#314： Building Better Citizens Through Rucking
Episode Stats
Summary
What began as a backpack company has morphed into a tight-knit community of people looking to push themselves through what Jason calls The good life. Today, on the show, I talk to the founder of GoRuck, Jason McCarty, who started the company after serving as a Green Beret in Afghanistan.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well back in 2012
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the owners of huckberry introduced me to a guy who owned a company called go ruck besides making
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high quality ruck packs i also learned that go ruck put on these all-night events in which
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participants hauled a 40 pound weight in their backpack while being led through a series of
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physically and mentally grueling exercises like push-ups bear crawls and carrying an 800 pound
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log with their teammates and that's how i found myself in downtown oklahoma city at 12 in the
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morning sitting in a pond next to my brother and below freezing weather in the middle of november
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nine hours hundreds of squat thrusts later and 12 miles later i finished my first go ruck challenge
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since then i've done other go ruck events and i've learned a lot about resilience leadership and
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teamwork in the process and today on the show i talked to the founder of go ruck jason mccarthy
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who started the company after serving as a green beret in iraq what began as a backpack company has
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morphed into a tight-knit community of people looking to push themselves through what jason calls
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good living today on the show jason i discuss where the idea of the go ruck events came from and what
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a man can learn about leadership teamwork and community by doing hard things with other people
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after the show is over check out the show notes at aom.is slash go ruck where you find links to
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resources where you delve deeper into this topic jason mccarthy welcome to the show thanks for
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having me brett so you're the founder of a company that i have a love hate relationship with go ruck
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i love your bags i love hate your events and we'll talk about those here in a bit but before there we
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get to there let's talk a bit about your background before you started go ruck what did you do before you
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started a company that makes awesome backpacks oh thanks uh yeah so 9 11 happened and you know i was
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just graduated from college and really didn't know what i was going to do with my life but that sort of
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shook up whatever plans i didn't have and so ultimately i wanted to join the military i wanted
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to serve america in a time of war like you know the entire greatest generation did and that's sort of
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been passed on from generation to generation in some ways but you know this was sort of a shake-up call
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for for me so i enlisted in 2003 you know after the iraq war it sort of kicked off and made it through
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special forces training so was on a special forces a team from 2006 to 2008 and what special forces unit
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were you with i was with 10th special forces group the first and best of them all right so it's army
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special forces right so often referred to as the green berets which is you know it's we're the only
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we're the only unit trained to conduct unconventional warfare right so it's sort of by with and through
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local partners right so the best example of because i i get this question a lot and i hear special forces
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thrown out there a lot it typically really means army special forces within the military circles
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and the best example of what makes green berets different than some of the other units is that we
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we work by with and through local partner forces so the best example of that was post 9-11 we sent a
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couple hundred green berets in afghanistan into the boneyard of the soviet empire and we linked up with
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the northern alliance to defeat the taliban so not just go in with helicopters assaulters and guns
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and defeat the taliban but use the northern alliance as a force multiplier to achieve
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our mission right so you know then in two months we're we've got a new president of afghanistan that
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was sworn in right i mean it's it was a pretty awesome feat and it's it's a pretty amazing regiment
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community to have to have been a part of because there's just so many giants shoulders that we're all
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standing on so how long did you do that stint in the military are you and then when did you start
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go rock right so i was in the military from 2003 to 2008 right and i was married to a girl the the
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absolute love of my life and and she was in the foreign service so she was serving in west africa
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right and in africa and actually while we were married there there was a there was something that
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came out that said the three worst cities in the world to live in were enjamina chad abijan
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cote d'ivoire and and baghdad and we hit all three of those right while we were married you know kind
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of afar and and doing our thing and and so the original idea for go rock though came when i visited
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her which was in in abijan which is west africa right like next to ghana and places like that
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and you know it was surprising because in some ways it was more scary than the first time i showed up in
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baghdad because in baghdad you've got a team right you're really tight and you're good at work
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and here it's kind of like they love a good coup in africa it could happen at any time and so you've
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got to be ready all of the time right and so you're you're driving around you've got your truck you've
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got your whatever and you just don't it's just a general sense of unease and so i built a bag
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for her with additional supplies extra ammo or sorry for me in war it was extra ammo and extra
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batteries and extra grenades and extra stuff like that for her it was more like you know flashlights
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and what she would do in case of a coup if she was outside of the capital or away from home
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i built another one that that stayed at our home right in in west africa and and so the idea was
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to be ready in a time of crisis or a time of emergency and even as our sort of personal life
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started crashing down because we've been married for five years and never lived together there was
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this idea of you should do the go ruck thing and so the go ruck thing did not become the private
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security consulting service in west africa that i destined myself to live there and sort of build
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because slowly i found myself sleeping on my my buddy's couch in the east village in new york city
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with an idea for go rock and that was about it right so the idea for the bag lived on and then the
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difficulty was how to how to get it manufactured and not knowing anything about manufacturing that
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posed a whole new set of problems right so uh the design of the bag i mean they're really sturdy i
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mean i i've got several of them i use one of them for my go bag kind of what you created for your wife
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and for yourself and also as an ammo bag um sort of a gun bag what was the inspiration behind the
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design of the bag was it something that you used in your days as a green beret right so the term
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go rock was sort of slang you know go bag bug out bag that's what you would put in the trunk of the
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humvee when you go out on a mission right and so the military has all the best stuff and special
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forces has the has the better best stuff and so we got a lot of access to a lot of different
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assault type packs but what i found over time especially as i personally was transitioning out
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of the military was that they don't really transition to civilian life very well everyone wants
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the toughness but you don't always want to have a trillion straps all over the place right
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so i had some assault packs you know they were black hawk and camelback and there was an lbt
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giant special forces medical pack that i used for emily in in west africa and so those were
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certainly inspirations from a hey these are construction this is the material there's a
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little bit of velcro and in their case there was a lot of velcro there were compression straps all
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over the place and they looked like military assault packs the the original goal was to say hey
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we want one bag that's going to go that's going to thrive in baghdad and in new york city right
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because that's what that was the the convergence of my life you know i'm sleeping on my buddy's couch
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in the east village having sort of my heart still with my team who was back in war at that time and life
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was not in a really good place for me so this bag became this sort of symbol in my own head right
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for this bridge between these two worlds that i was starting to try to cross myself and then obviously
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the events became a further extension of that right so you didn't know anything about manufacturing
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how did you learn that did you just trial by fire you just oh it was it was the the biggest problem
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was everything i had no idea right i didn't know the difference between r&d and scale manufacturing
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i didn't know how to sew i didn't know where materials came from i don't know how i didn't
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know anything so i actually placed an ad in craigslist new york city and this was 2008 so you go
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back then and the economy was not in a good place and so this small this team of this couple had been
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laid off their job in new zealand and then moved back to montana and they were trolling for work to pay
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the bills right so in these these times of bad economies and stress they're really opportunities
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because you've got a lot of people out there with all this talent that they just want to put to work
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right so sometimes you got to take a chance on things and had a little bit of money from you know
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saving up from deployments and stuff where they don't let you spend all that much money even if you
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wanted to so they answered my craigslist new york city ad and they had sort of a a website and stuff
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it seemed really professional and nice and that was great right so they taught me this was such a
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blessing in disguise though because they were awesome it was trish and sky wookie and they were
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just awesome they taught me the entire process of what things are that's the stupidest questions
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right and and yet through this sort of combination of because you know they had sort of a background
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in hiking and in the outdoor world and my background was in military and in the carry the ways that you
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carry things and the way that you choose to to create load-bearing systems are philosophically and
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fundamentally completely different between civilian hikers and the military right and there was this
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merging that we had between those two worlds that that i got from working with them and so they taught
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me a lot about the process and then in the end we had what became gr1 in our original lines of rucks
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right and are they all manufactured here in the u.s they are yes yeah it's one of the big seller selling
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points for me so besides the the original gr1 you guys have branched out to other products anything
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in particular stands out to you that you're really proud of yeah so the origin i mean the original line
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of rucks is what is our flagship sort of line right and those came about because i kept telling sky i was
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like i would just want one rock right like one rock kiss keep it simple stupid and he's like man it's
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just not much work to just add an extra compartment to another one and call it you know gr2 or whatever
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and then you know make another one smaller you might find that people want a little variety and
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i'm really glad we did that it did add some complexity but so that's sort of our flagship
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what we're really turning toward now is the apparel side right and in that the the simple pants the
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challenge pants those are sort of the flagship products of that at this time but behind the scenes
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there's a lot more stuff coming and this is through again a great partnership that we have
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with joe duhan at kl manufacturing out in spokane washington they build all of our our apparel it's
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obviously made and made in the states and we're really turning toward that for more you know broad
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appeal if you will i mean apparel is a different game they say it's really hard and i you know they
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say everything's hard so you know that just means work hard be smart whatever that is set your mind to it
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and and you can do it so we have a great partnership with him you know like at the last olympics 25
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countries were wearing performance gear that he had built in spokane washington stuff like that so
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he's a great partner we're scaling up with him doing a lot of the the r&d work directly with him and
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then field testing it and and back for more so the apparel is in its infancy relative to where it's going
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and we're really proud of it awesome well let's shift gears and talk about the events but before we talk
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about the the event specifically let's talk about the act of rucking what is rucking is it just putting
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on a backpack and walking right so rucking comes it's a military word right like it's really there's
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no such thing as backpacking in the military everything is rucking you know in a backpack there's
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no such thing as a backpack there's a ruck or a rucksack right so it's really a verb and a noun
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you you wear a ruck and you go for a ruck you go rucking or or however you can say it that
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doesn't confuse all of those english words that i probably just messed up but the the point is is
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that this is the foundation of all special forces training you put some weight on your back and you
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go for a walk now more weight it's harder to go faster of course less weight it's easier to go
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faster there are there are sort of training implications on your body right i mean what i
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don't recommend doing is is the amount of weight that you have to carry in special forces training
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you know that that gets to be a lot like some of it was 125 pounds plus for you know the better part
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of days right and and that's that's too much that's the military takes the fun out of pretty much all of
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that kind of stuff right like scuba diving it's fun until you have to go to dive school which i didn't
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but a lot of my buddies did you know it's like you think jumping out of planes is fun well how would
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you like to wake up at three in the morning and stand there in line for six hours before you get
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your like three second fix right i mean it's just there's a lot of fun that the military takes out
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of things but the foundational fitness element of special forces training is just to go for a ruck
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put some weight on your back and you go for a walk that's awesome and there's like a lot of benefits i
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think you did a video a while back ago saying like you know you get about the same amount of like
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workout doing a an hour-long ruck than you would run in a 5k or something like that right so so look
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everybody hates to run right i hate to run we as a as a culture as a society we've been almost shamed
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into becoming fit right like when you played high school sports and you messed up as a team what did
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they do they made you go run right because it sucks that bad you know and so there are fitness
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benefits to rucking as opposed to running like for instance every time you go for a run every stride
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you take you put between seven and 12 times your body weight onto your knee right when you rock
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because the gate is different you put between two and three times your body weight plus whatever
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you're carrying right onto your knee so the impact on your knee is significantly less they don't call
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it runner's knee for nothing right because it's it's running as hard on your knees there's there's also
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the the resistance part of rucking is that you're putting weight on your back right and you're moving
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with really your money makers your glutes and your and your thighs right so those are getting a workout
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as well in addition to your shoulders and your back so people in the military they have big strong backs
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not because there's a back machine at the military gyms that's exclusive to those it's because there's
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more time underweight and to sort of modernize this as well you know all of us have phones and we stare
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down at those phones or we stare down at our screens and it starts to round our our neck forward
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this is really bad for our posture because our body gets used to that and then we stay in that sort of
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position more easily well with rucking when you put the weight on your shoulders and back what you'll find
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is that it's really uncomfortable to try to roll your shoulders forward so in essence as you're rucking
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you're correcting your posture that you're doing while you sit at your desk or stare at your phone all day
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it's awesome and walking is just it's a foundational movement like i think that's such a useful
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movement to have because if you know let's say the stuff does hit the fan and you got to get out
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like you probably have to walk yeah i mean so it's like you want to be a hard target or you want to be
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an easy target right like you need to you're probably not going to be judged by your ability to pick up a
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car like mr incredible right you might but you probably won't it's probably can you evade an escape
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right because when stuff does hit the fan the last thing you want to do is pick a fight right
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like that's one of the things that you learn is this this special forces mindset is that if you're
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going to get into a fight it should be a life or death fight bar fights and picking stupid fights
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are it's for amateurs right like what you have to focus on is you know there's i'll walk away from
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damn near any fight but if i get into a fight it's not going to be good right and in that same
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type of mindset yeah you need to be able to move when it's time to evade an escape right yeah i
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definitely prefer rucking over running if i need to do cardio i'll put on my 40 pound rucksack and just
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go to a park nearby and just ruck as opposed to running i will do anything to avoid running it's not fun
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so yeah and so the faster you go too i mean you get the the active part of active resistance training
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aka rucking is the cardio so you know every meathead knows that running kills muscle cells
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right i heard that a million times and when i was in my meathead phase right like i i would quote it
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right like running kills muscle cells i don't want to do that right or running breeds cowardice stuff
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like that right well rucking actually builds it and you get the cardio side of it so i think it's great
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especially as americans get bigger as we get bigger stronger as well not just bigger but stronger
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the more the more mass that you have the worse running is for your body so rucking is a is a
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really solid alternative nice all right so let's talk about the events how did that start was that
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a part of the original business plan was that sort of a happy accident that's blown out to something
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really big so it was it was a total total accident and even as it was happening i really refused to
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believe that it was happening so like i said early early on i had you know worked with this this
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couple to get these bags built right and so the bags are built and i knew they were awesome i'm like
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this year one is awesome right well so i turned the website on and that's how we were going to sell
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and guess what happened you know nothing right because nobody knew about us so as a business what
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you struggle with is awareness you have to tell people your story at this point in my life in 2010
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when we first had the bags right the rucks if you will i really didn't want to tell my story because
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i was not committed to go ruck i thought that i wanted to go back and serve america wherever she would
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she would have me right like pick the worst place in the world that's where the most fun work is when
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your business is unconventional warfare that kind of stuff right and so what i didn't want to be was
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the face of a company because that would sabotage future abilities to serve well that's just where my
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mindset was at the time so that said i had borrowed money from my dad who it was an investment but i'd
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taken money from my dad a little bit to buy inventory to drive around to all 48 states to try
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to you know tell people the story face to face right because that's going to get them to buy something
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i guess right and what i found out quickly though is that nobody wanted to buy the bag and nobody knew
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about us they're really expensive it's 300 for a backpack it's insane right it's insane you can go to
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walmart of course and buy something for 20 bucks of course it's going to fall apart but it's just
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people are conditioned to think that you know if it what things should cost right and so what happened
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was i was like you know i've got every dollar in this product that i really believe in and i kept
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going down the rabbit hole of investing more time and cash into it where i kind of i really hate to fail
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and so this became something that you know i'm failing at my marriage at this time so it was
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already basically done right and i'm like man i can't i can't handle another failure at this point
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so i just sort of said all right i'm going to make this work right so the go ruck challenge became what
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i thought would be a good opportunity for me to show up and take pictures of the class putting the the
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bags through the paces so a lot of times you have to say what makes your bag different it's a really
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simple question and it's it's easy enough to answer even but you have to show people too and so i thought
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hey we'll get this team event loosely based around special forces training and i'll take pictures in
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these beautiful cities and show these different environments where the bags are are still thriving
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despite all of the stress right because what i could not do anymore was go back to iraq or go back
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to africa and take pictures while i was in special forces so i kind of said hey i know how to build a
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team i've done it before in the military working with foreign fighters i'm pretty sure i can do this
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with americans right and so that was the that was the impetus for the challenge and when the people
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first showed up i was surprised that they were almost excited to be there it was just kind of weird
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because it was very unknown right and when you're in special forces the military coming from those
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worlds you think that you have sort of a monopoly on doing really awesome stuff and yes you do get
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to do really awesome stuff but there's a lot of people out there that share this same kindred spirit
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the same love of life that want to push themselves to extremes and i found a lot of those people
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through leading go rock challenges and in the course of this building teams and getting feedback from
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people about they've never quite experienced anything like that and how they would take it back to
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their daily lives what i did not foresee was that the go rock challenge would be about the people
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wearing the rucks not the rucks that were on their backs right so people became the focus of go
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rock through the challenge and via grassroots we we grew and that became the awareness driver that
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go rock needed in order to get people to find out about us and what we believe in and what we stand for
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and so now is that a big part of your businesses are the events you know so it's interestingly enough
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it's it's a complex business to have two completely separate parts of a company and yet they collectively
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form the go rock brand and so what i mean is operationally the manufacturing culture is largely a
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nine to five type of blue collar work like my dad is a union member in ohio right like he shows up at
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nine he leaves at five and you know yeah there's overtime sometimes but it's just it's machinery it's
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really hard you're on your feet you're working with your hands all day long right and and then
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you've got this this events culture which is you know we're it's it's just sort of it's there's a
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back end and a headquarters that's marketing and stuff sure but the actual events you know they're
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overnight it's extreme conditions of hours it's atypical it's it's the opposite of nine to five
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so culturally putting both of those underneath the go rock umbrella has been a challenge like little c
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as opposed to big c go rock challenge but it's also been what is sort of propelled us so as sort of a
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tactical business case study if you will like the event revenue is about 25 percent of go rucks revenue
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but it's it sort of controls the brand and then it raises awareness for the people who then come
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through our universe and buy the gear the apparel the t-shirts the stuff the training the training
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equipment stuff like that and so yeah i mean when you look at it nuts and bolts it's 25 percent of our
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total revenue and it's about a break-even operation right like the margins on the events i mean depends
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on how you assign overhead costs and all that type of stuff but it's it's not a profitable it's not a
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profit center for us but early on in the early days what it was was people would pay today for an event
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that was happening in the future and i used that money in order to buy more inventory so i sort of had
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this sort of yin yang this house of cards almost thing going where it's like you're you're using
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money that you know you have to you have to provide a service later but it's funneling into inventory
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purchases now right so there was a fair amount of juggling and to a certain extent there's always
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going to be a little bit of that right from a cash standpoint but so that's a little bit behind
00:24:29.020
the scenes nuts and bolts but ultimately for me it's it's one go ruck and i think about both sides
00:24:34.260
a lot and i think about how to use like how to strengthen gear with events and events with gear
00:24:41.020
so let's can you walk us through a go ruck challenge like if someone signs up for it
00:24:46.180
what should they expect so what did you expect before your first go ruck challenge i so i kind
00:24:53.300
of had an idea because i i i got introduced to you via the guys at huckberry and they told me
00:24:58.760
andy and rich andy and richard right and uh they told me about this thing i was like yeah i want to do
00:25:02.220
that so i got signed up for one i thought it was going to be hard but at the time like this is when
00:25:06.700
you guys were first starting the events so there really wasn't a lot out there on the internet about
00:25:10.480
you know kind of event breakdowns i just knew it was going to be all night i'd be doing a lot of
00:25:15.660
walking and there'd be push-ups that's what i was going in thinking so i mean seriously i trained for
00:25:20.760
this thing for like three months and i did some serious training i'd go to a football field wearing my
00:25:25.960
rucksack and i would do bear crawl like 100 yard bear crawls all sorts of crazy stuff to get ready for
00:25:31.420
this thing yeah yes so basically i mean now you can obviously read more about it and all of that
00:25:36.800
kind of stuff but in essence what it is is you sign up and you're part of a small class that becomes a
00:25:42.820
team so you show up on a random street corner in you know pre-designated right it's not a total
00:25:48.560
mystery um here's your start point and and a special forces guy shows up there now his job is to yes
00:25:55.960
challenge you and push you but ultimately it's about an outcome of what it feels like to be on
00:26:01.820
a team it's its own sort of sense of high right like when you're really on a on a team and you're
00:26:07.780
in combat operations or whatever it is you start to really operate like a pack it's got nothing to do
00:26:14.740
with the individual and it creates a heightened sense of awareness it creates like a real high
00:26:21.880
it's a high that you search for in life you know and you get that when you're on a team and so his
00:26:28.400
job the cadre's job is to make sure that the team experiences what a day in the life of training in
00:26:37.300
special forces feels like and that that fundamentally involves being part of a team so you show up in
00:26:44.000
in there's a there's you know physical challenges to sort of break down the barriers that we all
00:26:49.400
bring to anything we do with strangers right like you show up and it's like a middle school dance
00:26:54.320
at the beginning it's nervous it's awkward everyone's like oh my god what's going to happen
00:26:58.520
to me right that type of stuff and so the surest way to get people outside of their comfort zones and
00:27:05.840
to start working together is to put them in a stressful situation together so the the point is not the
00:27:12.340
specific exercise it's how you as a team start to work together and it's it's a long dance right
00:27:20.760
because it does take a while to get to break down the barriers and then build it back up but but look
00:27:26.980
it's not boot camp there's not yelling and screaming about you know you're a terrible person blah blah blah
00:27:32.600
right like save that stuff for the military this is more like frankly people are paying to do this
00:27:39.100
and so there's got to be an entertainment value and there's got to be a challenge challenging value
00:27:45.680
right like you find your demons and you punch them in the throat style you know but but the real value
00:27:52.120
comes in the evolution of the team so you appoint team leaders and there's missions hey you know get
00:27:58.740
everybody go from point a to point b in this type of time frame if you see this kind of car with with an
00:28:05.340
out-of-state license plate then you have to run off into the tree line and you know camouflage
00:28:10.660
yourselves right there's a point there's a method to the madness right and so something like that would
00:28:15.420
be designed to say hey you don't get to just stare at your feet when you're tired you know and so you're
00:28:21.260
on your way home so that even relates back to sort of special forces missions where the one of the
00:28:26.980
most dangerous parts of the mission is on the way home right you're you're tired you've got your
00:28:31.200
your chemical dump is is gone like you in theory could almost fall asleep right a lot of times you
00:28:36.600
do if you're on a helicopter but what you're not allowed to do if you're driving you have to still
00:28:41.760
look out for roadside bombs you have to still look out for people who are out and about in in the town
00:28:45.880
right so you've got to stay aware as part of your team because that's how the pack thrives together
00:28:50.640
right because everyone's got got a set of eyes and you got to pay attention so there's just various
00:28:56.220
missions to help you know the team come together you build contraptions you carry logs you like you
00:29:03.600
name it right google go rough you'll see a lot of the stuff that goes on right yeah the missions i've
00:29:08.240
been in that like someone always gets injured right pretend injured right then you have to carry you
00:29:14.140
have to carry them figure that out and that's always hard and like the often like the cadre are
00:29:18.560
like they won't pick the ladies because you're like they're the lightest but like they'll pick like
00:29:21.560
the heaviest guy oh always the biggest yeah you always pick them you know and and so you know
00:29:28.220
part of it is is that it's also you don't know when this is going to end right that's a huge difference
00:29:34.880
between say going road running or a marathon or you know a road race whatever it's like you start
00:29:41.040
and then you know they give you your mile markers and then it's over this this is not about the miles
00:29:48.020
per se it's about how the team is working the event as it unfolds it's in the mind of the cadre who's
00:29:54.260
leading the class so if if the team starts infighting and bickering it's my biggest pet peeve right like
00:30:01.440
cool breeds cool and our job as cadre is to ratchet up the stress factor now when you ratchet up the
00:30:08.480
stress factor what it does is people get short with each other they get you know they snap at each
00:30:13.420
other stuff like that well our job is is to correct that and and that's like how life should work right
00:30:19.620
i mean if you have a bad attitude fix your attitude it's not the world's it's not everyone around you
00:30:25.760
it's not their problem that you're having a bad day you know and and so that's our job is to make sure
00:30:32.220
that that type of stuff doesn't happen so that's the the go ruck what is it called now like when i was
00:30:38.000
doing it back in 2012 there was just the go ruck challenge that was it but now you've expanded the
00:30:43.680
line so i guess like the north like the the all-night event is called go ruck tough right so
00:30:48.480
the challenge is the series now right okay so there's the go ruck light the go ruck tough and
00:30:53.740
the go ruck heavy and they're they're basically all three of them are founded on the same type of special
00:30:59.400
forces lessons learned and teamwork leadership communication stuff like that the the biggest
00:31:05.380
difference is just the amount of time and the amount of stress if you will that's placed upon
00:31:11.700
the participants because it's not linear right so the light is intentionally very accepting and very
00:31:17.900
fun there's not enough time for the cadre to to be too tough on you if you will and and one of our
00:31:25.000
guidelines for the cadre is that they have to be liked and so you know you never say that to someone
00:31:31.400
who's a drill sergeant they need to be respected right but they also need to be liked because this
00:31:37.260
is an event that people are giving up their time and money to come be a part of because they want a
00:31:42.140
great experience and if they're angry or this is a boot camp type thing they're not going to have a
00:31:47.920
positive experience so the light there's not enough time to really ratchet down on the class to to still
00:31:56.040
sort of be liked frankly because you've got a lot of people and there's there's a method to the madness
00:32:01.040
always so yes it's challenging but we don't get to take you into sort of the depths of your your spirit
00:32:08.260
animal right the tough the 12-hour event you know formerly and and will always be the original go ruck
00:32:15.220
challenge the original go ruck event you will find your spirit animal there for sure and it's because we just
00:32:21.800
have a lot of time so you know the classic blueprint for the go ruck tough challenge is a three-hour
00:32:28.220
welcome party right that means three hours of crossfit to start it out right and if that's not
00:32:34.220
for you then it's not for you but it's for more people than than think it is right everybody says oh
00:32:40.360
i can't do that that's crazy then they show up and they do it and they you know these are the ones
00:32:44.720
that become lifelong converts and and then there's the the heavy which is you know you'll find multiple
00:32:50.040
spirit animals at that one yeah i haven't done that one i haven't done have i've done like probably
00:32:55.820
three toughs yeah haven't done the heavy yet and then you guys have one that's like brutal is selection
00:33:02.540
which is we do 48 hours right so that's a different that's a different event entirely and so first off
00:33:09.720
you're you're on the hook for heavy you're due i've i've heard you're an awesome teammate at all of
00:33:14.080
your events i know you love to lift heavy stuff because i get your newsletters right and uh right you
00:33:19.820
know heavy is just lifting heavy stuff for longer right so uh it's it's a good one though it's still
00:33:25.200
the team event it's still the same philosophy of working together and stuff it's just longer pushes
00:33:29.240
you harder so selection is kind of the dark side of go ruck though it sort of stole all the oxygen out
00:33:35.500
of the room a few years ago and we had a lot of them and ultimately it's it's based off of special
00:33:41.200
forces assessment and selection so it's not a team event it's not a fun event ever it's not sort of
00:33:47.580
designed to empower you except in so far as it will teach you a lot of humility and and that's
00:33:54.280
the greatest lesson that i learned from both completing the special forces qualification course
00:34:00.340
which was only the beginning of my real service and then serving was was humility and the guys that
00:34:07.200
you serve with they give it to you and the training you get it from the cadre who are in the training
00:34:11.620
but selection is is is i if there's a tougher endurance event in the world i've never seen it
00:34:16.480
yeah no it looks pretty brutal but besides these these other events you guys have branched out like
00:34:21.380
you have one event that i did a few weeks ago here in tulsa was called constellation and it was a lot
00:34:27.140
of fun okay if someone to sign up for that what would someone expect there and what's the goal of
00:34:31.360
constellation so we were just chatting before what did you describe it to your friends as i described it as
00:34:37.500
adult hide and seek in downtown tulsa while learning survival urban survival skills yeah so i i mean
00:34:44.360
that's about right look i mean at the foundation of what go rock events are and do is we have these
00:34:51.620
special forces cadre and the the depth of experience is enormous and so yes there's this this physical
00:35:00.620
event called the go rock challenge and we've got a pretty strong blueprint on that we know how to build
00:35:06.200
teams and and yet there's a lot more stuff that we can we can teach our cadre can teach and so
00:35:12.700
urban survival is certainly one of them and so what we see constellation as is a series that runs
00:35:20.760
parallel to the challenge right so it's authentic and all of the same ways that the challenge are it's
00:35:26.260
led by special forces guys and they teach you special forces lessons they're designed to empower
00:35:31.200
this isn't this isn't designed for you to become a spy or anything like that right it's designed
00:35:38.200
for you to show up and learn what to do in the time of crisis and more than anything what you'll learn
00:35:44.140
is that it's a mindset it's a mindset of being in special forces where i i'm not the best thing at
00:35:52.340
anything but i know i can figure it out and i know that when hell descends i know how to keep my calm
00:35:57.700
and do the right thing and so that's sort of the purpose of constellation and where that urban
00:36:03.940
survival side of go rock is going to go and so we also have you know expeditions that are out in the
00:36:09.420
out in the wilderness and you know basically there's lots of outdoor style companies it's just
00:36:14.580
our outdoor events are led by current and former special forces gods i mean boy scouts that also have
00:36:20.640
war stories which is pretty cool that was awesome i had a great time and uh for those i think it's a
00:36:25.760
great way if you're not ready to do a challenge event it's a great introduction to sort of the go
00:36:32.420
rock community and then from there yeah so the best part is about go rock is the people yeah you know
00:36:37.400
the community and so we want people to see that community and and constellation is certainly a new
00:36:42.580
way in yeah i mean that's let's talk about that i mean i feel like let's talk about like what your big
00:36:46.920
picture goals are with these events it's not just about selling bags and selling the go rock brand i mean
00:36:52.720
it seems like you guys actually have like a big picture goal like you want to change the the culture
00:36:58.880
in some way and you know what i when i the events that i've done i feel like one of the big lessons
00:37:03.720
that the the cadres are trying to pound into our heads is this idea of teamwork because i remember
00:37:10.040
you talk about that welcome party you know they always they always said like the welcome party will
00:37:15.180
last as long as you want or you need it to last like what does that mean and it was basically it was
00:37:19.500
like he would keep it going until he saw that we were working as a team and it always took like two
00:37:25.300
or three hours for people to kind of get that idea so i mean is that the like the biggest issue you see
00:37:31.460
when people do these events like they're they're thinking like an individual and they don't want to
00:37:34.620
think like a like a team member yeah i mean i think all of us do it right you know i mean we live our we
00:37:41.360
live our lives and you know we all have our iphones and our eye furniture and our eye houses and
00:37:48.000
everything you know we we have this cultural ability to be so so private and privacy is is
00:37:56.520
great right i'm all for you know the rights associated with that but the problem is is that
00:38:02.620
we're also human beings and evolution has raised us to be part of a of a community that's how that's
00:38:09.700
how we thrive is together and right now go rock is running counterculture to this idea of it's all
00:38:17.160
about me me me me me right so everyone sits and waits for you know when's the next iphone going to
00:38:23.020
come out because then i'll i'll be happy right i'll put my headphones in and i'll walk around
00:38:27.000
by myself and i'll listen to my music on my phone and see my world and you know it's all about me and
00:38:34.900
we're at our events and just in the way that we want to live our our lives is we want to be part of
00:38:41.020
something bigger than ourselves and so where i've seen that operate the best is is in the united states
00:38:48.440
army special forces i mean it is exactly not about you it is about your team and so we we bottle up
00:38:57.560
that little bit of magic that way of life and we bring that with us to our events and it colors the way
00:39:04.240
that we talk about what we do and how we do it and and certainly you know shapes our thinking and how
00:39:10.800
we should be leading events and teaching people that way of life right yeah i mean um the big take
00:39:16.980
i love that lesson when they finally we had to like during the the welcome party like the cadre just
00:39:22.480
finally had to tell us like you guys have to do this thing together like everything has to be in sync
00:39:27.540
if you don't do it in sync then we're going to keep doing this until you get it in sync and what's
00:39:31.880
amazing uh is that really breaks down the barriers like after that welcome party the rest of the night
00:39:37.220
people are looking out for each other they're they're uh they're humble they're no longer
00:39:43.220
thinking like a like an individual but rather they're thinking like a team player so like that
00:39:47.200
that welcome party really is sort of like that rite of passage into the go ruck community that breaks
00:39:51.760
down those those walls and makes you start thinking like you're part of a team yeah so the the go
00:39:57.740
ruck challenge it's it's an easier way to do this because pain is a very powerful motivator
00:40:03.580
right so once you show up to any school or to any job for that matter right you're playing by someone
00:40:10.140
else's rules now over time you can help evolve those rules maybe usually in military settings and stuff
00:40:16.660
you can't you're just playing by their rules and so at the go ruck challenge it's the cadre sets the
00:40:22.560
rules and so you have to play by those rules that's sort of the definition of it right and and so what
00:40:29.140
we're trying to show people is that it's not about how fast you can do this by yourself because we see
00:40:35.260
that a lot right someone will show up and they just think they show up full of they're just a little
00:40:40.700
cocky i'm gonna crush this and and it's about me a lot of people sign up to prove something of
00:40:45.500
themselves and they they learn a little something extra while they're there along this journey
00:40:49.880
after they eat their humble pie you know and they show up in their bark and orders at everyone
00:40:54.580
because they're doing the push-ups better the whatever bear crawls better and so your cadre
00:40:59.820
told you hey you have to do this together for whatever reason breaking down the barriers of our
00:41:05.960
lives it takes a little bit of time you know people are naturally don't just go up to each other and say
00:41:12.060
hey let's work together you have to build rapport that's a process takes time it takes trust and in this
00:41:17.940
case it's just highly accelerated because there's a motivator to to making sure that you work
00:41:24.720
together aka pain right yeah i love that but what lessons do you think on leadership do you think a man
00:41:31.940
could learn from taking part in a go rook challenge so you can't learn a lot from leadership in just books
00:41:40.320
you to learn is to do and when you're given an opportunity to lead you have to do it so we sort of break
00:41:48.540
down the the process into four steps like solving problems in life in general understand the problem
00:41:55.820
visualize a solution over communicate and then adapt to win and so if you apply these sort of steps to
00:42:03.740
any problem you'll know where you are in this sort of decision making process and it helps you be a
00:42:10.460
better leader so understand the problem a lot of times people hear what they want to hear not what's
00:42:15.140
actually being said and so they start going off in the wrong direction solving the wrong problem if you
00:42:20.540
will right after you have made sure that you brief your boss back what you thought you understood the
00:42:26.040
problem to be right then you say okay now you've got to visualize a solution right you say okay this is
00:42:32.680
how we're going to solve this sometimes it requires consensus other times it doesn't sometimes you got a
00:42:38.200
task not ask right over communicate your plan to your team and and by the way over communication is
00:42:46.680
literally impossible it's not possible to over communicate it's just life changes anything changes
00:42:53.560
you've got to communicate those changes to everyone there's nothing more boring than being sort of a
00:42:58.240
private in life or in the military and not knowing what's going on and you're just told to stand over
00:43:03.580
there and do nothing right that's that's not a fun place to be and so if you're in charge make sure
00:43:08.720
that people know what's going on and then adapt to win basically basically just means murphy's gonna
00:43:15.400
strike it's not if it's when and you have to then reassess where you are with your plan and your team
00:43:22.680
and so when you're in charge you're you have to if the whole plan changes you've got to go back and
00:43:28.860
understand the problem again visualize a solution over communicate and make sure that you have your
00:43:32.980
whole team on board with you and make sure that you're going the right direction but ultimately that's
00:43:37.260
sort of a system leadership is about doing you've got to do you've got to make decisions and then if
00:43:43.480
they're the wrong decisions you've got to fail fast you've got to eat some humble pie you've got to
00:43:47.160
correct it quickly and you've got to keep on going with a new better plan yeah what i love about the
00:43:51.820
challenges is that everyone pretty much everyone will have a chance to be a leader at some point in
00:43:56.900
the night where they'll have to lead some mission but then everyone will also have a turn being a
00:44:01.600
follower but i think that's an important part of learning how to be a leader is learning how to be
00:44:05.720
a good follower as well and it's amazing it's always it's amazing to see the i don't know like some
00:44:11.660
people are terrified of actually being a leader for like two hours during a go rec event but at the by
00:44:17.060
the end of it like you can see that confidence because they actually got to practice
00:44:20.660
that leadership theory you were talking about yeah we're really big on empowerment you know and
00:44:26.460
there's so many times in life where people are just too scared to take the first step and i know
00:44:31.260
because i've been there right like i'm the guy that that couldn't ask the love of his life to to go out
00:44:38.300
with him on a date for like a decade so i'm not sitting here just some barrel-chested freedom fighter
00:44:43.440
you know and it's like sometimes the first step's really hard and and being forced to being forced
00:44:51.620
to take that first step can be the best thing that ever happened to you yeah well i'm sure um you've
00:44:57.500
had a lot of stories because i think you and huckberry guys have done this thing where they have like a
00:45:02.180
battle story event where you guys get together and drink some beer and then share stories of you know
00:45:07.080
past go rec event glories i'm curious in your your time doing the challenges in these events
00:45:13.380
have there been any stories of people whose lives were transformed because of an event that really
00:45:18.540
stuck out to you and really i don't know like it sticks with you and you're like man this is why
00:45:22.680
we do it this is why we're doing this thing that we're doing yeah i i mean the most tangible story
00:45:28.660
i mean i i'm pretty accessible on facebook and so people reach out to me and stuff which
00:45:32.820
which i love frankly you know i love our community and our people um and one notable story was a guy
00:45:40.180
transitioning he had already transitioned out of the military and was just in a really dark dark place
00:45:46.700
and you know as he's recounting later he's like you know i was i was on the verge of killing myself
00:45:53.460
and i i just i needed something and for whatever reason the idea of showing up and suffering with
00:46:00.940
other people like i used to do in the military at a go ruck challenge it spoke to me and instead of
00:46:06.880
killing myself i showed up at the go ruck challenge and i became part of this awesome community and it
00:46:12.240
sort of it wasn't an overnight fix for me so i just got goosebumps it wasn't an overnight fix for me
00:46:18.360
but you know it it brought me back to the kind of person that i wanted to be again yeah i love that
00:46:24.020
story that's an awesome do you have a lot of former um military guys doing go ruck
00:46:28.360
so yeah we do short the short answer is yes the the longer answer is a lot of times people will
00:46:35.480
see it and they'll say no thanks i'm good i've done that right but as as we who have been in sort of get
00:46:43.760
more removed from it you realize that the best part about the army was also the people right the people
00:46:49.660
that you got to serve with and beside and that's what go ruck sort of replicates so it fills a lot of
00:46:54.500
voids in in people's lives like that and i think for the better yeah i i know in my experience you
00:47:00.100
know i'm not i'd never served in the military but i feel like the the challenges um have been a way
00:47:05.660
for me to rub shoulders with veterans um and it's a great way for civilians and veterans to rub shoulders
00:47:11.300
and do something together and for civilians to get an insight into what you know veterans did
00:47:17.700
instead of the whole you know thank you for your service like you actually get to do something
00:47:21.380
with these guys and i think the veterans like that too because you know they're just doing
00:47:26.300
something they're not they're like you know i feel like sometimes they feel awkward being told
00:47:29.640
thank you for your service kind of be put on a pedestal sometimes they just want to like
00:47:32.740
live their life and do something with just like a normal human being so that's been i feel like a
00:47:37.980
been a benefit to me personally doing the events yeah that's a really good that's a really good and
00:47:43.740
fair assessment of it i mean for us building a bridge between the military and the civilian
00:47:47.700
worlds is is a really important and noble calling and so however many years after the wars and and
00:47:55.300
all of the sort of saturation visual that we've been given from those wars you know it's it's it's
00:48:03.460
become too easy for the talking heads out there to talk about how there's such a huge gap between
00:48:09.700
the military and the civilian worlds and such a small percentage of america actually serves we forget how
00:48:15.860
far we've come from vietnam we forget just we forget about the good things because they're not the
00:48:20.860
right clickbait or whatever right and so what we see through go rock events is a lot of people
00:48:25.780
who for time or circumstance didn't serve in the military but are leading very good and noble lives
00:48:33.500
in their communities making the world a better place in in their way as well and this is just a place
00:48:39.660
where for me personally i thought that awesome i thought that special forces kind of had a monopoly
00:48:47.020
on awesome right when i was in and it's kind of the mindset that you have to have and however when i got
00:48:53.560
out and i was exposed to the community that became the go rock community it's there's a lot of people
00:49:00.060
out there that are just really good people and they want to do really good stuff and they want to serve
00:49:04.420
something higher than themselves and i've met a lot of them and so it is it's fun to just be out there
00:49:09.660
and it doesn't matter if you're black white young old male female gay straight military civilian whatever
00:49:15.580
you're just out there doing work together and i think that that's the surest way to break down any
00:49:20.660
barrier i love that well jason where can people go to learn more about uh the events and the challenges
00:49:25.980
you guys do so go rock.com has the whole go rock universe on it gear events apparel you name it
00:49:32.940
awesome well jason mccarthy thank you so much for your time it's been an absolute pleasure
00:49:36.520
thanks for having me brad it's awesome my guest today was jason mccarthy he is the founder and ceo
00:49:41.260
of go rock you can find more information about go rock and their events at go rock.com also check
00:49:46.140
out our show notes at aom.is slash go rock where you can find links to resources where you can delve
00:49:50.120
deeper in this topic you'll find some links about my experience with go rock and how i trained for
00:49:54.380
check that out there go rock at aom.is slash go rock
00:49:57.860
well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice
00:50:14.280
make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you enjoy the
00:50:18.080
show if you've gotten something out of it i'd appreciate it if you take a minute or two to
00:50:20.680
write us review on itunes for stitcher really helps us out a lot as always thank you for your
00:50:24.620
continued support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly
00:50:50.680
and can walk a little bit you can walk a little bitAmbellatri to the art of manly options
00:50:55.020
so you can find some pictures because of you as you can know it went through this