This episode is sponsored by a company I've used for well over a decade and that is 511. I wore their uniforms back in Anaheim, California and have used their products ever since. From their incredibly strong yet light footwear to their cut uniforms for both male and female responders, I found them hands down the best workwear in all the departments that I've worked for.
Outside of the fire service, I use their luggage for everything and I travel a lot and they are also now sponsoring the 7X team as we embark around the world on the Human Performance project. We have Murph coming up in May and again I bought their plate carrier, I ended up buying real ballistic plates rather than the fake weight plates and that has been my ride or die through Murph the last few years as well.
One area I want to talk about that I haven't in previous sponsorship spots is their brick and mortar element. They were predominantly an online company up till more recently but now they are approaching 100 stores all over the US. My local store is here in Gainesville Florida and I've been multiple times and the discounts you see online are applied also in the stores.
So as I mentioned 511 is offering you 15% off every purchase that you make but I do want to say more often than not they have an even deeper discount especially around holiday times. But if you use the code SHIELD15 you will get 15% off your order or in the stores every time you make a purchase. And if you want to hear more about 511, who they stand for and who works with them, listen to episode 580 of Behind the Shield podcast with 511 regional director Will Ayers.
Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast as always my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show former tier 1 Navy SEAL, current contractor and the author of American Mercenary Daniel Corbett.
Now in this conversation we discuss a host of topics from his early life, his journey into the military, deploying to Iraq, Somali pirates, his transition into contracting, spending 18 months awaiting trial in Serbia, military transition, seeking discomfort, the aging athlete and so much more. Before we get to this incredible conversation as I say every week, please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single 5 star rating truly does elevate this podcast therefore making it easier for others to find and this is a free library of over 950 episodes now so all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them. So with that being said, I introduce to you Daniel Corbett. Enjoy. Well Daniel, I want to start by saying two things.
Firstly to our mutual friend Ryan Parrott, thank you for connecting us and secondly I want to welcome you onto the Behind the Shield podcast today. Awesome, thank you and thanks Birdman for connecting us. So where on planet earth are we finding you this afternoon? You are finding me in North Scottsdale, Arizona.
Beautiful. Well I would love to start at the very beginning of your story so tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings? I was born in Hawaii on the army base or I think it's an Air Force hospital, I'm not sure, Tripler. Anyways, I was born in Hawaii, my dad was in the army, was a heating, ventilation and air conditioner mechanic guy.
Mom and dad met when they were super young, got married super young, have been together ever since so from day one love was very abundant in the household. Dad, soon I was born and at one years old we had left Hawaii so I tell people I was born in Hawaii and they're like oh man, they start speaking to me, pigeon and referencing all these things and I'm like bro, I left when I was one, sorry. Oh whatever bro, I'm like sorry man.
So we left Hawaii, went to Arizona, that's where my brother was born three years later and then from Arizona we went to Germany and we stayed there for about three years which is pretty cool when I was there was the time when Berlin Wall came down so it was pretty wild taking chartered school buses to school and having military police with their guns and being briefed on IEDs like don't pick up boxes or jackets you see on the ground.
I was like okay whatever, at that age you don't really know, you just listen. And mom was a full time housewife, tank carrier, me and my brother and my dad would go on two week trips or one week or one month doing big army stuff.
And after three years in Germany we moved to Texas, was in Texas for a year and I think at that time my dad's rate in the army was going to merge with another rate or something and it was one of those deals where only 35 or 20% was going to be able to make rank and the rest were going to be kind of capped and left behind and there was like an incentive based program where if you just volunteered to get out you can break your EOS early and
they'll give you like 12, 20 grand whatever and no harm no foul. My dad, you know at that time I was 12, my brother was 8, hadn't seen a whole lot of us and he was like you know what I'm going to take the money, I don't have a plan but I don't care.
And then we left Texas and we moved in with grandma and grandpa, my dad's parents for about two months till I got a job at one of the school districts there doing the air conditioning stuff and Northern California became home for the rest of my time from sixth grade on. How was your dad's transition? I mean obviously there's an assumption that the people who struggle are the ones that saw combat but then you look at the statistics and it's actually not the case.
There's a lot of people that were behind the front line that still struggled when they left their tribe that had been a part of for a long time. What was his transition like specifically? I think he hedged his bets pretty good. He hedged his situation very well because he's got two brothers and two sisters and they all lived in the same area, mom and dad were there so he had his tribe. He had his tribe and he left the military for a big purpose which was his wife and two kids.
So he didn't have that gap of trying to find his new tribe or having to seek out friends or anything. It was all right there in his family and the friends he has now are still the friends he had in high school. They're all in the same Northern California area so he kind of went from one tribe to the military to another tribe and back to his original tribe when he got out. And I've noticed that too.
I see the military is really good not only with people thinking that that's their tribe and it is but people identifying themselves as what they do while they're in the military. Or if he had two brothers the same age and one goes and stocks groceries at a grocery store for four years and one joins the military for four years. The guy who stocks groceries for four years doesn't think his identity is gone when he quit stocking groceries.
You know like oh I'm the grocery man but for some reason the military you know I don't know if it's like genius marketing or what but we attach ourselves to that job regardless of what it is. Or people on the outside some do but most guys are like no that's just what I did for work. Do you think that's because you know certainly what you did and partially what I did they want to break you down.
You know you take an 18 year old Marine you know and the boot campers decide to kind of make that canvas blank again and then rebuild them. Do you think that's needed however also the root cause of why there's more identity crisis in uniform? I think so. I think also I was very young when I joined I'm sure most people are very young when they join and it just so happens when you find out who you are. You know I'm this kind of guy I believe in these things.
This is what I like this is what I don't like these are my moral you know go no go criteria. That happens at a young man's age for me at least was like 22, 23 like kids is kind of who I am and then obviously two years after that you look back at yourself and like you didn't know anything you know and I still to this day do this year by year right.
But that happens around the early 20s I would say for young men and they just happen to be in the military so they attach it to that also or the guy stopped from groceries doesn't attach himself to that and it doesn't have that like coming of age experience as to who he really is after high school after leaving mom and dad. Okay who am I? Who are my friends? What do I really like? What was I doing just to appease family? What do I really care about?
And that happens and it just so happens to happen when guys are in the military for the most part that age demographic fits. We end up obviously being incredibly you know high performing tactical athlete when it came to the Navy. When you were in the school age what were you playing and doing then? Big time high school football. Northern California was straight out of Friday Night Lights. That was the way out from my small farm town.
It was we had one guy go to UCLA some other guys go to some other big schools and the way it was Max Squat, Max Bench and Run Your Forty time and try to make it. And I was getting looked at for a while and you know that was a path where I had to make a decision is this going to be my path but I stopped growing. In eighth grade I was 5'10, 170. I'm 5'10, 170 now so I kind of stopped right. But I had the beard and everyone's like oh he's going to be a monster.
Everyone caught up and then passed me very very soon in high school and I kept getting hurt. I said man I don't know if this is it and then I kind of transitioned to running cross country and doing endurance sports in my own triathlons and half marathons.
I always ask people this because most people have done some sort of individual sport even obviously on track you're on a team or cross country on a team but it's you against the voice in your mind ultimately and yet you've got football where arguably you can sandbag and the team might still win. There's not as much pressure on the individual performance. Obviously the goal is to have both.
When you look back at the individual sports you played and then the team sports that you played how did each of those experiences factor into your success in the Navy? The team sports obviously the team dynamic right. A good plan now is better than a perfect plan that's never executed right.
It's like knowing all that stuff, managing personalities, knowing when to follow, knowing when to lead, swallowing your pride, not just turning back to someone who's struggling with something because you get the whole generic cheesy phrases you're only as strong as your weakest link but it's true. So seeing all that firsthand and not just in theory in practical application on the field.
So definitely the teamwork dynamics and then the endurance sports the individual ones I call it you know going to that place in your mind and for me it's a room.
Guys that go into BUDs that weren't endurance athletes or never been in that room never had to go to that place when you first open that door in your mind and go in that room it's cold it's scary it's a foreign new place but if you can put yourself in situations where you go into that room often then you can clean it up a little bit build a fireplace in there a rug a couch.
So my room where I need to go in my head when things get tough I mean it is it is decked out it is super nice because I spend a lot of time in there and I think those endurance sports you spend a lot of time in that space in your head and for me it's that picture a room that is now very furnished very comfortable.
One of the issues I see in my profession is a lot of guys will look back and say oh I was in my best shape of my life when I was in the fire academy you know and and we don't have physical standards you know most fire departments do not have a standard that you have to adhere to year in year out.
So the most diligent obviously keep themselves in great shape and they do all the way through to when they retire the least diligent you know breathe a sigh of relief when they leave the fire academy and then every year they have to get new pants because they're getting bigger and bigger.
One of the scariest things to me is if you haven't been in that room and it's still cold and there's still cobwebs in there and then you get a fire and you've got to climb 10 stories or 20 stories with 100 pounds of gear and then go in and get a kid you're not going to be able to perform. So to me it was less about the physicality and more about being in that pain cave.
The last time I was in a horrible place in a red line workout was three days ago was five days ago versus three or five or ten years ago. What is your kind of philosophy on that principle as you progress through your career maintaining that suffering in your training? I have one leg up I would say in most people I enjoy it.
I enjoy seeing where my limits are I enjoy not only the result but I enjoy the process I enjoy the day to day to get there and I have to admit when I left SEAL training you know I wouldn't say I have a problem with authority but I was so just it had ruined camping for me it had ruined the water for me it had ruined running for me and I'll admit I wasn't in the best shape I'm in way better shape now than I've ever been because I know
the importance of it especially you know getting phone calls and doing jobs on a moment's notice you got to stay ready it's not about getting ready. The importance of the physical aspect to me that's not even it's not even a conversation if you have a job that's demanding like that is not even a conversation you should not be buying new pants every year like that is a given because that is so simple and so easy to do that's just lifestyle and small decisions every day.
So to me the physical stuff that just needs to happen like I don't even don't even show up and talk to me unless it's done and then let's go with the other stuff let's go start making that room in your mind nice and comfortable nice and furnished you know let's make frequent trips there you know one three times a week right so you don't kill yourself but you know I like it there it's fun it's where everything's quiet I'm not worried about taxes or my phone
going off or emails it's my own little fortress of solitude. What about career aspirations when you were going through high school obviously you were considering football were there any other kind of prospects that you were thinking back then or were you already thinking of the military?
I was so young and having such a good time in high school I mean I was good with I was good with girls I was a star athlete and it was great and I never even thought life existed out of high school you know I was just like this is great and then one year in cross country the assistant cross country coach said hey what are you doing after?
I'm like after what after practice he's like no after high school you idiot and that's when it clicked I'm like oh shit I have to do something after this and it'd go on forever fuck I don't know and I don't come from a family of academic students like oh you're gonna go to Yale like your dad like that was not a thing in my household he goes okay the next day he brings me a VHS tape history channel Navy Seals and it showed all the cool training
talked about the 200 to 1 kill death ratio in Vietnam said it was the hardest training in the world and then when they interviewed one of the seals they said what makes you guys so good?
The guy replied it's not that we're good it's just that everyone else just sucks okay that's cool that's cool I like this I can get down with that and I was always pretty intelligent I was put in some trials like super smart after school programs it was fun it was stimulating but the people you know they're nerds which is good I love them but like I wasn't trying to go party with them so I didn't really fit in there and then I'd go hang out with the
football guys but they're you know their their focus was like really really right in front of their faces like let's get drunk and party I'm good with that too but there was there was nothing mentally stimulating outside of that so I was like fuck where do I go and then when I saw that documentary it seemed like okay these guys are crushing it on the physical side and they also seem super intelligent let's let's go there that seems like that's gonna cover all the bases for me.
Well you mentioned already you know furnishing this little room in your mind I've obviously had a lot of a lot of people from the SEAL community now and other special forces groups and the I think the big myth that the average person thinks you know myself included until I started doing this was that what is the uber athletes that get through you know Hell Week or BUDs or whatever it is and then you start hearing and it's not you know it's a
spectrum of people and a lot of people you know pointing out that person's definitely going to get through and they don't or vice versa so with you specifically I mean you said you kind of you know physically stopped growing at 170 what was it about your physicality and your your mental element that allowed you to progress through the selection process when so many people rang the bell?
I think well for one like you're saying the run times aren't crazy like a high school cross-country kid would crush the runs right a high school swimmer would crush the runs so the times you don't they're not Olympic times they're hard but they're not unachievable and I think I got very lucky the way like a special forces body 510 170 185 like on the obstacle course you're like that kind of that perfect height perfect weight you're
not too lanky you're not too short so kind of lucky there and then I think a lot of the guys who quit are guys who never even had a key to that door in their mind or didn't even know that room was in there and they had to go in there the first time and it's it's the first time you go there it's scary you know it's cold it's dark like you said there's cobwebs your roaches across the floor like wow and I think the guys who've been
there the water polo guys the wrestlers the endurance guys they tap into that every day at wrestling practice I did wrestling for one year and I was like holy shit that's one of the hardest things I ever did I think the people who have that room built furnished comfortable in their mind they've been there multiple times before they get to Bud's have a way better chance and the guys who've never gone there maybe they'll get through but I
haven't seen it now am I right in understanding that you were assigned to five around the same time that Jocko and Leif and some of those guys were in I think I was after them okay so because I know you deployed to Iraq first so I on all these conversations I know there's a lot of war stories and you know there's things certainly that your community can't or won't talk about so the way I like to approach you know the the sailors experience
in this case is not so much from the specific you know things that you saw and did in war but more with the human experience so the first one I always ask was there a point regardless of the politics that sent you to wherever you were deployed that you witnessed atrocities and realized that there were some horrific people that needed to be taken care of oh yeah 100% you know the politics of why we go to war and you know did this guy really
have these or whatever that's way too far removed from me and I was very junior guy and it's not even my realm and I wouldn't even know what to do with the information if I had it all but yeah we've seen guys you know decapitated heads in fridges yeah what about the other side of the coin I think we because the reason I asked this question I didn't preface it I normally do you know when we're back home the civilians the first
responders everyone else who's not wearing a military uniform we get a very polarized view of war it's either let God's you know kill them all let God sort them out or they're all baby killers you know depending on which channel you've chosen to turn to but obviously there's the boys and girls arguably that we send overseas to fight for our country you know they're the ones that we should be asking so you know that one side is obviously again
like I said the the horrors of war but the other side which you also don't hear is the kindness and compassion that people you know witness on the battlefield so what about moments of that you know that we've heard so many stories of military vets taking care of local animals you know building schools I mean all these things that just don't seem to make the press what were some of the the things you remember as far as kindness and compassion
were you wearing the uniform well first off we're going into the polarizing of the war of war itself I think during World War two when there's a trench and you have one unit that looks like this in the order this uniform and then we are on this side like it's very easy right you're bad we're good and they're saying well no you're bad we're good when you start doing like the whole global war on terrorism and you're not at war with the
country you're at war with groups within the country and they're at war with each other and they're not uniforms like it's already hyper nuanced and very gray so for people to say oh you're all bad you're all good now you're getting very binary to the group of people that are in this very nuanced very gray situation it doesn't make sense you need to treat that very nuanced and very gray and give the people that are over there doing
it that same lateral movement and wiggle room as far as the whole compassion stuff yeah I've seen guys adopt dogs I've seen churches and that churches schools being built that wasn't my thing I wasn't there to do that if I wanted to do that I want to join the Peace Corps or something or volunteer to church I was there no I didn't I didn't go through some sort of animal psychology course and buds nor any carpentry schools I went to shoot
guns so what made you make a decision to challenge yourself yet again and and enter dev group my best friend at the time was screening and he's like hey you want to scream with me I was at church and this is before all the attention a lot of attention has been put on the SEAL teams and I think there were some guys senior to me and my team that had previously screened for dev group and didn't get picked up so I kind of knew about it I really didn't even
know about the program or the command and if I heard anything about it it's very negative because I think there were some bitter individuals that were like fuck that place blah blah blah so it was never an aspiration of mine really and then my buddy told me he was going to try out he said I should so what I got to do he had to go see the Master Chief walk in go see the Master Chief and he said hey I was actually looking for you I want you
to do this I was gonna ask you I was like oh perfect so filled out the packet and then when their staff came over to do the screening on the west coast was lined up ready to go and again same question as before what was it because now you're you know a tier one within an already elite team what was it mentally physically that allows you to succeed in that selection process same thing can I tell guys this all the time I've seen guys this is after
my time at that command I'll see you guys getting ready after they've been selected they've been picked up and they go oh I'm gonna start doing yoga I'm gonna go vegan with carnivore why don't change anything don't change anything they asked you to come because you're doing something right don't stop being you once you get there yeah maybe don't go out till 2 a.m. every morning and eat more for breakfast in the Snickers bar and monster
maybe that's not the best way but you've been running on that for like five years now and crushing it now's not the time to change it or try to clean it up like just keep going hold your course and then when you get through and you want to perform better or change your lifestyle do it then unless unless you're doing something super detrimental okay yeah change it as soon as possible but just stay in the course they asked you to come for a
reason why would you change what you've been doing it doesn't make any sense again you're talking about organizations that you know are secret for a reason so I'm not even gonna address you know any of the things that you did but I think where there's a lot of value to the comparison is the innovation that I've heard from some of your your fellow team members that you're allowed to kind of forge in that position you know trying to find the latest
training and equipment and those kind of things talk to me about that philosophy specifically because my profession in the fire service a lot of us are taking classes on using vacation days and paying out of our own pocket just to get better at rope rescue or extrication so I would argue we're on the other side of this what I would love to see is my community ultimately when we fix a lot of the glaring issues really embracing that the innovation
I mean we still wear pillows for gloves for example our radios still don't even work in half the buildings that we go into yet people can go to space you know I mean so there's a big disconnect so what what did you see in that community as far as your ability to really you know explore the outer areas to find the very very best techniques training and equipment for your your men that starts day one of bugs it's that free thinking thinking
outside the box mentality is developed it's developed and fostered from day one prime example we're doing night rock portage we have to do the little ibf on the boats on the rocks from the hotel dell it's night it's winter big waves and we're standing there with the boats in our head and the structure goes you guys can tell me what time it is within two minutes your boat crew is secure you're done okay the officer my boat crew
since hey quarter come with me you've run over to where it's all taped off and people are watching you know I went with them swim buddy six foot roll ran over saw two people standing there hey what time is it it's 8 52 are you sure yes it's 8 52 project run back who the instructor so and so it's 8 52 and he was like okay like he liked that we did that he liked that we figured out a way to really figure out this time while maintaining
our six foot distance to our swim buddy and like we did it you can see the gears turning because he I think he wanted us to just shoot in the dark and yes and we didn't get hammered for doing that we got praised for it so it was like think outside the box and I think a lot of units are different I think my my dad would bring home the army booklets they're really cool sketch and there was one for everything for every little thing there was an instruction
manual how to do this how to do that was cool but it also showed some instructor that unless you read it and it didn't come and it came from this book you couldn't do something outside that and you can't write a little pamphlet for everything you might come across in war so that mentality all the way through buds and if you get a good SEAL team you know they don't this is how we've always done it blah blah blah and I didn't get that I got hey
what do you think as a new guy me I'm like oh I think we should come in from the north because it's a good idea we're gonna do that and you're like wow I'm a new guy and you guys you're gonna take this on board all right hey plan the route I'm planning the route oh sweet so my first platoon before I even got to SEAL team six was all about that and when you get to SEAL team six even more so like what do you guys think here's your target
deck how do you want to hit this how do you want to do this how do you want to go about so that's where I think a lot of people are confused when guys transition out they go oh you're a rank-and-file corporate guy let's get you a rank-and-file corporate job and I go no no these guys are creative these guys are artists we're left-brained okay and they're like wait but that doesn't make any sense but should military guys order wake up at
this time and go to chow at this time I'm like some but in essence what we do is create solutions to these asymmetrical problems they're like oh that makes sense so yes from buds all the way through my time at SEAL team five and through selection and even being at the command at SEAL team six was all about what do you guys think what do you want to do what if we did this oh shit let's try it it was good it was great what are the mistakes that
other organizations are making so for example what I've seen I've worked for an excellent fire department Anaheim California and the training was extremely high you know the culture promoted fitness you didn't have to have standards because almost all of us were in great shape and there was a lot of trust so a lot of the training was run by firefighters engineers you know captains the lower ranks conversely the last place I worked at there was zero
training zero standards and the micromanaging ego driven environment was completely toxic so I got to see kind of both sides I would argue one of the best departments in the country and one of the worst the way that you move forward obviously is a high level of training and then like you said that the trust allowing these professionals that you've hired that are wearing a badge to do the job that they've been trained to do have you been exposed to
this other side in responder professions that you worked alongside and if so what would you say to the first responder professions to maybe start fostering the kind of environment that you were trained in yeah there's things you can control and there's things you can't right I can't speak to any other units in detail because I don't really know their training cycle but I will hear guys be like oh I've been to this school I've been to freefall
school on jump all the time from a different branch of the military I go oh cool they're like well I'm the only one and I did it 10 years ago so not having cyclical training you know because in SEAL teams you check in six months go to schools come back six month work up hit every block boom boom boom and then you deploy and then when you come back you do the same thing right we have that cyclical training now that might not be possible if
there's budget concerns right now everyone's gonna get a lot of the right budget and time to do that and then the most critical obviously is culture and that is like the biggest butterfly effect when you graduate buds and go to a SEAL team and we even within that team go to your platoon if you have a fat lazy chief who's going through divorce and is just getting drunk every night you're gonna have a shitty culture in that platoon if you have a chief
that's crushing it fitness let's fucking work out let's let's get more time in the range and pushing that and it just breeds that culture and it's contagious and it's contagious on either end it can either be a cancer or it can be something good so culture from the top is definitely huge and I've seen my fair share of leaders get the boot at the SEAL teams for just not being leaders and the men not trusting them.
How do you maintain standards like through all these different kind of hats that you've worn because I mean you've got obviously leadership failures in this particular example and or fitness failures there really is no accountability in my profession and you again hope and I'm being very you know compassionate with this I talk a lot about the environment that our first responders work in and it sets them up for failure hands down the shifts they
work the mandatory overtime you're gonna get broken you're gonna get fat unless you are uber diligent but you know you listen to not only just your community the ocean lifeguards for example if you can't pass a swim test and do all the things you got to do then you're not an ocean lifeguard anymore it's just that simple how have you you know how do you find that excuse me how do you maintain those standards in your communities that maybe the first responder
professions can kind of start to learn from. The easy answer is hardline I mean you show up to SEAL Team 6 first day selection and you miss your push up by one push up or your run time at one second that's it so being hardline on the standards right now no no good old boy hookups because you know he was ex marine and we have a bunch of marines on our SWAT team so we'll give him another pass or he's a big dude he doesn't need to pass a run by that much or at all so being
hardline on your standards and then like you were saying I have a buddy who is a police officer in San Diego and you know there's a little bit of civil unrest going on and he was working like 14 hour shifts and he sits in a car all day with body armor and he doesn't have any way to keep food so yeah could he wake up early hit the gym meal prep on his one day off yeah he could but how long can you maintain that with your day to day
being 14 hours in a car you know you're going to break eventually but you know I'm getting McDonald's and then it happens so I'm you know totally spitballing here but for those first responders type jobs, incentivize guys if you have a budget pay for their gym membership you know do something instead of oh that's just the way it is and that's the worst thing I hate that that statement oh that's just the way it's the way it is or that's the way
it's always been who cares doesn't mean it's right you know what I mean absolutely I always say you know they stop putting kids up chimneys and then work in the factories yeah you know because one day they realize this is wrong you know it's not simple you shouldn't be doing this all right well then I know you transition to a training role as well shifting away from my profession more towards the law enforcement side you talked about the cyclical
training and this is something you know that the skills that I learned as a firefighter you know if I didn't keep practicing them they just would go especially ropes and knots such as it's my tiny little brain would just struggle to keep it if I wasn't constantly going over it what are you seeing as far as the weapons training in the law enforcement side and again king for a day what should be happening to help our men and women in
uniform actually perform at the level that they're expected to first you need to fund the police that's the first that's the first thing budget creates training opportunities training opportunities create skill sets you know I've talked to police departments like yeah we're allowed we're allotted like something crazy like 15 rounds a month or like something like some stupid number of bullets they're allowed to use training which is crazy to
me because if I miss in Afghanistan I'm probably gonna hit a brick mud or a mud wall somewhere the open desert or some mountain if NYPD misses and they're in Times Square you know what I mean a lot of people standing around so I would want my police department guys to be shooting super hard yeah absolutely and then from what I've heard and again I'm not a cop but obviously I got a lot of friends in that profession worked alongside them for
14 years but what I hear is even the qualification a lot of times you're standing there a static target in a range firing six shots and then you get a little check mark and then that's it for six months or a year I did the sheepdog response with Tim Kennedy and that's you know like a two-day introduction between the combat side and the shooting side but even that you're moving and shooting and you know shooting from different positions so what about that
element you know the the training that they are getting at the moment is it you know what should be the gold standard for you know an officer with a sidearm and a rifle as you said that could be in a densely populated city so I teach some shooting out here in Arizona and I bring an 85 pound kettlebell kettlebell out with a rope and you know I make people get the heart rate up because if you think as even if you even if you're
a trained police officer or someone doing like a home defense situation if you think it's gonna be this static on the range low-degree gun take your breath line up everything perfect get your shot if someone breaks in them even my house at 3 a.m. my heart rate's going up no and that's gonna affect everything your breathing goes up your sight picture might move around a little bit and I think training train how you fight and you're never gonna
have a perpetrator with a gun you know seven yards away from you on the indoor range where you get to load your magazine and you just wait for you to get ready I think you know this is the whole the old adage train how you fight so you're not gonna fight indoors on a gun range but the static target go shoot move and communicate go get your heart rate up shoot move shoot from behind your car make radio calls know what that's like when you're
in a gunfight how do you get on your radio like really do a practical application yeah there are some amazing videos of people are doing it right there's one I forget where it was now one officer that pulls up and I think he takes one shot with a rifle but he's again radioing it five yards or something he pulls out yeah exactly but then you have you know just one that pops in my mind immediately you have one that was in things like a CVS
of Walgreens and the officer missed whoever he was trying to hit it went through a wall and killed someone you know within that store you know now not blaming anyone I mean who knows what that environment was like and how difficult that shot would have been but like you said there are so many examples of success of well-trained officers but sadly on the other side there are a lot of examples of where either communication or lack of training
have resulted in you know civilian death so were you in the trend the training position what made you decide to pull the trigger as far as transitioning out of the military specifically and then let's talk about going into the contracting side it'd been a while since I was in the recruit the rear counselor's office so I went in and I said hey am I up for this big relishment she's like no you missed it because you didn't do some paperwork shuffle that you had said
you were going to do later whatever so I missed a huge signing bonus and the war had slowly started to get really political like hey you need to bring it went from five to like fifteen partner force guys with you and then the Hilo that picks you up is going to drop off a team of investigators from that country and see if everything went down it was all kosher and you guys are on the clear and a lot of guys were like I don't want any part of this
like oh you know we need you to do a shooter statement right like guys were like we're not doing no so between that and missing out on a big paycheck I said well that's it I'm gonna get out and at that time I had no plans so I just got out and reached out to a couple companies and started contracting on big container ships come down through the Suez Canal stand on the bridgeway ride that for 20 days come home so how was that because you've still
gone from an elite tight-knit group to you know outside that group now was there any jarring elements of that position yeah it sucked I'm thankful for the company for the opportunity but you know the guys were some of the guys were like really old there are some studs on there but there's like really old guys guys I couldn't even put their gear together right and what am I doing and yeah I'm an AVCL that's been on the ocean a little
bit but being on the bridgeway in the middle of the ocean for like multiple days I'm like dude this is not for me this is like the most lonely I've been in my entire life itself yeah this isn't it this is not it and what was the threat that they were expecting pirates okay yeah was that Somali specifically or from other Asian areas too you hit a certain parallel if you get what it was you catch the boats on the south end the Suez Canal
take a little boat climb up a big ship get settled in and once we got past a certain parallel I forget which one we would stand watch you know go get all the ports come back through that was it obviously you know SEAL Team 6 is known for a specific rescue when it comes to Somali pirates but it's been interesting hearing certain guests talk about the origin story and again this isn't like apples to apples specifically but I had no idea that
the Somali coast was being overfished by a lot of other countries and that was creating a lot of poverty in that nation did you ever get exposed to that or you know did you did you see another side to simply the Hollywood or not the Hollywood even that one event specifically which was a you know a hostage situation that had to be mitigated did you ever see the bigger picture with that nation specifically no I mean that was a container ship it was a fish
they were doing a ransom job right yeah but I mean of the whole kind of piracy in general was there a broader yeah there's poverty does poverty breed crime sure just don't fuck with Americans I guess absolutely all right well then with that you're on ship so where did where did that take you next did that a little bit and then I had to swallow some pride because I'd seen so many guys leave the Navy and I oh I'm gonna go I'm gonna go to Wharton I'm
gonna get my MBA I'm gonna do this and do that and I saw a lot of guys come back you know six months a year later now my man if I could I'm never doing that I'm never coming back I'm gonna go blaze my own path did that contracting job about six out of months and I was like man I'm really missing the teams missing my purpose so I called up the reserve SEAL team on the West Coast SEAL team 17 I said hey what's up guys what do you think
come on over so I went to reserve SEAL teams and mobilized early so I can get on orders which means you have a paycheck did a quick workup and deployed to Korea for six months which was awesome came back and kept trying to go to schools because then reserves you gotta kinda have to hustle and get yourself into schools and figure out which parts of money you can use for schools so you're not taking all SEAL team 17's money and find schools
that the big Navy will pay for so you can go do that school so I was just doing that hustle staying on orders getting paid learning new schools. How was Korea?
I've had this conversation quite a lot recently I was just flying home to England a few weeks ago and I saw a documentary about people who escaped North Korea and it shows some who actually were successful and some who were arrested and then sent to the Gulag it was horrendous but it illustrated how close Korea came to be completely overrun and how the allied nations that came from the US and other countries literally saved South Korea and
then helped drive everyone back North and it's a shame that that generation gets such little discussion when it talks about their service. What was the perspective that you got in the six months that you were there at the time that you were there?
Korea is like a city from the future when you first get there and I think it's because when we landed there it was night time and we went straight to a bullet train and there was all the neon lights and I was like oh my god this is crazy I felt like I was in like a sci-fi show which is pretty cool. I think a lot of the good that people did and you know some of the older generations like hey you guys are awesome we remember what you guys did.
The Korean War wasn't that long ago but I think with the long-standing military bases there you know there's something happens downtown or there's a car accident I think those started to overshadow you know all the good we did a while ago during the war but all in all my experience was great I worked with the South Korean SEALs and I was always curious if other cultures special forces was like a thing was it like a vibe was it a scene
was like oh that guy's a this and in Korea very much so but oh you're UDT? UDT is good and I'm like oh sweet awesome so like they had it was cool to see their country have pride and then being UDT the UDT SEAL and the SEALs being very very prideful in you know their job so it was cool to see that they had their own culture that was like super honorable a lot of respect so that was fun.
Beautiful well walk me through then to Serbia and let's talk about that entire kind of mental health nightmare that you endured.
Yeah so I was doing some other contracting and I was on a very light job if any job in Serbia wrong place wrong time I'm at a house I get arrested and you know from that moment it was just absurdity chaos confusion it was bananas so I get arrested at this house the kids house I was staying at comes in he had left for the evening after he got a phone call I don't speak Serbian at the time but no idea what he was doing 45 minutes later
he comes flying in his house handcuffed slams into the wall and I'm like what is going on and I look over to my left and there's there's a nine millimeter pointer right at my temple and I'm like what the fuck and I kind of focus at the person and it looks like a police uniform but it looks like it was bought at Party City is it so shitty cheap I was like what and then I hear that the magazine Springs rattle and then I kind of focus up and it's this
like 21 year old kid with a pistol at my head with his finger on the trigger terrified so much that I can hear the gun rattling and I was like you're like after all I've been through I hope this is now go so I'm getting yelled at Serbian and I just do you know I thought this would be an international move regardless of language I just slowly put my hands up I'm like this this I think this is the move to do got cuffed you know long story
short we were gonna have a party at this kid's house he got arrested trying to buy drugs from a drug dealer and drug dealers have guns so there's gun drugs the drug dealer had a friend in the kid's house I was that was there so those three got arrested in what I think the name of the city they took the kid back to his house where I was and like you're American I said yes you like guns something as much as the next guy like what's going on and all
right this is weird you're going to jail we go to police station for two three I think not three or four days and I'm interrogated and they're like what do you do I'm like oh I'm a defense contractor what qualifies you to do that I'm an exil oh and you're in Serbia huh so like they just ran with it and they're like you're here to kill our president I said who they said his name first and I don't know what that is no it's our president I'm like
no I'm not I don't know what the fuck you're talking about you know and then you know getting interrogated and I spoke pretty good Russian at the time and the English translator was not did not know any English and I shot in the dark I said maybe it's better we speak in Russian if you guys know Russian and they just he's a spy he speaks Russian like they just lost their minds so during the interrogation process there was a good cop that was that
understood he goes look dude I believe you I get it but I need you to know that this is already to the newspapers and you're famous I'm like really so we go to the courthouse we make initial statements judges like yeah I don't know what's going on you're going to jail okay so go to jail wait for three months go to make an official statement again at the small court they're like yeah you're good to go cool come back the guards like
come on all right start packing my stuff he's like no go back to visit your lawyer in the meeting rooms lawyer says hey man after you left the judge got a call said you had to be charged with something so buckle up it's gonna be a long time because there's four of you in the case and four people in Serbia's organized crime so now they're looking at this as an organized crime I'm like what yeah and my first room I was put in I was in there
with a guy who murdered his wife with a hammer a guy who's a professional kidnapped ransom guy and then some kid from Croatia who's a terrorist and because I was in that room we only had 30 days outside our room for a walk and it was just us and you know they're like popping pills and you know the prison was giving pills to anybody who would take them you know and they would stay at they'd stay up all night and he played his little radio
and one day you know after my after a couple nights of no sleep I just took his radio and bounced off the ground shattered and the next day I was transferred out of that room thank you so I finally got to a room we had an Aussie cocaine dealer we got busted doing a big big deal a junkie and a state-sponsored killer so it was good there was order it was clean and I got to go two hours a day outside my room not just 30 minutes and there's with
the whole block and it just you know first I didn't really have to like tap into my room too much because I'm like okay you're gonna tell it that after April after the three months I was there and then they said hey you're gonna be charged with something that's when I needed to get comfortable in the room I've created in my mind right that's when I had to really dig in and okay what can I do today that's in my control I can work out I can
make flashcards from my Russian Serbian dictionary and I could play chess I can get good at chess like these are things I can control the rest I can't worry about like I can't do anything about it yeah it sucks but there's no point in me focusing any energy on the things I can't control so I just day to day like what can I do today to be better at so go to chess make make 26 flashcards instead of 25 I did yesterday do one more push-up do one more
burpee and that went on until I think June or July and then a big lawyer had decided to take on my case in the following week he was assassinated in the street so they came in my room you know lift the jugs spread the cheese ripping everything apart and they thought I had something to do with it in the front page in Serbian picture of the crime scene superimposed photo of me lawyer killed because of seal though just and then the newspaper
just the hit the hit pieces kept rolling in though though every time I was up for house arrest because everyone else my case had house arrest every time I was up for house arrest even though there was no progression progress in my case at all there'd be a hit piece day before a judge was gonna sign house arrest or not come out in the newspaper like very coincidental timing right very nice for them finally after 11 months I was charged and
during that time you know I took you know not only working on the tangible skills like learning Serbian or getting better at chess or working out you know you have a lot of time in silence to yourself no phone barely any TV you know I was learning Serbian so I wasn't able to have a whole lot of engagement with people right and you would start to have these thoughts you'd have to have memories and some people are bad like I can't believe
I did that I hope that person doesn't hate me right okay let's dive into this so every night I'd lay in bed for about two hours and just do a deep deep dive from my earliest memories of everything I've ever done that wrong somebody and you know it was hard because you know in my head I would ask them for forgiveness but at the same time you know that's up to them to forgive me but for me to move forward and focus on my day-to-day mental health I
had to forgive myself for the things I've done that wrong people so I did that for like ten months straight just everything I could even think of that I did that was bad wrong hurt somebody I'd go do a little audit forgive myself and move on and I had to be really mindful think about the good things I've done too like it's very easy to focus on the negative so I did like a little soul cleansing every night I was in a Serbian prison you mentioned
the Aussie drug dealer his name wasn't James gearing was it his name was there was three of them I think he might Christian Christian waters was one of them and Dave I'll look it up yeah that was funny just the reason I asked when I first started this if you google my name an Australian coke dealer came up called James gearing and a pedophile from Manchester so yeah now if you google it luckily it's all the podcast stuff and they're all
buried down there somewhere but that's why I still be kind of funny if my namesake was one of your prison maze yeah I looked up my name way before any of this and there was one guy who's a weatherman in the UK so that's that's all I have I don't have any drug dealers well back to you know your incarceration during this time what was being done or tried to be done from the US side zero State Department came in and US embassy and he was just he
seemed so terrified even being there and he would ask me questions like hey how's the food I'm like dude it's bad can you change it oh no why are you asking me these questions what are you doing oh okay I'm like looking I think they're gonna charge me with something since bullshit and he said well you know maybe plea deals not a bad idea there was a pedophile in Indonesia and they gave him a plea deal and he didn't take it now he has a bunch of
years so why are you telling me about some pedophile in Indonesia what are you talking about well I'm just saying and they just crumbled and even the guards were like dude the embassies here like you're free this is stupid I'm like yeah awesome the Calvary's here USA Uncle Sam let's go and they're like well you know I don't know what they're saying in the news now my what the tablets and he would always come in with the Serbian national who worked
in the US embassy so they were a team and she was like I get it this is BS I'm sorry this is happening to you but the American guy was like oh I don't know he was useless guys like oh why didn't you sign any papers to let the military or someone help because the people handing me papers were those people I didn't trust them I did not trust him at all I signed the thing yes you can tell my mom and dad about what's going on but any
other papers I didn't trust him as far as I could through so I wasn't gonna sign anything for that guy which is so funny because when you go to Sears school survive evade resist escape you're taught like once the Red Cross comes or the US embassy comes like that's good news you can really glean into them so boom US embassy comes and it was not good news so now I'm totally in charge of what do I do and I pretty much told him to get
lost and I'll figure it out I had a wrongfully convicted 18 year old at the time on the show Greg and very long story very short he was a star football player his parent though his mother had got sick so they kind of moved closer to where the hospital was so he'd actually stayed with a teammate a football teammate there was an outcry because the family had a daycare and a little kid had said that Greg had touched me a complete abandonment of any
proper investigation he ends up getting put in prison for this crime so you can imagine how he was received in this prison by the fellow you know prisoners ultimately has proven completely innocent and they figured out that the friend that he stayed with was actually the pedo that not only did that but also raped someone while Greg was in prison the biggest thing though that was hard for him was just not getting into trouble while he was in prison
because you know that would just you know add to the sentence you already had now you're in Serbia you've got some pretty dangerous people around you how were you able to to not rock the boat I'm assuming that you were probably being you know preyed upon by certain people while you were there surprisingly it was not the case I mean I had one incident but it was like staged and it was I'll go into that but the newspaper said I was there
to kill the president the newspaper beat me to the prison by four days everyone in Serbian prison inmates guards alike hate the Serbian president so when I showed up guys were saluting me and we're like yeah I was like what's going on and I came to find out that's why and plus that country is very homogeneous so there wasn't a whole lot of diversity that people could stand behind and try to argue over which you know not that people should like oh I'm
this color you're that color you're this religion on that religion it's all pretty much the same in that country so there wasn't any of that like as far as violence goes there was a couple there one guy got killed two guys got killed but it's kind of an us-versus-them mentality us is everyone in jail and them is the system right so even the two cocaine mock is that were that are big in that area there's two guys in there and it's kind of
like you be easy I be easy let's get out of here and if you need to do stuff for back in the streets let's go handle it because everyone's trying to get out and where I was was like a holding prison for guys in court so no one wants to go to court and say you're innocent good boy after you cut someone's neck with a tuna can and bled him out in the court you know what I mean so everyone's trying to keep it pretty chill so what change you
didn't have a lot of support from the State Department obviously you're getting you know constant highs and lows as far as expectations are being released what was that kind of light at the end of the tunnel in the end then I got charged we finally had because the legally they have to charge me in six months well they didn't charge me for 11 months I mean there's rules and then if they're they're applied and adhere to is one thing so that
was the big victory being charged after 11 months for possession of a firearm possession of a firearm and explosives and something else okay cool then another month later we got a judge and it took a month to get a judge because no judge wanted my case because they looked they said there's no evidence against the guy and the ministry the Minister of Defense was saying oh he was here in their newspaper he was he wasn't here to shoot fish in the
Danube River with that pistol why didn't have a pistol right so now there's this external pressure from the government to see something happen to me and you know the judge with the oath they took to uphold justice is like there's nothing here so we finally got a judge and in January a year after I was arrested was my first court date and in Serbia there's no jury there's just one person to judge and the way court the court system is so backed
up there that the way it works is you go in opening statements that's it you just do your opening statements and then you come back 30 days later to do the next part and then 30 days later for that part 30 days later for that part so trial took six months how you remember what people were saying there's a 30 day gap between every presentation it's it was so disorganized and I think once or twice I think once it was like court date
three or two and now I have like cool things look for a year you have nothing I had nothing look forward to it was just an ambiguous time with no event to look forward to just sitting and now I have 30 day okay opening statements okay examination so my next my second court date you know getting the paddy wagon obviously I get my own paddy wagon because I'm dangerous and I'm like Hannibal Lecter and then mp5s on me it was it was completely out of control
show up sit down judge gavels in words words words judge gavels out my lawyer's like yep see you in a month so what's going on like you're interpreted and show up oh god okay I said you can do you speak better English than anyone who's ever interpreted for me during this whole process like can't I'm not for uh court certified oh man so that that that day was probably like the biggest bummer because that set you back another month so
yeah that's how the court so I stood trial I stood trial in Serbian Court for six months so how were you released ultimately what was the final verdict so the day of the verdict I had the worst translator I ever had judge has the other three guys stand up reason their sentence whatever and then me and then towards the end my interpreters like you can go I said yeah but under what circumstances because I was sure they're gonna say guilty time served
right you can go and like we we appease our people that guilty and need to go home she's I know you're you can go like but like what is she saying she said you're innocent okay good and the judge looks at me she goes hey if we find you innocent of all charges I'm sorry this happened to you hope this doesn't put a bad taste in Serbia for you you're gonna be compensated for illegal fees mispay damages I was like okay go back to jail grab my shit
then I had to go to customs office because my visa had expired and I was like look man I don't think the days I was a jail should go against it that's BS and I was getting really argumentative because I did it's been there for 18 months I don't care I just I was just acquitted and these guys are interrogating me again I'm like no their superior comes in he's like how does seven days sound I said that's good I mean regardless I was gone in
two days anyways but I was I was feeling a little bit argumentative at the time understandably so yeah see I stood trial and was acquitted so what was that homecoming like you've been sitting in a Serbian jail for 18 months you know again still separated from your purpose and your tribe and all the things what was that return for you it wasn't as as big as one would think because my mind was never in jail right like I was never mentally in
prison and I always you know my family's so strong in love my friends are so strong in love and I could just feel it and I always carry that with me every day in in prison so but I saw mom dad and brother waiting for me at the airport it was just like another day for me I don't know it wasn't it wasn't that big my biggest surprise was coming through customs and there was like yeah welcome back like there was no like what were you doing
there I was like okay cool it was good to see everyone mom and dad were very related as well as brother but it wasn't anything too crazy you know I was I was in the SEAL teams I deployed you know I'd write on the back of my lawyer's paper or the embassy people's paper during our visits like mom watch the movie Idiocracy don't worry that's what's happening right now don't talk to anyone I love you guys don't worry about anything so
there was like one way communication going out to mom and dad and it's like a long shitty deployment I guess right so you come back what made you decide to put pen and paper and write American mercenary well I come back and 30 days later I go take another job so I go fly to another country I get a call saying hey do you want to write a book and they said no because I was still chasing the dragon of doing the job I was doing you know I was
like how could you go back and do that after what happened I'm like well cowboy doesn't put writing if he gets fucked off right you learn and you get better and you keep going okay that's a little different than going to prison for a team honestly yeah potato potato so I get the call I say no because I want to keep chasing this dragon and the dragon is now turning into a fine miss very very very far away and the writing on the
wall is just not there anymore get a call again it's like hey man I think this would be a really good story really good book I said well I don't want to do a seal book I don't want to just do I was in Buds I ran there was a log it was well there was coal I don't want to say no I know that's fine all that stuff's been talked about like your story and what you did after and the Serbia stuff your mentality I said okay I can get
behind that yeah so that's how that got started well I know what we had a brief chat before we hit record you're very passionate about that transition and I think this is something that I see jarring in the first responder professions as we touched on you know you have tribe you have purpose you have you know this this this ingrained community the shared suffering and then a lot of us whether it's promoting to achieve tests in a building somewhere
else or whether it's retirement or an injury or being fired you know now that person finds himself alone and in our profession there is there no VA there's no you know medical anything they just literally the door closes behind you and that's it your ID doesn't work anymore so talk to me about that kind of principle through your eyes and the message that you want to convey to people listening just because one tribe was your tribe at one
point doesn't mean you have to be monogamous to them right I have friends I play indoor soccer with or used to before I ruptured my Achilles and you know they they played Dungeons and Dragons right like they're not seals but we enjoy soccer together to branch out and not be so married to the concept that it has to be your tank battalion or it has to be your seal buddies because like they're not even seals anymore neither of you and you
live in Colorado and he lives in Texas right so so be a little bit brave branch out try new things and explore because you'll find something yeah I don't think even with that one dimension like I only like guns like really did you only like guns really there's nothing else you like right.
What about the the employment side what I've seen in the fire services a lot of men and women will transition out and then they'll teach at a fire academy in law enforcement it seems to be the security work that people go to but as you touched on earlier with you know a member of the teams it's not about fast roping and you know using a weapon it's the the teamwork and the problem solving and you know the ability to work under fatigue
and suffering and all these other areas and I find a lot of our you know professions in uniform feel so myopic when they leave and they're not really made fully aware of the skill set that we have and the application in a thousand different ways and it could be used.
I think that goes into what I was saying earlier too like I'm caught because when I was this age I did it for so so long I had that moment where I realized who I was and now I'm this I challenge people to ask themselves when they're 16 17 15 12 what else did you like goes for that you don't have to be in in this realm things you don't have to stay there is it safe yes I did it boom contract quick money right but don't sell yourself short you're not that one dimension.
Absolutely. All right well I want to go to some quick closing questions before I let you go. The first one I love to ask we talked about your book are there any other books that you love to recommend it can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated and thus spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche Ender's Game Meditations obviously and anything Dumas Dumas Sofa. Brilliant. All right what about films and documentaries any of those that you love? Snatch. It's a good film. So good.
Films documentaries I kind of I kind of been jumping on that true crime bus that I think that's whenever to grab my mom I like you know when the history channel like World War Two and color and all that like that's killer films. I've been watching so many movies. God I had just too many lists snatch is my all time favorite. Brilliant.
All right well the next question then is there a person that you recommend to come on this podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders military and associated professions of the world. Have you had Jeff Nichols on. I have yeah yeah just been on several times. He's like when you say that I'm like boom that's instantly to him. Oh man I might have to get back to you on that one.
Yeah no problem at all I need to get Jeff back on again it's been a little while now I had him and Catherine last time. He's so smart and he has the science to back it up and he's so practical. Yeah yeah and he takes the gloves off too. I like the way he talks. Oh yeah he doesn't hold back. All right well then the very last question for you make sure everyone knows where to find you and the book. What do you do to decompress. Man it worked out.
I run and I think I have mitigations in place I'm more preventative I don't really get compressed you know so I kind of live my life to not be compressed so I don't really have to like oh I need to decompress I need two hours after X-Files. I'll go for a nice a nice 10 minute pace nice long run clear my head have a good playlist.
What about I mean you're not old but what about as you've watched yourself age as a tactical athlete how has your training and rest and recovery changed as you've progressed through this career if at all. Yeah well October 31st or late October I was brought to you by Achilles playing football soccer so that was an eye opener. My buddy was a pro baseball player he's like nope he's retired now he's like 37 that's it that's all you had.
I quit playing pickleball and tennis because of it like I can feel it. So you know just because my mind wants to keep going that body is now starting to you know my Achilles rupturing was more than just a subtle hint my body's screaming at me like hey cool awesome you have the great mentality beautiful but we have 40 years on us so relax.
So I will still try to do things like when I was running recently after my it's been seven months I can't kick as hard and get my heart rate up at pace so I'm like hey what can I do I'll throw in a hoodie and it's 110. So I can do I'm still trying to get to my room and you know add some paintings on the wall in that room in my mind. Just gotta be creative and maybe not go as hard.
What I found I'm just turned 50 and I had this realization that I'm not ever gonna be as fit and strong as I was when I was younger. Now I'm you know in great shape for 50 for the path that I want to be on but the focus has gone to addressing all the things that I did to my body as a firefighter as a stunt man as a you know martial artist and by addressing some of those injuries that's given me more fitness more strength.
So not chasing the kind of you know 25 year old goal anymore and giving yourself some grace but realizing that you'll actually be an exceptional athlete at the age that you're at if you actually take it down one notch and focus on damage mitigation rather than PRing that bench press that you were chasing you know 20 years ago. I think my two goals now are maintenance just maintaining what I have now and not having to ever buy clothes the next size.
That's it like if I get to accomplish that I'm good. I can still do as many pull-ups as I like to do or run X amount of miles at the right pace and still fit my clothes. That to me is my new definition of success 40 years and plus. Yeah I couldn't agree more. Alright well then for people listening where can they find the book American Mercenary and then where else can they find you on the web or social media?
American Mercenary is available pre-order through Amazon Barnes & Nobles Books A Million I think Target Walmart. If you go to the Hachette Book Group landing page it'll give you the drop down all the options and you can find me at American Underscore Mercenary on Instagram and if you go on that page there is a link to that landing page I talked about for the publishing company with all the drop downs to you know purchase a book if you want or what type or from who.
So at American Underscore Mercenary on Instagram. Beautiful. Well Daniel I want to say thank you so much. I mean there's certain people that come on the show that you know you're not going to dive into specificities of what they did because it's classified and it's none of our business but there are some really powerful parallels that I think we've been able to discuss today. So, I want to thank you so so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast.
Hey, awesome. Thanks for having me. Let me know when you want me back. I'll be more than happy.