480 have to have wisdom, right? Not just knowledge, right? You actually have to have

00:13:33.420 wisdom that's informed by experience. And clearly we're bereft of that.

00:13:37.100 So dude, let's get into, you know, why you want to do this because like, this is you,

00:13:44.040 I want you guys to understand like doing these jobs, like, and I'm not serving, I'm not,

00:13:50.880 I'm not getting elected and going to work in public service. This shit is not fun. Like 0.99

00:13:56.580 I would much rather come on here and talk about making money and cars and cool shit than 0.97

00:14:01.720 come in here. And, and, and try to discern the truth from people who are completely lying 0.99

00:14:06.040 to us. And Eric, I'm sure, you know, there's plenty of other things that you enjoy to do.

00:14:11.540 Right. So I would like to dig into, you know, like, dude, your background and what,

00:14:15.620 what got you to this point? You know, let's tell us it all started when you were six. That's

00:14:20.220 what we want to hear. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I was six in first grade, but yeah, look, man,

00:14:26.060 I mean, I, I, I grew up here in Missouri, right? My mom was a preschool teacher. She, she was an

00:14:32.280 early childhood special education teacher. Um, and that I think helped me in terms of my love for,

00:14:38.840 for kids and the work that I ended up doing in grad school, which I'll come to in a moment.

00:14:43.420 Um, my dad was an accountant. He worked for the department of agriculture, but really like my dad's

00:14:49.860 job was that he was a dad and he, and he was a great dad, you know, my, so both of my paternal

00:14:55.440 grandparents fought in world war two, my dad's dad died when my dad was six. And so my dad would tell

00:15:03.280 you like, you know, he always wanted to have a dad and he did a great job. He went, he went to work

00:15:11.340 every single day and he came in, he went, got up very early and he'd catch the bus or the carpool

00:15:16.640 or whatever. He'd go to, go to work and he'd come home and he was home early enough that we got home

00:15:21.420 and he'd coach our teams. And he was just a fantastic dad. That was really his true, his true,

00:15:26.800 his true job. And I was also fortunate. I got a fantastic education at Parkway North high school

00:15:33.640 at a public school, really, really good teachers. Right. And I, I had great teachers from kindergarten

00:15:39.940 all the way through, uh, all the way through high school. I had a great first boss, a guy named Roger

00:15:45.040 Richardson hired me when I was in third grade. Um, and he had you do it. So he was just having me do work

00:15:51.120 around his lawn. I actually remember. So, so Mrs. Richardson was my kindergarten teacher.

00:15:56.580 Okay. And so then they, they lived actually around the block. So the very first day that I finished

00:16:02.960 work, uh, Mr. Richardson had said to me, Hey, Eric, um, I'm leaving when you're done, go get your check

00:16:09.960 from Mrs. Richardson. And I thought, okay, cool. Like this is, this is, this is, this is exciting.

00:16:16.340 I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to get a, get a check. I'm going to get, I'm going to get

00:16:20.200 money. Yeah. Right. So, and I'd been hired at $3 and 25 cents an hour. Yeah. So I walked up to

00:16:27.740 Mrs. Richardson and I rang the doorbell and I told her I was all done. And that Mr. Richardson said to

00:16:32.300 come up and get the check. And she wrote me a check and I'd worked for two hours and she wrote 0.91

00:16:36.960 me a check for $7. I said, I said, Mrs. Richardson, I said, um, I only worked for two hours and Mr.

00:16:44.300 Richardson told me he was going to pay me $3 and 25 cents an hour. So I should only be getting $6

00:16:48.900 and 50 cents. And she says, Eric, I was your kindergarten teacher. I just gave you your first

00:16:54.800 raise, right? Which is cool. But you know, like I, I, I was very, very fortunate, right? I had Mr.

00:17:02.540 Richardson as a boss. I had fantastic coaches. I had some really, really good teachers. And you know,

00:17:08.440 when I was graduating from high school, I was looking at a lot of different options.

00:17:13.360 Now, Eric won't, Eric will not brag. Okay. Eric's a road scholar.

00:17:18.760 Toot, toot. We'll toot them. I'll toot all the horns. Okay. He's one of the smartest people I've

00:17:23.500 ever met in my entire life. So when he's talking about his options, he had them a plethora of

00:17:29.000 options. Oh, thanks brother. So, so, but I was very fortunate. I got, I got a scholarship to Duke

00:17:34.080 university. So I ended up going there and again, got a great education in the classroom, but perhaps the

00:17:40.700 most important parts of my education actually happened outside of the classroom. First I

00:17:45.940 started boxing when I was at, when I was at Duke. Now my, my maternal grandfather had grown up in

00:17:52.500 Chicago in the depression. So he always talked about boxing and baseball. Like people forget like a

00:17:57.620 hundred years ago, those are the two sports. There was boxing and baseball. That, that, that was,

00:18:02.160 that was it. And so he was always talking about boxing. I'd always been interested in boxing. So I

00:18:08.780 ended up having this, this experience where, you know, I was studying, uh, philosophy, public policy

00:18:14.060 studies, religion. And so I'd be studying Aristotle and I'd leave the classroom, get in my car, drive

00:18:21.640 down into, uh, the, the city of Durham, North Carolina, roll into this boxing gym. And I trained

00:18:28.560 there every night. I trained there every night. I was, I was the only white guy, only college

00:18:33.180 student, um, in the gym. And I had a fantastic training partner, a guy named Derek Humphrey,

00:18:38.960 who was a pro fighter and a construction worker and Earl Blair. Um, Earl Blair is passed on now,

00:18:45.700 but he was so impactful in my, in my life. I mean, I spent more time with Earl and Derek than I did with

00:18:55.040 anybody else kind of growing up in, in college down there in that, uh, in that boxing gym. And it was,

00:19:01.940 it was really good, man. It was really good. I'd also, I'd never been outside of the country

00:19:06.360 before. And Duke had this cool program where if you were a freshman and you'd never been out of

00:19:13.760 the country before, you could apply for a grant to go study somewhere the summer after your freshman

00:19:19.760 year. And I had an uncle who'd been to China and I literally like, I'm looking at the globe. I've

00:19:25.040 never been, I've never been to Canada. I've never been to Mexico. I've never been anywhere. I'm

00:19:28.020 looking at the globe. I'm figuring, well, if I'm going to go somewhere, like I want to go as far

00:19:31.880 as I can. And China's literally on the other side of the world. I had an uncle who'd been there.

00:19:35.660 So I put in an application to study in China and the summer after my freshman year, I ended up going

00:19:43.440 to China. And now what I was studying at the time, this was 1993. So people, you know, forget this is

00:19:49.040 the cold war is, was just been won just over Tiananmen square had happened. The giant massacre,

00:19:55.580 um, had happened in Tiananmen square just four years before. And so I show up, uh, long story

00:20:02.560 short, I ended up losing or kind of had all of my money stolen from me. And again, this is back in

00:20:08.940 the day. You got to remind people, there's no cell phones, right? There's no ATMs. Like I was traveling

00:20:13.880 with traveler's checks, right? Okay. And I, so I have no money and I come to Beijing and one of my uncle's

00:20:21.700 friends, friends picks me up at the train station and they said, you know, how are you doing? What

00:20:28.400 do you want to do? Et cetera. And I said, well, I mean, I hate to say like, I I'm here, I have no

00:20:32.220 money. So they got me a job at a Chinese company, helping them to take documents that a Chinese person

00:20:41.380 had translated into English, but still had errors. And they were having me kind of go through and do

00:20:46.400 that. And they, and then they said to me, they said, would you be willing to teach an English

00:20:49.760 class? I said, cool. So in return, they gave me a spot in the worker's dormitory and they gave me

00:20:56.040 food. And then I was going to teach an English class. And again, I'm 19. So this was, this was a

00:21:00.600 cool, cool adventure. I'm a baller again. Yeah. I got, I got food and a place to stay. So the first

00:21:08.280 day what happens is, and I have no idea how to teach English by the way. I've got no, no clue. And all

00:21:14.680 these people are walking into the class the first afternoon and some of them have fantastic English

00:21:20.220 abilities. They're asking me the difference between like British and American pronunciations

00:21:24.600 on stuff. Other people can barely say hello. So I figure, well, let's just have a free conversation

00:21:30.280 and we'll see, we'll see what happens. So I, I opened the class up for, for conversation and questions.

00:21:38.100 And the first question that people asked me was about freedom of speech. And then somebody asked

00:21:44.840 me about the constitution and they asked me about freedom of assembly. Well, it turned out

00:21:48.580 almost all of these young people, they were older than me at the time, but they were like

00:21:54.240 somewhere between 23 and 27 years old. They had been at Tiananmen square. And I was the first

00:22:01.780 foreigner who they had talked with about their experience where they'd seen, you know, their

00:22:07.220 friends shot, killed murder. They were probably wondering like what the story

00:22:09.840 was about it. What did people think? Yeah. Yeah. And they'd heard about the constitution

00:22:14.700 and freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. So they started asking all these questions.

00:22:18.680 And I thought this was great. This is cool. Everybody's engaged. So we're at work. We're

00:22:22.460 talking, I'm answering these questions, talking about the constitution. And this goes on for about

00:22:27.380 three days. And then it's, it's the first Friday night and we're at the workers dormitory.

00:22:33.160 It's like, I don't know, nine o'clock at night and we're playing darts in the workers dormitory.

00:22:38.280 And then two Chinese police officers knock on the door. And so my friends open the door

00:22:43.860 and they come in and they tell my friends who then translate to me, they're like, you need

00:22:48.300 to go to the police station to fill out some paperwork. And I said, listen, please tell the

00:22:54.960 officers. I appreciate the fact that they're here. I said, but it's Friday night. It's nine

00:22:59.840 o'clock. I'm not going to go anywhere with them. If they'd like for me to, I'll come in

00:23:04.620 the morning or I can come on Monday morning, but there's no need for me to go anywhere on

00:23:08.640 Friday night at nine o'clock to a police station. So they translate this around and then it gets

00:23:13.440 translated back. Game of telephone. Right, right, right. And my, and my friends look at me and they

00:23:19.000 said, Mr. Erica, you are going to the police station now.

00:23:23.520 So I get in the, in the police car and one of the friends who'd gotten me the job also

00:23:31.800 gets in the police car and they take both of us to the police station and we're waiting

00:23:35.920 there for, for about an hour. And then it's about 10 o'clock at night. They split us up

00:23:42.100 and take us into an interrogation room. And I'm 19 years old. I'm walking in and I knew I was

00:23:50.300 like, all right, I'm 19. I'm an American citizen. Like I'm not worth it to them. They're not going

00:23:55.060 to do anything to me. I wasn't really worried about myself, but I was very worried for my

00:23:59.620 friends. Like what's going to happen? What's going to happen to them? And I sit down, there's

00:24:04.000 one officer in uniform. There's one officer in plain clothes. They've literally got a light

00:24:08.940 bulb there and a cigarette laid out for me. I didn't smoke just like, and there's a cigarette

00:24:13.940 laid out for me. I didn't smoke. So I'm, I'm, but I sit down and they start asking me

00:24:19.720 these questions. Who got me the job? Who was asking about freedom of speech? Who was

00:24:23.980 asking about the constitution, right? How come you were talking about the constitution?

00:24:29.020 Who, and they asked me all of these questions. And I was like, look, I don't know. I can't

00:24:33.520 remember who was asking. I was just doing my best, et cetera. You're trying to make sure

00:24:37.860 nobody gets in trouble. Yeah. I don't want, I don't want anybody to get in trouble. I don't

00:24:41.100 want any of my friends to get in trouble. Did you know that that's why they had brought you

00:24:42.800 down there was probably because of the classroom stuff? I had no idea. Yeah. I had no idea.

00:24:47.360 That's it. Yeah. We're getting close to that here. We are. We are. We are. Well, this is the look

00:24:55.540 what I, what I used to tell people was like, it gave me a tremendous appreciation for our freedoms

00:25:01.400 that we have here in the United States of America, that people couldn't be arbitrarily arrested and

00:25:07.160 pulled in for saying what they think. But now here we are in the United States of America. You say

00:25:12.380 the wrong thing. You get canceled from social media. You say the wrong thing.

00:25:16.280 A freaking domestic terrorist list. A domestic terrorist list. 0.98

00:25:18.520 When we got a million people a month coming across the border.

00:25:21.260 It's absolute insanity. Yeah. Anyway. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no worries. But yeah. So long

00:25:26.300 story short, they, it gets to be about midnight. And I say to the guys, look, I've answered all of

00:25:33.460 your questions for two hours. Everything you've asked me, I've answered. I said, but there's really

00:25:37.940 nothing else I can tell you. So it's midnight. If you want me to talk to you anymore, you need to

00:25:43.580 call the American embassy because I'm not going to talk with you anymore. And this guy says to me,

00:25:49.940 he says, well, you see, we will only call the American embassy if to hit the Americans. 0.93

00:25:57.420 And I didn't know what he was saying, like to hit the Americans. Like, is he threatening me that 0.53

00:26:01.020 they're going to hit me? Like, what does he mean to hit the Americans? So I kept asking him some more

00:26:05.320 questions. And eventually it became clear that he was telling me, we'll only call the embassy

00:26:10.780 if an American's been injured. Otherwise you're here, you're in China, you're in our country under 0.92

00:26:16.680 our laws. You're going to stay here as long. The last thing you want is for us to call the embassy.

00:26:21.780 Right. Right. That you're going to say something bad happened to you. Exactly. So they, they ended up,

00:26:28.180 uh, they took my passport. They sent me back. I obviously lost my job. Um, and I came back the

00:26:35.940 next Monday or Tuesday and I had to pay a fine at the time. Uh, foreigners use what they called 1.00

00:26:42.320 foreign exchange certificates. You weren't allowed to use the normal Chinese money. So I paid a fine

00:26:46.900 of, I think it was 50 FEC, which at the time was like nine bucks or something. But I also had to sign

00:26:51.920 these papers written in Chinese that I was guilty of whatever they had said that I was, that I was

00:26:58.040 guilty of. And then, uh, that was it. So no more China? No, no more. I hung out, hung out with a

00:27:05.400 couple of friends and that was, that was it off. I, off I went, but that was the first foreign country 1.00

00:27:10.700 I ever went to. Yeah. And then, and then, you know, I, I, I was very fortunate when I was at school

00:27:17.100 the next summer, I actually went, you guys remember there was all the ethnic cleansing 0.98

00:27:22.220 that happened in Bosnia. I went the summer after my sophomore year, uh, to live and work in refugee

00:27:28.460 camps with Bosnian refugees. That's where he's from. So really where we're at. Okay. All right. Yeah.

00:27:36.060 So, so, so I went over there, there were two refugee camps. One, uh, was, was near Pula, uh, Croatia

00:27:42.500 and the other was near Osijek, uh, Croatia. And those are two, two refugee camps with Bosnian

00:27:47.300 refugees. And as people may know, we have the largest Bosnian community in the world outside

00:27:54.080 of Bosnia is here in, um, in, in, in, in, in Missouri and specifically in, specifically in St.

00:28:00.280 Louis. Um, and that was, that was an incredible experience. You know, I obviously had read all of

00:28:06.320 this stuff on the news about what was happening with ethnic cleansing. And part of what motivated me to go 0.75

00:28:12.340 was that I I'm Jewish. I'd grown up, uh, hearing about the Holocaust, right. And we'd add all these 0.89

00:28:18.840 Holocaust survivors who had always come in. And one of the things that they always said was you can't

00:28:25.760 ever let this happen again. You can't let ethnic cleansing happen in Europe. And then all of a sudden 0.94

00:28:30.480 there I am in college and we're seeing ethnic cleansing happening in Europe. So I wanted to go, 0.99

00:28:36.820 I was young. I was, you know, I thought compassionate, thoughtful. I wanted to lend a hand. So I went

00:28:42.300 over and I did this work in these two, uh, refugee camps. And that was some of the most eyeopening

00:28:49.440 work that I've ever done in my life. And the lessons from it, like, stay with me till today,

00:28:56.240 right. Helped me a lot when I helped, uh, wounded veterans later in my life. But like, you know,

00:29:01.620 one of the things that I saw that was interesting when you think about what it's like being in a refugee

00:29:05.920 camp. Yeah. You've, uh, a lot of these folks, they'd all lost their homes. Some of them have

00:29:11.280 been separated from other family members. They're here in a place where the future is completely

00:29:17.880 uncertain. There's no prospect of going back to your home in the next couple of weeks or months.

00:29:25.420 You're hoping maybe years later, but then what's life going to be like? There's tremendous uncertainty.

00:29:30.680 And one of the things that I observed was that it was really, really hard on everyone,

00:29:37.420 but the people who were doing the best in the refugee camps were parents and grandparents who

00:29:43.680 were in charge of really young kids because they woke up every single day and they had a purpose.

00:29:50.320 What was hurting everybody was the sense of purposelessness, right? Human beings can endure

00:29:56.520 a tremendous amount of pain. They can endure a tremendous amount of hardship. They can endure

00:30:01.220 a tremendous amount of chaos and uncertainty if you have a purpose. And so people have said like,

00:30:06.880 if you have the right, why you can make it through any how. And one of the things that I observed in

00:30:11.580 this situation was that like the people who had that sense of purpose, it's just, you're going to

00:30:16.200 keep our kids alive. We're going to take care of them. They were doing really well. Everybody else

00:30:21.380 was an incredibly, incredibly difficult situation, man. Yeah. That's crazy, dude. Yeah. I was,

00:30:27.780 it was wild. Most people here can't even imagine those kinds of things. That's really part of the

00:30:31.660 problem. Yeah. There's no real world experience. Yeah. It wasn't 20 year olds going over the,

00:30:36.340 it's been so good here for so long that it's an embarrassment of riches. Yeah. Like it's made people

00:30:41.780 like completely take for granted what we have in most times. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing though

00:30:49.360 that, I mean, that, that's the magic of near death experiences. You know what I'm saying? Like,

00:30:52.480 I don't believe we've lost our freedoms. We're close. We're extremely close. Right. Um, and I

00:30:56.760 won't say we, we, we've lost our freedoms until they rip up the fucking constitution, you know, 0.98

00:31:01.280 but I think that like I've said it many times that what we're going through right now as a country 0.98

00:31:05.440 is necessary. I believe that it's necessary. You know what I'm saying? Like,

00:31:09.260 cause that's the only way we're going to ever be able to get back on track to being grateful for

00:31:14.260 the privileges that we all fucking have, no matter how much money you got in your bank account, 0.96

00:31:18.560 we're all fucking privileged. Right. And I think this bullshit that we're going through, it's, 0.99

00:31:23.900 it's fucking necessary. It's needed. I think it's overdue. What's true for human beings. 1.00

00:31:28.840 I believe when I'm, my reading of history is also true of nations. And that is that pain presents a

00:31:35.920 choice, right? And pain can either make you weak and make you crumble or pain is an opportunity,

00:31:44.280 right? A wound is an opening. And if you walk through it on the other side of that pain,

00:31:49.560 you can get wiser on the other side of suffering. You can get stronger. You deal with a tremendous

00:31:54.900 amount of fear and you deal with it in the right way. On the other side of that, you build courage.

00:31:59.820 And right now we have an opportunity. Every citizen in the country does. And America does

00:32:05.040 either. We're going to succumb to leftist tyranny because look, some people in the face of pain,

00:32:10.720 they curl up, right? Some people in the face of pain, they surrender. Some people in the face of

00:32:16.520 hardship and difficulty, they just kind of want it to stop. And they think that somehow if they close

00:32:22.700 in on themselves, it's going to end. Other people say, you know what? How can I learn from this?

00:32:27.440 How can I get stronger? How can I get better? And the fact is either we collapse or there's

00:32:33.960 going to be a tremendous revival, a tremendous revival of spirit because they're working through

00:32:40.300 fear, okay? This is what they're doing right now. They work through fear. And I'll talk in a minute,

00:32:46.260 like the following summer, I worked in Rwanda, right? And you see in all of these situations with

00:32:52.020 ethnic cleansing, with genocide, it's a small minority of people who work through fear.

00:32:58.060 And because of the fear that they try to infuse by telling people like, we're going to take away

00:33:03.820 your social media, we're going to take away your job. People think that if they just hunker down

00:33:08.220 somehow, they're going to be safe. But the fact is the more people hide, the more other people hide

00:33:15.860 because cowardice is contagious and courage is contagious. So given the tremendous fear that

00:33:24.100 the left has pushed, we have a tremendous opportunity to build a more courageous, more

00:33:29.620 wiser, a stronger, and also a more compassionate country. Like that opportunity is also in front of

00:33:36.540 us if we have people who are willing to lead that way.

00:33:39.240 So what happened after Bosnia?

00:33:43.480 So the next summer, I went to work in Rwanda. So you guys will remember, it was ethnic cleansing 0.98

00:33:48.840 in Rwanda and genocide between 800,000 to a million people were killed. 0.97

00:33:53.380 People don't understand how fucking brutal that was. Bro, there was like the main guy, 0.92

00:33:58.220 you probably know who the main, the criminal guy, the guy who masterminded the genocide.

00:34:02.660 Yeah.

00:34:04.020 Dude, he was buying like machetes by the ton and dropping them off.

00:34:08.620 It was, it was most of the kids. So 800,000 to a million people were killed. Most of the killing

00:34:14.960 was done with machetes. And most of it was done hand to hand. You know, when I, when I was there,

00:34:20.740 Uh, it isn't a very short amount of time that it's happened.

00:34:23.780 Super short.

00:34:24.540 It was like eight weeks, right?

00:34:25.900 Yeah. Eight, eight, 10, 10 weeks.

00:34:27.860 They were saying so many people were killed that the blood in the rivers actually was red.

00:34:32.740 Yes.

00:34:33.140 The water, the water was red.

00:34:34.380 Yeah. And, and you could still, when I was there, you could go and you could see

00:34:38.820 in the churches piles of skeletons, piles of skeletons in the churches. I, I worked,

00:34:45.920 so I did some work in Rwanda. I also worked in what was then Zaire and Goma Zaire in one of the

00:34:50.440 refugee camps there. And I remember seeing kids, right? Who'd been hacked, who had machete scars

00:34:55.220 on their heads. Some of them, you know, had machete scars, others who'd lost limbs because

00:34:59.660 they'd had a limb hacked off with the machete, but they, they had survived. And, you know,

00:35:05.160 one of the big lessons that I learned in Rwanda also was how important it is to, to not just care

00:35:11.560 and not just act, but also to be really wise and thoughtful about what you're doing. Because

00:35:17.680 what I saw in Rwanda, unfortunately, was a lot of very compassionate, well-intentioned people 0.99

00:35:23.080 were actually hurting other people by the way they had responded. And I'll, I'll, I'll, the story is

00:35:29.480 in Goma Zaire at the time, there were, there were literally hundreds of thousands of refugees

00:35:35.840 had poured over, over the border into Goma Zaire. And it's an incredibly chaotic situation. Goma

00:35:41.620 Zaire is this kind of big volcanic plain, and they've got these makeshift refugee camps are set up.

00:35:47.600 And there were all of these stories about unaccompanied children, children who'd been orphaned,

00:35:53.080 children who'd been separated from their parents. So the international aid community came in and what

00:35:58.780 they did was they set up centers for unaccompanied kids. So they set up these, these kind of like

00:36:05.480 miniature orphanages where kids could get food, they could get clothing, they could get shelter,

00:36:10.540 all this stuff. Well, you think about this, families are over there. They're desperate.

00:36:14.440 They're trying to feed themselves. They're trying to feed their kids. Maybe they have a nephew.

00:36:18.200 They've got a cousin. They've got, they've got their neighbor's kids. They're all trying to take

00:36:22.760 care of each other. Well, in this situation where the unaccompanied children's centers were very well

00:36:28.180 resourced, everybody starts sending their kids there. Okay. Now, historically, when you look at the

00:36:35.100 research from almost every emergency and war, truly unaccompanied kids, truly orphaned children are

00:36:42.660 extraordinarily rare. Because, you know, I know that if something happened to me, like my parents

00:36:48.100 would take care of my boys or my friends would take care of my boys, it's very rare for kids to

00:36:52.080 truly end up on their own. But the UNICEF was putting out statistics saying that there were between

00:36:59.020 300,000 and 400,000 unaccompanied children in Goma Zaire. Because what had happened was they set up

00:37:06.960 these situations where desperate people sent their kids. And instead of providing aid to the families

00:37:14.900 themselves, they set up these orphanages and then everyone starts sending their kids to the

00:37:21.580 orphanages. Because they thought it would be better. Better than what they could provide.

00:37:24.320 It was. It was better than what they could provide. But rather than actually supporting the families

00:37:28.280 themselves, they set this up. And then you've got this really negative cycle where the media comes

00:37:33.960 and they want to take pictures of orphaned children because it pulls on the heartstrings.

00:37:39.500 So they take pictures of this and then more money comes and it works for the aid organizations. You've

00:37:44.240 got volunteers who are coming, the media comes, and you get this cycle. Well, what actually happened was

00:37:50.000 because of that response, you had hundreds of thousands of kids who were then pulled away from

00:37:55.060 their parents. And in those situations, you have some incredibly compassionate people who are working

00:38:00.320 there. You also get pedophiles. You also get people who take advantage of kids. You also get people who

00:38:05.880 sell kids. And then because these kids were- So it attracts like anything, even here, and this is a

00:38:12.260 point I want to make because it's important because it's a big deal right now. But these predators,

00:38:16.880 they seek out these areas where there's a large amount of children. Yes. So you should always be

00:38:23.920 careful. Like when you look at teachers or when you look at coaches or when you look at where kids

00:38:28.880 gather because that's where the predators gather too. And that's what was, and that was what was

00:38:33.340 happening in Goma Zaire. So you ended up having this situation where the aid response, which is

00:38:38.160 well-intentioned, ended up creating a situation because they weren't really paying attention to

00:38:44.460 the dynamics on the ground where a lot of kids were abused, taken advantage of, separated from their

00:38:50.020 parents permanently because of the aid response instead of providing aid directly to the families who

00:38:55.460 were over there. And that was one of the things that I did when I was there was help the folks

00:39:02.200 who were doing this. All the credit goes to them, but was just to understand the actual dynamics

00:39:07.580 on the ground there. And man, it was, again, at that point, I'm 21 doing that work in Rwanda.

00:39:17.280 And after doing the work in Bosnia, doing the work in Rwanda, I knew that I wanted to find a way to

00:39:24.180 focus on kids in war zones. So I ended up, you know, I later, I worked with children of the street

00:39:30.340 in Bolivia. I worked in an orphanage in Albania and did some work in one of Mother Teresa's homes for

00:39:36.280 destitute and dying with kids in Varanasi, India. And in all of those situations, my focus was on trying

00:39:46.300 to understand how the international aid community can do better work. And that's what I ended up

00:39:50.780 writing my dissertation on was how I looked at the history of international humanitarian efforts

00:39:56.900 and trying to figure out what really worked if you wanted to help kids in some of the world's

00:40:01.920 most difficult circumstances. That's crazy. Yeah. That is a lot of life experience for someone

00:40:08.140 who's 21. 21 years old. Yeah. Yeah. It was, I was very, very fortunate because it exposed me very

00:40:16.380 early. Also, we were talking about this earlier to what matters. Yeah. And real problems. Real

00:40:22.520 problems. And it also gave me a very real sense. You know, you work with, I work with, you know,

00:40:27.680 kids in Cambodia who lost limbs to landmines. Right. And you're, you're in Albania in an orphanage 0.64

00:40:33.820 and it sounds simplistic or simple, but like the sense of gratitude. Very, very hard to get upset

00:40:43.500 with your life. You spend a lot of time working with kids who've lost limbs to landmines in Cambodia.

00:40:50.800 Yeah. Right. And you come back and it just gives you a very, very solid perspective. And all of that

00:40:58.460 ultimately was tremendously valuable to me when I later wanted to help my fellow veterans who were

00:41:04.420 dealing with alcoholism, suicide, who'd lost limbs, et cetera. And in that same situation of despair,

00:41:09.560 but what you realize is that all, you know, all of these human situations, though they're,

00:41:19.100 they're have different manifestations as ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, genocide in Rwanda,

00:41:23.660 orphans in Albania, et cetera. The, what human beings need fundamentally is almost all the same

00:41:31.620 in any of these situations. And if you can find ways to help people live with a sense of purpose

00:41:38.080 and you can do it with some real thoughtful, wise compassion, then you can make a real difference.

00:41:44.800 Well, it's needed, man. Yeah. You know, um, I think if more people had real experiences like that,

00:41:50.420 we'd probably have a pretty different landscape here at home. We'd have a totally different

00:41:54.060 landscape and we'd have to even think about knowledge differently. Like one of the things

00:41:58.240 that's interesting is like the Greeks had this word called phronesis, right? And phronesis basically

00:42:04.540 means our closest translation is practical wisdom, right? And where do you get practical wisdom from?

00:42:10.760 You don't get it from a book. You can, you can, you can read, you can read and that can inform

00:42:16.300 things, but there is certain wisdom that only comes from having had experience. And the Greeks 0.87

00:42:23.600 also talked about how you need to have the hardest experiences teach you the most, right? And that's

00:42:30.660 true in anything, right? If you want to be a great athlete, like you got to have some, you got to have

00:42:34.500 some intense experiences. You want to be a great entrepreneur? Like you got to take some knocks.

00:42:39.040 Like the intense experiences are actually a tremendous gift. And so, yeah, I was very fortunate because

00:42:45.760 in all of these situations I was working with and learning from people who are in some of the

00:42:52.520 world's most difficult circumstances. Dude, I would be okay with tax money going, like, I mean, we,

00:42:57.800 listen, maybe this might be a little socialism coming out of DJ. I don't know. Right. But I would

00:43:01.960 be okay with, with tax dollars going into these, these public colleges and universities that did the

00:43:06.440 same exact thing. Like, okay, Hey, you're, you're a freshman. You've never been outside the country

00:43:09.920 here. Like I would personally be okay funding that. You know what I'm saying? Like that is so fucking

00:43:14.760 necessary. Well, DJ, I mean, the truth of the matter is, as we covered last time when Eric was 0.96

00:43:18.640 on, is that if these people would spend our tax money properly and not steal it, we would be able

00:43:23.200 to do those things very effectively. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And, and you think about like the

00:43:28.860 experiences that come for young people who, who joined the Peace Corps or who joined the U.S.

00:43:33.580 military, right? What's happening in both of those situations? They're getting a tough experience.

00:43:38.000 They're getting something hard. Right. And, or right. Somebody who goes even here inside the

00:43:44.660 United States of America and confronts a tough problem, like trying to, trying to help a homeless

00:43:50.300 veteran get out of homeless. That's a really tough problem. Trying to help a third grader who can't

00:43:55.540 read, learn how to read. That's a really tough problem. And one of the things that you find,

00:44:00.520 one of the reasons why politicians so often fail is that they don't understand what it takes to

00:44:06.160 change one life. So if you want to change thousands of lives, you want to change tens of thousands,

00:44:12.340 hundreds of thousands, millions of lives, prove to us that you can change one. Yeah. Because if you

00:44:18.200 can really change one life, you actually understand how complex it is. You understand how complicated it

00:44:24.380 is. You also understand that it's very possible if you put the right, the right structure in place,

00:44:30.160 but we have so few people in public life who've ever done anything like that. Right. Dude,

00:44:35.700 they don't even put themselves through hard shit. Look at them. They look like shit. Right. Okay. 1.00

00:44:40.240 They're unhealthy. They don't train. They don't know what it's like to exercise. They don't look.

00:44:46.040 They've never had to be selfless. Look, Eric's figured out clearly what he's telling us

00:44:49.740 is that at a very young age, he figured out that it's a good thing to put yourself through hard

00:44:54.340 circumstances because it produces skills. Okay. And we have an entire government of people who live the

00:45:01.300 easy life. I mean, we can, you can look, I don't care what anybody says. You can literally look at

00:45:07.500 them. Right. And tell that they're doing the easiest possible path for themselves. Okay. So

00:45:14.080 that's that, that tells you anything about how they, how they're able to actually navigate life,

00:45:21.380 you know, and people disagree and they say, Oh, well that's, that's against fat people. I used to be

00:45:26.840 that guy. I was the 350 pound guy. Like I know what it's like. I know what it's like to be a

00:45:31.860 wealthy 350 pound guy. It's very unfulfilling, you know? And to be completely honest, um, this guy

00:45:39.760 now who I am now could run circles around that guy. And, and dude, it just matters to understand

00:45:46.400 what you're talking about. Yeah. And you have to, this is the other thing. People take their cues

00:45:51.100 from these people, man. Yes. Society takes their cues. They idolize these people, bro. When you look back

00:45:56.380 on some of the greatest presidents of our, uh, the most loved presidents that we've ever had,

00:46:01.560 they demanded more of the individual. They asked for more from the individual. One of the most

00:46:07.540 famous quotes of all time is from John F. Kennedy. Yes. Ask not what the country can do for you,

00:46:14.180 but what you could do for your country. And that starts at home. It starts with your personal

00:46:18.140 discipline. It starts with the way you live your life. That's what he's talking about. He's talking

00:46:22.440 about the ripple effect of greatness in one's own life. And we used to have politicians that were

00:46:29.240 basically motivational speakers. They would get up there and they would explain to people, Hey,

00:46:34.200 America's only as great as you are individually. And that's the truth.

00:46:37.860 And they had done it. Yeah.

00:46:40.420 They had done it. They had done it.

00:46:42.260 They did the things they talked about.

00:46:43.280 And that's a big, big difference. The number one rule of leadership. I'm not going to ask you to do

00:46:47.280 anything that I'm not willing to do. And I often, you know, I point out to people,

00:46:52.040 you know, and I'll, I'll say, do you know where the foremost hated men in America are?

00:46:56.320 St. Louis.

00:46:57.340 Well, maybe right here, maybe right here, maybe right here, but the foremost hated men in America

00:47:04.700 are on Mount Rushmore. That's where they're at. That's where that, and if you really think about

00:47:10.260 it, like, and this is why like good biographies are so, so valuable. Like you really read about George

00:47:15.720 Washington. Okay. And we have this story, like, you know, the kid who chopped down the cherry tree,

00:47:21.440 et cetera. He was an officer in the British military. And then he leads a rebellion and

00:47:28.200 a revolution that was not popular here in the United States of America among, among a vast,

00:47:36.480 you know, numbers of the population. He's got a price on his head from the largest military

00:47:42.360 superpower in the history of the world. He was one of the most hated figures in the history of the

00:47:48.240 United States of America. And he was George Washington. Now he was second, of course, to

00:47:52.520 Abraham Lincoln, right? But you think about the fact is they were willing to risk. They were willing

00:47:59.060 to sacrifice. They were willing to endure, right? Teddy Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt was also, people

00:48:05.060 forget, you know, this is a kid who grew up, um, who, you know, was short-sighted, decided to box,

00:48:12.160 decided to test himself, had some tragedy early in his life when his mom and his, his young wife both

00:48:18.500 died. And then he goes out West, right? And he hardens himself. He hardens himself out West. And

00:48:24.280 then he comes back and he takes on the political establishment. They took on Tammany Hall. He took on

00:48:29.940 all of the corruption. They hated him so much in New York that they kicked him out of Albany and

00:48:36.380 sent him up to be vice president, right? That's how much they hated him. And obviously the whole

00:48:40.720 country changed, right? When he, when he became president. But my point is, is that they were

00:48:45.720 willing to ask other people to do hard things and they never stopped doing those hard things

00:48:53.420 themselves. That's right. They never stopped. It's real leadership. It's real leadership. Yeah.

00:48:57.240 It's real leadership. Can I ask you this? So, so you've served other people, you've been around

00:49:01.320 the world, right? You served our country, right? Abroad, right? When did the, when did the idea 0.67

00:49:07.120 come like, Hey, I, I, there are some issues that I see in our government structure. I want to go make

00:49:11.800 these changes here. Now it's time to serve this. When did, like, what did that conversation look like?

00:49:16.180 Like the shift into like public elected? Yeah. So, so the short story there is, you know, so after,

00:49:23.360 so I finished at Oxford, I finished my PhD and then I went to.

00:49:26.640 How'd you end up at Oxford? I must say, you can't just blow past that.

00:49:29.940 So that's where, so I went as, as a Rhodes scholar. So, so I, I did, I did Duke. And then,

00:49:35.200 and then when I graduated from there, I went to Oxford and I spent four years there. Great years.

00:49:40.000 I was on the boxing team, had a ton of fun there and continued to do this, this international

00:49:45.600 humanitarian work, wrote my dissertation. And then when I finished, I was 26 and then I joined the Navy.

00:49:52.060 So I was an old man when I joined the Navy.

00:49:54.580 So can I ask you something? Like, did you, so it sounds like you had that realization of

00:49:59.320 challenging yourself pretty early, like 20, 21, 22 from these world experiences.

00:50:05.780 Is that, is that why you pursued the Oxford and the Navy SEAL thing?

00:50:09.920 I think, you know, I mean, look, part of the Navy SEAL thing was that I was 26 years old.

00:50:14.480 And the, you know, part of the philosophy was, I also realized in all of these situations in Bosnia

00:50:20.980 and Rwanda, you look at the Holocaust, right? If you really wanted to save people, it wasn't enough 0.82

00:50:25.500 to have compassion, right? What put an end to ethnic cleansing and genocide in the Holocaust was 0.77

00:50:29.760 people with guns. People who were willing to put it to an end. That's what actually put it to an end.

00:50:34.660 So that was philosophically part of what, what moved me to military service, but also like,

00:50:39.080 I'd watched Top Gun and I'd watched Rambo and I was 26 and I wanted to blow stuff up. Right. And my,

00:50:45.760 and my grandfather had served in the Navy. And so it, and you know what the attraction of the SEAL

00:50:50.520 teams was, was it, you know, buds hell week was the hardest military training in the world. Yeah.

00:50:55.060 And I figure, all right, if I'm going to do it, like I'm going to go and do the hardest thing.

00:50:59.880 And so I left, uh, I was, you know, 26 and you show up and after officer candidate school, I show

00:51:07.700 up out at buds and like at 26, you're with lots of like 18 and 19 year olds, right? You're like an

00:51:13.600 old dude, right? Compared, compared to a lot of these guys, there was one guy, there was one guy who's

00:51:20.200 who'd been a Marine and he came over, he was trying to be a, be a SEAL. He was 30 years old. Okay.

00:51:25.240 And he seemed ancient and everybody called him old man, Johnston. That's crazy. Right. Cause he

00:51:29.820 was, he was 30 years old. I look at 30. I'm like, these kids are young. Right. Right. Okay. So he

00:51:35.260 was old man, Johnston. He was 30 years old, but that was, you know, that was, that was an incredible,

00:51:40.700 uh, transition, you know? So I came back and, you know, in some ways, so I had spent four years at

00:51:46.220 Oxford and I'd done all this international humanitarian work. When I came back into the military,

00:51:50.680 it was also like a reintroduction to America. And it was, it was at the time the best possible 0.95

00:51:56.780 reintroduction to America. Right. And I challenge anyone still to this day, you go to the deck of

00:52:02.600 an aircraft carrier, you go to Marine Corps bootcamp and you see 18, 19, 20 year olds from

00:52:08.880 all over the country, from every conceivable background, all coming together, all willing

00:52:14.680 to die for our country, all willing to put the flag on and go out and serve. And it is,

00:52:20.120 and was an incredibly inspiring thing. That's awesome. And, and it was, it was, it was a ton

00:52:24.780 of fun, man. So yeah, we went through, we went through hell week. Um, we went through all the,

00:52:29.720 the training. Um, we, you know, one, one story I often share with people was I learned a lot

00:52:35.700 about mental strength as well, going through the training. So I'd seen, you know, physical strength,

00:52:43.420 like I'd been a boxer, I'd done, done, done a lot of that stuff. You obviously saw a lot of

00:52:47.940 emotional and spiritual strength in a lot of these places and refugee camps.

00:52:52.280 I didn't realize going in how much mental strength went into getting through hell week.

00:52:58.080 Right. And get one in through, through the training. So, you know, in our class, for example,

00:53:02.800 we started with over 220 people in the original class. By the time we graduated, we're down to 21.

00:53:09.040 Yeah. And everybody's a stud.

00:53:10.680 They're all stud. Yeah. Everybody who shows up is a stud.

00:53:13.320 Everybody who shows up is a, is a, is a, is a stud. And I remember, uh, people, a lot of people

00:53:19.200 know if you're going to quit during the training, you go and you ring a bell. Okay. And I remember

00:53:25.040 the hardest week of the hardest military training in the world is buds. Right. And I remember the

00:53:31.680 hardest moment of the hardest week and the hardest moment of the hardest week came during the second

00:53:36.760 night. So what happens is like, they come in and they wake you up at the beginning of the first night

00:53:41.320 and they've got, you know, smoke grenades going off and artillery simulators and they're firing in

00:53:46.320 the air and you're doing a bunch of pushups and sit-ups and they got hoses in your face and it's 0.85

00:53:50.760 kind of a party. Yeah. Right. Like you're having a good time. It's cool. You're a couple hours in.

00:53:56.020 You're like, man, here we are. Like we're in hell week. You got your boat crew together and

00:54:00.060 everybody's tough. Right. So you're a couple hours, like couple hours in. And then you go all the way

00:54:04.620 through the first night. Man, that was tough, but we made it. We made it to the first night. Okay. Good to go.

00:54:09.560 And then it's the first morning. The sun comes up. All right, cool. This is our next first day. It's

00:54:14.340 our full day. And you go all the way through the full day, but now you're exhausted, right? Now

00:54:18.000 you've been crushing it for over 24 hours. And what they did at the beginning of the second night

00:54:23.180 is that they lined us up all on the sand berm to watch as the sun is going down. And it's the

00:54:32.440 beginning of the second night. And so the end of hell week isn't close, right? You're exhausted.

00:54:37.540 You've been up for 24 hours and you're not just up. Like you're doing four mile timed runs and soft

00:54:43.200 sand. You're running the obstacle course. Everywhere you go, you're running around with a boat on your

00:54:48.180 head. You're doing physical training with logs. You are completely spent and you haven't even started.

00:54:55.040 So then they line everybody up on the beach to watch as the sun is going down and the instructors

00:55:00.280 came out and they knew exactly what they're doing. They've got their bullhorns out. And they said,

00:55:04.780 say goodnight to the sun, gentlemen. And we're watching the sun go down. Like tonight is going to be a

00:55:11.400 very, very, very long night. And we're watching the sun go down. And they're like, you are only at the

00:55:19.800 very beginning of hell week. And people are watching the sun go down and the stuff is getting in their

00:55:27.400 head and thinking, man, this is, this is tough. And, and keep in mind up to this point, they've done

00:55:33.620 crazy stuff to us. They've tied our feet together and our hands behind our back. They've thrown us in

00:55:38.180 the pool, right? You have to go down 50 feet, tie a knot and come back up. This, all these guys who

00:55:43.640 were there, they've already accomplished incredible things to be at this second night. And we're watching

00:55:47.700 the sun go down and then they just keep on it. And they're like, Hey, if you guys want to quit right

00:55:53.300 now, the bell is right here. This is the only, the beginning of the second night. So everybody's

00:55:58.780 watching this go down. And then you hear like one ding, somebody quits and then somebody else runs

00:56:05.280 and they quit. And then another person runs and they quit. It's contagious. More people quit our

00:56:10.020 class at that moment than quit at any other time in all of the SEAL team training. Now here's what was

00:56:15.980 amazing about that. You know, they'd have to do all these incredible things, right? Two mile ocean swims

00:56:22.000 every week, four mile runs and soft sand obstacle course, tie your hands behind your back, your feet

00:56:26.060 behind you, all this. Who would have thought that the hardest moment of the hardest week of the hardest

00:56:32.120 military training in the world would come when all they had actually asked us to do was to stand on the

00:56:37.720 beach and watch the sunset. But that's all we had to do at that moment. All we had to do was stand on

00:56:44.340 the beach and watch the sunset. But it was people's minds that got to them. And what you saw and

00:56:51.920 learned was that a lot of times, certainly to make it through the training and a lot of times to make

00:56:57.780 it through life, like all you got to do is just stay in the game. You just put one foot in front

00:57:04.660 of the other. And when it looks so bleak, when it looks so hard, you just got to stay in the game.

00:57:13.480 And, you know, later I would work with a lot of returning veterans, some of whom were contemplating

00:57:20.080 suicide or had dealt with folks who, who, who, who thought, thought about suicide. And they're at

00:57:26.080 places of incredible, scratching, deep, awful pain in their lives. And it won't stop. And they wake up

00:57:34.020 every day and it's hard and it's harsh and there's no prospects in front of them. And there's no hope.

00:57:40.020 They're not seeing any light. And it's been that way, not for just days or weeks, but for months,

00:57:45.380 some of them for years. And they're trying to think about like, how do I get out of this? How do I end

00:57:49.700 this? And what, you know, I would often say, we would all say is like, you just got to stay in

00:57:53.880 the game. You just got to stay in the game. You just got to put one foot in front of the other.

00:57:58.560 And it doesn't have to be pretty, right? You can be limping, you can be cut, it can be difficult,

00:58:04.800 it can be hard, but you got to stay in the game. And that was one of the big lessons from the SEAL

00:58:11.720 team training was, yeah, you need to have your, your emotional strength and your spiritual strength.

00:58:17.200 You need to have your physical strength, but also really learning how to control and use the mind

00:58:24.140 in very difficult circumstances was, was probably even more pronounced than any physical thing that

00:58:30.920 we learned. Dude, I think that that's the ultimate secret to life. Like in general, like duty, it's hard.

00:58:38.120 Yes. Like people think, you know, it's weird, man. People think it's just a story we tell ourselves

00:58:44.200 when we're down, right? Like we tell ourselves, oh man, they got it so much easier. Bro, every single

00:58:48.980 person that you, that you talk to on a daily basis, from the clerk at the gas station, to the people at

00:58:54.600 your job, to the, to the CEO of your company, to your wife or your husband or any, bro, everybody's

00:59:00.940 got it hard. Everybody has a heart. You just don't understand their perspective. Cause you're living in a

00:59:07.440 different set of shoes. And it's one of the reasons why you should always, when you can lead with

00:59:14.580 compassion. Yeah. Everybody's struggling. Everybody is struggling. And one of the, again, you know, for

00:59:21.300 me, when I was doing this work with veterans or I was talking with other audiences about like pain and

00:59:26.220 hardship and difficulty, you know, I'd finish speeches and everybody comes up and they've got a

00:59:30.980 son who's addicted to drugs, or they just found out that one of their kids was diagnosed with an

00:59:35.880 illness where they just lost their husband. Like everybody struggles. Everybody, it is hard. And

00:59:41.760 part of, you know, the, the great failure of not only the political class, but also of the kind of

00:59:48.980 consumer culture is the idea that you can sell somebody an easy life that if you just go and buy

00:59:56.920 a few things that somehow everything's going to be right. And it just doesn't work that way. Life is

01:00:03.400 going to be hard. And especially, especially if you try to live a meaningful life, especially if you

01:00:08.800 try to live a purposeful life, especially if you try to achieve things, it's going to bring hardship

01:00:14.280 and it's actually in, it's in that pursuit that you find joy. Absolutely, dude. Absolutely. I,

01:00:21.920 I have a, I have a thing that I talk about on the show, uh, discipline plus gratitude equals happiness.

01:00:28.060 Yes. You know what I'm saying? Yes. You know, if you're exercising your, your, if you're putting

01:00:32.380 yourself through hard things and making the right choices, you're investing in the confidence and

01:00:36.560 the belief, um, and, and everything that we think about ourselves. And then also taking a moment and

01:00:42.600 saying, man, I am, I'm blessed to be able to go through this. So blessed because it is, it's still

01:00:48.840 way, way, way easier than what a lot of people have. A hundred percent. And if you can always think

01:00:54.520 about those two things together, um, and then you tie it with purpose. Yes. Okay. And you tie

01:00:59.240 discipline and gratitude and purpose together. Yes. Now you have fulfillment and happiness. And it's

01:01:05.360 weird because people tie laziness and, and basically inactivity and easy with being happy, you know,

01:01:13.980 and we're, we're, we're, we have that, that image of happiness marketed to us. A hundred percent.

01:01:21.120 Think of a Corona commercial, man. Like, Oh, I'm hanging on the beach with Snoop

01:01:25.120 dog. Like this is happy. Yeah. That's cool for a day. It might be cool for a week, but

01:01:30.540 what about that next week? And definitely that third or fourth week, you're going to

01:01:33.940 be really hating life, you know? And, uh, I think it's such an important thing for

01:01:40.480 people to, to grasp because what Eric just did was laid out that entire formula

01:01:44.920 through his life story. You know, he's talking about discipline. He's talking about

01:01:48.860 pushing himself to do hard things. He's talking about gratitude, you know, observing

01:01:53.440 through his own eyes, uh, or the world's most horrific scenes. Um, and then having

01:02:00.880 a purpose, which is what you're working on now, which is cool, man, for sure. And

01:02:04.820 you know, one of the things that's really interesting about American life is that we

01:02:08.240 have a real poverty of language, even around purpose, right? So the Greeks had a 1.00

01:02:13.840 word called eudaimonia, right? Which basically the closest English equivalent

01:02:18.720 is flourishing. And what it really meant was that that's the life you wanted to

01:02:24.080 live. We have this word happiness, which, as you said, people often associate with

01:02:29.300 like watching the game on Sunday. Like that can be fun, but like, would you want to

01:02:33.900 do that? Like every single day, like is a firework show cool? Yeah. It's cool for,

01:02:38.040 you know, 30 minutes, like once a year, but like, that's not, that's not life.

01:02:43.420 And there's this great book called the Greek way is written by Edith Hamilton.

01:02:47.120 And she really gets at the Greek understanding of the tragic nature of

01:02:52.680 life. And we can talk about like what that means, a tragic nature of life.

01:02:55.620 But she talks about how the Greeks understood that flourishing was the

01:03:00.180 exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence in a life affording them

01:03:07.280 scope. Right. And what that meant, what that, what that meant was it like, all

01:03:11.940 right, I'm exercising my vital powers. I'm doing things that feel to me like I am

01:03:18.420 growing. Right. Cause again, like happiness is growth. When people are growing and

01:03:22.700 they're learning, they feel happy. They, they feel, feel engaged. And then along

01:03:27.120 lines of excellence, like you're not just doing stuff, you're doing it well. Yeah.

01:03:31.020 You're getting better at things. You're acquiring skills. You're becoming more

01:03:34.260 masterful. And whether you are, you know, writing poetry, building a business, working as an

01:03:40.360 architect, learning how to teach, like you're doing things better. And then she

01:03:44.220 talks about how in a life affording them scope, mean that like you have the space

01:03:48.620 to do these things. And they, what the Greeks also understood was that you, there

01:03:54.060 are certain material conditions, which are essential to be able to exercise those

01:03:59.800 vital powers. It's hard for somebody to exercise vital powers along lines of

01:04:04.100 excellence when they're starving. Right. So they also understood that part of the

01:04:08.540 idea of having a, a public community was that you made sure that everyone could

01:04:15.040 contribute. Um, and, and that, that meant that there had to be, you had to have a

01:04:19.400 life that afforded them scope. But the big picture point is that like, they had a

01:04:24.100 very, a concept of flourishing that we don't even have, like, we don't even have the

01:04:29.600 language around this. Right. So that, so that we, we come up with our formulation,

01:04:34.380 formulations like gratitude and discipline and, and, and, and, but, but, but, but

01:04:38.800 it's, it, what's striking is that as a culture, America, Americans don't have that

01:04:45.160 kind of common understanding. Dude, I, my opinion of that, you know, and I, you and

01:04:50.180 I have talked about this up and down on sideways for years, but, but my opinion of

01:04:54.880 that is they, they push that kind of anti-fulfillment lifestyle, anti-happiness

01:05:04.020 lifestyle to quell the resistance that they may face to whatever they decide they

01:05:10.980 want to do. Right. If you have a less fit, unhealthy, um, sick, poor, uh, struggling to

01:05:20.540 survive and, and struggling to be happy because let's be real, dude, we have a 0.98

01:05:25.840 mental health epidemic. It's not made up. It's definitely glorified and pushed

01:05:30.500 through victim culture. I think there's a lot of people that think that they have

01:05:34.680 mental illness when in reality, they're just not living their life in any

01:05:38.800 structured sort of way with any purpose. Um, but look, man, we're not meant to live

01:05:44.980 like that. Correct. We're meant, we're meant to achieve. We're meant to, to, to build.

01:05:49.760 We're meant to go through experiences and develop skillsets and look back and 0.99

01:05:54.000 say, fuck, dude, I'm proud of myself for going through that. Yes. And like, dude, 0.99

01:05:57.460 we live in this culture where like, even for me with the live hard program and

01:06:01.220 75 hard, which has a billion hashtags on Tik TOK over a billion. Um, I get

01:06:06.000 criticized because I'm trying to make people better. So why is the mainstream

01:06:09.720 media criticizing me for giving out a free program to help people get better in

01:06:14.880 exact things we're talking about? What does that tell you guys? You should be

01:06:18.700 able to draw that conclusion. They want you to be weak as possible.

01:06:23.740 And there has, there's always been, you know, I think we talked about last time,

01:06:27.020 like Teddy Roosevelt, right? It's not the critic who counts, not the one who

01:06:30.100 points out how the strong man's doubled or how the doer of deeds might've done

01:06:33.340 them better. We have in the United States and it's most embodied in the

01:06:37.680 culture of journalism, right? You have people who are constant critics, right? And

01:06:43.220 who, who, who, who lives their life? Like, can you imagine waking up every day

01:06:47.600 thinking I'm at my job today is to write something nasty about somebody else?

01:06:51.880 Right. But that, that, that's who they are. And that, and that, and that, and

01:06:55.620 that's what they've done. Yeah. But dude, that's the thing though. It's a culture and

01:07:00.360 what we're talking about, what America really needs and, and it, it, we need it now

01:07:05.380 is a cultural revival and reform. Yes. People think that they're going to elect a

01:07:12.740 politician and look, dude, there's a lot of great people running. Eric's my favorite

01:07:17.540 by a lot. And Ian Smith, those two guys I'm behind. Okay. Um, you know, but the

01:07:24.920 point is there's a lot of people out there that are, that are good leaders, but even

01:07:29.960 they cannot come and put their hands on you and fix your whole entire existence.

01:07:34.540 And, and we, and I think we have this thing going on in the side of it. Yes. In the

01:07:39.500 country where a lot of people think that their happiness and their success and their, their

01:07:44.060 ultimate fulfillment in life is going to be dictated by some person that they do or do

01:07:49.600 not vote for. Listen, America's only great if we're great. Yes. America's only great if

01:07:55.960 the individual is great. And the problem that America has right now is that we don't have

01:07:59.960 enough individuals chasing to be great. That's my opinion.

01:08:05.340 100%. And, and that's why like this culture, which is dominated by the critics, it's dominated

01:08:12.120 by the leftists. One of the things that's obvious about, about all critics is that like

01:08:16.440 they don't love themselves. So they can't love things in other people. Right. And so that's

01:08:21.100 why you see all these folks, like they hate the country. Yeah. They also, most of them don't

01:08:25.360 like themselves. No. Okay. Very, very, very unhappy people. We should be led by people who

01:08:33.900 have found a way to joy. Right. And what does that mean? That doesn't mean ease. It doesn't

01:08:40.280 mean that things are handed to you. It means that you find ways to do hard and good and

01:08:45.980 purposeful things. And man, it works. I'm telling you, we work with so many veterans and so many

01:08:52.100 tough situations. Okay. And these are folks who, who, who'd proudly serve the country,

01:08:56.980 right. And they come back, maybe they've lost a limb. They're dealing with PTSD. They've,

01:09:01.180 they're, they've lost some of their hearing, some of their eyesight and some of them, you

01:09:06.080 know, end up in places where they'd pass a month without talking to another human being.

01:09:09.980 Yeah. Right. They end up homeless, dealing with, dealing with drug issues, all this stuff.

01:09:14.300 Usually that comes from their own, their own, they, they, they don't want to be a burden.

01:09:19.060 They don't want, they don't want, they don't want to be a burden, but here's what also happens

01:09:22.740 is the culture says to them, okay, now you're a charity case. Yeah. So, so think about this.

01:09:27.840 So it's, it almost per self perpetuates the cycle and you're getting all this, you get

01:09:32.480 all this feedback. So here's, so, so we can talk about like what happens to veterans, but

01:09:37.080 then, you know, and I'll, I'll use that as a large, as a segue into the larger point about

01:09:41.320 what we have to do culturally. So, cause here's, here's what happens to veterans. But the truth

01:09:46.000 is this is a human story. It happens to a lot of people. Something hard happened. All right. So

01:09:50.820 dude's a E5, United States Marine. Okay. He's over there. He's in Afghanistan. He's leading,

01:09:57.300 he's hard charging. He's got, got the flag on his shoulder. He's a, he's a Marine. He's a leader

01:10:02.220 of Marines. And then all of a sudden he's injured. He comes back home. And what happens is that other

01:10:07.100 people come to him and they say, Hey, do you want a free gift basket? Do you want a blanket?

01:10:11.680 Do you want a free fishing trip? Do you want this? They start treating him like a charity case

01:10:16.260 his whole life. He's been pushing. He's been driving. He was serving other people. And now

01:10:21.680 other people are looking at him like he's a charity case. And he starts that. Well, I'm not,

01:10:25.820 I'm not. And then, so that's happening culturally. Then you get a government system where the government

01:10:32.520 says, Hey, here's a VA disability check. I was a United States Marine. I wasn't making a lot of money

01:10:38.580 and I might've been using it on some things that shouldn't have used it on, but I was,

01:10:43.160 I was living, I was living, I was living a real life. Right. And then, and then what happens is

01:10:49.020 they think to themselves, okay, well, you know what? There's still a hard charger. All I'm going to do,

01:10:53.620 I'm going to take this disability check for a while while I get my stuff together. Right. And then

01:10:59.860 they're on disability. And then a buddy comes up to him and says, Hey man, you know,

01:11:03.960 you can also get food stamps while you're doing this. And they think food stamps, like I'm not

01:11:09.920 going to be on food stamps, but welfare case. Yeah. Right. But, but they think, okay, but maybe,

01:11:14.480 maybe for a little while while I'm trying, no harm in it while I dig out. And especially if they have

01:11:19.520 kids or they got somebody else who's depending on them, okay, well I'll take this. And then somebody

01:11:23.420 comes and says, well, you know, like you can also get some welfare payment and you can also get

01:11:27.740 some, like some housing vouchers, et cetera. So then all of a sudden they're in this situation

01:11:32.380 where they add up their disability pay and they add up the food stamps and you add up the housing

01:11:36.460 vouchers. And they're looking at them, I'm making 50, 60 grand a year and they're not working.

01:11:40.580 Yeah. And it's more than what they were making before.

01:11:43.340 And, and, and so then what happens and they're still not mentally, they're still not thinking

01:11:48.000 to themselves. I'm, I'm a welfare recipient. They're still not thinking to themselves. Like I'm,

01:11:52.520 I'm, they're still thinking I'm going to get out, but then they get offered a job and they do the

01:11:58.380 math and like, you know what? Like if I take this job and I lose all these other benefits,

01:12:02.960 I'm only going to make a couple thousand more and I got to work full time and I don't love the

01:12:07.460 prospect of the job. So I'm going to wait. And then they've waited two or three years

01:12:11.860 and then it becomes even harder to hire somebody. Yeah. And so what ends up happening in, in life

01:12:17.580 is that once in, in, in the U S government kind of system is that all of these things, again,

01:12:26.140 well-intentioned, some of them, right? Well-intentioned actually trap people in a situation

01:12:31.880 where they're no longer having to achieve. They're no longer having to drive. And for us,

01:12:37.340 we'd work with some of these men and women. And you know what? The best thing is for them mentally, 0.93

01:12:42.140 emotionally for, and I'll tell you this to anybody right now who is feeling depressed, exercise.

01:12:47.460 Yeah. Exercise. Right now. Right now. Like go out, like, like stop, hit pause, hit pause,

01:12:53.280 go out right now and crush it and go do a 60 minute brisk walk, dude. Sweat. You don't even

01:12:58.640 have to run or anything and then come back and listen to the show. And I bet you any amount of

01:13:04.900 money you feel better. A hundred percent. And there's all of this scientific evidence that the

01:13:09.840 long-term effects of exercise stay with people in terms of their mental, their improvements in

01:13:15.240 mental health as compared to medicine, which can have a short-term effect, but, but doesn't

01:13:20.300 actually help people in the long-term. So you go out and you exercise. And what we did at the

01:13:24.840 mission continues. So, you know, the short story there is I came back after my team was hit by a

01:13:29.280 suicide truck bomb. All right. I was very fortunate. My wounds were minor. A bunch of other dudes hurt

01:13:33.380 far worse than I was. And what I saw of this at Bethesda, not Naval Hospital, all these capable people

01:13:38.820 who were suddenly being offered charity. And I, and based on what I'd seen in Bosnia and Rwanda and

01:13:44.920 Cambodia and Albania, I was like, this is not going to work. So what we did at the mission

01:13:49.760 continues was I put in my combat pay, two friends put in money from their disability checks. And we

01:13:54.460 use that to start an organization where we gave fellowships to returning wounded veterans so that

01:14:00.060 they could serve again. And we put them to work at Habitat for Humanity, at Big Brothers, Big

01:14:04.340 Sisters, at a boys and girls club. And you know what? They start exercising and then they show up and

01:14:10.200 they thought they didn't have a purpose. And then the next day they've got a bunch of seventh and

01:14:14.800 eighth graders who are waiting on coach to show up. They need to get out of bed. They need to be

01:14:19.580 there on time. They've got volunteers coming into Habitat for Humanity because they're going to build

01:14:23.640 a home for a homeless veteran and they're working overtime and they're making it happen. And then

01:14:28.700 what happens is that as you build that sense of purpose, right? And again, for anybody who's

01:14:33.700 struggling right now, I just say to you, just take one step. Yeah. Just got to show up.

01:14:38.280 Don't quit today, man. Volunteer. Go help somebody else. There's somebody else who's in a tougher

01:14:43.200 situation than you are right now. So you go out and you help them. And then what happens is that

01:14:48.820 as they would help other people, they'd rebuild their own sense of purpose and then think, you

01:14:53.940 know what? I need to start my own business. I always had that dream. But now I know what I

01:14:58.300 want to go back to school for. I'm going to go back to school. And is the act of actually serving

01:15:03.300 other people help them to rekindle that sense of purpose? And this is part of what we need to do

01:15:13.740 to get to your point. Culturally, all of that was a challenge. The original kind of tagline at the

01:15:20.660 mission continues was, it's not a charity. It's a challenge. We're not offering you charity. We're

01:15:26.840 offering you a challenge because what you'll find is if people don't care about you, they will offer

01:15:32.840 you an excuse. If people love you, they will offer you a challenge. That's right, dude. Kindness is

01:15:40.740 true. You know, people talk about kindness. You talk about kindness a lot and everybody's

01:15:45.820 talking. And by the way, Eric's one of the most kind individuals. One of the things I like about

01:15:49.700 you the best, bro, and I've never told you this before, but it's the truth is I've seen Eric with

01:15:53.900 literally hundreds of strangers over the course of my knowing him, maybe thousands. Okay. And every

01:16:01.720 single person that he comes up with that talks to him, he's present. It's real. It's not,

01:16:07.080 it's what you said. It's what you said at the beginning of the show. It's one of the things I

01:16:10.280 appreciate the most about you, bro, because you've lived an incredible life so far. And it's very

01:16:15.920 evident that you care that other people do as well in their own way. Yes. And I think that's,

01:16:21.360 I mean, dude, we have to have that in our leadership. Yes. You know, we have to have

01:16:26.160 people that are encouraging people to fulfill their own potential. Yes. Because dude, in America, man,

01:16:32.360 you know, what's made America great guys for so long and everybody can agree, right? We have our black

01:16:39.640 guys. We have our things that we've had to overcome, right? Where we started from and where

01:16:43.200 we are is incredible. When you think about the time that we've been here. Yeah. Okay. It's amazing.

01:16:48.460 We're, you know, you talk, people talk about progressive. We're the only society that's ever

01:16:53.100 existed in the history of humanity where different cultures come, adopt a new culture that everybody

01:16:59.880 is tolerant of everybody else and works together to win that, that does not happen in other,

01:17:05.040 it's never happened. It is a miracle. Yeah. It is a miracle and it has to be preserved. Yes.

01:17:12.980 It's weird, man. I think if people had a little more perspective of, of history, you know, and they

01:17:17.520 don't let us know history anymore. They're not teaching these kids the right history. They're

01:17:21.340 teaching them their history. Yeah. Dude, whatever they want. Yeah. Whatever they write and then they'll

01:17:25.980 sell it to you. But we could get on that, on, we go down that rabbit hole all day, but I mean.

01:17:30.180 But you know, again, it's true. It's a, it's a, it's an important point though, because in the same

01:17:34.500 way, it's important, the story that you tell yourself. So the human mind is narrative. Okay.

01:17:40.700 We think in terms of stories, right? If we right now, you know, if I said to, to you or DJ, you guys

01:17:48.960 said to me like three or four facts, I might forget them by tomorrow. Right. But DJ tells me a cool story.

01:17:54.200 Right. I'm going to remember that for 30 years. Yeah. Right. Okay. The human mind's narrative,

01:17:58.240 our stories guide us. And one of the things that's important, what we did with veterans,

01:18:03.240 what we have to do as a country, you got to think about your own story. Okay. So is the story,

01:18:08.220 I was hit by an RPG, I lost my arm. And after that, I'm a charity case and I'm worthless. Or

01:18:14.440 I was hit by an RPG, I lost my arm. It was tragic. I mourned. I suffered. I went through hell. And you

01:18:22.480 know what? On the other side of that, I found these tremendous gifts that other people were suffering

01:18:27.560 also. And when they saw me and they saw me working, they said to themselves like, oh man,

01:18:33.120 like I have a lot to be grateful for. When they saw what I had done, when I decided after my PTSD,

01:18:38.800 whatever, I'm going to own my own, build my own business. I inspired other people. And this thing

01:18:43.800 that looked so painful actually turned into a great gift. Not only the great gift, it becomes the

01:18:48.320 greatest gift of your life. The greatest gift of your life. Dude, I know this. Okay. Like you guys,

01:18:52.420 a lot of you guys don't listen to the show regularly. 2003, I was stabbed in the face. I

01:18:57.120 almost died. Okay. For two years after that, I was a massive, like everyday suicidal depression.

01:19:04.380 Like every day, not only did I think about killing myself, I thought about how I would do it and how 0.97

01:19:09.540 I could do it to where it would be the least burdened on everybody else for fucking two years, 0.99

01:19:13.600 bro. So I know what that's like. All right. And then as you guys know, I met this woman in the 0.98

01:19:19.480 grocery store who had been burned beyond belief. Okay. She was missing a leg. She had been in a

01:19:25.900 small airplane crash. Her whole family is killed. And when you have a facial disfigurement, one of

01:19:31.920 two things is what happens. Okay. Either people look at you and it used to be a lot worse. It's 20

01:19:36.980 years ago. You know, my face on this, on the left side of my face was swollen up the side of a grapefruit

01:19:41.840 for about 18 months, a year to 18 months. And so I was very disfigured for a while and people will do

01:19:49.140 one of two things. They either look at you and they say, fuck dude, what happened to your face? 0.99

01:19:53.020 Or they don't look at you at all. They look at the ground or they look over here to the left or to 1.00

01:19:57.040 the right or over your head. They just will not look at you because they don't want to feel like

01:20:02.020 they're staring. But what it does is it dehumanizes you because you're like, fuck dude, nobody will even 0.99

01:20:07.600 look at me. And so when I met this lady in the grocery store, we were going down the aisle and I 0.99

01:20:14.800 bumped carts with her and I looked over at her and like, I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman

01:20:20.280 and it was a woman. And she goes, dude, the fuck happened to your face? Yeah. But her face is gone, 1.00

01:20:28.260 dude. Like her face was gone. And, uh, and we both laughed. We had this big laugh and like, dude,

01:20:34.180 it was 15 minutes. Like I still, part of me thinks that was God. And that was like, not even a real

01:20:39.420 thing because it totally changed my life. That one conversation I walked out of that store,

01:20:45.380 um, with a completely different perspective. And now, you know, when I, when I left that store

01:20:51.860 and I started looking at, okay, what are the good things that have happened to me because of this?

01:20:56.880 And what, what had been happening, but I hadn't noticed it was that in my business life, people

01:21:01.760 were starting to remember us. All right. We didn't, we weren't successful. Nobody knew who we were.

01:21:06.380 We didn't have money. Um, we weren't special, but people remember this as silly as this sounds.

01:21:12.460 The one thing I could be grateful for in that moment was that in business, people remembered me.

01:21:17.500 Right. So I thought about, I'm like, okay, well, that's a huge advantage. And I started thinking

01:21:21.300 about all these different advantages I had because of what happened. All right. And those advantages

01:21:26.260 carry to this day. And now 20 years, whatever it is, it was 2003. So almost 20 years later,

01:21:32.080 um, I looked back at it and not only do I say, man, I'm glad that actually happened. I say it's

01:21:37.620 the best fucking thing that ever happened to me in my life. And I could have very easily went down 0.99

01:21:42.040 the other path. Right. You know what I mean? I was very, very lucky. Like I don't talk about luck

01:21:46.300 very often, but I was very, very fortunate and lucky to run into that woman on that day.

01:21:51.560 Yes. Yes. And that's, and that's also, you know, a couple of different threads here, right?

01:21:56.440 The core of resilience, right? So when people think about resilience, they often have a, have a,

01:22:02.400 uh, I think an improper concept of resilience. We think of resilience as elasticity. It's like

01:22:08.440 a physics definition. Like you think of a ball and you squeeze it. And, and the measure of,

01:22:12.960 of resilience is how quickly it returns to its prior state. Human resilience doesn't work that way

01:22:18.560 because you're always changing in time. Right? So, so when, when you get hit by hardship,

01:22:24.140 it hits a moving object, like you're moving and hardship hits you and you are never the 23 year

01:22:31.400 old Marine who got hit by an RPG is never going to be the same kid as he was the day before he was

01:22:38.340 hit by an RPG. That is gone. And this is the truth. We're never going to be the people we were

01:22:43.460 yesterday. No matter what happens today, you cannot be the person who you were yesterday.

01:22:47.800 Well, and as a country, bro, we talk about this all the time. We're not going back to 2019.

01:22:51.620 It's not going to happen. It's like a lot of people are waiting. They're waiting and waiting

01:22:55.580 and waiting. And they think, and this goes back to your analogy of the country as a human and human

01:23:00.400 as a country. Guys, we ain't going back. No, correct. When they said new normal, they meant

01:23:05.860 that shit. Yeah. So if we want the way I see it and the way you and I've talked about it, 1.00

01:23:12.460 you know, we have the opportunity to recreate a better, a better place. We are. And that's the

01:23:18.780 thing is like, people see this as like, man, I want 2019. That was 2019. That fucking great.

01:23:24.440 Like to be completely honest, it was great compared to what we have, but we had a lot 0.99

01:23:28.160 of problems. We had a lot of division. We had a lot of apathy. We have a lot of laziness.

01:23:32.140 We have a lot of entitlement. We have a lot of issues in the country that need to be actually

01:23:35.580 addressed. And we have the opportunity because of the destruction and the crimes against humanity

01:23:41.520 that have been put down upon our society. And to be honest, the entire world over the last couple

01:23:47.280 of years to actually remove these people who created this from our leadership and build an

01:23:52.980 entirely new, actually free society. Yes. Yes. And we're not going back because it can't happen.

01:24:00.960 Yeah. It's just part of, it's part of the, and again, this is the kind of Greek view, the tragic 0.98

01:24:04.820 nature of human life. Like you're moving forward and you're going to be hit by hardship. So you have

01:24:09.080 to decide which direction you're going to go. And I agree. I think that there's so, this has

01:24:15.460 made people come alive. It's made people wake up and realize not just what we lost, but also what

01:24:24.380 we are facing. And everybody recognizes we need to step forward if we're going to, if we're going to

01:24:29.120 make it through. All right. So we have, but what here, but here's the key, whether it's a human being

01:24:34.260 or an Asian, like we have a choice. We have a choice about how we're going to deal with this. And I'm 1.00

01:24:38.640 here for the revival, right? Not just, not just at a personal level, but, but as, as a country.

01:24:43.220 And that's why, why everybody's listening to this. And your point, I think is the essential one is

01:24:48.380 that yes, I I'll win this race and I'll, and I'll be elected, but here's the key. Like me as one U S

01:24:55.800 Senator, like, or, or, or anybody, even as the president of the United States, you can't revive

01:25:02.000 a culture on your own. Leadership is essential, but everyone who's listening right now has a role to

01:25:07.860 play. That's right. You want to make the country stronger, make yourself strong. That's right.

01:25:11.160 You want to make the country stronger, make your business stronger. You want to make the country

01:25:14.540 stronger, make your community stronger, right? That we all have a role to play. And that's part

01:25:19.660 of the tremendous revival that's possible. And what we did also at the mission continues was

01:25:24.680 you got a lot of veterans who'd been through hardship together and they'd all do their individual

01:25:29.580 fellowships. But then we'd bring hundreds of people out, veterans and people who weren't veterans.

01:25:34.680 And we do, uh, you know, places where we'd go to a park, for example, and build baseball fields,

01:25:41.000 or we'd go into a school and everybody, hundreds of people would work in one day to transform the

01:25:46.040 school. And what you got then was it individual people who are all on their own journey of revival.

01:25:51.360 Like then they start to see there are all of these people who are doing positive things

01:25:55.880 together. And that is the, the incredible magic, right? When you take what's happening in one

01:26:02.560 person's life and you add it to two people and then three people, and then all of a sudden there's

01:26:06.640 a community. Yes. It's like throwing a stone in a pond. Yes. You know what I mean? The ripple,

01:26:12.000 no matter how little the stone is of, of improvement that you're making, people see it. And, and dude,

01:26:17.840 this, this nation, how, how we become great, isn't just telling people, Hey, you need to be better.

01:26:24.080 No, it's by, it's like what Vince Lombardi says. It's leading by example. It's not, it's not the

01:26:29.760 best way to lead. It's the only way to lead. So if you're a, if you're living like DJ in your

01:26:33.880 neighborhood, I can tell you this from a fact. All right. Because when I was 350 pounds, I had

01:26:40.200 neighbors and I had to get my fat ass out on the street and do the cardio and do all the work. 0.99

01:26:44.320 And guess what happened? Guess what started happening? I started seeing neighbors on the 0.98

01:26:48.580 street. I started seeing people. What happens around here in our office park? What do we see?

01:26:53.760 Yeah. Now we've got other companies. Everybody here is doing outside cardio. And when it's 10 degrees

01:26:59.400 outside and what do we see? Oh, the neighbors across over here who don't have anything to

01:27:04.460 do with fitness or health or anything are inspired to go out and do things that are difficult to

01:27:09.620 better themselves. And so you guys cannot underestimate the media, the political power

01:27:16.500 machine, the Hollywood, all of these things collude to make us feel like that we are little

01:27:22.680 characters in a play that doesn't really concern us. We're here to observe and we're not,

01:27:27.600 we're the fucking main actors of this play. Yeah. And unless we're getting out there 0.99

01:27:32.260 and doing our work and living our lives, other people are not getting out there doing the same

01:27:38.400 thing, which is what creates the complacency and the apathy that we have. A good thing is I believe

01:27:43.820 that it is changing. It is. It is. I believe people have like that narrative that I'm talking about

01:27:48.840 of suppressing the human spirit. I think people are starting to really understand how hard that's been

01:27:55.440 pressed upon us. We are very oppressed people here in America. Like people do not understand

01:27:59.940 suppressed. Yeah. Suppressed. Not we are free. Yes. Quote unquote free, but we, we are, we are

01:28:10.380 marketed to on a daily basis by, by trillions of dollars of power and outlets to be less than what

01:28:17.880 we were meant to be for a reason. And, and they benefit from that. That's right. I mean,

01:28:22.160 and look, think about this. You pay them to do it. Right. A lot of times. Yeah. Right. I mean,

01:28:27.080 think about this. It, you know, you go back, think about the, it's, it, it almost feels because

01:28:33.180 people are free of it now that the masks, think about that, putting masks that don't work on kids

01:28:40.700 who aren't susceptible to a virus. Like think about this, the government suppression,

01:28:44.960 like the government was going to order people to stay in their houses. The government ordered

01:28:48.920 people. You can't go to church. Government ordered people. Like this is a disgusting level of tyranny.

01:28:55.640 And, and the fact is with all of that, we either decide again, do we accept that? Or does everybody

01:29:02.900 say never again, never again, never, never, ever, ever again. Yeah. Dude, the, the whole,

01:29:08.960 the whole concept, like, here's what really boils me to, this is what boils me up when I, when I,

01:29:17.200 cause like, dude, I run a company. We have, we have a lot of employees. We have a close to 400

01:29:21.740 in-house and thousands and thousands remote. Um, so I understand how the backdoor conversations affect

01:29:31.860 the front facing operation, right? Right. Right. Like very well. Yes. And like, and most people

01:29:37.520 don't because they don't run a company of that size. Right. Right. So here's what fucking burns

01:29:41.880 my ass, bro. What are the conversations happening in private about, about us? Right. They are, 1.00

01:29:49.500 dude, if you guys could eat, if you guys could backtrack and really understand how that flow of

01:29:54.940 communication works to get the front facing result, I promise you, they are talking about us as if we

01:30:02.300 are insignificant little peasants that they rule over every single day. That is exactly what they

01:30:08.800 think. Yeah. They think that they are smarter than we are. They think that they are better than we are.

01:30:14.560 And they think that they have the right to rule over us. That's very clear. That is exactly what's

01:30:20.420 happening and they can't help themselves. It seeps out of every poor, their disdain for us. And it's

01:30:28.760 all rooted. This is part of the leftist ideology, right? And it's important to like, you go back

01:30:34.200 to think about like, what are the core beliefs that undergird this, you know, terrible, tyrannical

01:30:43.240 worldview. And one of them is that they believe that there are perfect solutions, right? One of the

01:30:49.760 things that people who live real lives know is that like life is, again, it's tragic in the sense that

01:30:54.760 there aren't perfect decisions. Sometimes in most of life, if you make this decision, it's good,

01:31:02.560 but it also has bad consequences. Like there's life isn't perfect. There's give and take in life.

01:31:08.080 Sometimes life is so beautiful that you cry, right? That's the nature of a real life. What leftists

01:31:14.340 believe is that they can perfectly dictate life's decisions to other people. And they think that

01:31:22.120 because they believe they are smarter than us, they should be able to dictate to us. And that's

01:31:28.980 where the entire leftist ideology comes from. That's why they believe in censorship because they truly

01:31:35.800 believe that there's a perfect answer, right? If you believe as our founding fathers did, if you believe

01:31:40.840 that life is fundamentally, you know, there's the whole idea of like Adam and Eve, right? It started

01:31:45.240 with the mistake, right? And then they, and then, and then the whole, the whole process, the whole

01:31:49.860 process begins. So if you have that worldview, then, and you understand that life isn't perfect,

01:31:57.780 then what it means is that you need to have practical wisdom. It means that you need to have

01:32:01.960 compassion. It means that you need to have courage. It means that you have to work in a world where

01:32:06.340 there aren't perfect choices. Leftists believe that they can tell you perfectly what to do,

01:32:12.060 which is why they want to censor you. And it's interesting to me too, because none of them

01:32:16.180 have ever done a fucking thing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Like dude, it was some point you look 0.98

01:32:21.840 around your life and you think, man, I, do I really have it figured out or do I not know that much?

01:32:27.280 You know what I'm saying? Of course. Like that would be a reasonable thought,

01:32:30.200 but they seem to miss that point. It's actually, it's a really experts on everything. Yeah. But,

01:32:34.480 but epidemiology from the fucking strategy. Yeah. From the basement of their middle-aged mom, 1.00

01:32:42.700 like I need another hot pocket. Look, dude, here's the thing. You know, we, we have to get to a point

01:32:50.960 where people understand what to do, because I think one of the biggest things that's going on at this

01:32:57.060 point, from my point of view, pretty wide range audience here. You know, I've got a lot of people

01:33:02.520 that really agree with everything. I say, I have a lot of people that don't, but still listen

01:33:05.680 because they, they, they're, they want to hear it. Bring in something. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh,

01:33:10.740 what I observe at this point in time is that everybody understands there's some really bad

01:33:14.920 problems, um, but they're not sure exactly what to do. And we cover the main thing that they need

01:33:19.980 to do, which is your own personal responsibility inside your own home. If you're not taking care of

01:33:25.700 yourself, start there. Okay. And that will ripple out. But the second thing that I wanted to touch on

01:33:30.480 while you're here, brother, is because a lot of people don't know who to vote for. Yeah. A lot

01:33:34.840 of people are like, shit, man, I've always went in and I've just checked the R's or I've checked the 1.00

01:33:39.120 D's and I vote to be honest with you. That's how I've always voted. I've always been someone who's 1.00

01:33:44.940 voted on the side with my thinking being, all right, well, I don't agree with the rights they say,

01:33:50.380 and I don't necessarily agree with what these guys say are full, but I feel like this is the better

01:33:54.400 option. But the problem is we can no longer vote like that because both sides are compromised.

01:34:01.600 So like, how do I know the, cause I get this question a lot, Andy, how do I know who to vote

01:34:07.240 for, man? I feel like everybody is lying. Yeah. So how do we, what could people do listening?

01:34:13.140 You know, maybe they're in, maybe they're in a Connecticut or maybe they're in Nevada or

01:34:17.620 wherever, but how do we, what should we be looking for? Well, first, first of all, I mean,

01:34:22.860 I think just again, always be honest and realistic with people. Like you may be in a situation where

01:34:29.660 there aren't good choices, right? And if you believe that most of the politicians are lying

01:34:33.920 to you, you're probably right. Okay. I would tell people trust their instincts. Okay. Trust your

01:34:39.920 instincts. When you, when you listen to, to most politicians who are talking, like you can tell,

01:34:45.160 like they either don't know what they're talking about. They don't really care about it. They

01:34:49.340 haven't done any real research on it and they're not fully invested. Now, of course, this isn't

01:34:54.180 everyone, right? But I think that what I would say to people is think of yourself as more than a voter.

01:35:02.560 Okay. If you think of your, of your civic engagement, right, as only voting, if you think of politics

01:35:08.120 as only voting, then, then we're playing into their game. Okay. So you go back, right? So, so

01:35:16.200 politics, right? What Aristotle talked about politics, it's the art and science of creating

01:35:20.920 and sustaining human communities, right? It comes from the polis, the Greek city state, right? So

01:35:25.440 how do you sustain your community? Well, politics is making sure that the kids in your local school

01:35:32.260 can read, right? Politics is making sure that you're taking care of your lawn, right? Politics

01:35:38.160 is making sure that you are an engaged citizen on your school board. And so if you think about

01:35:44.700 politics, just as voting, it will be, and often can be very disenchanting because you look up and

01:35:52.540 you're like, Hey, they, these aren't great choices, but I'll tell you this, you get involved

01:35:56.960 and figure out some way to get deeply involved. I'd say it's far, far better for the cultural

01:36:03.680 revival of this country. If people who are listening right now decide, you know what? I am going to

01:36:08.160 figure out who the best candidate for my school board is. And then not only am I going to try to

01:36:14.400 figure out who the 20 people are, who I need to vote for, I'm going to go all in for that candidate.

01:36:19.260 I'm going to try to teach people about this. I'm going to try to teach people about this.

01:36:22.980 I'm going to learn how politics works. I'm going to learn what it takes to order yard signs.

01:36:26.800 I'm going to learn what it means to knock on doors. And then, wow, then you're a threat

01:36:30.800 because then you found out what it means to actually learn and get behind one person. And

01:36:36.200 you know what? If you can do that with one person, then you can do it in the next cycle

01:36:39.960 with two. And then you can teach other people. Then you are a real threat to the uniparty.

01:36:44.460 Then you're a real threat to the establishment. So what I would say is, because oftentimes people

01:36:49.760 think, all right, well, you know, I got to vote in these 20 different elections, right? Okay. And yes,

01:36:54.020 you do, and you should do your research and talk to people and come up, you know,

01:36:57.360 vote for the most authentic people you can, right? But really, if you're going to get involved,

01:37:04.580 if you decide, I want to get involved, find one place and then go deeper, right? And it can be a

01:37:10.340 candidate for a statewide office. It can be a candidate for anything. And it doesn't also just

01:37:15.020 have to be in elected politics. You could decide there's a specific policy that I want to have

01:37:21.760 changed. Figure out how do you make your intersection safer? Now, this is a very small

01:37:28.480 thing, but if you actually figure out, you know what? I don't feel like this intersection is safe

01:37:33.160 enough for my kids. And then you go down and you figure out how the budget actually works and what

01:37:38.100 it actually takes to get the street department to come out and to put up an extra stop sign or to

01:37:43.060 change a stop sign to a red light. Then you're really engaged. And once you figured out how to do

01:37:49.320 one thing like that, it's going to be much easier to do two and to do three. And that,

01:37:54.940 if you're listening right now and you want to become a real threat to the political establishment,

01:38:00.680 figure out what it actually takes to help somebody make a transition from homelessness.

01:38:05.620 Figure out what it actually takes to help third graders who don't know how to read,

01:38:08.700 learn how to read. Figure out what it actually takes to make an intersection safer.

01:38:12.100 What you're doing here, dude, is Eric's uncovering the massive secret about politics is that if you 0.99

01:38:16.940 know shit and how to do it, you'll find out real quick who doesn't know. 0.99

01:38:20.700 Yes. 0.99

01:38:21.560 I was going to say this, man, like when it comes to like figuring out who's real.

01:38:25.900 And again, this goes back to 2015, man. It started with a fucking handshake. 0.99

01:38:30.280 Right. 1.00

01:38:30.700 You know what I'm saying? Like you're on the campaign trail right now, right?

01:38:33.160 Yes. 0.99

01:38:33.600 You're in a different city every fucking day, right? 0.99

01:38:36.340 Right. Right. We were just just in Kansas City, the two rallies. 1.00

01:38:39.120 Right.

01:38:39.420 Yeah.

01:38:39.660 You know what I'm saying? So you're moving around. So and I think the overarching message here

01:38:43.240 is guys, if you're listening, whether you're in Missouri, whether you're wherever, you got

01:38:48.220 to take some initiative.

01:38:49.300 Yes.

01:38:49.700 Right. You got to go to those rallies.

01:38:52.200 Yes.

01:38:52.420 Go to those little town halls.

01:38:53.860 Go to those Q&A sessions.

01:38:55.600 Yes.

01:38:56.000 Right. Go shake that candidate's hand.

01:38:58.000 Yes.

01:38:58.360 Because a lot I've always been a firm believer that you can tell a whole lot about a person

01:39:01.740 with a handshake.

01:39:03.020 100%.

01:39:03.340 Does that candidate look you in your eye?

01:39:05.140 Yes.

01:39:05.460 Right. Like, are they just moving and grooving? Are they just trying to get some photo ops?

01:39:08.800 Right.

01:39:09.060 Like, go. You got to take some initiative because that's really where it starts it.

01:39:13.060 Right. Now, can you do some research at home?

01:39:15.100 Yeah. But that's not enough.

01:39:16.740 At this point where we are as a kid, that's not enough.

01:39:19.320 I 100% agree with you.

01:39:21.400 Go there. Go there. Go to those sound halls, man.

01:39:23.160 Take initiative. I've been to two of yours so far.

01:39:25.520 And I would like, I mean, this is like a fucking Eric, you know, we're just tooting all of 0.98

01:39:29.880 his horns right now. 0.98

01:39:31.400 I'm loving it. I'm digging it.

01:39:32.400 Go on, DJ.

01:39:32.960 But it's real stuff, though, man.

01:39:34.700 Like, it's real. It's intentional.

01:39:36.060 And you can tell that, you know, you genuinely care.

01:39:39.880 And I know, I know, I mean, I just know, I know because we live in Missouri.

01:39:45.820 But guys, you can find these candidates everywhere.

01:39:47.780 There are real people more and more every single day that are stepping up to these plates that

01:39:51.540 say, hey, OK, hey, if not me, then who?

01:39:53.280 Yes.

01:39:53.520 I'll go fight this battle. I'll go lead this war.

01:39:55.520 Right.

01:39:56.440 You got to go.

01:39:57.200 You got to take some initiative.

01:39:58.280 Right.

01:39:58.460 Go get involved in that.

01:39:59.920 You know, it's super important.

01:40:00.920 And I was actually going to say this earlier, too, man, because it made me think about with

01:40:06.320 Roe v. Wade stuff and Justice Alito, you know, one of his comments was that, you know, it's

01:40:12.080 time to heed the Constitution and return it back to the people's elected representatives

01:40:16.960 back at the state level.

01:40:18.000 And so there's this mass growth of responsibility, I guess, or obligation that people are starting

01:40:27.000 to become aware of.

01:40:28.860 And I mean, what's your stand?

01:40:30.300 I mean, what's your...

01:40:31.160 I think to your point, I think it's a really important one.

01:40:34.400 Go out and meet a candidate.

01:40:35.800 Got to.

01:40:36.140 And it can be a candidate for mayor.

01:40:38.080 It can be a candidate for city hall.

01:40:39.260 But go out and meet one.

01:40:40.420 And you know what?

01:40:41.080 You may very well be disappointed.

01:40:43.200 OK, be disappointed.

01:40:44.320 Go meet a second one.

01:40:45.420 Right.

01:40:45.600 And you know what?

01:40:46.080 You come away, you're disappointed.

01:40:47.460 OK, you're disappointed.

01:40:48.440 Meet a third one.

01:40:49.140 You're disappointed.

01:40:50.000 And you know what?

01:40:50.560 A lot of people go and they meet three people and they say, you know what?

01:40:53.180 I can't believe these guys.

01:40:54.680 Like, they're all politicians.

01:40:56.060 They don't know anything about the issues.

01:40:57.740 I know more about this stuff than they do.

01:40:59.760 And then people see, hey, you can run.

01:41:02.860 Right, right.

01:41:03.460 All right.

01:41:03.900 Right.

01:41:04.240 But really, but if you're listening to this right now, the country is going to be far,

01:41:09.380 far better off with you as an engaged citizen.

01:41:12.760 So absolutely go out, shake their hands.

01:41:14.820 Listen to what they have to say.

01:41:16.680 Then go listen to their opponent.

01:41:19.240 Listen to what they have to say.

01:41:21.460 And then you can figure out not just who you're going to vote for, because voting is like,

01:41:28.160 you know, the ante to the game of citizenship.

01:41:32.560 Like, yes, of course you have to vote.

01:41:34.700 Right.

01:41:35.100 But the uniparty in the establishment wants you to think that's all you have to do.

01:41:40.840 Maybe you vote.

01:41:41.460 Maybe you don't.

01:41:42.440 If you're really engaged, if we have truly engaged citizens who know how stuff works

01:41:47.520 and are willing to get it done, that is how you really revive the country.

01:41:51.200 I'll tell you this.

01:41:51.780 You know, it used to be, oh, well, I don't like nobody, so I'm just not going to vote.

01:41:54.600 I'll tell you this right now.

01:41:55.620 A no vote, that's a vote for whoever.

01:41:58.760 Yes.

01:41:58.900 I'm telling you, you're going to be voting.

01:42:00.760 Have to.

01:42:01.460 Have to.

01:42:02.340 Have to.

01:42:02.480 I'm saying, like, whether you think you're voting or not, you're voting.

01:42:05.320 So you might as well vote.

01:42:06.380 You know what I'm saying?

01:42:07.820 Yes.

01:42:08.540 I'll say this.

01:42:09.060 I mean, another easy way.

01:42:09.880 I mean, we talk about this all the time.

01:42:10.900 Look at who their enemies are.

01:42:12.600 You know what I'm saying?

01:42:13.200 Like, that's a very, very easy way.

01:42:14.660 Who are they scared of?

01:42:15.900 You know what I'm saying?

01:42:16.500 Who are they making up stories about?

01:42:19.800 All right?

01:42:20.040 I only know two.

01:42:20.980 What was that guy's name?

01:42:22.040 Yeah.

01:42:22.420 One of them was named Donald Trump.

01:42:24.240 Yeah.

01:42:24.400 The other one here is sitting across from us.

01:42:27.100 Yeah.

01:42:30.880 That's a very easy telltale sign.

01:42:33.820 Yeah.

01:42:34.120 That's an easy telltale sign.

01:42:35.100 You want to look for who's real, look at who everybody hates.

01:42:37.520 What's that been like, bro?

01:42:38.940 Like, what's that been like to be a target where people are literally, because it's proven

01:42:44.020 now that both of these scenarios that you've been attacked for are false.

01:42:50.380 Completely false.

01:42:51.340 And, like, completely manufactured.

01:42:53.520 Completely false.

01:42:53.800 It's no different than what Hillary did with coming up with the Russia collusion on Trump.

01:42:59.520 Yeah.

01:43:01.180 First of all, that's treason.

01:43:02.760 But we could talk about that another time.

01:43:04.580 I've talked a lot about that.

01:43:05.860 But what's that like, dude?

01:43:07.660 Like, you know, so it's interesting.

01:43:11.360 It's different now than it was then, because I've changed.

01:43:15.180 Yeah.

01:43:15.340 Right?

01:43:15.540 So when it first, when it first happened, when the George Soros attack came, like, and

01:43:20.340 yes, it's been disproven.

01:43:21.680 It was charged with seven felonies for perjury and evidence tampering.

01:43:24.700 We've uncovered now, like, why they attacked me because, you know, we supported our police

01:43:29.100 officers.

01:43:29.460 We defeated Black Lives Matter and Antifa, all that stuff.

01:43:32.180 Like, that's all been out there, even though the George Soros-funded prosecutor admitted

01:43:37.520 to wrongdoing.

01:43:38.800 But in the beginning, the truth is, I was scared.

01:43:43.000 It was scary.

01:43:44.180 Yeah.

01:43:44.600 Like, you had a George Soros-funded prosecutor come after you, saying the vilest, nasty things

01:43:50.780 about you, and they print them all over the world.

01:43:54.920 But what's that like, like, knowing, like, that it's false, right?

01:44:02.580 And seeing everybody go run with it.

01:44:06.020 Like, doesn't there need to be some reform to some sort?

01:44:09.500 Oh, for sure.

01:44:09.960 For sure.

01:44:10.280 Well, there is.

01:44:11.240 So, side note, yes, there needs to be massive reform.

01:44:14.460 Okay?

01:44:14.820 Yeah.

01:44:15.200 The journalists can no longer lie, and that's all they do.

01:44:21.460 They literally lie about people and get away with it because they're, quote, public figures.

01:44:27.100 They're allowed to say anything that they want about a, you know, supposed public figure.

01:44:31.640 They can just lie.

01:44:33.140 100% that has to be changed, and they need to be held accountable for it.

01:44:37.700 But in terms of, you know, what it's like, in the beginning, it was scary in part because,

01:44:44.500 again, I always look, if there's ever a challenge, I always look at myself first.

01:44:48.760 I think, like, what can I do better?

01:44:50.120 What did I need to learn more?

01:44:51.660 Right?

01:44:51.940 Of.

01:44:52.620 And one of the things, one of the places where I failed is that I believed that the truth

01:45:00.620 was going to matter.

01:45:02.880 Yeah.

01:45:03.600 To people.

01:45:04.200 And I believe that, you know, the newspaper could write a headline, Soros-funded prosecutor

01:45:10.080 charges Eric Raines with no evidence.

01:45:12.740 Like, that would have been an accurate headline, right?

01:45:15.140 But they didn't care.

01:45:16.480 No, it was a perception.

01:45:16.860 They literally don't care.

01:45:17.800 I just had a conversation with a media outlet.

01:45:21.460 Right?

01:45:21.820 About this latest nonsense.

01:45:22.940 And I said to them, and I'm on the phone with somebody who had, and I was on the phone

01:45:28.500 with them for 45 minutes.

01:45:30.640 They had broadcast lies literally around the world.

01:45:34.000 And I said to them, will you write a true story?

01:45:37.560 Like, well, we wanted to talk with you about the politics of it.

01:45:40.420 And I said, will you write a true story?

01:45:43.000 Not what I think is true.

01:45:44.460 Right.

01:45:44.660 But will you believe what you believe is true?

01:45:47.600 I said, I will give you all of the evidence.

01:45:49.680 Like, we already blew away all of this nonsense, right?

01:45:52.560 100% people have read, right?

01:45:54.480 We've got everything that blew it away.

01:45:57.360 But they wouldn't write a true story.

01:45:59.800 They literally refused to write a true story.

01:46:02.100 I said, well, I mean, that's above my pay grade.

01:46:03.860 I don't know.

01:46:04.020 No, it's not, dude.

01:46:05.040 You can write, it should have been.

01:46:08.600 So one of the mistakes that I made early on was I thought that that mattered.

01:46:13.440 And again, I went back and I read, I find a lot of comfort reading history.

01:46:18.840 So I went back and I look at Winston Churchill, who went through a very similar thing, like

01:46:23.340 when he was about my age, he was falsely blamed for Gallipoli, right?

01:46:28.380 He was falsely blamed for tens of thousands of people losing their lives.

01:46:32.560 It was not his fault.

01:46:33.880 And all those lies actually haunted him all the way up until the beginning of World War

01:46:39.540 II, okay?

01:46:40.660 People would yell, what about Gallipoli?

01:46:42.560 What about Gallipoli?

01:46:43.780 And yes, there was later a commission that did a full look into Gallipoli, completely exonerated

01:46:50.040 Churchill for it.

01:46:51.100 But he was lied about.

01:46:53.700 He was falsely blamed for it.

01:46:55.300 He had to resign his position from government.

01:46:57.660 He actually went back to the trenches of World War I.

01:47:00.240 And so for me, part of what I had to recognize was that these lies that they, they put out

01:47:09.440 lies against people who are threats and this is what they do and they're going to do it

01:47:14.740 forever.

01:47:15.300 So now I actually said to somebody, I find it somewhat comforting because it means that I'm

01:47:20.280 doing great work.

01:47:21.160 I said, I hope that every single week until the week that I pass from this earth, they 0.55

01:47:27.500 write some nasty lie about me because that means that I'm still making a difference.

01:47:32.820 If they start ignoring me and they're not lying about me, it means that I'm not making a difference.

01:47:39.040 Girl, I think people understand this.

01:47:41.580 I think the media has to be completely rebuilt.

01:47:44.660 I mean, 100%.

01:47:45.720 Look, I've been lied about too. 0.99

01:47:48.600 I've had hit pieces done on me and fucking good morning America. 0.99

01:47:51.460 Okay. 0.97

01:47:52.000 Like, dude, you know what happened when that happened? 0.99

01:47:55.580 My shit went up. 0.99

01:47:56.640 My sales went up. 1.00

01:47:58.080 Right.

01:47:58.240 Podcast went up.

01:47:59.160 Right.

01:47:59.480 Everything went up.

01:48:00.300 So, like, that should tell you that people are realizing, like, if you haven't caught

01:48:05.160 on yet, I'm just telling you, like, whatever they say, oh, that guy bad, that's the good

01:48:10.500 guy.

01:48:11.100 Right.

01:48:11.440 Like, that's the guy.

01:48:12.660 It's almost guaranteed across any issue.

01:48:15.440 It is.

01:48:16.040 Any issue.

01:48:16.480 Whatever they're peddling is probably 70% wrong, if not 100% wrong.

01:48:22.200 Yes.

01:48:22.840 Yes.

01:48:22.940 The question is, who are they not talking to?

01:48:25.080 You know what I'm saying?

01:48:25.740 When it comes to, I mean, because again, when it comes to, you know, how do we know who's

01:48:29.500 real?

01:48:29.700 Who are they not talking about?

01:48:31.040 Well, when you look at politics, right, being a rhino, right, being somebody who's just up 0.93

01:48:36.420 at Capitol Hill or at a state capitol, it's a nice life.

01:48:41.440 They have lobbyists buying them steak dinners.

01:48:43.840 They get floated around.

01:48:45.200 They get all these people who, you know, come and ask for their opinion.

01:48:48.980 They give a speech here and there.

01:48:50.400 They don't actually work that hard.

01:48:52.240 Right.

01:48:52.580 And they are, and the mainstream media is always writing nice stuff about them.

01:48:57.980 Right.

01:48:58.580 Yeah.

01:48:58.780 But it's the people who are a real threat they go after.

01:49:02.480 And the bigger threat you are, the more viciously they will attack you.

01:49:07.780 Because there are no rules on this side.

01:49:09.040 Yeah.

01:49:09.400 Zero rules.

01:49:10.520 I like it.

01:49:11.480 I like it now. 0.89

01:49:12.580 Like, dude, the first time it happened to me, like for two days, I'm like, holy shit, 0.92

01:49:18.020 life's over. 0.95

01:49:19.700 Companies are all broke.

01:49:21.480 And I'm like, I'm calling the guys.

01:49:24.200 I'm like, hey, how are sales today?

01:49:25.540 And they're like, they're great.

01:49:27.140 And I'm like, how was customer service today?

01:49:30.440 And they're like, it was awesome.

01:49:31.840 Everybody was happy.

01:49:32.680 Right.

01:49:33.200 I'm like, all right, well, maybe tomorrow.

01:49:35.580 Yeah.

01:49:35.940 Right.

01:49:36.400 Definitely tomorrow.

01:49:37.240 The next day, I'm like, all right, what happened today?

01:49:40.240 They're like, nothing, dude. 0.99

01:49:41.120 What the fuck's wrong with you? 0.99

01:49:42.340 And I'm like, nothing, man. 0.99

01:49:44.820 Because I didn't want to make it like, I was like, okay, I would try to keep it small.

01:49:48.480 Right.

01:49:48.780 And they're like, dude, we're getting these emails in from people saying they saw you on

01:49:52.460 Good Morning America. 0.93

01:49:53.300 It was fucking awesome. 0.96

01:49:54.420 Yeah. 0.93

01:49:56.320 Bro, that's how it works now.

01:49:58.620 Yes.

01:49:59.100 That's how it works.

01:50:00.300 So, like, dude, the more they attack, it's weird, too, because then you have these other

01:50:06.340 politicians who are, like, piling on the attacks.

01:50:09.140 And it's like, oh, really?

01:50:11.880 Right.

01:50:12.320 Oh, okay.

01:50:12.820 Well, now I know who you are and what you're about.

01:50:15.500 Yes.

01:50:16.200 Yes.

01:50:16.700 Yeah.

01:50:17.100 Just wait, because there's a lot of Trojan horses. 0.62

01:50:19.180 You're going to have some politicians.

01:50:20.060 I'm like, hey, look, guys, I did something bad, too, for real. 0.99

01:50:21.920 Yeah, no shit, dude. 0.99

01:50:23.020 Come help me out. 0.99

01:50:23.760 Ride a bad story. 0.99

01:50:24.200 No shit. 0.99

01:50:24.740 So, dude, we're closing in on two hours, man, and that's, like, the max listener time. 0.99

01:50:30.120 Cool, cool.

01:50:31.060 I love that you stopped by, brother.

01:50:33.060 Thanks, man.

01:50:33.540 And, like, I would like you to come by again soon.

01:50:36.180 For sure.

01:50:36.580 And let's pick this back up.

01:50:37.660 Yeah.

01:50:37.920 And talk about, from here, how do we do this?

01:50:41.780 Yes.

01:50:42.160 You know what I mean?

01:50:42.580 Yes.

01:50:42.700 Because, like, I think today, you know, I felt like when we had you first on the show,

01:50:46.800 it was great.

01:50:47.560 We had a good conversation.

01:50:48.380 But people didn't realize where your desire and want to solve these problems comes from.

01:50:54.040 And I wanted them to hear that.

01:50:56.600 I wanted them to understand, like, this isn't some person who is tied in with all these people

01:51:02.720 who's going to go there and go along with the status quo.

01:51:07.740 This is a fighter.

01:51:08.660 This is a man who is going to stand up for what he believes is right and wrong, regardless

01:51:12.860 of who comes after him.

01:51:14.100 And this is, you guys that like Trump, this is a guy that has that grit, that has that

01:51:19.580 ability to stand up and say, hey, you know what?

01:51:22.480 This is how it is.

01:51:23.600 This is who I am.

01:51:24.860 You know, one of the things that I thought was, I'll tell this story, and I don't know 0.99

01:51:29.840 if it's appropriate or not, but I don't really give a shit. 0.99

01:51:32.220 It's your show, man. 0.99

01:51:33.100 Come on now.

01:51:33.880 Well, I got a sign in my garage that says Mary Jane.

01:51:36.840 All right?

01:51:37.240 Because guess what?

01:51:38.040 I'm in the cannabis business.

01:51:39.220 And guess what people in the cannabis business do? 1.00

01:51:41.200 They fucking smoke cannabis. 1.00

01:51:42.820 All right? 1.00

01:51:43.160 And so we're having this big event at my house for Eric.

01:51:46.780 And I'm like, hey, man, like, I don't want any of your people to get like rubbed the

01:51:51.420 wrong way.

01:51:51.840 You want me to take that sign down?

01:51:53.100 You know what his response was?

01:51:54.660 No, man.

01:51:55.340 We are who we are. 0.99

01:51:56.420 And if they don't like a tough shit, we're not going to hide from anybody. 0.99

01:51:59.520 We're going to fight for whatever it is we are. 0.99

01:52:01.380 And our differences matter.

01:52:03.680 So we should collaborate with people who are different thinkers.

01:52:07.000 And if we go and censor ourselves from who we are, people don't realize that we have differences.

01:52:11.780 And that's a problem. 0.98

01:52:13.140 And, dude, that was when I knew, like, for sure, I'm like, this is my fucking guy right 0.98

01:52:16.480 here. 0.99

01:52:16.720 Yeah.

01:52:17.200 You know?

01:52:17.900 And do you remember that?

01:52:19.100 I do.

01:52:19.420 Of course.

01:52:19.660 Of course.

01:52:20.380 Yeah.

01:52:20.620 Yeah.

01:52:20.720 Because I was like, man, you know, like, there's a lot of important people coming.

01:52:24.100 And I just hung the sign.

01:52:25.160 Oh, my God.

01:52:26.080 But, but, but yeah, guys, it's, you know, I just, I'm excited.

01:52:31.920 I feel hope for America way more than I have the last couple of years because people are

01:52:38.400 starting to understand.

01:52:39.440 Like, I'm having conversations with people who typically I wouldn't, who are like, man,

01:52:45.300 you know, I don't like, dude, I'm talking about extremely liberal people who understand 0.98

01:52:51.440 like, oh, shit, this has gone too far. 0.98

01:52:54.460 It's way out of line. 0.99

01:52:55.780 And, you know, I had, I've been comfortable for too long.

01:52:58.640 I had one of my most liberal, one of the most liberal people I know, a female who, you 1.00

01:53:05.080 know, we, we, we don't talk that much because we clearly knew it was funny because a couple

01:53:10.640 of years ago, she DM me and this, she's in my family and she DM me and I just DMed her

01:53:15.440 back.

01:53:15.720 I'm like, why do you DM me?

01:53:16.940 It's like, I'm not in the mood to argue.

01:53:18.860 Like, I know what you're doing.

01:53:20.800 And she's like, actually, I don't want to argue.

01:53:23.440 I've actually changed a lot.

01:53:24.960 And, and, and I just was curious as your perspective.

01:53:27.300 And from that conversation, now we've developed a whole entire new relationship based upon

01:53:32.900 respecting each other's perspectives.

01:53:35.100 Yes.

01:53:35.620 And we may not agree with every single thing or every single issue, but I respect the fact

01:53:40.200 that she understands where she stands and is willing to, to go get involved in those,

01:53:45.040 in those causes, even if they're not the causes that I'm about.

01:53:48.040 And she respects the same about me.

01:53:50.000 And like, dude, that what's more American.

01:53:51.720 That's fantastic.

01:53:52.960 And, and I think what's really important here is that if we are going to take the country

01:53:57.520 back, one of the things that we have to do, okay. 0.96

01:54:00.460 The leftists are hate filled. 1.00

01:54:02.380 They write nasty lies. 1.00

01:54:03.980 They write people off.

01:54:05.620 They already have all of their judgments about all of us.

01:54:09.020 We have to keep an open heart.

01:54:10.800 We have to recognize that people are capable of change.

01:54:13.760 Yeah.

01:54:13.900 We have to recognize that if you have a tough, cool life experience, you might come out the

01:54:18.260 other side and think differently.

01:54:19.760 We have to recognize, we have to stay curious ourselves so that we continue to learn and we

01:54:24.880 continue to grow.

01:54:25.740 And we also have to keep our hearts open.

01:54:27.960 Like that's the way that the country is going to grow is that we have to recognize, yeah,

01:54:33.180 there might be some people who we disagreed with last week and you know what?

01:54:36.860 They might teach us something and, and we might be able to find ways, ways to work together.

01:54:43.520 The, the establishment works if everybody's frozen.

01:54:48.880 Okay.

01:54:49.380 If we're frozen and just fighting each other, there's no way out.

01:54:53.960 Well, a lot of people don't realize, bro, that that's what they did with COVID.

01:54:56.760 They, they brought that division down to inside the household. 0.52

01:55:00.800 Yeah.

01:55:01.380 That was intentional.

01:55:02.380 Yes.

01:55:02.800 Sorry to interrupt.

01:55:03.640 No, no, no.

01:55:04.060 Look, it's what they're doing with critical race theory in the U S military.

01:55:07.580 Are you kidding me?

01:55:09.300 The U S military is the most well-integrated institution in the history of planet earth.

01:55:13.360 What do they do?

01:55:14.020 They trying to sow discord, right?

01:55:16.020 So one of the things that we have to do, the leftists, again, they hate the country.

01:55:19.940 A lot of them hate themselves.

01:55:21.200 We have to lead with compassion, right?

01:55:23.560 At the end of the day, right, when you talk about courage, not just political courage,

01:55:27.980 moral courage, emotional courage, what is courage?

01:55:30.520 Really courage is love and action, right?

01:55:33.700 That's what courage really is.

01:55:35.220 It's because you love something.

01:55:36.620 You're willing to face fear because you love something.

01:55:38.600 You're willing to take on odds.

01:55:39.800 And we have to have the courage to keep our hearts open.

01:55:43.520 Even though after all of the nastiness and the attacks, it might be easy to close that

01:55:47.840 down.

01:55:48.280 You got to keep your heart open to the possibility that life's going to teach you things.

01:55:53.000 And that other people that who you may have just disagreed with or actually, you know,

01:55:59.300 been, been at, at odds with can actually be forgiven.

01:56:02.980 Absolutely.

01:56:03.640 And we got to ask grace on an individual level.

01:56:06.140 Everybody needs grace.

01:56:07.160 We need accountability for the people who masterminded this stuff.

01:56:10.480 You and I have talked about this a lot.

01:56:12.080 Like, look, I will not die from this planet without that happening.

01:56:16.400 Yeah. 0.99

01:56:16.900 Unless they kill me. 0.93

01:56:17.880 Because like, dude, to me, that's the number one issue.

01:56:20.000 The crimes against humanity, the lies, the unnecessary deaths, like the bent statistics, 1.00

01:56:28.240 the flat out made up shit. 1.00

01:56:30.540 Have to be held accountable. 1.00

01:56:31.260 And kill people. 0.99

01:56:31.800 Have to be held accountable. 1.00

01:56:32.920 And divided families.

01:56:34.320 It costs jobs.

01:56:35.160 And this, listen, I know a lot of young people listening to the show.

01:56:38.540 You guys think that this was just like a hard time.

01:56:40.800 This was unprecedented treason that happened.

01:56:44.640 Okay.

01:56:45.540 I don't know if you feel that strongly.

01:56:46.960 Yes, I do.

01:56:47.700 Yes, I do.

01:56:48.360 And people, and I've said, people need to be held accountable.

01:56:51.820 Yes.

01:56:52.140 Put on trial.

01:56:52.900 But on a family level, on a family level, and by the way, that's why I'm donating seven 1.00

01:56:58.660 figures to your shit. 1.00

01:56:59.640 Thanks, brother. 1.00

01:57:00.200 Thank you. 0.99

01:57:00.660 Because I want motherfuckers that are going to go in and hold these people accountable. 1.00

01:57:04.640 But dude, we, and by the way, just so you got, because I know a lot of people listen 0.98

01:57:09.020 to the show, you guys who are asking, you could donate on Eric's site.

01:57:14.240 Yeah, you can go to ericgreitens.com, sign up to volunteer, sign up to donate, be honored

01:57:19.980 to have you.

01:57:20.460 And there's caps there that you can give.

01:57:22.200 Yeah, there's caps.

01:57:23.780 So you can give a max of $2,900 per individual to the primary campaign.

01:57:30.200 And there are other organizations who I know you're your support.

01:57:33.020 Yeah, yeah.

01:57:33.040 Well, I was going to mention the one I'm giving to.

01:57:34.900 Please, please, yeah.

01:57:35.700 So I did some research, and there's a lot of different, like a lot of you guys that

01:57:39.560 don't understand how this works.

01:57:41.060 You could only donate a certain amount to the candidate directly.

01:57:44.760 But then what you do is you find a political action committee that is willing to donate.

01:57:48.840 And I found one that is only for Eric Greitens.

01:57:52.080 It's run by a guy in Kansas City.

01:57:53.860 It's called Missouri First Action.

01:57:55.940 That's the pack I'm going to give my money to.

01:57:58.700 So if you're wondering how do you donate, Missouri First Action is the pack.

01:58:02.840 It's run out of Kansas City.

01:58:04.480 Yeah.

01:58:05.700 And that's how you can give above the limit.

01:58:07.760 But that's what I'm doing. 0.99

01:58:09.120 Because this shit's important. 0.99

01:58:11.000 Okay? 1.00

01:58:11.280 And I can't just step away from my company and go running.

01:58:15.880 I can't do that yet.

01:58:16.740 I'm not up to a point.

01:58:17.920 So you're my guy, dude.

01:58:19.020 Thanks, brother.

01:58:19.440 Yeah.

01:58:19.800 Thank you.

01:58:20.160 Thank you.

01:58:20.780 Thank you. 1.00

01:58:21.160 Let's wreck these motherfuckers. 1.00

01:58:22.200 Let's do it. 1.00

01:58:22.540 Let's get it done.

01:58:23.320 Let's get it done.

01:58:24.320 But guys, I would ask, you know, like, support this man as if you were supporting me. 0.99

01:58:29.500 Like, if I was running and you were running to give me some shit, give it to this guy. 0.99

01:58:32.920 Okay? 1.00

01:58:33.140 Give it to Ian Smith.

01:58:33.980 These guys who are real people, who I know very, very well, and I trust that they are 0.99

01:58:40.700 going to go in and kick ass for us. 0.99

01:58:44.000 And bro, I'm just, this last couple of years has been so fucking hard for everybody. 1.00

01:58:50.880 And I'm just glad that you decided to come back and give this a run after all the shit 0.99

01:58:56.140 they put you through. 0.99

01:58:56.940 Thanks, man. 0.95

01:58:57.340 Because we can't fucking quit, dude. 0.90

01:59:00.440 No, we can't. 0.98

01:59:00.840 You know what I'm saying?

01:59:01.520 No, we can't.

01:59:01.920 Like, we cannot quit on these people.

01:59:03.360 Like, you guys who are out there struggling and you're miserable and things are tough,

01:59:08.880 understand that these people have made it intentionally hard for you.

01:59:12.420 This is not what America should be.

01:59:14.040 This is not how we should be treating each other.

01:59:15.860 And to my point of grace, while we do need to hold the people who did this accountable,

01:59:21.620 we need to have grace with our family members.

01:59:24.080 Yes.

01:59:24.280 We need to have grace with our people in our community. 0.99

01:59:26.220 The people who, maybe on Facebook or Instagram, said some shit like, you know, like Andy 1.00

01:59:32.440 Frisella belongs in a fucking camp because he won't get it. 1.00

01:59:34.980 Look, I understand this is a huge psychological operation that was put down and I hold no 0.99

01:59:41.420 ill will towards those people, but you guys have to wake up and we got to have grace on

01:59:45.880 that level of where we're going to be united.

01:59:47.440 Yes, 100%.

01:59:48.080 Yeah.

01:59:48.400 But look, we all need it.

01:59:49.880 Yeah.

01:59:50.020 And we have to, we have to, as leaders, we have to, as community members, like, we got

01:59:53.900 to embody it.

01:59:54.680 Yeah.

01:59:54.860 We want to have a country where this, this is, this was a country founded on people who

02:00:01.580 were fleeing their old lives, came to this country to build a new life.

02:00:05.960 It's been a, been a country where everybody got not just a chance, but second and third

02:00:10.680 chances, right?

02:00:11.840 That's part of the promise of America is that you can rebuild yourself.

02:00:16.200 You can go through some really hard times and you can come out and you can build a new

02:00:21.400 life.

02:00:22.180 It's the only place in the world.

02:00:23.340 It's the only place in the world where that's, that's, that's possible.

02:00:26.220 And so what does that mean?

02:00:27.300 That means that we have to have grace.

02:00:28.720 Yeah.

02:00:29.200 And yes, we're going to hold them all accountable.

02:00:31.160 Yeah.

02:00:32.020 And at the community level with our neighbors for ourselves, we have to be able to forgive.

02:00:37.000 We got to have grace.

02:00:38.140 That's right.

02:00:38.660 Because dude, if we held everybody accountable, there'd be problems.

02:00:43.400 We'd all be in camp.

02:00:44.020 But like, dude, this is the thing, dude, this is the thing that I try to say on the show.

02:00:48.600 Cause like, dude, we do have some aggressive minded people on the show, which I appreciate

02:00:51.940 them too.

02:00:52.700 But you guys have to understand that these people who have been out championing these

02:00:59.460 causes for these people at the top, they are taking, they're being taken advantage of.

02:01:03.780 They're being lied to.

02:01:05.060 They are being threatened and fear mongered into believing certain things that just happen

02:01:10.000 to be not true.

02:01:10.680 And if you want to really talk about what they are, they're victims of a trillion dollar 0.99

02:01:15.600 fucking propaganda machine. 0.98

02:01:16.940 And we cannot expect that our neighbor, Steve, to understand that what the news is saying 1.00

02:01:25.140 is a complete lie.

02:01:26.900 Like we, I'm not, look, I'm not going to get into, I've talked for two years about this. 0.99

02:01:31.080 Y'all know where I stand, but I just want to get this shit back on track. 0.95

02:01:36.060 Well, the key, the key distinction I'd offer is there's some real evil people who did evil 0.98

02:01:41.820 and they need to be held accountable.

02:01:44.200 And when I use that word evil, I use it intentionally, not metaphorically.

02:01:48.420 Like this is real evil.

02:01:49.860 Letting murderers loose onto the streets, right?

02:01:53.060 That's what these Soros funder prosecutors done. 0.75

02:01:54.980 That is evil, right?

02:01:56.880 Making kids who have disabilities, forcing them to stay out of school when this thing posed 1.00

02:02:01.880 no threat to them at all.

02:02:03.040 That is evil and they knew it closing the entire middle-class business, shutting it

02:02:08.840 all down and sending them to the big box retailers and online their buddies.

02:02:13.640 Yes.

02:02:14.300 That's insane.

02:02:15.060 It was absolutely insane.

02:02:16.760 And they have to be held accountable.

02:02:18.680 And let's also recognize like they own almost all of Hollywood.

02:02:23.520 They own almost all of the media.

02:02:25.440 They own almost all of, of higher education, right?

02:02:29.340 So there are a lot of good people who got misled by their lies, right?

02:02:33.500 And you know what?

02:02:34.500 Like they got misled by their lies.

02:02:36.240 We need to have some grace for all of them because it's an extraordinarily powerful force,

02:02:42.700 right?

02:02:43.280 That they bring when they tell these lies.

02:02:45.180 Well, I think it's important too, guys.

02:02:46.760 Like a lot of people here on the show that listen, you know, we have millions of listeners

02:02:49.960 on this show, guys, you cannot expect people to join your cause when you ridicule them constantly

02:02:57.080 and keep attacking them.

02:02:59.000 At some point, you're going to have to say, Hey, I forgive you, bro.

02:03:02.660 Like I get it. 0.99

02:03:03.340 Like that was fucked up for you. 1.00

02:03:04.540 And it was fucked up for me. 1.00

02:03:05.680 And we're still family. 0.99

02:03:06.520 Yeah.

02:03:06.940 And, and you have to, you have to make sure that your purpose is larger than being right.

02:03:15.240 That's it, man.

02:03:16.360 That, that your purpose is larger than also some slight.

02:03:20.300 A lot of people say to me like, well, what about, you know, the people who attack, attack,

02:03:23.880 attack me?

02:03:24.460 Like, obviously like God's going to do justice to them and I want and need them to be held

02:03:29.640 accountable.

02:03:30.320 But my purpose, this is also how they win.

02:03:33.300 And my purpose is much larger than getting back at people who falsely attacked me.

02:03:39.500 Right.

02:03:40.000 And we're going to create a past, a prosperous, free, best America that's ever existed.

02:03:46.000 Ever existed.

02:03:47.120 So that people can never have the opportunity to clean it out.

02:03:49.720 Like we have this time.

02:03:50.680 This is a tremendous opportunity so that people can look back a hundred years from now and say,

02:03:56.320 wow, this was a generation.

02:03:58.260 It was handed a tremendous amount of hardship and look how they responded.

02:04:03.880 Well, bro, I know you got to run.

02:04:05.820 Thanks, brother.

02:04:06.300 Thank you so much for stopping by.

02:04:07.820 Good to be on with you, man.

02:04:08.880 Thanks.

02:04:09.160 Maybe a couple of weeks.

02:04:09.940 We'll hit it again.

02:04:10.620 For sure.

02:04:11.000 Finish this next plan. 0.66

02:04:12.100 Killer. 0.88

02:04:12.540 All right. 0.99

02:04:12.760 Let's do it.

02:04:13.220 All right.

02:04:13.480 All right, guys.

02:04:14.160 Thank you for the, for the show.

02:04:17.020 There's a fee.

02:04:18.160 If you didn't get value out of that show, it's the best we got.

02:04:20.560 So you might as well just unsubscribe.

02:04:23.660 So on behalf of DJ and Eric and the team here, love you guys.

02:04:27.500 Appreciate you guys.

02:04:28.400 And see you next time.

02:04:29.300 We're sleeping on the floor.

02:04:32.280 Now my jewelry box froze. 1.00

02:04:33.980 Fuck a pole. 1.00

02:04:34.780 Fuck a stove. 1.00

02:04:35.640 Counted millions in the cold. 1.00

02:04:37.320 Bad bitch. 1.00

02:04:38.140 Booted. 1.00

02:04:38.560 Swole.

02:04:38.980 Got her on bankroll.

02:04:40.620 Can't fold.

02:04:41.500 Doesn't know.

02:04:42.300 Headshot.

02:04:43.120 Case closed.

02:04:43.840 Coat.

02:04:44.160 Coat.

02:04:51.520 Coat.

02:04:52.180 Coat.

02:04:52.780 Coat.

02:04:53.080 Coat.

02:04:53.380 Coat.

02:04:53.440 Coat.

02:04:53.540 Coat.

02:04:53.780 Coat.

02:04:54.560 Coat.

02:05:03.180 Coat.

02:05:03.920 Coat.

02:05:04.300 Coat.

02:05:04.780 Coat.

02:05:05.380 Coat.

02:05:05.780 Coat.

02:05:06.240 Coat.

02:05:06.480 Coat.

02:05:06.980 Coat.

02:05:07.080 Coat.

02:05:11.480 Coat.

02:05:12.360 Coat.

REAL AF with Andy Frisella - May 06, 2022

288. American Revival Part 3 Ft. Eric Greitens

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript