REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 512. Special Ops To Breaking Records Ft. Dean Stott

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

00:00:20.740 the lies, the fakeness and delusions of modern society and welcome to motherfucking reality

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00:02:04.040 it. That's real simple. So with that being said, we do have an amazing full length episode for you

00:02:09.980 guys today with a good buddy of mine, Mr. Dean Stott. What's up, bro?

00:02:15.120 Hey, how are you? Thanks for having me.

00:02:16.420 How are you, brother?

00:02:17.220 Yeah, good. Yeah. I know it's been some time before we met. I actually got a diaries to align.

00:02:21.580 Yeah. Yeah. Well, we've had a show on the books. Another time we had to reschedule and we're

00:02:27.040 trying to get this done for a long time.

00:02:28.640 Yeah. Yeah. It's been a while. Yeah. It's been a while.

00:02:30.340 Yeah. So how's everything? How was the trip in?

00:02:32.720 Yeah. Tripping was good. Yeah. Now currently in Orange County.

00:02:35.720 Yeah. In California. Yeah. Moved there two years ago with my wife and two kids at the

00:02:40.860 time. Now have three kids. Yeah. Congrats.

00:02:43.380 So we just took advantage of the COVID situation. Me and my wife were very busy with life and

00:02:50.020 we sort of blinked. We always wanted to move to America. Blinked, turned our head and we

00:02:54.440 had a nine-year-old and a four-year-old. And so while the world was paused, we thought

00:02:58.240 we'd take advantage of this situation and take the leap. Otherwise 10 years would pass and

00:03:03.360 we'd probably be kicking ourselves if we didn't. So couldn't actually get into America straight

00:03:08.380 away. So we had to go to Mexico for 14 days and bounced in from there. But-

00:03:13.820 So you come across the border?

00:03:15.260 Came across the border. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Legally.

00:03:17.800 Swim across the river?

00:03:18.720 Yeah. Yeah. All right.

00:03:19.720 There's a couple of tunnels.

00:03:20.600 All right.

00:03:22.900 But yeah, we didn't know where we were going to. We looked at LA and then my wife was on

00:03:27.160 Zillow. The school ratings were pushing us further south in Orange County. And we just,

00:03:32.020 yeah, we flew in and the embassies were all shut at the time. So your normal process of

00:03:37.160 moving to the US would be get your visas and everything sorted first and then come in.

00:03:42.860 But we did it the reverse. So we're there now.

00:03:45.360 Everything's working out though?

00:03:46.360 Everything's working out now. Green card's through and yeah, you've got no regrets at

00:03:50.860 all. It's probably the best decision. And unfortunately, COVID wasn't great for many

00:03:54.480 people, but for us as a family, it was a great move.

00:03:56.900 Yeah. That's cool, man. Well, welcome to America, brother. Happy to have you.

00:04:00.380 Yeah. Need more like you. Bro, you lived a very incredible life and you've done a lot

00:04:06.760 of incredible things. Just break down some of the things that, you know, have gotten you

00:04:10.740 to this point. Because I know we want to talk about some other things, but there's so much

00:04:14.680 there. It could be a seven hour podcast. I mean, dude, special forces, you know, executive

00:04:21.140 protection. Yeah. Executive protection. You wrote the bike ride, everything. So like, tell

00:04:26.440 us a little bit about yourself. Yeah. Quick summary. Yeah. So I joined the UK military.

00:04:31.820 My father was in the military. My grandparents in the military. I actually, as a young boy,

00:04:36.880 always wanted to be a fireman. Never had any aspirations of actually joining the military

00:04:41.460 myself. But I decided to cut college early and go surfing for a couple of weeks, which

00:04:48.340 then extended into six months, long before the mobile phones. And my father then found me

00:04:53.000 working in a surf shop. And he told me how I'd ruined my life at the age of 17 and what

00:04:58.160 was I going to do. So to sort of silence him, I told him I joined the military. And, you know,

00:05:03.080 he told me I'd last two minutes. It wasn't the warm, comforting words of motivation I expected.

00:05:08.160 But for me, I was like, and I've come across this same scenario many times in my life. There'll

00:05:13.260 be those naysayers that tell you you can't do it. And there's no point in arguing with that

00:05:17.340 person. Because if they believe what they believe and you believe what you believe, you're just

00:05:21.820 going to, you're not going to come to a conclusion. So the only conclusion is that to go away and

00:05:26.560 prove that person wrong and then come back to the table. And so that's what I did. I joined

00:05:30.060 the military at the age of 17. I weighed, you guys work in pounds. So I was probably about

00:05:36.220 140 pounds and five foot seven. So I could see where my father was coming from. But in a short

00:05:42.160 period of time, I sort of grew physically and mentally, uh, got to 200 pound within 18 months

00:05:48.480 and, uh, was one of the youngest airborne commando divers within the military. Uh, so for me, my life,

00:05:55.320 I never looked, um, as a career in the military and then ended up joining the UK special forces. So

00:06:02.520 I joined this special boat service, but coming from the army to the, to the Navy was like one of

00:06:08.520 your guys, your Delta force guys saying, well, actually I'm going to go seal team six.

00:06:11.920 So that's what the special boat service is like the equivalent.

00:06:14.180 That's the equivalent. Yeah. The tier one, the tier one special forces in UK is the special

00:06:17.800 air service for the army and the special boat service for the, for the Navy. And then here

00:06:21.800 you have Delta force and seal team six. Okay. But unlike, uh, here in the U S where Delta and,

00:06:27.500 um, Dev grew, have their own selection. Ours is actually joint. So not one is harder or easier

00:06:33.520 than the other. Yeah. But you need to be the gray. They tell you to be the gray man on the course.

00:06:38.360 Uh, you know, try and blend in, don't stand out for the right reasons or the wrong

00:06:41.820 reasons. And a six month course, I was the gray man for two minutes. They literally called

00:06:46.000 my name out and I'm like, well, why are you going to the SPS? I was a senior dive instructor

00:06:51.540 for the army and I'd spent eight years with commando recce force. So for me and my love

00:06:56.200 for the water as well, surfing SPS was that natural pull to me. So yeah, I wasn't the gray

00:07:01.680 man for long, but six months later, you know, we start with 208 pass. Um, I was one of the,

00:07:07.940 the final guys, but what was great for me, wasn't me passing is now looking back at the

00:07:13.120 unit, 15% of the special boat service now come from the army. So you sort of open up

00:07:18.880 that pathway for others to, to follow. Um, I joined at a height of time on the war on

00:07:24.040 terror. It was the busiest time in, uh, UK special forces and US special forces history.

00:07:28.460 We had Afghanistan, we had Iraq. I was rescuing hostages off Somalia and I was diving on cartel

00:07:33.660 boats in Columbia. I was ticking a lot of boxes in a short period of time. And so for

00:07:38.880 me, I never looked beyond the military. I'd reached my pinnacle in my career. I was now

00:07:43.100 working with like-minded individuals, guys that had that same drive, that same passion,

00:07:48.220 um, that mission success. But unfortunately, uh, took a tragic turn after 16 years, I had

00:07:53.540 a parachute and accident. And, uh, that shortened my career. My leg got caught up in a, it was

00:07:59.160 actually on exit. The aircraft, my leg got caught in a line and pulled. And so I tore

00:08:03.920 my ACL, um, my lateral meniscus, my MCL, my hamstring, my calf and my quadriceps, all

00:08:09.720 the supporting muscles as well. And so I saw, yeah, it's an injury. It's an injury. I landed

00:08:15.500 one legged. It was a great landing, but, um, you know, other than that, you know, I was

00:08:20.000 sort of then told, you know, no, thank you for your service. It's time to leave. So it's

00:08:23.500 a bit like a professional, there's a lot of comparisons between special forces and professional

00:08:27.440 athletes. It's like, you know, someone go in watching the rest of the team go off on

00:08:32.180 a tour and then you've got to go to physio. It was a big part of your identity. Exactly.

00:08:35.660 Yeah. And they, those guys went to Afghanistan and I was actually left the military. And as

00:08:39.380 you rightly touched on, I didn't know it at the time, but, you know, I got to where I

00:08:44.380 had in the military because of my physical attributes. I now couldn't even run a hundred

00:08:48.200 meters. I had an identity crisis, you know, knew what I was doing for the next two

00:08:53.220 years. Um, you know, literally next two years is, is planned out. Um, knew my role, knew

00:09:00.080 my purpose. And it's not how, what is my role now within society? How am I now going

00:09:04.380 to fit in to what for me was an alien community? Um, I didn't know much about the military,

00:09:10.080 but thankfully for me, my wife was very entrepreneurial and she sort of picked up those, those worries

00:09:15.540 that I had. And as you know, DJ, you know, um, well people with our skillset without sounding

00:09:20.760 like Liam Neeson, our natural progression is the security industry. Um, what's great

00:09:25.680 now in the special forces, they have transition programs. So a lot of guys and girls may not

00:09:29.860 want to do that. And there's other options, but I didn't have that time. I literally was

00:09:34.120 told you've got to go. So all my friends were doing security, um, off Somalia, maritime

00:09:40.220 security was at its height. Uh, but I, I wanted to find a niche within industry. I wanted to

00:09:45.360 stand out. I wanted something that AO would be comfortable doing. And fortunately for

00:09:49.820 me, uh, the Arab spring was now kicking off in May, 2011. And my first job within 48

00:09:55.360 hours to help set up the British embassy in Benghazi. And when I was there, I soon saw

00:10:01.440 these, I never name and shame him, but I call them the big five, these big, huge security

00:10:06.360 companies. And they were winning these great big, um, contracts with some of the oil and

00:10:12.920 gas and the NGOs, um, just purely on their, their company name. Everyone assumed

00:10:17.680 because they're the biggest, they're probably the best, which over time in

00:10:21.100 industry, isn't the case, but they were charging six, seven figure sums for these

00:10:25.720 crisis management and evacuation plans, which weren't actually in place. It was

00:10:30.960 just as good as the paper it was written on. And so for me, I was a bit concerned

00:10:34.960 with that because a, if something happens, you know, I'm probably going to be

00:10:39.000 reliant on that, that plan. And so my wife, um, uh, was giving birth to our

00:10:44.640 daughter. I flew back out and I said, look, I've got a plan. There was a huge

00:10:47.740 proliferation of weapons in Libya at the time. And so I bought 30 weapons on the

00:10:51.680 black market and I buried them between Tunis and Egypt and designed my own

00:10:55.520 evacuation plans and just sold that to the oil and gas sector. We lived in

00:10:59.540 Aberdeen, which is the Houston of Europe. Um, so I had, uh, exposure to the oil and

00:11:05.340 gas companies. And fortunately for me, my wife, you know, she trained to be a

00:11:10.040 CEP operator. She did surveillance as well, which we didn't plan on having our

00:11:13.780 first daughter. So she ran the business behind the scenes. And so I didn't go on

00:11:19.500 certain contracts. I was, I was working on ad hoc. I was, I was, every time the

00:11:23.460 phone went off, it was a new country. It was a new type of security. But when you

00:11:27.280 tell people in the security industry, um, people look like me and DJ, I think we're

00:11:31.040 dormant from the local nightclub. You know what I mean? Yeah. The security industry is

00:11:35.040 so diverse. It's everything from executive protection, uh, consulting, crisis

00:11:39.960 management, surveillance, coaching, mentoring. It's huge. And so I was

00:11:44.420 learning a lot about this industry in a short period of time. Um, and ended up

00:11:50.080 doing more sensitive jobs as a civilian than I did when I was actually in the

00:11:54.220 special forces. Uh, 2012, your American ambassador got killed September 11th. Um,

00:12:00.900 I, I don't know if it was right place, right time or wrong place, wrong time. You

00:12:04.180 know, cause normally if I'm there that something's gone wrong. And I, I was there

00:12:08.560 that evening when he got killed in Benghazi and I, I got an oil company, um,

00:12:13.560 their engineers from Benghazi back to Tripoli through safe houses that I had in

00:12:17.500 the desert. And then in 2014, I was in Brazil covering the world cup and I get a

00:12:22.800 phone call from the Canadian embassy. It's the Tripoli war now, which is civil war

00:12:26.340 between the militias and the government. All the big security companies couldn't do

00:12:30.280 anything about it. And yeah, this young girl rings me and said, look, your name

00:12:33.660 has come up. Can you help us? So I flew back in and I single-handedly evacuated

00:12:38.740 the Canadian embassy, 18 military and four diplomats, which sounds very sexy and very

00:12:43.200 Hollywood. But my success in the security industry was understanding the ground

00:12:49.800 truth, not what you're, you're seeing on TV. Um, understanding the politics, the

00:12:54.880 tribal inferences, uh, the demographics as well, and not what's being relayed on, on,

00:13:01.500 on the TV. No, Hollywood doesn't help matters with special forces. You know, I call it the

00:13:06.860 bicep bullets and bombs. You see Dwayne Johnson's and your Jason Statham's and

00:13:10.960 them lot, you know, doing triple backwards somersaults and we, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:13:16.060 All the, it's got absurd now and then everything explodes. Yeah. So like catching a car. Yeah.

00:13:21.380 I always wonder where they're going to change their magazine. I'm not sure that's

00:13:24.560 30 rounds gone now. No, but the, uh, but that's the offensive action. And in the special

00:13:28.880 forces, that's 25% of what we do. And that should be our last resort. No, 50% of what

00:13:34.280 we do isn't actually that sexy support and influence hearts and minds being embedded

00:13:38.160 with locals. And I just took that skillset from my time in the special forces and

00:13:42.320 adopted that into, into the secure industry. So for me, it was just chatting to the tribal

00:13:48.580 elders. They're having respect for them, showing them, have a communication trust. Uh, yes,

00:13:53.780 palm in their hands with a few hundred dollars maybe, but it just opened up a corridor for

00:13:58.620 me to get these out. It wasn't eight guys looking like me trying to bully their way through

00:14:03.480 with weapons. And we just did it just a political way, a political way. Yeah. Yeah. A non-discreet,

00:14:09.280 uh, approach. And so that's where I've been sort of successful in, in the security industry.

00:14:14.000 And, and also where the other, where I have been successful as well is that when I go to

00:14:20.260 these countries, whether it's in Africa or Latin America, um, you, you have to remember

00:14:24.820 your guests in their country. There's no, no one has better knowledge of that country

00:14:29.080 than the locals themselves. So I try and give as much work to the locals as I can, because

00:14:35.280 if you're putting food on their table and showing them respect, they will, that comes back and

00:14:39.980 they, you know, they, they will respect you. They will look after you and yourself. There's

00:14:43.860 certain roles that I can't give them, you know, for, for sensitivity reasons, but you

00:14:48.840 know, the majority of the work I can. And I think that's where I've been able to, I've been

00:14:53.480 quite fortunate in, in the security industry as well to, to, to, to do that. Um, but now

00:14:58.560 after the, uh, this is a short intro about me. No, it's awesome. Yeah. But then after

00:15:04.360 the Canadian embassy, my wife sat me down and she sort of highlighted, I'd only been

00:15:08.320 home 21 days in a 365 day calendar. So what I was doing, I wasn't really aware. I was trying

00:15:15.780 to match the adrenaline rush I had when I was in the special forces without coming to terms

00:15:20.580 with the fact that you actually left. So fortunately for me, all the missions were successes, but if

00:15:24.980 they weren't, I didn't have the SBS or the SAS coming to get me. I was, I was on my own. And

00:15:30.480 so, um, chapter 16 in my book is called dead or divorced. That was the conversation me and

00:15:36.240 my wife were now having at this point. She just put a bottle of port down, two bottles

00:15:40.080 of port. Actually we drank until the sun came out and actually then realized I thought my

00:15:46.060 wife wanted me to go away. I felt I needed to support my family as much as possible. And

00:15:51.320 she thought I wanted to go away for the adrenaline rush. When in fact we didn't, we just miscommunicated.

00:15:56.280 And from that point on, you know, we, we, we, we communicate all the time. We'll never

00:16:00.500 get ourselves in that, in that position. So my wife is a property developer. I said, no,

00:16:05.260 come work with me. And this, this leg now was two kilos light in this leg because of the

00:16:09.940 muscle wastage.

00:16:11.080 What year was that injury?

00:16:12.380 The injury was in 2011.

00:16:15.040 So you've been dealing with it for a long time.

00:16:16.520 Yeah. Dealing for a long time. We're now in two, where are we now? We're probably in

00:16:20.820 2014 after the Canadian embassy. Um, so I'd sort of neglected my own physical and mental

00:16:26.320 wellbeing. I've been so fixated on work. Um, and so I decided I, I will, I will work

00:16:32.620 with my wife and I bought a push bike off Amazon and just cycle to and from the office

00:16:38.560 only by eight miles each way. But as you know, being physically active, I just felt like

00:16:43.460 there was a huge weight. I felt I could breathe again. Um, you know, cardiovascular PT is very

00:16:49.960 different from, you know, maybe in the, in the gym. And so, um, no, I, I felt comfortable

00:16:55.900 and I, but you can imagine with my backstory, I was working with my wife and we were in these

00:17:00.240 meetings and I, you know, she could see that glaze in my eyes. Something had to change.

00:17:05.620 And so I said, well, I, I've always fancied doing a world record and it was about a month

00:17:10.440 before my 40th birthday. And she said, well, what in? And I said, it was

00:17:13.340 cyclins not hampering my knee. And so my wife and found the world's longest road, which

00:17:19.480 runs from Southern Argentina to Northern Alaska. It's 14,000 miles over two continents. And

00:17:26.160 I, and I never mean to sound arrogant and it's, it can come across quite arrogant. Having

00:17:30.120 only cycled 20 miles, I applied for the world record. I said, yeah, that'll do. Um, and so,

00:17:35.460 uh, Guinness came back, Guinness came back, uh, six weeks later and said, yeah, you've been

00:17:40.340 successful on your application. And so, so I now had to challenge me, my wife do a lot

00:17:45.480 in the philanthropy area. We've, we found a campaign that we were going to do, uh, work

00:17:49.940 for, which is to promote mental health, but for not just veterans from young children,

00:17:54.320 teenagers, postnatal depression, the whole sector. Um, and the world record was 117 days,

00:18:00.480 uh, set a target of a million pounds. My wife ran the campaign, did all the fundraising,

00:18:05.620 managed to get me sponsorship as a non-cyclist. She managed to get me half a million pound

00:18:10.280 sponsorship. Um, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Really? 117 days.

00:18:14.880 The world record was 117 days. Uh, and I did it in 99 days. It became the first man in history

00:18:20.080 to do it under a hundred days, smashing it by 17 days.

00:18:23.220 Did you set out to do it under a hundred days or did it just, you start halfway through

00:18:26.820 or a quarter way through? You're like, fuck, I could do this a hundred days.

00:18:29.420 No, what it was is, is I spoke to the previous record holders because when I was doing all my

00:18:34.660 planning, there was a lot of stuff I, I, and I was quickly learning about cycling through

00:18:39.280 magazines and books, but I wasn't getting that crucial information I needed to plan this project.

00:18:44.100 So the best people to talk to are those that experienced it themselves. So one of the things

00:18:49.100 we do in the special forces is, um, you know, one of the reason with, with one of the best in

00:18:53.660 the world, isn't it because the caliber of the guys and the training, it's because we're always

00:18:57.300 learning from our mistakes. We're always evolving, uh, and changing. And so what we used to do on

00:19:02.700 opera, not just on operations, but even on training, everything we do is called a hot debrief.

00:19:07.600 So as soon as the helicopter lands or the plane lands, or the boat comes in before you go clean

00:19:12.440 your weapon, go get food is we'd have a hot debrief because it's still fresh in your mind.

00:19:17.080 And, uh, the three questions you normally get were what worked, what didn't work. And if we were to

00:19:22.740 do that again, what would we do differently? And that that's, and you just get all that

00:19:27.320 information from there. And, and cause that people do make mistakes. It's natural for people to make

00:19:31.740 mistakes. It's not a problem, but as long as you learn from those mistakes and it doesn't repeat

00:19:35.900 itself. So that's what we, we tend to do. So I asked those three questions to the previous record

00:19:40.700 holders and they all started in Alaska and finished in Argentina, but all their issues were in South and

00:19:46.800 Central America. So for me being a military guy, I was, well, why would you not address those issues

00:19:51.820 early? Get them in a way of its bureaucracy, languages, spares for the bikes, get that out

00:19:56.680 the way early. And then once you're into North America, your home drives. So I turned it on its

00:20:01.740 head. I started from, from Argentina and yet the, the wheel record was 117 days. I was aiming for 110

00:20:09.800 and it wasn't because I wanted to smash it by a week and show off. When I was doing my planning,

00:20:16.000 there was things that were out of my control, like natural disasters, coups, third party influence.

00:20:21.360 So if we encountered any of that while I was on the bike ride, if I was going for the 110, then at

00:20:27.080 least we call it fudge in the military. I had that one week fudge that it could eat into that time.

00:20:32.400 So 110 was the target. Um, I, I did South America in 48 days, 10 days off the South America wheel

00:20:41.340 record. Um, my decision from going South to North was a good decision. I had nice tailwind through

00:20:46.980 South America, but logistically it was slowing me up. And the fact that we had to, you could get a

00:20:51.880 vehicle from Alaska to Argentina if you crossed the Darien Gap on a ferry, but coming up, you had to

00:20:57.240 swap vehicles in every country. So that was, was slowing us up. So my wife, uh, we bought an RV in

00:21:03.120 a four by four in Fort Lauderdale and was going to get shipped to Panama. Um, when I was in Ecuador,

00:21:09.240 my wife rang me and told me that the vehicles hadn't been loaded onto the shipping container

00:21:13.860 and they're still stuck in Fort Lauderdale. So my wife, uh, my PA, no, thankfully had foresight.

00:21:21.820 They flew over with a couple of my friends and drove the vehicles 4,000 miles in eight days.

00:21:27.240 From Fort Lauderdale through Mexico, all the way to Panama. Um, I broke the wheel record

00:21:32.620 in Cartagena flew over and an hour later they came in and handed the keys. But what's really

00:21:38.200 important about that sort of that situation is that, and it's relatable to the special

00:21:42.840 forces is, is the team behind the scenes that people don't see. You're only as, you're only

00:21:48.580 as good as your support team, your support network. So in the special forces for every special

00:21:53.820 forces guy to step off a helicopter or jump into the, out of the plane or into the water,

00:21:57.960 it takes seven other people you don't see. And so Alana was, uh, integral on that.

00:22:04.060 Now, did you have a team on the ground in South America with you?

00:22:08.640 Yeah. So when I, when I was playing for the wheel record, there was no distinction between

00:22:11.640 supported and unsupported. I was like, well, I'm having a support team because I don't know

00:22:15.420 how to change a puncture or fix a bike. Uh, yeah, I just didn't know.

00:22:18.580 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you were saying they met you. So I didn't know if you wrote the

00:22:22.260 first part alone.

00:22:22.720 No, no. So I had a support team with me and then we had a documentary team with us as well.

00:22:26.460 And what was really an eye opener as well, and, um, is the support team that weren't there

00:22:30.860 at the end. You know, we had volunteers from everywhere and because of the mental health

00:22:35.580 side of things, I thought people wanted to get involved for the, for the right reasons.

00:22:39.880 It turns out when we're on the challenge, they had hidden agendas, you know, to self-promote

00:22:45.080 their businesses and, and had wrong, wrong reasoning to be there. So, but thankfully

00:22:49.540 for me, I had Alana who was sort of managing that, you know, the medic I had to send home

00:22:53.300 on day 13 because he was bullying the documentary team. And I'm like, we're on a mental health

00:22:58.500 challenge here. And then I'm going to get allegations of bullying. So I'm having to deal

00:23:02.180 with these, me and my wife having to deal with these situations when we're on the ground.

00:23:06.000 Uh, I get to Mexico and the, the bike mechanic and, uh, tells me that he now wants to be

00:23:13.120 the project manager, wants to change. Now the success of the challenge is I've already

00:23:17.000 broken one wheel record. You know, he, he wanted the, he saw the success of that and

00:23:22.680 wanted to change the challenge name to replicate his company. Uh, he said, I couldn't do it

00:23:27.660 without him. So it gave me an ultimatum in Mexico. So I flew him home and my friend

00:23:31.720 carried on and we, you know, so actually the bike ride was the fun when people do that,

00:23:36.520 isn't it? Yeah. You know, it wasn't, you can't do this without me. I can't tell you how

00:23:40.640 many times I've fucking heard that last 24 fucking years. Exactly. And, and so for

00:23:45.080 me, it's, it's like, you know, the bike ride was easiest part. It was dealing with

00:23:50.120 egos. That was the housing behind the scenes, what people didn't see. But I got

00:23:54.840 into, um, they left in Mexico and we only had a five days out before we got to

00:23:59.480 America. And I thought, well, when we're in America, there's bike shops, there's

00:24:02.900 masseuses and stuff. So I get into America on day 70 and I'm 14 days ahead of the

00:24:09.060 world record. And at that point right there, just at that point, that's just

00:24:13.140 at that point. I'm 14 days ahead. I'm like, perfect. You know, the world records

00:24:17.600 inside, hopefully now having spoken to previous record holders, all our issues

00:24:21.500 should be behind us. And I, um, I get an hour into, um, Del Rio. It's Del Rio. I'm

00:24:28.900 in Texas and I'm cycling along and I have five missed calls of my wife and Alana is

00:24:33.300 very good in keeping any sort of distractions away from me. So my, I knew it was

00:24:37.660 obviously important, but my initial thought was our children. There's

00:24:40.320 obviously something wrong. So I jump off and I phone her and I ask if

00:24:43.460 everyone's okay. She goes, oh no, everyone's fine. She goes, she goes, what

00:24:46.120 do you wear to a Royal wedding? I said, sorry. What do you wear to a Royal

00:24:49.680 wedding? I said, what do you mean? She goes, oh, we've been invited to Harry

00:24:52.500 and Megan's wedding. I said, oh yeah, that's nice. She goes, no, you don't

00:24:55.780 realize. She goes, I've done the calculations for you to get back in time. You

00:24:59.400 need to be finished by day 102. So going into the phone call, I was 14 days ahead,

00:25:04.580 10 minutes late. I'm now a day behind. So everything I'd done up until now hadn't

00:25:09.860 really counted and all my gains had been taken away from me. So the objective

00:25:14.200 was still there. The timelines had now moved. In South America, I was, because my

00:25:22.640 security team, sorry, because my support team and my documentary team, a bit more

00:25:26.980 risk averse than myself, I had to be mindful of their welfare. So I would only cycle from

00:25:33.720 first light to last light and then be in the hotels just for safety reasons. Coming

00:25:38.940 into North America, you've got the luxury of the safety. And so I could cycle at night.

00:25:44.520 I got to Lubbock the next day and we had 60 mile an hour winds and tornadoes and I was

00:25:49.020 grounded for another 24 hours. So I'm now two days behind my new target. And there's an app

00:25:55.080 called Windy TV. It's quite popular with sailors and it gives you the strength and directions

00:25:59.320 of the winds every hour. And so all I did was I just scanned this app, just moved it every

00:26:05.920 hour, looked at the winds. And I had to cycle 340 miles in the next 36 hours to miss the

00:26:13.300 next weather window before the next winds came in. And so I just played chess with Mother

00:26:17.700 Nature. Did majority of my cycling at night when it was dark. Plenty of highway patrolmen

00:26:23.040 stopping me at three in the morning, wondering what I was doing.

00:26:25.300 Um, and actually of all the places that I traveled through security situations, it was Colorado

00:26:31.640 Springs at one of our vehicles got broken into. Yeah. So here's me thinking.

00:26:36.600 That's not surprising. Colorado's getting hot. No, I'm just saying.

00:26:39.720 It's getting hot. But that is.

00:26:41.240 That's funny. Yeah. I mean, fuck, to go through all South America.

00:26:44.220 All South America. Yeah.

00:26:45.780 That's fucking hilarious.

00:26:46.480 Colorado Springs. Yeah.

00:26:47.580 I thought you would have said like Oakland, California or something.

00:26:50.540 No, one of my mates had driven down from Vancouver Island once I told him about the support

00:26:54.440 team leaving. He said, well, I've got time off. He came down and he does a lot of fishing

00:26:58.040 and hunting. So it obviously seems an attraction with his vehicle. Um, but yeah, I, but I also

00:27:04.180 use those winds to my advantage. I got to Cheyenne in Wyoming and I picked up a 50 mile an hour

00:27:09.440 tailwind. So I cycled 270 miles in 11 hours. And so, yeah, that's all I did for North America.

00:27:15.700 We had 17 days planned for North America, cycled in 11 and a half days from Texas to Canada.

00:27:20.820 So I was now back on target where I should be. And I get to a town called Whitehorse and

00:27:28.280 I was in McDonald's and literally, you know, I'm burning calories. I'm burning nine to 12,000

00:27:33.120 calories a day. And so however much I ate, I was still losing weight. Um, and that was

00:27:39.300 one of the, one of the good things about coming into America was the culinary options. I could

00:27:44.160 literally eat whatever I wanted and as much as I wanted as well. So I'm sat in McDonald's,

00:27:49.220 uh, you know, don't judge me, but I'm just eating about four Big Mac meals and I'm on

00:27:53.680 social media. And my friend tells me about this professional cyclist who's already got

00:27:57.400 three other world records sponsored by Red Bull, all the big brands. And he'd come out

00:28:01.920 on social media that day and told the world that he was going to cycle it in August and

00:28:06.180 be the first man in history to do it under a hundred days. So every time I thought I was

00:28:10.920 at my objective, my objective kept moving. So for me, I sort of cycled away from that.

00:28:15.120 And I'm like, would I be comfortable coming in whatever time I come in now, knowing I

00:28:22.420 hadn't pushed myself even further, or do I try and come in under the hundred days? And

00:28:27.520 so I had to cycle for 22 hours in the last 30 hours in minus 18 degrees centigrade in the,

00:28:33.160 in the snow to get into, into Prudhoe Bay. So yeah, I became the first man in history to

00:28:38.740 do it on a hundred days. So it wasn't the original question. It wasn't the original plan.

00:28:42.700 Yeah. It's just how things changed on the ground. And I think my time in the special forces

00:28:48.960 helped with that. You know, we go on operations and sometimes there's no infrastructure in place.

00:28:54.580 You still have your objective, but you just need to bounce your way along there, you know? And so

00:28:59.240 it's just being reactive to the situation changes on the ground, which was the success

00:29:03.280 of this challenge for me.

00:29:05.400 You know, I want to ask you because I was, there's a quote that I love. We talk about planning,

00:29:09.140 right? And one of my favorite quotes when it comes to this stuff is like, you know, the perfect plan

00:29:13.200 is imperfect, right? And like, you have to be able to, to, to, to stay fluid enough to handle

00:29:19.580 these different changes. Can you break down in your mind, in your mindset, in your experience,

00:29:25.120 what, what would you consider the foundation of a perfect plan?

00:29:28.880 Yeah. I don't mean there is a perfect plan. You know, Mike Tyson has a good one.

00:29:33.340 It's always a good plan until you get punched. Um, you know, we have one in the military,

00:29:36.580 your plan doesn't survive first contact. So when we're doing our plan, we didn't expect

00:29:40.720 them to start shooting back. Um, so for me, it's, you know, where I was lucky is you can't

00:29:47.160 be experienced without experiences. I've never cycled 14,000 miles, but one of my old sergeant

00:29:54.040 majors used to tell me when there was a big situation, the first question was, is someone

00:29:59.140 going to die? If there is, then obviously we need to do something now. If not, let's have

00:30:03.900 a cup of tea and let's talk about it and make a plan. And, and, and so, and that's

00:30:07.360 how I sort of looked at it. I thought, well, you can't control the uncontrollable. That's

00:30:11.860 what it is. You just need to be reactive. You know, plans, plans are good. It's always

00:30:16.740 good to have a plan, but don't be reliant on that plan. You need to have, need to have

00:30:20.900 flex. Don't get upset. And a lot of people get upset and don't know what to do when it

00:30:25.180 doesn't go to plan. You know, just say, well, the objective's still the same. Um, obviously

00:30:31.240 that route's blocked. So let, what are we going to do now? How are we going to still

00:30:34.980 get there? What do we, maybe I need to now cycle 18 hours rather than 10 hours?

00:30:40.640 Well, that's a fundamental, I think that's a fundamental skillset, even in entrepreneurship,

00:30:45.200 right? I was talking to a group of entrepreneurs, actually Arte Syndicate call last night. And

00:30:50.180 the topic was, the question that I was answering was how, when you create this vision for your

00:30:57.660 company, right? And then you trace the plan backwards, right? You're here. I want to get

00:31:02.460 to here. This is where I want to be. How am I going to get there and make the plan?

00:31:06.500 And people were confused. Like a lot of people, not a few, like a lot of people. They're like,

00:31:10.940 well, what happens when the plan doesn't work? And I'm like, bro, that's the game. Like that's

00:31:15.960 the art of entrepreneurship. We find another way around, you know, like the destination doesn't

00:31:22.180 change just the way we get there. You know? And that's, I think that's, that skillset,

00:31:26.860 which is autumn, like that skillset's kind of built into my mindset. And I know it is yours too,

00:31:31.840 but like, it's, I think it's hard for people to really grasp that concept. I think they do get

00:31:36.120 frustrated, man. When like the thing doesn't go, like when things don't go to plan, like,

00:31:39.740 you know, this DJ, DJ is with me every day. Like when things never go to plan, I've never had one

00:31:44.660 day. So like, we don't get pissed off though. We're like, okay, so what do we got to do?

00:31:49.760 We got to do this, this, this, and we'll still get it done. And it does seem like a lot of people

00:31:54.960 really have a hard time with that concept. Yeah. I think that people always look at the

00:31:59.520 negatives. I'm not, we, um, we had a big, uh, we did a big fundraising event in UK. We raised

00:32:04.460 70,000 pounds and that was going, and that money went for us to put a deposit down on the hotel in

00:32:10.740 London for the welcome back pie. So before I'd even gone on the challenge, we're planning this huge

00:32:15.840 welcome back pie with rural family there, you know, some big celebrity names. And a good friend

00:32:21.760 of mine, Amanda, she, she runs the events. You know, we had this committee and she would say,

00:32:26.240 so, so what's, what's plan B? Now, what? And I never used to answer her. My wife would answer

00:32:32.400 her. She goes, plan B is we go to Dean's funeral. And I actually said to her when I got back, I said,

00:32:38.100 the reason I didn't give you an answer is because I, I couldn't comprehend that we had an alternative

00:32:43.680 option. I goes, cause that's what people tend to do. People, if they realize there's an, a plan B or

00:32:49.420 a plan C, when it gets hard, they automatically, they will naturally veer to that. So for me,

00:32:53.740 I think that's the suicide of most people's dreams. It is. Yeah. And that's what it really is.

00:32:57.280 I know what you were saying. People already tell me why they can't do it rather than why,

00:33:00.920 why they can. So I used to block off them. You know, for me, it was like zero option mentality.

00:33:05.080 Zero option. We have to do it. But a challenge like that as well, you know, 14,000 mile,

00:33:09.920 you know, I was saying about you can't be experienced with experience. I'd never cycled before,

00:33:13.500 but I had done endurance challenge. Like our selection is, is, um, is nine months,

00:33:18.080 six months selection and three months with the SBS. And on day one, I'm not thinking about

00:33:23.980 nine months later, getting my berry and bell. I'm thinking about what do I need to do today

00:33:28.540 to get here tomorrow? You know? And so you're sort of chipping away at the iceberg. And that's

00:33:33.120 why I did this challenge. I looked at the 14,000 miles, you know, just consume me. You wouldn't

00:33:36.840 get on the flight. Um, I broke it down into countries, broke it into days and broke that into stages.

00:33:42.320 So as I talked about nutrition, I was going to always be losing weight. So nutrition was key

00:33:47.320 for me to eat as much as I could. But as cyclists know out there, when you go for a bike rides

00:33:52.640 from home, you tend to do a loop. At some point you'll have a headwind, some point you have a

00:33:57.400 tailwind. Well, for me, I'm going in one direction. So I would get on the bike in the morning and just

00:34:02.440 cycle as fast as I could for two hours. And that would give me my average speed for the day. And then

00:34:06.840 I would then be able to make a plan from that. I'd stop, pause for 30 minutes, quite disciplined

00:34:12.860 in my timings. It was literally 30 minutes and I'm back on the bike. I wasn't having a selfie with

00:34:17.020 a llama. I wasn't chatting to the documentary team or doing a tweet. Um, and then I would just look at

00:34:22.780 the next two hours. I wouldn't look at the afternoon, the next day or look at any of us. And so for me,

00:34:28.960 I was just doing four training rides a day. Bro, don't you, don't you think, I mean, you,

00:34:34.800 you know, a lot of people who have done amazing things. Yeah. Isn't that comp, isn't that like

00:34:39.680 the way they all look at it? Like that's how, that's how I look at my entire life. Yeah. I look

00:34:44.140 at it day by day and then action by action, you know, and anybody who I've ever met that's done

00:34:49.640 extraordinary things like you have, or, or, or, or let's say James Lawrence, right? The, the

00:34:55.060 Iron Cowboy. Yeah. Like, dude, it's just a system, man.

00:34:58.960 It's just executing within what's right in front of you. And, and I think people overcomplicate it

00:35:03.100 because they get so enamored with like the scale of the job. Yeah. The main objective. Yeah. Yeah.

00:35:08.920 That they think it's impossible. Like, dude, nothing's impossible if you're willing to break

00:35:12.480 it down into hourly actions that you must take. Yeah. And it's a bit, it's a bit of maths. It's a bit

00:35:17.260 of discipline. Um, you know, I always, always, um, I think the first week I was, uh, in the Ushuaia in

00:35:25.160 Argentina, we had strong winds. And so by the end of the first week, I was 39 miles behind target,

00:35:30.800 but my target was still a week ahead of the world record. And from then on, it was all gains.

00:35:35.540 And so for mentally, I was always in a good place. People, I don't know how hard was it, but

00:35:39.500 you see people when they're doing challenges and they're like, well, I'm 10 miles behind today.

00:35:43.920 You know, what I'll do is I'll catch that up tomorrow. You don't know what tomorrow is going

00:35:48.520 to bring. You may have another bad day, you know, 20, 30 miles. Right. And so mentally,

00:35:52.760 when you're going to bed at night, you're not in the right mindset. And so for me,

00:35:56.840 I always say, stay on that bike, you know, even in business, make those extra five phone calls

00:36:01.460 because you're where you're supposed to be for the day. And then you're in a good headspace at

00:36:05.840 night and starting the next day. And so it's just little, there's nothing, there's no, it's just

00:36:10.420 tricking, just tricking the mind. Yeah. Yeah. That's all it is. Yeah, man. That's awesome.

00:36:14.780 I want to ask you, did the guy who, uh, who made that announcement saying that he wanted to,

00:36:18.660 to smash, did he ended up like attempting it? Did he? He did. Yeah. No,

00:36:22.400 Michael Strasser. I met him in, um, in Vienna. He went and beat my, uh, my world record. He actually

00:36:28.160 went from Alaska to Argentina. And, um, but when I met him, he said, yeah, but you, you are still

00:36:35.080 the first man in history to do 100 days. The thing is, I'm not a cyclist. And so I dip my toe in

00:36:40.220 cycling. I've enjoyed it. And now I'll dip it in another sport. How many days he do it? Uh, what do

00:36:45.580 he, he did it in eight, 87 days. You got to do it again then. Yeah.

00:36:49.120 You know, you know, the hot debrief, what worked, what didn't work and we can do it again. What

00:36:55.040 will we do differently? Yeah. But, um, no, what was great. And we're now actually, there's a young

00:37:00.480 lads. I say young lads cause I'm 46. Uh, there's a young lad who's 46. I'm 46. Yeah. Good. Yeah.

00:37:06.280 Yeah. No, I did. Yeah. So I started cycling at 40 and broke the wheel record at 41, but

00:37:10.460 his young lad doing it next year. And so he's come to me for advice and I've given him everything

00:37:15.200 that he needs. And actually Michael from who broke my wheel record, he was going to go

00:37:19.900 a slightly different route. And what was comforting was the fact that he said, you, your route was

00:37:24.860 perfect. I did exactly what you did. So for me, that was a nice comfort that, you know, he

00:37:29.180 did. It's a nice compliment to your, uh, planning and execution. Exactly. Yeah. And, and wheel

00:37:34.960 records, you set the bar for other people to try and hit that bar. And that's why I did.

00:37:39.720 I hit Michael hit that bar. And then now this young lad next year, me and Michael are now

00:37:44.660 giving him our input and information. I bet that makes you feel good, dude. Yeah, it

00:37:48.900 does. Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't like when people, um, are challenging other people or who are trying

00:37:54.160 to beat their challenge. For me, it's like, I'm not fingers. I'm not a cyclist. Yeah. And

00:37:57.900 so for me, I just, I just, um, I just took what I, you know, I was successful in the

00:38:03.140 military, in the security industry. And then I've done it in, in a, in a sport. It's all

00:38:06.700 about education is what can people learn from, from your experiences. It always feels good

00:38:10.080 to see people win that, that you helped inspire or, or see them on a path. You know what I

00:38:15.680 mean? Like I've been doing this long enough now where I've had a couple, you know, notable

00:38:19.180 guys in business, you know, they say, Hey bro, I watched what you've done. And I went and

00:38:23.280 did that. And I, that shit always makes me feel good, even though I'm competing against

00:38:27.100 the same people. You know what I mean? Yeah. No, it's cool. It's a nice, it's a nice feeling.

00:38:31.520 Yeah. Like, you know, but when I reached out to the previous record holders, I thought

00:38:35.820 none of them are going to speak to me. Every one of them spoke to me and gave me everything

00:38:39.660 I needed. So why would I not do that the same to the, to the next person? You know, for

00:38:44.180 me, and, but what was more, it should be. Yeah. But what was more impressive, you know,

00:38:48.260 it was great having the world record and, and, and doing that, but we raised $1.3 million

00:38:52.520 as well, which is probably more impressive than the bike ride. And so for that, me was,

00:38:56.840 was that added comfort as well. Um, I wasn't doing it just self promote, you know, I was

00:39:02.440 doing it. So I wasn't, you know, working, not working my wife, but just, bro, you're a

00:39:06.700 fucking badass motherfucker. I think my wife is for real, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No.

00:39:11.040 So, um, so this is a great intro. Yeah. Motherfuckers are going to be like, Hey, this

00:39:17.980 is the, the, the show that Andy talked the least on half people are going to love it.

00:39:22.520 Yeah. So I, yeah, I never looked beyond, I did it. So I wasn't smuggling people across

00:39:28.520 borders. I didn't see career and guest speak in TV or, or, or book opportunities. Um, but

00:39:34.120 for me, you know, I, I, you know, it's nice. I've enjoyed that. Um, but security is still

00:39:39.540 where I still wear my heart and passion lives. I like to help people. So yeah, I was actually

00:39:45.500 chatting to, um, uh, the head of station, the CIA in one of the Middle Eastern countries.

00:39:50.220 Do you measure me? Where am I out on the list? No, that's, that's, that's this station

00:39:58.700 chief in the U S yeah. You should be good over there. And he says, I've just Googled it.

00:40:03.540 I said, look, I said, don't Google me. There's two Dean stocks. There's the one that the world

00:40:07.080 sees. And there's one that still very much enjoy helping people in, in, uh, in the security

00:40:12.840 world. So we, we got hundreds of people out of Afghanistan. We still are getting people

00:40:17.180 out of Afghanistan. Although everyone thinks Ukraine's the main focus is still, it's still

00:40:21.900 Afghanistan. Excuse me. It was upsetting to see like some people took advantage of that

00:40:26.200 situation to self promote their businesses. And then as soon as Ukraine, a week later

00:40:30.040 that they're in Ukraine, I'm like, there's still a problem in Afghanistan. But my reason

00:40:34.840 for that is I like to help people. That's, that's where my skillset.

00:40:37.620 There were a lot of scams going around, around Afghanistan. People don't, people aren't aware

00:40:41.920 of that. Yeah. Because I think cause it, cause of the success of the, um, Canadian embassy

00:40:46.720 and everything I'd done before, my name obviously was, was, was pushed out there and we ended

00:40:50.680 up bringing out clients who, none of them were our clients. They were from other security

00:40:54.820 companies who, again, some of the big five who actually didn't realize that they, they

00:40:58.960 didn't have a plan in place, but actually weren't even insured. And so where I've sort

00:41:03.120 of been successful in the, in the crisis management evacuation plans, insurance companies

00:41:07.080 will get an aircraft in there. They'll get an aircraft into the airport, but you're not

00:41:11.480 covered from your start point to there. So that's where I focus on. It's called the

00:41:16.120 first mile. I thought, I'm not worried about the airport. That's the easy part. And how

00:41:19.500 am I going to get you from A to B? So we, we had 10 years of connectivity on the ground.

00:41:24.400 We were actually working with the Taliban intelligence. You know, they were opening the

00:41:28.480 doors. They were, they didn't want a situation happening on their watch. You know, obviously

00:41:32.280 ISIS came in and got involved, but the Taliban were actually very proactive in, in, in

00:41:37.080 helping us. But yeah, it was, it was, it was nice.

00:41:40.020 It's hard for people to accept. It's hard for people to accept, but that's ground truth.

00:41:43.240 I know people have been told the whole entire time, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. And then when

00:41:47.640 you hear those things, they get, people get like upset about it.

00:41:50.320 Yeah. But they still did. Right. Okay.

00:41:52.220 It's like, bro, you're not understanding the cultural dynamic in the country.

00:41:55.060 Well, it goes back to your point. Like, I mean, there's a difference between understanding

00:41:58.660 and seeing what you're seeing on mainstream media and actually knowing the ground temperature.

00:42:03.300 Yeah. Actually, you know, it's usually the opposite. Yeah. Always. Yeah.

00:42:06.580 Typically the opposite. Yeah. It's crazy. Unfortunately, you know, with, with the world

00:42:09.960 of media, everyone's quick to tarnish a certain community because of a certain bad group within

00:42:14.520 that community. Um, you know, I, I talk about some of my successes. None of that would have

00:42:18.480 been possible if it actually wasn't for the Muslim community in Libya, give me safe houses

00:42:23.660 in Somalia and Yemen. And, and so it's, you know, what's crazy dude is how hard they brainwashed.

00:42:28.700 I was just talking to my, my friend who's actually from, uh, he's from Kuwait. I was talking to

00:42:34.540 him, uh, just yesterday and I used to make jokes like, cause we were pretty good friends

00:42:40.860 and I'd make jokes. He'd be like, man, come see me in Kuwait. I'm like, bro, I don't want

00:42:43.740 my fucking head cut off. Like we would joke shit. Right. And then, but like, I actually

00:42:48.040 told him the other day, I'm like, bro, I, I, you know, I want to apologize for, for those

00:42:51.520 jokes because what I realized is that I was being lied to about middle Eastern culture the

00:42:56.420 entire time, you know? And, and dude, these people aren't the terrorists that the American

00:43:02.980 media has made them out to be. They're very kind people with high standards of civility

00:43:08.000 that don't tolerate any bullshit. I kind of like it. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

00:43:12.640 Yeah. And, and, and a lot of them, a lot of them, especially some of the Middle East

00:43:15.520 countries I go to, they don't like the extremists and they will quash it themselves. Um, um, and

00:43:21.160 actually, you know, some people ask me, you know, what, especially the 20 years in

00:43:24.940 Afghani band, what's the difference between Taliban 1.0 to 2.0? I said, we're at 1.5.

00:43:30.460 They're very social media savvy. They're a bit more intelligent. You know, there's still

00:43:34.000 issues with like education, um, and stuff, but you know, there's bad people there, but

00:43:39.540 there's bad people here in our, in our society. And so it's, it's all over the world, but it's

00:43:43.840 just really understanding that. But yeah, back to the Afghan, we had, I think I had on 46

00:43:48.360 WhatsApp groups and everything from probably had theirs. Everyone saw an opportunity to try

00:43:52.640 and get everyone out. And it's like, unfortunately, it was hard for us to say no to certain people

00:43:57.240 because you had to fit a certain bracket. You know, I had like the British boxing association

00:44:01.840 telling me the Afghan boxing team at risk. I said, they're not at risk. No, they've not

00:44:05.100 worked with the Americans or the Brits. We had the housewives of Orange County, actually

00:44:09.060 it wasn't Orange County, but you know, they'd raised like 2 million and they wanted to do

00:44:12.360 good. So all these nonprofits were popping up, all these veterans were trying to help, but

00:44:17.520 they soon all then, uh, are now being investigated by the FBI for human trafficking because they

00:44:23.200 didn't understand the nuances of evacuations. They were getting people out with no passports

00:44:29.000 and dropping them in Latvia, Romania. I'm like, have you heard about these places? So, so for

00:44:34.840 us, it was hard for me because I never liked to say no, but we had to do it and we had to

00:44:39.780 be methodical. There had to be the right paperwork in place. Uh, and that's why we continue to

00:44:44.240 still, still do it. Um, but yeah, they're not sad to see that everyone's heads then started

00:44:49.560 turning to Ukraine, but that's, what's trending. And then all of a sudden these certain individuals

00:44:53.660 took their TV crews and went over there and I was like, well, there's still an issue in

00:44:57.680 Afghanistan. And the big difference between Afghanistan and Ukraine, sorry, is Afghanistan,

00:45:03.480 the men left and the women and kids stay behind. In Ukraine, the men stayed and the women

00:45:09.640 and kids left. That's the two distinctions. And that shouldn't have happened.

00:45:12.360 Yeah. Yeah. Fuck. So what do you, so, so tell us about what you, like what you're actually

00:45:18.300 working on right now. So working on a few things in obviously the security stuff. We're now working

00:45:23.740 in Sudan. I've seen the Sudan crisis now. How is that over there? It's, it's not unlike, um,

00:45:31.460 some of the other situations, it's, it's, it's military or military. So they're not targeting

00:45:36.520 the civilians. They're not targeting the Westerners. Unfortunately, with the time in there was

00:45:40.580 10,000 Brits there and 17,000 Americans, cause it was in the middle of Ramadan. They'd all

00:45:45.320 gone over, uh, for Ramadan. That's why there's a high number of people there, but the American

00:45:50.080 military went in, the British military gone in, they've taken out all their embassy staff.

00:45:53.540 Um, and I think they've learned a lot from Afghanistan is like, we will, we'll take those

00:45:57.980 critical. Um, but it's then down to the private security companies to, to get the rest out.

00:46:04.220 But, um, I think again, it's not as bad as what the media is making out. Um, so there isn't

00:46:11.320 a mad, mad rush to get one out. There's a lot of lessons learned from Afghanistan, but, um,

00:46:16.040 it's different. It's military on military. So as long as you can try and avoid, you know,

00:46:19.900 the unfortunate incident, we get caught in the crosshairs or wrong place, wrong time. Um, but

00:46:24.960 these are just some examples, you know, this goes on all the time. There was an incident in Mozambique

00:46:30.480 a couple of years ago where 70 Brits got killed, you know, by terrorists that didn't even make the

00:46:36.880 news. That's bigger than any deaths we had in Afghanistan, any we've had in Sudan.

00:46:41.320 70?

00:46:42.080 70. Yeah.

00:46:43.120 Damn.

00:46:43.400 Yeah. And, and, and, and it's, um, they got ambushed trying to go from their hotel to

00:46:48.840 the port thinking there was a ferry there and the ferry wasn't there and only a couple

00:46:51.720 of vehicles made it through. The rest, the rest got killed. And they get another example

00:46:55.100 of an evacuation plan, which actually wasn't in place. A lot of them, it's just the paper

00:47:00.000 exercise.

00:47:00.840 It's like the shit they were doing in Benghazi.

00:47:02.560 Yeah, exactly. And it's like, oh yeah, we got, we got a plan. Well, has anyone tested

00:47:06.780 that plan? That's what we tend to do. We go out and we, we practice the first mile.

00:47:11.420 I will pen test it and make sure that you have a secondary plan. You have a tertiary

00:47:15.860 plan. You have safe houses along, along the way. And, and I've, I've done it for a couple

00:47:21.260 of the big organizations in South America, met their security team. And I said, oh, so

00:47:25.740 it's the evacuation plan. And they've probably just gone on Google Earth and said, oh, this

00:47:30.100 is, this is the route. And I checked the weather the next day and it's like rain. I said, well,

00:47:33.800 we'll go out tomorrow. It's impassable. And so it's like, so what's your secondary plan?

00:47:38.580 Well, we, we don't, we don't have one. So, so for me, I just like to educate security

00:47:44.140 organizations is like, well, this is what you need to have. Again, just, just sharing

00:47:47.820 that information. Um, a lot of them think I'm a bit of a disruptive. Um, I'm not a disruptor.

00:47:52.640 I just, a lot of security can, I understand they've got to make money, but they, they make

00:47:58.320 it hard for the rest of us in the security industry when they're charging, you know, far

00:48:02.420 too much when they don't need to be. And what you tend to find though is those that are

00:48:05.740 charging too much of the big companies which have big overheads and lots of staff. And

00:48:10.700 so, but they, the guys that are doing the work on the ground, uh, are me and my friends.

00:48:14.800 So I always say that we can still deliver at 50%.

00:48:17.620 Are you still going out in the field on these things?

00:48:20.520 Um, I think my, probably now, now my book and everything else, I'm not the one smuggling

00:48:25.620 people across borders anymore, but, but the other, the other reason I like to stay in the

00:48:29.900 security industry is, is as we touched on the earlier, that identity crisis, when you're

00:48:33.540 leaving, I just ask bro. Cause I want to go. I will get a job for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:48:37.780 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not fucking awesome. Yeah. We'll get you in a, in a turban dressed

00:48:40.800 up, you know? Yeah. There's a, there's a great image of me with a full on turban. And, uh,

00:48:46.160 and, um, that's one of the things I regret, dude, like, about like the path. I, I'm very

00:48:51.180 fortunate in the path I took, but a lot of times, man, like I think about some of the cool

00:48:57.320 stuff that, you know, the cool other stuff that I could have done. And I hear these stories

00:49:01.780 and I'm like, fuck, that sounds awesome. Yeah. But I think also then probably people

00:49:06.260 in the ministry listen to your podcast. I love to be Andy, you know, the grass is green

00:49:10.300 on the other side, you know? Yeah. I think I was, you know, when I did selection, there

00:49:14.420 was guys I was on selection with who all they've ever wanted to be is in the special forces from

00:49:19.700 a young age. And they all failed selection because they got themselves that self-induced

00:49:24.820 pressure. They put that their whole life had been up until this point. I sort of went into

00:49:29.540 it in the blase approach is like, well, we'll see what happens. I've seen guys, you know?

00:49:33.660 And so, you know, your path where you end up is very different from when you're, I always

00:49:39.140 want to be a fireman. I'm not a fireman. You know, I look at firemen now and think, I wish

00:49:43.060 I could do that. And they're probably looking at me thinking, oh, I wish I could do what

00:49:45.820 you did. So, you know, just, I think you appreciate what you, what you've got in front.

00:49:49.780 And, and yeah, no, no, I, you know, I think you're in a good position.

00:49:55.080 Well, no, it's not terrible. There's worse things for sure.

00:49:58.820 But the, yeah, the security though, the, I understand that identity crisis, that's a

00:50:02.760 really difficult period when you're, all you've known is the military for 20, 25 years. I mean,

00:50:08.440 you're, you're about to enter into the civilian sector.

00:50:11.840 I think that's for anybody that goes through a major change. You know, you know, I don't know

00:50:16.340 if you know, you know, Phil Heath, seven time, Mr. Olympia or eight time, Mr. Olympia,

00:50:20.040 I believe. Uh, good buddy of mine. We were, him and I were chatting on DMs the other night,

00:50:24.700 just talking shit. And he was like, you know, after he quit competing, he went through an

00:50:29.920 identity crisis and we were talking, I'm like, man, that would be like, if I sold my company,

00:50:33.640 it's like, it's your whole thing. And then you kind of have to reinvent who you are and become

00:50:37.680 that next version or that next evolution of who you are.

00:50:40.480 Yeah. It's not just military, as you rightly put there, you know, it could be sports, could be

00:50:43.840 working for an organization. We like to be in a tribe. And then when you're no longer in that

00:50:49.380 tribe, you're trying to find another tribe that you fit in. And that's, that's the dangerous part.

00:50:53.980 You know, when I see these, these veteran suicides, you know, I learned a lot about mental health,

00:50:59.060 you know, when I was doing the bike ride and getting introduced to these charities, you know,

00:51:02.980 um, and I'm very fortunate. I don't have post-traumatic stress myself, but 75% of those in the military

00:51:07.980 post-traumatic stress has got nothing to do with the military. It's their childhood. It's just triggers

00:51:12.080 in the military. And so when they come out, they feel lost. You know, that I, I, I, I might not

00:51:18.220 relate to that, that group or, you know, I might not fit into that group. And so that's, that's the

00:51:22.320 vulnerable time. And that's where I like the security because I know when they're at their most vulnerable

00:51:27.300 and they're worried about, is there going to be work out there? How can I support my family?

00:51:31.420 And everything else is that I can bring them work. So I've got a good pool of guys and girls getting

00:51:37.280 out. And so if I can just help them on that initial phase, then I feel like I'm, I'm, I'm giving back

00:51:41.820 as well. Yeah. Yes. Are, are the, cause let me talk about like, you know, veteran, uh, veterans,

00:51:47.060 mental health, uh, suicide awareness, things like that. Do you guys see the same numbers in the UK

00:51:51.940 as we see over here? I think in comparisons to the size of the military, cause you're, you know,

00:51:56.680 I was looking the other day, I do a lot of stuff. I did work here in the U S with the honor

00:52:00.720 foundation, uh, which is a, a nonprofit, which is a transition program from special forces,

00:52:06.480 men and women. Um, it's like a 13 week program when they get out. And then I looked at SOCOM

00:52:12.100 special operations commands at 59,000. I, our military is only 80,000 in total. So, but in

00:52:18.680 comparisons to numbers, they're probably similar. We don't have as many suicides, but we don't

00:52:22.840 have as much of a larger military, but yeah, I think it's the same throughout.

00:52:28.280 What's the comparison on suicides for veterans versus just regular people percentage wise?

00:52:33.660 I don't even know. It's massively different. Is it massively different?

00:52:36.280 Yeah. I mean, cause I mean, that's where the whole 22 a day thing came from.

00:52:39.320 I understand that, but like, we don't know how many actual, like, that doesn't mean it's

00:52:42.780 massively different. 1.5. Okay. Yeah.

00:52:47.220 But I think, I think, again, I don't think it's, yes, there's those that have post-traumatic

00:52:51.580 stress from what they've probably seen in the military and, and everyone's different in

00:52:54.680 the military. And I see guys who are on the same operations and that their reaction is

00:52:58.700 slightly different from mine or whatever. Um, but I think you don't get as many suicides

00:53:05.060 when they're in the military is when they've left that community and they haven't got that

00:53:08.140 support. They don't have the structure. They don't have, yeah, they don't have structure.

00:53:10.980 They don't know where they're going to fit in society. And, and, and that's where they're

00:53:15.020 most vulnerable. Um, and the military's I've seen it now with the UK. There's a, there's

00:53:19.600 a lot more to help and support. It's still not great. When I left, I got a phone call 10

00:53:26.580 weeks later asking if I had a job. I mean, that was it. It's the last time I heard from

00:53:30.440 them. It's, you know, I think, I think people, you know, I have a lot to learn, obviously.

00:53:36.840 Um, but in my 43 years, what I figured out about myself is that, you know, who I thought

00:53:45.160 I was at 20 is much, or who I thought I was going to be at 20 is much different than who

00:53:52.420 I actually was at 30 and who I thought I would be at 40 is actually much different than who

00:53:56.920 I actually became at 40. And I think we struggle when we're young, which most of the people in

00:54:03.680 the military are young with labeling an iron. It's sort of like what we talked about with

00:54:08.760 the planning, right? You, you label yourself so hard. This one thing, right? I'm a special

00:54:14.660 forces operator, or I'm a business owner, or I'm a bodybuilder and I've, I'm an Olympia

00:54:20.340 winner. And you, that becomes set in stone so much so that we don't recognize that life

00:54:26.220 is a set of evolutions over the course of time. And there's going to be three or four,

00:54:31.260 maybe even five times over the course of your life where that thing that you tried and worked

00:54:36.840 and put all your effort into becoming is there's going to be an end of that chapter. And, and

00:54:42.980 there's going to be the beginning of a new chapter. And for some reason, and I don't think it will

00:54:48.420 actually not for some reason, nobody ever tells us that, like nobody ever explains that to us.

00:54:52.080 Nobody ever says like, Hey, you know, one day, man, you're probably not going to own these

00:54:55.880 companies. One day you're probably not going to be jumping out of airplanes. One day you're not

00:55:00.240 going to be able to compete on a stage. And because no one tells that it's very hard to adjust to the

00:55:06.080 new identity. And there's that, that, that time period. And I think that's where people get

00:55:09.660 vulnerable with the mental health. I think it's where they're confused, you know,

00:55:13.560 because I've done a lot of speaking engagement with veterans that are transitioning out as a

00:55:17.900 potential for, to be entrepreneurs afterwards. And it always feels like they, like, it feels like

00:55:24.060 they're kids, like they're little, just young kids. And they're like confused. And it's like, bro,

00:55:28.180 like you guys can do this shit. This is, this is, this is very reasonable things for you guys to do.

00:55:33.860 And, um, you know, when we're in those transition phases, our confidence is low. We're unsure.

00:55:38.940 We're insecure about who we are. Our whole entire, uh, path is questioned. And, and, you know,

00:55:45.220 I think that's where people get mentally vulnerable. I think we have to understand that

00:55:48.960 it is a series of evolutions that we're going to go through.

00:55:51.500 It is. Yeah. I think, I think in each evolution, you have an experience you take into the next

00:55:55.120 evening. I think a good point you touched on there is that, yeah, you're almost like kids when

00:55:58.340 you leave, you know, I've never felt more vulnerable when I was 33 leaving. I'd done some

00:56:02.200 amazing things in operations, but I was so intimidated about this world that I was,

00:56:07.260 I was unaware of. You know, the military are great. They like your mother, your father,

00:56:10.620 they clothe you, they feed you, they pay you on time. I didn't know who provided the gas or the

00:56:15.440 electric. I didn't care. That was dealt for those. So could I had a job to do? So they keep all the

00:56:19.580 distractions away from you. And so when I left the military, it was like they, they, they, they,

00:56:25.400 they, they give you, uh, you call them resumes. We call them CVs, uh, CV, right in an interview

00:56:30.700 technique. That's all they teach you. Well, I've never had an interview. I've never written a CV,

00:56:34.160 but I want to know is who do I need to go to from a local council for this advice or whatever.

00:56:40.100 So the, um, but guys get intimidated and girls when they get out because they, yes, they may not

00:56:46.120 have degrees, but they have so many other skillsets, which are lacking now in society, being able to

00:56:50.900 talk in public, um, being able to make decisions on the ground, make important decisions without

00:56:56.840 worrying about kickback from the, through the boss, being reactive to changes in the plan. That's

00:57:02.300 something that naturally comes in the military, but in the corporate world, yeah. But in the

00:57:05.560 corporate world, it's not. And so for them, it's just sort of explaining the, the, um,

00:57:12.160 explaining that narrative and also the, the, the, um, the crosses, you know, for example,

00:57:17.360 like J four, we call is like stores. It's just like doing a warehouse check. Well, that's what J four

00:57:23.120 is. And you're just explaining that to them. But I think a lot of them do get intimidated and feel

00:57:27.260 they can't come out, but I think they, a lot of them come out and they're already above their

00:57:31.740 potential peers. It's just explaining to them where they, where they can potentially fit. But

00:57:37.080 yeah, it is. I was most vulnerable when I was getting out. I thought I, I can't do it, but my

00:57:42.360 wife and my wife's, I was lucky. I see people's transition quite turbulent or quite smooth and

00:57:48.300 those that are smooth tends to have a good support network around them. And my wife sort of took,

00:57:52.380 I still don't know who provides the gas or electric to the house. My wife still, you know,

00:57:56.320 she took that responsibility away from me. She does that. And, and my wife has a book out actually,

00:58:01.340 you know, pitching for her now. It's called how to ask for money. And the way she's explained it,

00:58:06.000 when I was in the military and this probably goes for some of these ones that are leaving is when

00:58:10.520 I'm planning an operation. Now, hold on. How to ask for money. What's her full, what's,

00:58:14.940 what's her pen name on the book so people can buy. Oh, how to ask for money is Alana stock. Okay. Yeah.

00:58:20.420 Alana stock MBE. Yeah. So she's just now being honored. The, uh, look at this, right. Most

00:58:25.840 excellent order, the British empire, which sounds archaic, but it's her services to, uh, vulnerable

00:58:30.800 women and mental health because of the money that she raised on, on the, on the bike ride. But the,

00:58:35.560 um, but when, when I'm explaining, when I'm in the military, I'm planning an operation in Afghanistan.

00:58:40.600 I need two Chinook helicopters. I need two black Hawks. I need some fast air, 40 guys, this amount of

00:58:46.380 ammunition. No one gives me a bill. No one tells me how much that costs an NDA or a proposal. It's

00:58:52.640 automatically done. So we come from a society where it's there for you. And we, we don't know

00:58:59.020 what the bottom line is because we've got a mission to do. And then you have to come into a society where

00:59:03.960 it's all about money. And, and, and so that's where it gets quite intimidating. And I still don't,

00:59:10.100 I still feel vulnerable asking for money. And that's where my wife comes in. And I think a lot of

00:59:14.440 people from the military, that's where they struggle is because they, they can't value

00:59:18.000 their worth. You know, what is our worth compared to these? And how do we translate? And my wife

00:59:24.900 says it with me is like, I charged $7,000 to evacuate the Canadian embassy. That was it.

00:59:31.520 That's all I needed to get my, a couple of my fixes. And it was the right thing to do. Whereas,

00:59:36.780 you know, my wife's like, well, I, we don't, from our background, our objective is to help

00:59:41.760 people and get them out. If we see someone who's KNR, kidnap ransom or, or evacuating people

00:59:47.160 out of countries, I don't see a price on that life. I just need to get them out. Whereas actually

00:59:52.260 my wife sees, well, no, there is a price on that life. And so that's where a lot of guys

00:59:57.340 and girls in the military, they, they undervalue their worth and, and people take advantage of

01:00:02.560 that as well.

01:00:03.080 What would one of the bigger companies charge for that job?

01:00:05.220 Oh, you, we get hundreds of thousands per head. Yeah. Per head. Um, and, and, you know,

01:00:10.940 they would probably have charged for a retainer for having the plan in place. And then when the,

01:00:15.400 the phone call goes, then they upscale, uh, for the manpower. But for me, it was $7,000. And the

01:00:20.840 reason for that was for us to get more money, it was going to take more time. And we were on a short

01:00:25.500 time window. We had to get out. And for me, it was, it was the right, the right thing to don't get

01:00:30.400 wrong, like tenfold. Now I get work from that because it's the right thing. But when you go

01:00:34.660 back to Afghanistan, there's people flying in planes, charging, you know, not point to you,

01:00:38.920 but there's people flying in planes, charging $10,000 a seat. And I'm like, well, you know,

01:00:44.320 you're doing it for the right reasons. If you can afford to get a plane in there, you know,

01:00:47.980 I'm not saying, uh, break even or lose money. You can still make money, but it, you know,

01:00:53.420 don't take advantage of people whose vulnerabilities. And that's where I get upset sometimes in industry.

01:00:57.620 But then my wife then brings me back down to earth. She goes, yeah, but we need to still

01:01:01.700 feed our kids. So, so that's where people in the military struggle is because they don't

01:01:06.860 understand their worth. People see that they have great skill sets and can bring great things to the

01:01:12.760 team and sort of take advantage of that. And so that's where I try and help when they're

01:01:18.060 transitioned, give them work, explain to them what an NDA is, what a proposal is, you know,

01:01:23.860 and stuff like that. And that's what the military should be working on is, is those sorts.

01:01:27.460 Those skillsets, those skillsets in business.

01:01:29.600 Yeah, for sure, man, dude, you, you've done some incredible shit, brother. Like I'm sitting

01:01:35.440 here thinking, I'm like, special forces, bike ride. Now you're running security. What's your

01:01:42.500 favorite thing out of all of these things that you're doing? What's your, what, what is the

01:01:46.960 thing that like you're most proud of besides your family? Cause that's going to be the generic

01:01:52.460 answer.

01:01:52.800 Everyone's going to say my kids, my wife, I'm not talking about that shit. We all know

01:01:57.580 that. But like, what do you, what do you, what makes it tick for you, man?

01:02:00.780 I think it's, as you touched on the evolutions, when I was in the military, it was getting

01:02:04.500 in the special forces. Um, and then, you know, the, the evacuations I've done, I'm proud of

01:02:11.300 that in the security industry. And then the bike ride was, was great as well. I, um, so for

01:02:16.080 me, there's a, there's a number of things that I I'm proud of, but then I just look

01:02:20.160 forward. I don't think I've written my legacy yet. You know, I'm just done. What's the next

01:02:24.580 evolution and what can I, what can I do for that? You know, a great one. I bumped into

01:02:28.460 my chief instructor on my selection at an airport once, and the problem you've got with

01:02:33.060 some of the guys and girls in the special forces, they rest on their laurels from two

01:02:37.460 evolutions back. And he's like, I'm not interested what you did then. What have you, what have

01:02:41.500 you done? What are you doing now? You know, what are you doing next? You know, cause it's

01:02:45.420 easy for me to say, well, I'm special forces will record done this and just sit back. But

01:02:49.840 for me, I just want to, and I'm continually learning, learning from others as well. You

01:02:54.580 know, what are we going to do next? Will I do another challenge? I need to get that cleared

01:02:57.720 by the wife, but, or, but for me, it always comes back to, to the security. You know, I like

01:03:04.440 each day is a different day. Each time I get a phone call, it's a different task. It's a

01:03:09.560 different country. It's a different, different challenge. I like to problem solve. Um, um,

01:03:15.020 but I'm also mindful at the moment that I, I can spend more time with my family as well.

01:03:20.200 Um, that we don't have that conversation again on chapter 16, dead or divorced.

01:03:24.200 Yeah, no shit.

01:03:25.240 Yeah. So it's just trying to balance that yin and the yang. So there's a, back to your

01:03:30.200 question. Special forces was a proud moment for me. Um, the Canadian embassy stuff was

01:03:35.560 good. The bike ride of course was great and then raising the millions, but

01:03:39.200 also my wife being honored with her MBE, that's a proud moment for me as well, because I feel

01:03:45.080 like now, cause none of this would have been possible without her. And I feel like now she's

01:03:50.240 being recognized for, uh, you know, going forward and, and it gives her that credibility moving

01:03:56.680 forward. Yeah. Yeah. So that's cool. So what's next? So what's next next week? Right? Yeah.

01:04:03.760 So we're, we're, I'm filming it. I'm doing a show with one of the mainstreamers. Um, I got asked to

01:04:08.720 do it a couple of years ago and, uh, it's, it's within my, my wheelhouse, you know, it's to do with

01:04:14.480 the special forces. It's not a baking show or a gardening show. Um, it's, um, that's the next season.

01:04:20.080 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's, uh, that, that, that, that will be coming out later on this

01:04:26.700 year, eight episodes. Um, so I'll, I'll be finishing that. I'm still doing a lot of the

01:04:31.100 security stuff. As I mentioned, Sudan's, uh, still going on. Um, my wife's got five books coming

01:04:37.020 out this year, free kids books, how to ask some money, her own memoir. And we just launched our

01:04:42.320 own podcast as well called behind the scene, but seen as in S W N. So we're getting guests on those

01:04:49.020 from either celebrities, sports, business. But as we touched on, I, I genuinely believe

01:04:55.060 that anyone can break a wheel record if you have that support network around you. And so

01:04:59.660 in any relationship, uh, the success of someone, someone has to sacrifice or someone's doing work

01:05:06.120 behind them. So the podcast is bringing a person on who the world sees and then bringing the person

01:05:12.260 who actually does all the work. So, uh, a bit like my wife. So yeah, that's actually a really

01:05:16.980 cool concept behind the scene. Yeah. I dude, I think that's an awesome concept because dude

01:05:22.500 behind it's true behind every successful initiative or mission or company there's people and there's

01:05:29.760 people that get no light about, about the victory of, of the win. Like, you know, I get a lot of

01:05:35.240 credit cause I'm the face of these things and I like people are like, Oh, and I'm like, bro,

01:05:39.280 you have no idea. Like I'm surrounded by all these fucking people who are amazing at what

01:05:43.120 they do. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, all I have to do is show up and fucking open my

01:05:46.680 mouth. You know what I mean? Like it's a, I love that. Yeah. Well, you're only as good

01:05:50.800 as your support. That's it. Yeah. And I, you know, I wouldn't be here telling my story if it

01:05:54.280 wasn't, wasn't for my wife. And so it's an opportunity for, and I think it doesn't, anyone

01:05:58.540 can relate to it. You know, like in the military, when the guys go away, the wives have to stay

01:06:02.900 with the kids. Law enforcement, when they go out, that's something nobody's doing. Yeah,

01:06:07.900 I know. Yeah. That's going to be big. It's going to be big. Yeah. So we've, um, we were just, uh,

01:06:11.660 doing our first, first recordings now and, uh, yeah, we'll, we'll get that out. But I think

01:06:16.560 a lot of people can relate to that. Um, you know, people think, oh, that person's doing

01:06:20.960 amazing. But as you've touched on these, the team, you surround yourself with a good team.

01:06:24.880 Actually, you can be successful if you have the right team around you. You don't actually

01:06:28.120 have to know anything. Yeah. And you know what also is crazy in, in, uh, none of those people

01:06:33.100 ever care about the credit, the best teams, nobody cares about the credit. No one cares, man.

01:06:38.880 No one cares. Yeah. Yeah. That's why one of the special forces is humility. Yeah. It's

01:06:42.960 all about humility. And, uh, so, so yeah, so I'm looking forward to, to, to that podcast.

01:06:47.700 Yeah. That's going to be cool. And we'll, we'll get yourself and Emily on. Yeah.

01:06:50.780 For sure. That'd be cool, man. Yeah. Yeah. That's a real, I mean, when you said that,

01:06:54.400 I'm like, well, fuck dude, that's kind of my life. Yeah. You know what I mean? So I can

01:06:58.040 immediately, that's what I thought of. So. Yeah. Well, when I go into meetings and people,

01:07:01.940 we understand our strengths and weaknesses. My wife can't cycle 14 miles, you know, but I can't

01:07:07.280 raise $1.3 million. So we know our strengths and our weaknesses and we, and we, we sort

01:07:12.220 of work on that. So when I go into meetings, I'm like, well, you've only met 50% of the

01:07:16.360 team. And, uh, yeah, that's cool, bro. She used to be the good cop, bad cop. Cause people

01:07:20.960 would fall in love with me. I, you know, I'd chat to them and then she'd just swoop in with

01:07:24.500 a contract. That is totally the fucking dynamic. Is it? Is it? He knows how many times you got

01:07:32.440 the fire from Emily, bro. People think it's me, bro. It ain't me. Oh man. That's funny.

01:07:41.580 All you fuckers know in here, don't you? Fuck dude. That's cool, man. Um, before we end the

01:07:49.980 show, because first of all, uh, thanks for coming out here, man. Um, you guys are in California

01:07:54.240 now and you're, you were talking before the show that you're looking at maybe not staying

01:07:59.240 in California and maybe looking at some, you know, some places with some land, be able

01:08:02.640 to do some of the things that you enjoy doing. What's the, what's the list of possibilities?

01:08:07.620 Oh, the list. Uh, what's the short list? Missouri, Tennessee, bro. Listen, Tennessee

01:08:15.480 and Missouri are very similar. The only thing is Tennessee is cool right now. Missouri is

01:08:20.100 still not cool. So nobody's coming here, which is great. Yeah, it's great. It's great. It's

01:08:23.560 great. Yeah. And we own, don't tell anybody. Yeah. Yeah. We'll take Dean. Yeah. We love

01:08:31.560 Yellowstone. So Montana's right on that list as well. Yeah. So, um, yeah. And a few of my

01:08:36.200 friends are pulling me towards Texas. So now we've been here for two years. You know, Orange

01:08:40.500 County is great when we landed, but I don't know if you've been Orange County. It's like a, it's

01:08:45.160 almost like a false bubble, false security bubble. Everything's landscape looks like Disneyland

01:08:49.540 on steroids. And so for me, I just want to sort of bring my kids back to, back to reality. Uh,

01:08:57.140 no, take them back to the wildlife and things like that. So whether we, lots of people are

01:09:00.600 doing that now, dude, it's really cool to see. Like I see a lot of, a lot of people who, you know,

01:09:05.700 who have never been introduced to like any kind of outdoor skill or any sort of like nature at all,

01:09:13.820 like taking interest in it so that their kids can learn it. Yeah. We, that's cool, man.

01:09:17.660 One of the, one of the charities back in UK that we were raising money for, we went to one of their

01:09:21.740 schools in London. It was a school where the kids had all been kicked out of school and none of the

01:09:25.740 schools wanted them. So we went there and there was no air conditioning. It was hot summer's day.

01:09:31.340 And I, I went and did a presentation about what I was doing. And then afterwards, this young lad

01:09:37.100 came up to me, uh, Ahmed, and he said, what are you doing for us? I said, I'm cycling. He said,

01:09:41.820 no, no, but what are you doing for us? And I actually thought about it. So these kids will never have

01:09:45.820 a bike. So this story doesn't even relate to them. Um, so I rang my friend who was the regimental

01:09:51.100 Sergeant major from a military training camp about 30 minutes down the road. And we hosted them for

01:09:56.060 a day, had them out on the boats, had them out. And I remember one of the young kids come up to me,

01:10:00.700 he said, Oh, what's this? And it was, it was an acorn. I said, Oh, it's a conker. And he'd never

01:10:05.900 seen a conker before. And that for me was like, wow. You know how people, especially in these cities,

01:10:10.940 haven't experienced, uh, nature, but no back to it with our kids, you know, no, my, my, my children,

01:10:17.580 I try to, they're, they're born into a digital world, you know, they know no different. And so

01:10:25.180 you can't really shout at them when they've got the iPad and things like that, but if you can spend

01:10:28.300 time, so we're taking them to Mexico in this, in the summer, and we're going to build some houses

01:10:32.780 down there. That's awesome. Yeah. Just sort of, sort of ground them a bit. Yeah. Um, but not rub their

01:10:37.420 noses in it. Just let them know that it's not all rainbows and unicorns, um, like Orange County.

01:10:43.420 Yeah. And when you're doing good, you have an obligation to do good for others.

01:10:46.300 Exactly. Yeah. And it's all about giving back. So yeah, we'll probably do that. So as long as

01:10:49.820 we can do that and then escape somewhere with them. So yeah, we're looking at a few of the states.

01:10:53.500 Yeah, that's cool. That'd be cool if it was Missouri, bro.

01:10:55.740 Yeah, I know. Yeah. Like I said, I now get sponsored by some of the Leopold's scopes and staccato,

01:11:01.580 but I can't use them in Orange County.

01:11:04.940 I told him I hear you shoot on the back porch, bro.

01:11:06.780 Yeah. Yeah. It's good. Yeah, you can. Well, brother, I really appreciate you coming on and

01:11:11.580 sharing all that, man. Um, I'd like to have you on again and talk some more.

01:11:15.100 Of course. Yeah. Yeah. We'll definitely make that happen next time you're out here at 1P.

01:11:19.260 We'll figure that out. But, uh, anything like that you would say,

01:11:24.380 you know, you're a big mental health advocate, you know, you, you've raised a lot of money for that

01:11:28.460 cause, you know, as we close the show down, what would you say to someone out there who's

01:11:35.100 struggling right now with their mental health? And they're struggling to find their identity

01:11:39.420 and they're, you know, they're struggling with the things that we identified that,

01:11:42.540 that contribute to these problems. What would you, what would you have to say to them?

01:11:45.660 Yeah. Well, there's three ways of dealing with mental health. What I learned, one is the farmer,

01:11:49.260 which I avoid completely. I'm not a fan of the farmer. That should be the last resort. You know,

01:11:53.100 communication is always a key one. If no one knows there's a problem, then, you know, but for me,

01:11:58.380 what I was trying to promote with this bike ride, you know, when I got introduced to the Royal

01:12:01.740 Foundation, so worked with Prince Harry and William and Kate was their campaign. And when I got sat down

01:12:08.460 in the, in the Royal Foundation, they said, what's the message you're trying to promote with this

01:12:11.660 challenge? I had, I didn't really have a message. I came in because my ginger friend told me to come

01:12:15.900 in. But then actually when I sat about and I looked internally and I said, well, physical activity

01:12:21.660 helps your mental state. And then I got told this, I got challenged in 2016. They said, oh no, you can't

01:12:27.260 use that. I said, well, why not? They say, because it's not being scientifically proven. I said, well,

01:12:31.820 that's fine, but I don't need a scientist to tell me that I feel good when I'm training. So I ignored

01:12:35.820 them anyway. Now, years later, it's recognized as one of the coping mechanisms. So two answers,

01:12:41.180 really is talk to someone and get active. Yeah. Dude, you know, I say, I've said this

01:12:48.140 recently on a show, but I want to note it again, since we're on the topic, you know, something

01:12:51.980 that's tremendously, tremendously improved my life for my mental health is doing cold plunges.

01:12:58.780 I just, it has nothing to do with our conversation other than we're on the topic. And I want to talk

01:13:02.560 about it just for a second. But if you guys are struggling, dude, and you're having trouble,

01:13:06.680 just understand that there is actual science behind putting cold immersion therapy on your

01:13:13.220 vagus nerve, which increases the hormones that make you feel alive and make you feel happy.

01:13:17.460 And like a normal human being. And, um, I'm going to do a whole episode, uh, a video on YouTube about

01:13:24.080 my protocol for mental health with the cold, because dude, it has fucking transformed in like

01:13:29.580 a short amount of time, like 30 days. So, um, if you guys are out there struggling with that,

01:13:34.740 you know, think about starting to implement that in your morning routine is the first thing you do.

01:13:39.280 And you got to get in the water all the way up to your chin. Okay. And you got to do two to

01:13:43.140 six to eight minutes, somewhere in there you work up. Um, but I can't speak enough good about it,

01:13:49.140 about how much it's done for me to completely fucking change me as a human being. Like I didn't

01:13:52.920 even realize how bad I was. I had no idea when I had gone the farmer route. I went the farmer route

01:13:57.660 for 11 years, bro. And it fucked me up real bad. And, um, I just want to put that out there

01:14:02.940 because no one talks about it. No doctors talk about it because they can't sell you fucking

01:14:06.980 cold water. Okay. If you're not cold plunging and you're suffering mentally right now, figure out a

01:14:13.420 way to fucking do it the right way. Spend the fucking money. It'll be the best money you ever

01:14:17.840 spent and get your fucking ass in there every single day. Dude, it'll change your life. So I just want to

01:14:22.600 leave people with that. It's something that's cost effective, works very well. And I promise you,

01:14:27.980 if you do it consistently, it will change everything for you. So, uh, bro, thanks so

01:14:33.680 much for coming on, man. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, it was really cool. So guys, that's the

01:14:38.540 show where, where can people follow you at? Where are you doing most of your content and social and

01:14:42.700 how can they, how can they support you? Yeah. So I'm on, uh, I'm on Instagram and Facebook. Um,

01:14:48.240 you know, I'm teaching an old dog, new tricks with, uh, with social media. It was a taboo when I was in

01:14:52.500 special order. So yeah, Dean Stott on, uh, on, uh, Instagram and, and Facebook. And then, uh,

01:14:58.060 my website is www.deanstott.com. Cool guys, make sure you support this man. He's a good man,

01:15:04.120 uh, doing really good things in the world. And, uh, there's a lot to learn from him. So

01:15:08.220 brother, thank you so much. Thank you again. All right. That's, that's the show. Uh,

01:15:12.420 make sure you pay the fee. Went from sleeping on the floor. Now my jewelry box froze. Fuck a bowl,

01:15:18.480 fuck a stove. Counted millions in the cold. Bad bitch, booted swole. Got her on bankroll.

01:15:24.320 Can't fold. That's a no. Headshot case closed.

REAL AF with Andy Frisella - May 08, 2023

512. Special Ops To Breaking Records Ft. Dean Stott

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