Baraq Harrison: The Power of Self-Reflection and Teamwork in Unlocking Your Potential

00:00 Andres Preschel
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05:06 Baraq 
Yeah, I think that from a civilian perspective, one of the most challenging things is teamwork, something that most people don't really experience on a genuine like level. Teamwork, you can see the face value of it in certain companies in certain fields of work, but it's nothing like the military. You know, you have people's life at stake, you have a responsibility to watch over for your brother's backs for their lives. So that to me is a different type of teamwork that I think a lot of people post-military do implement. One of my favorite guys to listen to and read is Jocko Willink and he has a consulting company. These guys can pretty much sit down and just start to dissect what is really wrong with a team by just looking at how people communicate with each other, how the bridge between the leader to the soldiers are, and they can just pick apart a team and tell you right away in one hour exactly what's wrong. And a lot of the times you see this with younger kids in sports teams where they actually start to be challenged with this level of communication, this level of teamwork. And a lot of the times nowadays it's a lot of solo work. Kids want to outperform everyone else and you see it very well in basketball, I would say. The difference between European basketball and Western basketball is that European basketball more so focuses on passing the ball around a lot, more team movement. It's a unity, whereas on the Western side of the world, basketball is the fastest, the strongest. I'm going to outplay you however I can. So you start to see the differences there in a lot of sports, I would say. It's an interesting thing because in the army you're given a set of objectives and they're very clear and you know how to get them done. In life out of the army, the objectives gradually just become more and more unclear. You're unsure of what to do on a daily basis at times because you go a few years in the military, you're being told what to do. You're given a time to wake up, you're told when to go to bed, you're told when to eat. You have your whole day and your whole year set out for yourself by your commander or by your officer. Whereas once I got released from the military, I found it very hard to even just wake up, to brush my teeth at times. I was like, what is going on? In the military, you wake up, first thing you do is you clean your guns, you go brush your teeth, you do the simple things, you make your bed. Civilian life, there were times where I just struggled with the most simple things and I'm starting to wonder like, what the hell just happened? It's a struggle that I see in a lot of my buddies post-military. It's a recurring theme amongst a lot of guys is people lose a bit of touch with the objective of life after people rely on other people, become too reliant on someone else to give them orders or to tell them how to get their day going the right way. People lose touch with that and then becomes this whole whirlpool of emotions and just losing touch with yourself. And I'm trying to help a lot of people touch base and to ground them and to remind them what it takes to really just start your day off the right way and to get these objectives done. And how would you define the balance between teamwork and not being reliant on others? That's a good question. So part of the book that I'm actually reading right now by Jocko Willing, The Academy of Leadership, talks about exactly this topic and most topics regarding leadership. One of the main things I'm taking from it is it talks about being a leader but not being too much of a leader where you start to push your team away because you want your team to be able to be creative, to think freely at the same time while applying the objective and the mission set out by the commander while also being able to be malleable. Meaning that if you were sent out to take out a person or to guard a house and then you weren't expecting a certain individual to be there or a group of insurgents, then you would have to then rethink the operation. So you want your team to be able to be creative and to work around certain problems during certain situations that you can't simply prepare for. Part of that is just mitigating room for error. You have to show people, you have to give people the chance to know what it's like to be a leader. Part of what we did in commander's course is every side.

09:59 Andres Preschel
Yeah. Can I just jump in? You have to show people what it's like to be a leader. As a leader, you have to show the people that you're leading what it's like. In a way, that's sort of built empathy with the process of being a leader

10:08 Baraq
Yeah. It's trust. Yeah. So in commander's course, everyone switched roles, whether it was taking someone else's weapon, taking someone else's specialty, learning just the basics of what other people are doing. Everyone switches out, learning how to command the team, command the platoon. And because God forbid, if your officer or your commanders were to fall in war, who wouldn't lead the team? You need everyone to be prepared and to be able to stand up if the time comes to be able to lead the team. And everyone is taught these things where I served because we were always preparing for certain situations that wouldn't end up with the best outcomes. So I got a little taste of what it was like to lead groups, have the guys follow me in my orders, and you make mistakes. And you learn through those mistakes during the simulations, how to correct those mistakes. And a lot of the guys, you'll start to see naturally who can actually lead, who's just naturally a better leader and other guys who lack, whether it's with confidence, with true leadership skills, communication, all those things, you start to really see those things come out during times of stress. And there's no better time of stress than to be simulating warfare with your team, with live fire, machine guns, rockets, grenades, than that. So it puts things into perspective how people really operate under stress.

11:43 Andres Preschel
 And so how have you learned to incorporate some of this in your day to day now, right, being out of the army? And are there any takeaways for, let's say, civilians or the average person tuning in right now that will help them be better leaders and better team members? What would you suggest?

12:04 Baraq
I think communication really is the foundation of this all. Not just communicating with others, but communicating with yourself. Taking notes, either in the morning or at the end of your day. Why at the morning or the end of the day? And what kind of notes? So where I served, at the end of every week, we would sit down with our officers and our commanders in the room. And we would go over everything that went wrong, everything that went right. The officer would start off with the things that went good. He then would follow with the things that went bad, meaning he would either call an individual out if they did something that they didn't come up and speak about, meaning that if the officer says, be here on a certain time, I won't be there or don't eat food, don't do this, whatever it may be. If someone were to do something wrong, he would either call the officer out, whatever it may be. If someone were to do something behind the officer's back and didn't speak up, but the officer found out, then he would call these people out in the meeting. It's a very uncomfortable thing at first, but it starts to get people to just communicate, to not fear. We're all human in the army. Obviously, we try to mitigate that error in operations and whatever it may be, because any small fuck up will get someone killed, and that's the last thing anyone wants to do. The whole idea of communicating with your officer and your officer allowing you to tell him what he did wrong. If he lacked communication, if he lacked a certain leadership skill that week, he gave us that space to actually communicate with him. That way, he was actually building a fine line of communication between the soldiers, to the commanders, to the officers. Every week, we would go over all those things, and it allowed us to really understand what our officers were seeing that's wrong with our performance, and also allowing us to hold each and every single person accountable for the things that they do. That's what builds teamwork, because in the beginning, people start to get angry because there's no such thing as one person fucks up, and then you punish that one person. One person fucks up, everyone's getting punished, and everyone's going through hell.

14:13 Andres Preschel
 Because that's what can't happen in real life. If someone doesn't do something right, or doesn't own up to the mistakes they're making, or realize them, then  the whole team could get punished in a way.

14:23 Baraq
It's the same thing with any group of people, any ethnicity group. If you go around the world and you act a certain way, people are going to look at you and be like, oh, this guy's acting like this. Then probably all these people are acting like that. It's just a weird thing in society that you're part of a team no matter where you are, and you have to carry that image. You have to be respectful, and you have to carry yourself a certain way. You can break that down and apply that to anything. It goes for work, your family, the army, for everything. Everyone's a team. There's always a team setting, and that's your tribe. You want to show that your tribe teaches you well, and that you can perform at a high performance

15:07 Andres Preschel
Right, because no matter who you are or where you are, you're always representing a group of people. It can be based on who's your family, who are your friends, what are your hobbies and interests, what's your work life like. As a human being, I was planning, you're always associated with some group, no matter how isolated you are, because then you can look at your genetics. What's your religion, where in the world are you from? You're always representing somebody no matter what team on paper you're a part of. As a result, if you don't stand up for yourself, you're not standing up for them.

15:42 Baraq
I think at the end of the day, it's a very heavy thing to take in, because it's a lot of pressure. When you really start to break that down, it's like, holy crap, I have to always be at my A game to represent whatever team that I'm on, whether it's my family, my unit, my business, my friend's business, if I'm working for them, it's a lot of pressure. By the end of the day, when you start to understand the beautiful things of life is that those teams are what builds brotherhood. That's what your family is all about. You have your family that you're born with your blood, and then you have the family that you get to choose. If you go to work and you work at a hedge fund and you're just there to make money, and you're making a ton and ton of money, and you're on your solo mission, but you have a team of guys that you're just disconnected from, then yeah, do what you got to do. But at the end of the day, if you build that connection with the team, those guys are going to be with you, they're going to struggle with you, they're going to eat the same shit with you, they're going to poop the same shit, and they're going to be literally with you from the moment you start your day to the end. That's what a lot of people are missing in life because I do understand that everyone wants to get to a certain point, economically speaking, where they are free and they're able to do what they want to do. They want to do it on their own because the pride, the honor of saying, I conquered this by myself. You want to take all the credit. But I think that's a false attitude because there's no such thing as any single one person just making that one thing. There's always a team of guys or women behind every successful thing in this world, everything that's great. Took a lot of people to make pretty much everything that we use these days. And a very common thing that me and all my boys say, a lot of people say, but like no one is eating at the table alone, we're all going to be eating at the table together. There's no such thing as any of us are going to be up there. Like we all are doing it together. And it's really critical for people to find that those kind of friends and that brotherhood where people actually aren't just doing things for themselves, but they actually love and care for each other so much that you're able to express such love without being like, oh, he's going to make fun of me because I'm super expressive and guys are told like, oh, whatever, don't be like that. But like me and my boys were just very open, transparent with each other about what we want to achieve in life and how we're going to actually do it because everyone has a set of strengths and weaknesses. And the whole idea of communicating with yourself is to be real and honest with yourself and ask yourself, what aren't I good at? I have friends that are really good at certain things that I'm not as good at. I'm not saying use people for what they're better at for, but become friends with them, build a real relationship and build things together and fill in those gaps. Like that's there's no other better way to do it.

18:42 Andres Preschel
And the credit that you can take the things that you can take credit for mutually are going to be far above and beyond anything that you could have done individually. And nothing is truly individual is what you're saying. But if you can really hone in on that teamwork without being relying on others, but building these bonds, these friendships, you're going to accomplish things that are far above and beyond anything you could do by yourself. Yeah. You know, one of the biggest takeaways that I got from my podcast with Ariel Norielli, one of our mutual best friends who in a way you served with. Yeah, I know he's going to be tuning in. So a huge shout out to Ariel, what a fucking homie. We slept, we both stayed in this place in New York, just days separate from each other. Right. Like you were there a couple days before me sleeping over this place. Two days before you came to New York, I had to leave and Ariel was like, stay, just stay. And I was like, oh man, I was there for like a week, dude. That couch is unbelievably comfortable. I love staying with them and just his energy too, you know. But so one of the biggest takeaways from our podcast about a year ago was that leaders don't take credit, you know, and that really blew me away, man, because, you know, I think if you look at like entrepreneurs, you know, a lot of what I do is entrepreneurial, right? And there's a lot of what I do that is totally, like I feel like I'm on a mission, but in a way I also feel like a lot of my mission is totally independent. It's to fulfill, to fill the void. You know, if you look back at my life, it's like a new way to fill a void. And it's something that I want to take credit for, but what he taught me is, you know, leaders don't take credit. Like leaders are there to do a lot of things and they're there to empower other people. And in the process of empowering others, you can accomplish things for the world or for a certain group or for a certain family, like whatever you want to scale this to and that you're not there to take credit. You're there to be a leader. Leadership doesn't mean taking credit. Leadership means accomplishing things that are much bigger than yourself. And so you can't just say, all right, I'm going to be a leader and like look at what I did. No, no, no, it's, it's, it's, you are enabling other people to accomplish something much bigger than yourself.

20:44 Baraq
I think a big part of that is humility at the end of the day, because in order, like a lot of people can be a leader, but to what extent are you going to achieve your, your, your workers or your, your soldiers respect? Because at the end of the day in the army, they're going to respect the rank. But then the day, are you going to then finish your service with a band of brothers? Or are you going to just finish your service with a bunch of guys who had to listen to you because you're a rank above them, but you're an asshole the whole time? Um, yeah, I mean, you have leaders that do seek out a lot of that, uh, credit and a lot of that spotlight. But I think that's what separates the true leaders at the end of the day, the people that really take, um, humanity to the, to another level and show people how to lead correctly. Because at the end of the day, I do understand that everyone wants to have that part of like their hero arc or story where they, they did something great and then they got their nine seconds of fame. But if you can veer away from that and push against all that crap, that doesn't matter. Focus on the goal, create something that truly is beneficial to people and can help them and also be so humble to the point where you can send your, the guys right below you to talk at all the shows for you and to take care of all that spotlight. That's true humility. People, a lot of people nowadays with social media are striving for that and are seeking that.

22:14 Andres Preschel
And when you seek something that aggressively, it's a, there's a deeper issue at, at root. And sacrifice that you're making because you're not achieving the things that you could otherwise achieve if you give the people that work with you that kind of credit and that kind of, uh, power, you know, you're, you're in a way it's, it's like a self-limiting, uh, process.

22:38 Baraq
Yeah. It's also like, that's a lot of mental energy spent on bullshit that doesn't really benefit you other than your, your ego. Like how much more are you, do you want to feed that ego? It's a lot of it. A lot of people need to ground themselves, I think, and to, uh, to understand that if they were to channel all that energy that they're trying to focus on getting in the spotlight back into their business, back into the mission, to the objectives, back into communicating, back into writing every morning, every night, how do I better my next day? They'll be far better off, far better, happier, and just much more clear-minded, I think, at the end of the day.

23:15 Andres Preschel
 And, and so bringing it back to the, this notion of, or this practice of writing or journaling in the morning and in the evening in a way that's a way to hold yourself accountable for what you would otherwise, like you were comparing this to the army, right? Like in the army you have this debriefing at the end of the week with your team. And so in a way this is like how to do this with yourself. Right. Um, okay. And then as far as, um, you're making a really good point, I, I, I want to make sure I love my train of thought. So this practice, whether you're reflecting on your own terms in the morning, in the evening, journaling, or whether you're debriefing with your team, you know, these two exercises and practices, what they represent is this ability to, to reflect and identify your strengths and weaknesses. Um, and you know, we're speaking a lot about how going to the army, like going out of your way to do something that is, that most people would never do. It obviously teaches you through these practices in a way, not just being in the army, but through the dedicated practice of outlining your strength weaknesses. You can do, you can really recognize what you're capable of. Right. And, and that's how you sort of set a benchmark. Like so much of the army is, is exactly that. Right. And I've never been in the army, so please jump in and cut me if I'm wrong, but a lot of identifying what you're really capable of is having these debriefings on a personal and on a team level. And so do you believe that with this level of dedicated introspection and self-reflection that people can really sort of push that limit as civilians in a way, like for the average person tuning in right now, do you think that a dedicated, uh, practice to self-reflect and to ask themselves these questions that they can really enable these, these new benchmarks?

25:05 Baraq
 Yeah. I think just with just like anything in life, um, with practice and, and consistency, the more you speak to yourself and the more you write down these thoughts or things that you're aware of, the better you're going to become at it. Most people are afraid to even go out and talk to people nowadays. So like, I wonder how, how, how difficult it is for them to actually be honest with themselves and, and bring these, these realities to life on a piece of paper. Um, yeah, I think that's applicable to everything, to anyone in anything. You can scale it down to the smallest things. You can scale it up to the biggest things. Um, communication is the fundamental core of like just human beings. It's what allows us to live with each other. It's what allows us to actually understand what's going on in our brain. So I think that when people start to really be honest and write down these thoughts, whether it's something, even if it's just a simple conversation, if you walk to a Starbucks and you walk and open the door and then you don't leave the door open for someone, that person comes and says like, oh, thank you for holding the door for me. It makes a little, little small comment. And then you respond in a way that's, you know, you didn't have to really let out that kind of energy. But for some reason, some people liked to, to push back against certain energy that's thrown towards them. So like, are people going to then ask themselves, did I really need to say that? Did I really had to act that way? Or was it just the monkey inside of me that just wanted to like fight back? Ask yourself and reflect on your behaviors from the smallest to the biggest things. Because most people are so caught up upon like their performance at work, their business, the money that's coming in, the money that's going out. But like, I think a lot of people miss the smallest things, which falls and bleeds into pretty much everything, which is your behavior at home, the way you treat your body. If you're neglecting colleagues with your, your lack of communication, if it's all those things, oh, they all bleed into everything in life. And I think the more that people really tap into inside of their head and start to understand where they can correct such small things is when it starts to see bigger room for improvement. Because like in the army, what you do is you're always trying to mitigate room for error. Like there's always things that you cannot train or prepare for. Shit will hit the fans and you know, balls to the walls, everyone's losing their minds. But you train, you simulate, you train, you simulate, you shoot, you run, you walk, you carry, and you just keep doing that until you're at least like, there's little to no error. And people either aren't subject to that, they don't experience that because people aren't really people, most people don't experience like what people get pushed through in the army, because like, no one wants to be told what to do every day. No one wants to be uncomfortable. No one wants to eat crappy food. No one wants to dress like everyone else. People want to do their own thing. So I think a lot of people are losing key elements in life that can really push them further beyond the threshold that they're currently capable of thinking of.

28:19 Andres Preschel
And so it's like in these microtransactions that you have with human beings as you live your life, if you get those things right, and if you can mitigate the error there, it's a small difference that adds up and gives you the necessary reflection to understand what are your real strengths and weaknesses? What are the thought patterns they're working against you and not for you? So it's like these little things, these little transactions add up to make a big difference and they inevitably influence the bigger things in your life. That interaction that you may have with someone who is or isn't holding the door, what does it actually represent? And something I wanted to ask you here is, let's say you extrapolate this to civilian life. When you're in a moment of real chaos, how do these small transactions influence your behavior then?

29:15 Baraq
One of the best things I learned from the army, which is so simple, we were taught how to go from zero to 100, then 100 to zero. Whenever I face something that I think most people would lose their minds over or just get a little frustrated with, I always just close my eyes and just take a breath. It's super important. Your control of breath, your control of your body is vital to your well-being, your performance, and people really look over how critical it is just to take a deep breath sometimes. I think that could stop or at least mitigate a lot of silly decisions that are made on a daily basis by most of us. It's an opportunity to find presence. We were told if you had the time before, God forbid, if you had to pull the trigger, then you take that deep breath and you think about that one second. There's data that shows that that one breath could literally just save everyone from a catastrophe. Most people look over that as something like, ah, I do breath work, it doesn't really help. I've talked to a lot of people that do breath work that helps them, and a lot of people say it doesn't. At the end of the day, I think people need to just take a step back and just look at things from the brighter side and just take a deep breath sometimes and just relax. People get stressed, people get frustrated over things that they don't need to frustrate or get annoyed at.

30:36 Andres Preschel
Maybe in order to actually deal with that level, with whatever they're frustrated with, they just need one moment of reflection to put things in perspective. That's what that breath really represents in a way. Not only is it a way to quite literally influence your physiology, to give you peace of mind, to give you more blood flow, to lower your heart rate and your stress response, but it just gives you the time to put things in perspective, to think about them. Even if it's one second like that, one second can be the difference between life or death. It could be the difference between a good decision and a bad decision. It could be the difference between a salvaging relationship or ending relationship. I agree with you there. If we could take this back to the self-reflection that I really want people to walk away with, what kind of questions do you think people need to ask themselves to reflect? Because I'm sure if right now, with some of the biggest takeaways that I've had in this conversation, I know I need to have this dedicated practice. I'm sure a lot of people tuning in can say the same thing, but once you're actually practicing this, what questions do you need to ask yourself in order to self-reflect? What are the questions that you've asked yourself? What are the questions that you've asked your team in order to get what you need to level up as a leader and as a team member?

31:56 Baraq
A few questions that I ask myself. Number one is, who am I? What the hell am I doing? At the end of the day, am I seeking to start my day by just going on my solo mission, taking care of what I want to take care of and what benefits me? Or am I going about my day and making sure that every person I interact with, I try to leave a good mark on them? The thing that people always say, if you just say hi to someone on the road and make them smile, you can change their whole day. I used to laugh at that, be like, it doesn't make a difference. Someone's having a shitty day and you try to make them laugh, they're just going to get angrier with you. But I realize that people just need to be reminded that everything's good, even though people are experiencing a lot of hardships in life. Everyone on different levels, everyone seems to be struggling in many ways. But I think when they start to ask these questions and start to… So there's not good questions or bad questions, but there's, like you said, what am I doing good and what am I doing bad? Just being real honest with yourself. You can track what you're doing from a logistical level. If you're, like I said, brushing your teeth, if you're drinking enough water, if you're eating enough food, if you're taking care of all those things that are your health at the end of the day, then you can break these down into brackets. You can do like food, health, friends, just random people that you meet, set minor goals in each of these sectors. You can break everything down in your life into a graph and make it a little more simple for the mind to understand and start correcting certain variables in this equation that we call life. And people… Yeah, it's an interesting thing because I was very against this stuff and I started applying it in the last year and I've been seeing tremendous growth from within myself. And I started just helping people try to understand that communication with yourself is just as critical as it is to talk to another human being because we all need our team, we need our family, our tribe, but you also need yourself. And a lot of people lost touch with who they are because they're trying to either mimic someone else's movements or they're trying to portray a certain image that isn't really them. If everyone asked themselves truly and acted the way that they really are by nature, then we would see more than half of social media just go down like that. It's all crap at the end of the day and people need to tune in more with what's inside of them and what they want to correct and not try to correct the image of what they're showing people. If they're truly correct what they want to correct. And it comes with a lot of honesty and it's hard, it's very difficult because when you start holding yourself accountable and start understanding your weaknesses, even if it's with the most simple things like it's tough, it's very tough and it takes a lot of energy, it takes a lot of time and a lot of people don't want to put that energy and time into these things, but these things is where a lot of growth comes for people's character, people's lives and it's just super healthy at the end of the day just to talk to yourself.

35:20 Andres Preschel
Those two questions, who am I and why am I here? Why am I doing what I'm doing? Those are the biggest questions in life but I think this ability to break them down makes it way more accessible and way more possible. I love how you broke it down into different areas of your life and then you can further break those down because if you ask those questions, those are such huge questions, if you ask yourself that in the morning you're gonna fucking psych yourself out and if you ask yourself that before you go to sleep you're not good luck sleeping right? Good luck getting some good rest so it's like if you actually take a pen and paper and break these things down then you can really take steps towards like in a positive direction because you actually, those steps are small enough to take right? Otherwise you have this giant leap that you're like can I even make that leap? It's risky right? So it's like if you break it down now all of a sudden it's more actionable.

36:16 Baraq
Yeah so like one of the methods I use sometimes is that it's a practice in Judaism that every night you just reflect on the good things so that way you're not, your brain isn't running 100% and then you're just thinking of all the bad things so like at times it actually does help for me personally to go to sleep when reflecting on the good things and then in the morning I like to sometimes start off just reflecting on quote-unquote the bad things and I started, I stopped saying like bad because nowadays I don't like know what is bad and what's good because like everything kind of just is and we decide what is good and bad based off our own experiences so like something I'm working on big time is just saying like bad, good, whatever it's just things that need to be corrected so like for the people that will practice these methods and let's say if someone were to think about the bad things at night and it stopped them from sleeping I would say that that in itself is a whole thing that you need to communicate with yourself with and understand is that there's no need to stress over quote-unquote the bad things because those things are good because it's just a reminder of these small corrections that you need to make and if you didn't know about the bad things I would say that's bad but you know of them you're aware the only thing that that will come out bad from that is if you don't change right.

37:29 Andres Preschel
Because now you've noticed and now you know it's wrong so if you don't change it now you're like really doing something wrong it's one thing to do something wrong it's another thing to notice you're doing something wrong keep doing it that's that's a real crime yeah so so like the way that you see it and and the way that I have previously described this is like it took a positive reframing of like what would otherwise would be failures or or mistakes or just bad things about your character it's like if you can recognize them and if you can reflect to really put these things on paper and like visualize them like make them super super real and legitimate all of a sudden these are just opportunities to grow but if you don't give yourself a chance to really reflect to breathe to find that presence and it's even not just in the mornings and the afternoons but also in these micro opportunities like when you're going to react then like all of a sudden you take a moment to breathe right you can positively reframe the situation and go all right what can I what can and what should I do now you know so I think that's extremely powerful and then if we can take this back to you know we were having a conversation earlier about how like in the army or leading up to the army and in the army you had this insane drive this insane like you know you're just so fired up for for life and for the mission for the objective right and how like now it's difficult to to go back to that as a civilian like what are some of the ways that you are taking steps towards bring that fire back to life and then directing it towards a new mission a new purpose um yeah so it's crazy because and if you don't mind can you kind of color in like what your role was in the army what that was like where you were enrolled or enlisted for those who may not be familiar.

39:21 Baraq
So I drafted to the IDF back in 2017 I moved there after high school um I served in special forces units um my role was a light machine gunner and um the guy who would also just carry a lot of weight just like everyone else um yeah it was a crazy experience man because before the army and that's the thing is that using those methods that we're speaking about early about just communicating with yourself allowed me to understand where I was like where my strengths and weaknesses were certain feelings I was going through in the army and even prior to the army when I was training and it was just I had this surge of energy of purpose honor pride you know all that good stuff that everyone feels right before they go to the military um it was it was nuts like I was training every day um me and my best friend were having competitions running every day doing crazy crazy stuff and at the time there was one mission and that mission was to get to the best unit possible I was shooting for what's called shayetta it's like the navy seals shayetta 13 yeah the bad the bad boys of the bad boys the men the men's men yeah um and I understood that in order to uh to get to a place like that and to to be with people like that it would require a certain amount of uh effort that I have never been able to project before and just for for for to touch base I didn't serve in shayetta 13 it was a dream of mine I was not uh as much as I trained for it there were guys that were way more well prepared than I was and I realized that gap and that's the first time I actually got slapped in the face and I understood what true potential is at least from a more physical standpoint and there was nothing in the world that mattered physical and mental yeah those guys were next level next level it was inspiring to see and I understood that I didn't train hard enough I didn't train smart enough because if I did then I would have been with those guys but I understood that there was a fine line between the people who give effort give 90 95 97 99 and 100 and that one percent is the difference between you serving with the top at the top and not um so at the time the only thing that mattered was just to kick ass and get to these units where you're serving with some of the most um loving and respecting and hard-working individuals I've ever met in my life everyone who goes to the army like in combat has a certain pride and honor to them that it's you can't mimic in any field you wake up every day you're eating the same shit as everyone you're taking the same shits as everyone you're running the same shitty routes as everyone doing the same crazy stuff every single day you're all doing the same stuff and for some reason no one's complaining they're just doing what they have to do and I realized that like whatever we were experiencing at the time and my team and all these guys it's it was just mesmerizing to see I used to complain about a lot of things like food weather all this crap that doesn't matter and then I got to the army and I see these guys I'm just like what the hell is this everyone in general in the army like the guys who serve in combat they're just like the will to put up with that shit and to just keep going forward because you know that there's a bigger purpose than than your pride than your own honor than your ego that you're you're putting your life at risk with 30 other dudes that you just met on your first day it's wild man it's um it was crazy really really was crazy on every forefront like in having been around and also being a part of that team where everyone's giving that energy and feeding this energy to to the team you see what real teamwork is you see what real communication is you see what real brother it is like it's it's wild and something that's very difficult is the transition from going from that lifestyle for a few years to civilian lifestyle it was uh it was like a big smack in the face by the universe it's like wake up welcome back to reality bigger smack than seeing what she had to 13 yeah it's bigger smack than anything dude like the armu we all were young dumb crazy monsters and we did what we had to do like nothing can prepare you for that mental weight from transitioning from being a soldier with purpose you know being told what you're doing every day you have you have your objectives you don't complete your objectives makes you hungrier to finish that objective you finish your objective you got another objective you just keep moving forward there's no stopping move to transition to civilian life it's like what the fuck just happened it's like i have to get a job i have to wake up now i have to take care of all these things it's like what what what's happening it's a very interesting um it was a very interesting period of my life because it was literally also four months prior to covet so that when you got out of the army yeah so that was also like also a very difficult time for everyone in the world i'm not just going to single myself out there because i think everyone suffered greatly during that time and to go from being in the army with purpose with with brothers with just everything all that craziness and then going to civilian life and then covet was was something that no matter how tough i was at the time no matter how strong i thought i was i was not mentally prepared for that it brought me down it really brought me down and i just got out of the army serving in special forces and i was like not the only thing that's gonna bring me down is if i get shot in the head a bullet to the head is the only thing that's gonna stop me never in my life could i ever think that fucking covet would stop me that shit hit harder than anything in my life i struggled big time i i struggled with communicating with people i struggled with socializing socializing and just pretty much everything i i lost touch with who i was as a human being because in israel at the time we had lockdowns and i'm not the kind of person who you can lock down i'm uh i'm more of a nomad type of guy who needs to be out and about moving around so there was no work at the time there was no money coming in it was just very very dark times for me mentally and my outlet once they lifted a certain sanction saying that you can now leave further than a thousand meters from your house and you can if you're doing workouts all of a sudden everyone in israel became a runner it was awesome the whole country just became runners and everyone was just getting out of their house so i had to channel in it and release all this pent up depression energy like whatever it was that was just bringing me down i started cycling every day two hours training mma four hours every day swimming for two hours in the ocean and that was my outlet and then i realized that like no matter how much i try like when i go to work if i work at an office it just won't work because i'm not that guy and that's what brought me back here to vermont at the end of the day as i'm a military and disciplinary and firearm instructor for around 110 kids from ages 12 to 17 and i hadn't been in the wilderness in actually two over two years and i didn't understand how much it was missing for my life and how much i really needed it until i got here i feel like this is what my true calling is it's just being outside being out with people helping people showing people what a more natural life is you know not obviously telling people move out here this is what life should be everything should be balanced you know if you're living in the big cities you got to get out to the wilderness at least for one month throughout the year minimum the more the merrier if you can i know that it's difficult with people's schedules but like the first day i got here in vermont it just felt like something deep deeply rooted inside of me was ripped out something that was a bit of a poisonous roots.

48:21 Andres Preschel
Like you it's almost like the feeling of being contained that is what you would traumatize well one of the things that traumatized you when you were when all of us were in during covid it's like we were contained and so being here you have unlimited it's unlimited there's there's no container you can just roam and it's just part of human nature right to have this access.

48:44 Baraq
Yeah it's the first time i can remember ever since i turned or became a young adult that i can breathe i can breathe think clearly you know for the last few years i've been debating like what do i want to do in life what is my mission you know full circle back to the initial conversation about talking to yourself and communicating understanding what the hell am i doing here i've been having that spiritual battle for so many years now been lost in every possible way all it took was 24 hours my first 24 hours in vermont out of the big city in miami after being there for two and a half years still living there but you know i just got out to vermont for six weeks to for this program shout out to pioneers camp best camp in the world within the first 24 hours i understood that this is this is what the fuck i need to do in life and this is what a lot of people need if not everyone everyone needs to ground themselves and to be reminded what life used to be like and to get closer with nature you know it's something so so tranquil striving down the roads no billboards no advertisements in your face telling you you need this you're not up to date with that you know it's just trees man just fucking trees bro just breathing in your face and this is this is something that i had been missing greatly and i think and i think that a lot of people are missing it a lot and people don't understand that because people struggle to understand the smallest things in life this is one of the biggest things and people miss out on it because they're afraid because they're so comfortable in their luxury bougie homes or just just lifestyle they live a lot of people don't like to challenge themselves with when it comes to being uncomfortable people like a good challenge if it's a work related and there's a nice little you know uh nice some money at the end that people give you bonus here it's just people don't understand that what you're going to benefit out here is far greater than any any currency can fill for you.

50:59 Andres Preschel
So it's almost like you know when you're describing this self-reflection and introspection literally and figuratively you can't have a container right it's like if you're in a place like this where you're in nature where quite literally man i can we can look out in hundreds of yards into every direction right all of a sudden you can reflect without a container literally and figuratively if you're in if you're at home or if you're in an office and you're trying to reflect you're almost like bound by the the the walls in the immediate environment and whatever but what everyone else is thinking whatever else is doing so it's unless unless you put yourself in in in nature without limits you can't really reflect on some of the most important themes behind you and the human experience like we were born to be in nature so it's like why would you put your life in perspective while you're stuck in a box literally and figuratively probably literally and figuratively

52:04 Baraq
 it's a crazy thing because like part of this program like what happened on our first week the kids came in you have age groups the oldest age group is obviously the most rowdy wild boys awesome awesome group of guys um one of the nights they're making a lot of noise i went down the to the campsite and i said i yelled be quiet why you guys are keeping me up at one 30 in the morning they said sorry sir we won't make any more choice i was like i laughed i laughed a bit it's cute when they say sir i go back up 45 seconds later they're still yelling i was like okay they're going to be boys had to remind myself what it's like to be a kid like got to give them some space you know i can't just always scare them and discipline them got to show them love and respect too however one of the kids yelled out the f word and i was like oh no that's not that's not happening two in the morning i go back down i yell at the top of my lungs 120 seconds everyone out of the tents but 11 guys get out of the tents i'm like wait a second this group's a lot bigger so i asked one of the boys i'm like is everyone here he looked at me confidently he says yes i said are you sure he said yes i'm sure i continued to yell about 10 minutes later about another 18 guys come out of their tents about like 18 20 guys they're all like oh i was asleep i didn't know i'm just there i had them all on their fists on rocks and mud and push up position what time is it two in the morning two in the morning in the middle of the forest yeah and for 45 minutes they're on their fists on rocks and mud and push a position i'm just talking to them like telling them like listen however you guys speak at home however you guys speak with your friends whatever you do at home i could care less that's your private life i'm not gonna get into that with you guys however we're here on this program the way you speak to each other is unacceptable you need to learn to love to respect and to work together as a team and i keep reminding them that the more we apply those simple things the team will become more and more unbreakable and i'm teaching these kids a lot is that learn to communicate with each other because like nowadays kids and like iphones and everything it's slowly not slowly it's aggressively deteriorating their their ability to actually communicate in a thorough efficient way where the kids will actually sit down listen analyze and implement

54:47 Andres Preschel
 It almost like gives you the impression that the communication is really good right the way that you can react to stories send emojis send voice memos and like keep up with someone's life quote unquote right like it almost gives you the impression that you're really there with somebody and that you're really communicating but it's devoid of so many of the essential you know

55:06 Baraq
it's devoid of everything man like i to me i've already i've already cut that like i've already understood that a long time ago that whatever this is that's occurring in the world nowadays with the phones it's just not it for me it's not you know there are people that thrive off of it and there are people that love just being able to communicate immediately and i do too but like something about just being face to face with people and just reciprocating that energy that the emotions reading someone's body language all that natural stuff is what i live for and what i breathe for it's like the more i am with technology the the more aware that i'm so unhappy.

55:39 Andres Preschel
Because you're you're literally robbing yourself of things that human beings are are born to to do with other people born to do that are born with in order to survive right like we're not born to survive just independently like we're born to be in in these tribes and so if you give me the surface level impression that i'm getting what i need as a human being but really deep down i'm not getting that kind of fulfillment as a human being these are my these are my my human in a way needs right but it's like you just end up becoming unhappy like surface level like oh you might be just say communicating with wishing everyone a happy birthday with facebook right and and whatever meta and like and like oh you you like this story like oh i got back to your dm right but it's like yeah on a surface level you're there but on a deeper level you're you're really neglecting something that's so essential which is the the human connection that no matter how advanced social media or internet gets it can never fully replicate.

56:34 Baraq
Yeah my issue is that like i know a lot of brilliant bright people and i hate it i don't hate it i just it's hate's a strong word i dislike that when people are very aware of these repercussions from all this stuff but then they're just like they're aware of it but they don't care self-negligence it's just it hurts not only them but it hurts everyone else and like i said that's part of the whole communicating with yourself it's just being honest and the worst thing you can do apart from lying to someone else is to lie to yourself because that'll just carry on and that will become a a recurring behavior that will just become the norm for you the more you practice that the more you normalize that for yourself it just it just hurts and you're not even aware of how you're digging away at your soul when you're just lying to yourself that's why communication is so critical like on from every perspective it's a wild thing because i used to be very really cut off from people i used to not share my emotions i went through a lot of mental struggles with that stuff but you know everyone says bro just talk to me talk to me you know write get a journal you know everyone's always initial reaction is going to be like f off you don't shit doesn't help like i i'm i know what what works for me i know what's best for me but like at the end of the day so simple and i wish i could have applied that earlier but i learned the hard way and for some people like myself learning the hard way is actually the best way because some people won't really make a change or listen until life pushes them into a corner and just sits them on their ass and that happened to me multiple times and thank god that i actually learned from those situations and then just ignore them.

58:24 Andres Preschel
it's unbelievable because as you made the transition saying that the light just shined in your eyes i went from being totally dark to light shining through the trees onto your face i don't think that was a coincidence at all that was pretty amazing you know what's interesting is one of the there's a ted talk by a woman named kelly mcgonigal she's a stanford ph phd in psychology she's a stanford psychologist and she has i think the to this day the most viewed ted talk of all time it's called making stress your friend and the mechanism that she described was just just fucking amazing and you just reminded me of it is how when we have this stress response our body actually produces or secretes oxytocin that carol hormone that love hormone and it's it's because when we're stressed out i mean the way that we've evolved the way when we're stressed out we kind of in a way need that social bond to help carry us through it to survive because so much of our survival is really rooted in having people around us and working together through things so it's like she describes how one of the best ways that you can take advantage of this is like when you're stressed like like your body wants to talk you you want to talk to somebody your body's is is really pushing you to do that because it needs it and i think a lot of you know just the way that modern society is today and and again i think maybe social media plays into this it's like and especially this is especially prevalent you know within men is is is vulnerability is seen as such a major weakness and if you look at this physiologically and biologically it's vulnerability is really a strength it's it's quite literally powering you through what you're dealing with and making you stronger and also making you a better team member a better family whatever again scaling this back to the earlier conversation whatever a group that you're consciously or unconsciously part of like it will make your it'll it will strengthen you and it'll strengthen your role within that group so it's like you quite literally have this human connection built into your stress response that's there to protect you that's there to to empower you so you can really you know give it give it let's let's i think one of the biggest takeaways here is let that work for you not against you because if your body's doing that and then you're you're saying no like you're really shooting yourself in the foot there...

01:00:42 Baraq
You're swimming against the river and this is a heavy river man it's white waters you're not going to survive there yeah most people won't ever admit or agree but everyone's vulnerable no one's gonna convince me otherwise and that's what builds strength and the people who hide away from that know damn well that they're vulnerable because there's always a bigger shark out there bigger body of government bigger army whatever it is everyone's vulnerable and there's no reason to veer away from that or to be afraid of it i don't understand that it's interesting.

01:01:07 Andres Preschel
Well we do have to sign off here and i think one of the last things i want to share from my end is reflecting on all this is to what i've noticed from people like you like ariel uh like israel which is another friend of ours shout out to israel if he's tuning in who's also part of our know your physio handsome gentleman's community shout out to the community um it's you guys are without a doubt the most loving people i ever met typically i wouldn't assume people like you were in the army i would just assume you're just happy people and loving people but really understanding what it takes to be a good team member i completely understand how in a way maybe this is one of the reasons why you even enrolled in the army is because you you had this in you and you knew being part of a team would help you take this further but also being in the army makes that even stronger it makes that even more uh brings even more awareness to the fact that you need to be a loving person to to really get by in life and to make it big and to accomplish the mission if you want to put it that way so i just want to say man like you guys are genuinely the most loving people i can't thank you for that enough and um i can't thank you enough for being so open and so vulnerable about this experience and about your general life experience because there's so much that you're here to teach us and so much of what you're here to teach us it's not about who's the most badass leader who can i don't know hold the biggest guns and the biggest muscles and and and run the fastest it's like how can you do that in a way that really serves the planet in order to do that in order to to really do that individually and collectively you just need to have so much love and you need to give so much of that love so i just want to say that i really appreciate you for that man you're one of the most loving human beings i've ever met and i'm still getting to know you you know but i but i can't thank you for that enough...

01:03:11 Baraq
Wow thank you for those very beautiful loving words and i could say the same like first met you and your brother and you guys were very warm welcoming and your family and your birthday party it was a that was a fun time beautiful experience man and just every experience i have with you or anyone from your family is top notch like definitely one of my favorite people to spend time with anyone like everyone in your family in miami and the last thing i want to say is everyone is awesome dude they just need to be reminded that and they just need to be shown what it is to really love and be respected most people are afraid and they need to be reminded that there's nothing to be afraid about...

01:03:53 Andres Preschel
There we go thank you bro

01:03:57 Baraq
thank you bro my pleasure

01:04:10 Andres Preschel
So that's all for today's show thank you so much for tuning in today for all the show notes including clickable links to anything and everything that we discussed today everything from discount codes to videos to research articles books tips tricks techniques and of course to learn more about the guest on today's episode all you have to do is head to my website on dresspreshell.com that's a n d r e s p r e s c h e l dot com and go to podcasts you can also leave your feedback questions and suggestions for future episodes future guests so on and so forth thanks again for tuning in and i'll see you on the next one have a lovely rest of your day.