Kitbag Conversations - Kitbag Conversations Episode 22:Logistics and Life

Episode Date: August 13, 2023

Tobin, a special operations logistics officer, Light-heavy weight MMA champion of III Army Corps (37-0), Veteran of the war against ISIS, and Cody's OG battle buddy comes on the podcast to talk logistics, finding success in life, and his life motto of FITFO (figure it the fuck out).

I'm gonna go back to the hotel. I'm gonna go back to the hotel. I'm gonna go back to the hotel. I'm gonna go back to the hotel. I'm gonna go back to the hotel. I'm gonna go back to the hotel. I'm gonna go back to the hotel. I'm gonna go back to the hotel.

I'm gonna go back to the hotel. I'm gonna go back to the hotel. I'm gonna go back to the hotel. I'm gonna go back to the hotel. I'm gonna go back to the hotel. I'm gonna go back to the hotel. in the kitchen, cookin' fried chicken, wishing that I hadn't done wrong. Mama, don't you worry about it, none though. Everything's gonna be all right, Mama. They're teaching us a lot of new things in here, Mama.

Things like, there ain't no good in an evil heart at all. And I could have to be no just a jane And you don't go right in hot checks Down in Mississippi And there ain't no good change What's going on, man? You got all your fifth group shit just like peeking behind you. Yeah, I like to get them work calls and that just, they'll ask me what's behind me and it's just an eye to slide.

Yes. He freaks out the fucking guests a little bit. It up. Nice. I have a, my girlfriend wouldn't let me put my military memorabilia anywhere but upstairs in the bonus room. She said it's not dining room appropriate. So yeah, fuck me. I'll take that. So yeah, man.

So I'm recording. We'll just hop right into it. You go. Has he packed a fuck? What is that fat fucking red man in? Oh no, this is in custom shit. I haven't made. It's Tennessee moonshine flavored.

Oh, I just put it in. Yeah, I did. Oh yeah, baby. Put in that fucking that straight up horses I asked yeah till I think it makes a jawline pop after this much cholesterol fuck now everybody's gonna know where I get it just the fucking straight well I said why is it such bullshit over there? Yeah, man. Just for the listeners out there. So this is one of my best friends. We've been friends through ROTC.

We went through the shit. We didn't go through the army together, but we went through an ableer together. We were fifth special forces group support together. And I think that's what people kind of enjoy about This podcast as we air the Dirty laundry of green burais and all the bullshit and what actually happens behind the scenes Arm illusion. Yeah, they're by hero and find out your heroes a fucking co-cada Why are there this many French speakers that I sent come oriented unit?

We're not compromising standards. Are you sure? Are you sure? There's so much cocaine. That's awesome. Is that a pile of adderol? Yeah, man. So the biggest thing, I guess, right out the gate is, for those that don't know, Cooper's

a logistition. He's probably the army's best logistition that ever fucking lived. Right there. The line to cross by the way, all you have to do is walk to your bubblegum and have an IQ over 86. Yeah, it's the Harry Potter broom closet over the army. I did, I pressed it. But that actually goes back to the saying, you gave me an ROTC because we had this drill.

I'm sure you remember it where. We had three squad and squad one was clearing like 15 fucking buildings and I was like, CQB is like, you just need grenades and they only have like five grenades for their whole squad. You know, like, ah, there it is. The Amateurs think tactics, masters think logistics, and for the next two years, I was like, you know, I'd love to wear a fleece cap when it's cold outside and Loggies can support that. Bro, when the fuck had Russian war kicked off, you're the first person I thought of because like everyone's like, dear God, and then the tires started blowing, fuel started going out

ammunition, and I bet you were answering phone calls from Green Berets. Like, hey, you were right. Like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like the Federal Forces Group, all of the Special Forces Command as a battalion maintenance officer. So I do know what I'm talking about when it comes to vehicle maintenance and also shaming quite a bit on maintenance systems that the Army employed. But yeah, I don't think Russia knows what swimmies are. I don't think they understand. You know, the gas goes in the right hole, etc. So they really fucked up.

But the same thing with North Korea. It's a great time. Communist countries. So like that what was so let's do this because it kind of break it up into like three parts right now. So you got the initial you got the initial invasion right and then you have the back and forth and then you have this god awful fucking you creating counteroffensive that is just getting dick slapped down into the dirt. So phase one, the initial invasion, you saw that. What was your thoughts? Well, you know, I over time, right? First off, I got very angry because nobody really knew what was going on.

There's a lot of propaganda state fuel on all sides, right? So we're hearing that Russia's dome rock in Ukraine, but Zelensky's held up and from the perspective of an American that didn't have the peak behind the curtain anymore. You really see, like, Zelensky and Kiev just, like, fighting, just porcupining out, you know, hitting the old Spartan pose and they're just repelling from all sides. You know, they got us surrounded, but we could shoot any direction kind of thing. And, you know, then you see them start showing up and like the fucking capital building and sweat pants and you're like, all right, you piece of shit.

Look, I coach you. You couldn't put on a fucking suit. You didn't have access to your closet. Let me guess, the Russians took that over to you, fuck. I also have my point out. My initial thought was really fueled by like patriotism. And like, I really just want to fuck up anybody that doesn't have a humanitarian bone in their body. Now recently I've started to think there are some ulterior motives mainly because, and I love getting

a fight on Reddit, I'm a conservative white male. It's a fucking knife fight. 300 degree degrees, right? And so, all news article about Ukraine and how they needed a hundred billion or a hundred sixty billion or whatever the number was. And I went back into the archives of DC. It was a congressional hearing where we had talked about the initial invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

And the whole plan, Joe Biden was on it. Most of the politicians at the time of 9-11 were on it. And it said that over the course of the next ten years they would need a hundred billion to invade takeover and install a new system of government ten years for the world's largest military force needed a hundred billion what the fuck do a bunch of rebels and sweatpants need a hundred billion for right now when a case or probably you know the price of a fucking chicken

had some questions, but initially, I think something that we've gotten away from, and one of the hardest concepts that most logisticians don't understand is the concept of trains, right? Not like, you know, rail trains, but combat trains, battalion trains, division trains, and what that comes down to is preposition equipment, right? You need to have groups of people at different stages of advancement. So you'd have battalion trains could look like in FSC, right?

Division trains could be ACSSP, and they all represent a different capability at different fallback points. So one of the things that most people don't know about the army in general, and it's not classified by any means, is that if we were to go to war, we wouldn't go to war with our current equipment. No fucking way. I mean, you're gonna trust the Humvee, some PFC's been PFC asking for five years that has 25 overdue services and no service kits and

I mean, it's running on tires and out of safety views message. Absolutely fucking not. Where do we trust our equipment? Well, it comes in the form of Army preposition stock and you'll see those around the world. So like in Korea, we had APS-4, right? APS-4 is every vehicle that is M-toed to every unit on the peninsula that is maintained professionally by civilians, right? So we have set up international combat trains to support whatever contingency operation we want. When you take shitty vehicles that have been sitting in a motor pool and you go to war with them you get what happened with Russia. You get the gas pump leaves. Not only

that, but when we talk about vehicle maintenance we talk about different levels of maintenance. You have to accommodate complex vehicle parts which really stupid fucking people. I mean, you saw, I watched a dude pull 750 milligrams of meth out of his ass in a butt plug. And that was one of my lead mechanics. Yeah. That's sorry. He had like 25 failures to report and I just kept hearing it's NCO business. NCO business.

You're doing your business, you know. So, you know, they send over this new equipment. The Army has a habit of being able to deploy this stuff very quickly, but you send over all this shit and then you have Russian weapon systems. You have AK-47s, they're durable, but overall inaccurate. You have a bunch of people that don't know how to use it. You're using a conscription force that doesn't know basic maintenance, basic mechanical operation. And so in the army we have 10 level, 20 level, 30 level, 40 level, right? 10 level operator, 20 level is going to be your mechanics. 30 level will be your larger entity like a CSSB and FSC. You're going to send it back for remediation and those

repairs take a long time. And then the 40 level is going to send it back for remediation and those repairs take a long time. And then the 440 level is going to be your manufacturer. So we can send things like on Fort Campbell, right? I was the 20 level. So like something as simple as pumping up a tire, right, or changing a mirror, that could be 10 level, right? And the 100, I think it's 1156 page LMTV TM, or not LMTV, LHS, so load handling system TM, it outlines exactly how the MCS shit and nobody ever does it. The outline, how to change your headlight, nobody ever fucking does it.

It outlines, okay, now you've got to take to a fucking mechanic. And then the mechanics are doing meth. So like, we got to kick it back to the FSC, and then the FSC takes it and has civilian contractors that work on it. A good example is like an RT240 container handler, right? The shit that moves con-axis picks it up. It's a big fucking crane. People, it's a big argument, forklifter crane, but who fucking knows. Not when I was in Korea, we had a deadline all eight and those were my major pacing items. Why? Because nobody had maintained the hydrolyquines. Hydrolyquines had 12,000 PSI going through them at any point. They're dry, or a dry-rooded fracked. I had one fucking explode as I got out from out of the vehicle on a

freeway, because I heard it go, and that's all you get, right? It was rehearsed, low-throwing, right? And then we had to send those back to Oshkosh and like fucking Oklahoma. I'm Korean. You know, I'm thinking of something picking up a fucking 20 foot container. Like it's not fucking small, homie. Right? And so we had to ship that ship back via surface move. Get it repaired in Oklahoma because they wouldn't come out to us because you can only use those hydraulic lines.

If you can point me in the direction of any other standing army in the world that has a support structure like that, I'll get on my knees because there is not one. It just doesn't work. So Russia came in with terrible equipment and let's not forget maintenance and overall logistics is not just vehicle. When I was in group for a large portion of my time there, I ran five commodity shops. It was electronic maintenance.

It was weapons maintenance. It was maintenance control. It was vehicle maintenance. It was fabrication and allied services where we were teaching people to weld, you know, fucking machine gun mounts on the back of Toyota Highlux as we were welding. It fracked five armor into the bottom of those highluxes. So it was, I mean, it was until somebody doesn't know how to cut a fucking hole for an manual transmission and then you can't get into reverse. It's great. It's the methed out private, by the way.

So, you know, I, watching it happen, I remember telling, whenever you go out for an FTX and you're going to do a big rollout, right? It's like, hey, we're going to get five miles before we start having breakdowns. I'm like, no, no, we take these out. It's been on low mileage. It's definitely moving you know, 15 miles in the past year. It's like, no, if I could have it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no moving you 15 miles in the past year. Like, no, it's not going to happen. No shit. No shit.

Right. So what I've always told every commander would happen with the vehicles we have in our motor pool is exactly what happened with Russia. You ran out of fuel. You ran out of fucking basic parts. Everything broke. So it's an interesting, it was kind of funny for me

to watch and be like, yep, yep. They don't. They don't make a good score. Very good, yeah. So this is something that I don't know if you know, but like a really good friend of ours on the podcast is a guy named AFV recognition. He's a British tanker. He's a fucking phenomenal and CEO, but he's been watching the tank rehabilitation of Russia.

So they're pulling out these T-55, T-72, T-65, like whatever. And there's just, there's so many of them in store, there's more in Russian storage than there is in Ukraine total on both sides together combined. And so like as this war has been going on, it's just been like these fabrication shops are just, like, going and going. And everybody on the naffo side and, like, the pro-Ukrainian side is like,

it's all fucking butterflies and glitter over here. And I'm just watching this shit. And, like you said, those commodity shops and shit. Like, Russia's turning these old factories back on from the Soviet era. And it's just, like, holy fucking shit. Like, this is, like, it's not even,, and it's just like, holy fucking shit. Like this is like, it's not even like, there's like a, like that's a lot, that's a funny amount, like, ha ha, you're fucking crazy. And then there's this, and it's like, holy shit, like you were ready for arm again. And so that's pretty much all Russia has done leading up to the counter offensive.

And so like, watch it get from that point of view, from an intel perspective is like, Russia's just been sitting there, taking the abuse, but they're attritting the offensive army. You and I stormed, you and I stormed a trench, we had a fucking heart it is. Like, bro. All right. So like, from a logistics point of view,

like as we go up to the counteroffensive, what have you been seeing like as these This all goes down like after the offensive like pretty much the last 12 months leading up to this counter offensive You know what I think Yeah Equipment's great, right. It's like us sending M1 Abrams over to the Ukrainians. Mm-hmm. That's fantastic It's great. It's great equipment It's good to be able to turn back on those old pieces of equipment and Russia, as far as I know, historically, is been a manufacturing powerhouse in times of war, right?

They have a fairly subservient society. They're a communist country. The government pretty much controls all supply and demand. They can turn that on as a capability. But the caliber of person still doesn't change, right? So if you have a tank operator that doesn't know what the fuck he's doing doesn't matter And so when I see them sitting and waiting the question to me is why right your Geopolitical tensions are continuously rising your sanctioned heavily financially and economically You're trying to turn on the brick system that you have right because I'm trying to think of it geopolitically Yeah, what is the motivation to wait and I don't think it's that they want to. I think that they have to. And when I think about having to wait,

because in reality, there's one of two options. Either there's some geopolitical factor that's causing him to wait, or this is all a fucking sham. And it's a great money laundering operation for some country somewhere. And that, alonger we keep this access and allies allies bullshit up, the better off we will be. So, the American taxpayer on the fucking hamster wheel of having your dollar tax, 60 cents for every dollar you make is going to continuously fund this bullshit.

And I don't know what that bullshit is, I don't really, I mean, I can guess, and I can speculate. But I would say that he's waiting because he has to because the caliber of people he has I mean he just sent over a whole conscription force and they for the most part got fucking shwacked They got their asses waxed dude So do you continuously display incompetence or do you wait? Focus on training, which I would hope that's what he's doing if he I mean, I don't hope so I hope focus on training, which I would hope that's what he's doing. If he, I mean, I don't hope so, I hope, you know, something better comes out of all this. But if he wanted to win this shit, he would focus on making them very fucking proficient at fighting with tanks. Because what's

gonna happen, right? The probably old tanks that they don't make the fucking parts for, right? Or they're manufacturing new shit that nobody knows how to operate one way or the other. We have the superpowers of war, Lockheed, Ray Fion, all these other comedy. What is the DARPA? Like we just have so many contracted organizations that want nothing more than to skull fuck somebody with their most latest invention. And they just can't fucking compete, right? And God forbid you taught those Ukrainians how to use a fucking M1 Abrams before the panther came out. It's a bit...

Yeah. You know there's no chance. So I would say that he's waiting in hopes that proficiency and not looking like an ass on the global stage is this primary motivation. Yeah. And that's a big thing too is like just that the Ukrainian spin up is I think two weeks max. And so like we were talking about on the podcast like if you look at all the dead bodies that are coming through

they're mostly ooze becks to geeks and Siberian like they're not white Russians like you see videos from Moscow and they're all fine like they're just emptying the prisons and sending like poor eastern Russians to the front and they're like we're killing so many we killed 50,000 Wagnarites and it's like where is all the federal prisoners in Moscow like fucking Bakmuut bro like fucking they're all dead or their mercenaries now and so yeah I find it incredibly hard to believe that Putin's only motivation for this is to like resurrect the former USSR and this is where I get into it with people who are very pro-Ukrainian because I you know I'm pro not

oppressing the liberated like like, generally speaking. But after Putin took the Crimea, you remember me in fucking ROTC? I was like, there were 30 people in our class, and everybody thought it was a fucking idiot. I was like, he might not have been now, but he will fucking have been you. And everybody was like, you're fucking out of your mind. It was like, it was like, what?

20 fucking 13 when I said this? And I was like, he's taken over the Crimea, Hitler took over the fucking Rhine, and everybody let him do it and well what actually happened is he took over the fucking Ryan and they killed like 10,000 Russians or 14,000 Russians via artillery from Ukraine I was definitely punching back. So they're taking fucking mortar fire not doing anything because I'm afraid of fucking NATO and now oh Zelensky and, perfectly-rissled face is fucking OD green sweatshirt,

and it's fucking, you know, cargo pants, and the ultimate maritime assaults is doing a world tour, shaking politicians' hands. Like, of course, I punch him square in the dick. I got into kind of the emphasis. I don't think it's to rebuild it for us over at Union. I think he's kind of fucking grudged. Yeah, I mean, shit.

It is. It's complicated. And, like, one of the biggest things is, thereudge. Yeah, I mean shit. It is. It's complicated. And like one of the biggest things is there's a guy, Peter Zion. I don't know if you've read his books, but he's talked about it. He's like, you crazy. The last key to the puzzle is like that open field.

Like you got to take up to the denie bird and get that border. And it was just all the NATO countries gassing up fucking Zelensky. Like, bro, you're going to be good. Don't worry. We got you. And that he turned around and told Putin, fuck you. And like you like you said he's like I'm not taking shit from a chubby little Midget like I'm gonna fucking

Put you in the dick I definitely don't you know just because I'm definitely an American who just knows rushes the bad guy I mean I watch fucking top gun like it's my job, you know Fuck the Russians, but It's it's kind of an interesting thing to watch because like I said my initial reaction to all this was like go back into the reserves, re-branch until like siops or go into fucking 19th group or something, right? Yeah.

And or 20th group, whatever the fucking Nadi G versus reserve group is. And so I, but I, after looking and watching, I was like there there's, you got to follow the money, man. And that's really been the trend outside of the army is following where the money's going to. Thank you. And like, you look at like Wagner, you look at Ukraine, you look at Russia, Russia has obvious financial interests for getting out of this shit. And then we're even being sanctioned.

And that's to install a gold back system versus the world fiat system. You know, I haven't talked much about what I do now, but took a business trip to Poland recently. And it was pretty eye-opening, man. It's like, first off, I got like kissed by a Ukrainian guy in a bar of fucking weird, so, a whole different story. His name's Dennis. He threatened to kill me. He was hammered. It's a long story. I'll tell it to you if you want. But it can wait. And so, you know, my buddy and I, who, my buddy is my other product manager that works for me. We were sending this restaurant, took the whole team out to dinner. My boss told me, dude, buy everything nice you can. Just like, you know, I work in oil, like it doesn't, it's all arbitrary.

I just go, impress them, you know, make them feel good, make them feel happy, you know, they go, okay, cool. And we tried. We bought like the whole fucking menu, everybody had like 10 drinks and we were like, I mean, we're talking Johnny Walker, Blue Label, fucking Glenn Livid, just drinking Mads God, bottle service, the like, it came out to like 500 dollars. I was like, My boss is gonna be pissed that I didn't spend 10 times that because that's what he's, we spend a lot of time in Dubai, he spends a lot of time in the UAE. And I was at first kind of laughing my ass off and I was like, well, I had asked my Polish engineers, I was like, why is everything so cheap enough?

We don't know, but inflation. It's gotten worse, it used to be cheaper. And I was like, what the fuck? And I realized most of the world doesn't realize that the United States dollar is the reserve currency. And we went off the gold standard, you know, every other dollar was backed, every other currency was backed by the value of the US dollar. The plummeting US dollar value because of the printer glitch that we've seen to have with the Federal Reserve is causing mass fucking inflation all across the world. And Putin's really gotten ahead of it by in the wake of these economic

sanctions. He's been stashed in fucking gold, dude. So like when it comes to equipment, if Bricks wins and Bricks becomes the global backed currency while we're running on a fiat currency printing, which in the past three years we've printed like over 30% of all money and existence ever. Yeah, then he can afford whatever he wants. Lockheed Martin, these other companies, like it's not a hard to replicate. It's a business model. Yeah. There will be companies like that pop it up all over the world supporting them because

they're the only ones with money in any value. So. No, that's something we can, we can talk about that. It's just like, it's so annoying to see it because something we talk about here a lot is like, we're already in World War III. Like, because we've talked about this before, like, dime, you know, diplomacy, information, military, and economic.

Like the military is going on right now in Ukraine, and it's such a distraction to the United States, right? Like they're like, oh cool, trenches and warfare and tags. This is fucking awesome. But when Brick said that they were coming out with a gold-backed currency, bro, my jaw hit the fucking floor. I was like holy shit They're gonna win like they like the economic piece if they can get that off the floor and like a big thing was when we told Putin You know because like even the sw- and that was the big fuck up It wasn't the fuck up didn't come with the Abrams tanks and all that like they're gonna kill each other how they kill each other

But the biggest fuck up was when we told Putin, like, we're gonna take your banks, we're gonna see your property, all your oligarchs, all that shit in the whole world. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Because even Saudi Arabia was like, you know, they're punching women in Berkaz over there, and they're like, hold up. The US can turn off money, and the Swiss were like,

yeah, and we're turning it off the bank accounts, and everyone went Holy shit, and so like you know South Africa Saudi Arabia even Saudi Arabia and I ran our agreeing right now Took like hey hold up they take a breather right now They just shut the fucking money flow off and like you said follow the money and it was like hold up What the fuck is that like and then bricks has the gold back currency and like you everything you say and I agree with it's just fucking the last time I'll last time I deployed I think the US was the major the largest producing or largest oil producing company in the world or a country

second two saw a Arabian Iran yeah so I'm not a current role we don't do business with Iran. We definitely do a lot of business with Russia. Business with Russia is pretty much off the table now because of sanctions. But generally speaking, since, and not to get too political, like you said, conservative mail, when call myself a Republican,

call myself more of a get your fucking hand out of my pocket. But as I look at the correlation of elections in America, right, Joe Biden came in, immediately shut down Keystone pipeline, oil, land, leases, leases in which we actually go in and take oil from the different oil formations like the Permian Basin in Texas, right? It's very, like the requirements to actually get in there and start drilling have heightened significantly. Yeah. For me, right?

It sucks, but when you see gas prices go up, that's a great thing for me. Because everyone's fucking well on the ground, and if everybody wants to put a well on the ground, they have what we need, right? And so that's where we really juice it. We had like a record year last year, and OPEC was counting record profits.

But if the US dollar loses value, and you have this currency, which is stable and stable based on a limited supply of gold, which Putin has then decades accruing, we are fucked with a capital P H. You can talk about things all you fucking want, but if you can put gas in it. Yeah, it's gonna look like the initial invasion Did we were talking about like that's like one of my favorite Tim Dilling quotes is he's like most Americans don't want to aspire to great things They just want to sit on the couch watch TV and eat buckies and I'll get some complain about gas prices and like the minute Like shit about the fuckies? Yeah, I don't need to talk about my books, jokes. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, you know your fucking what is it we got to it is you lander like i think it's fucking crazy pills are here like the big shorts is really good movie because it explains partially

that people have the tendency to think that good things will continue to happen and bad things won't to write or that things just in general don't have a tendency to change and we're seeing a mass media control almost sia up going on right where it's not, I mean you can say it's political, it's left leaning, it's right leaning, I don't give a fuck about that. I just care about what neither side is saying, right? And what neither side is saying is that our economy's heading towards a shit or a dude like this house prices, right? We look at that and I was this woman from Shark Tank barber whatever the fuck her name is and

She was like well once interest rates go down prices are gonna explode again And I'm like, how nobody can afford a house right fucking now. You're telling me prices are gonna go up That's fucking stupid. You know It's supply and demand is forgotten on a lot of people, but We I'm sitting here looking at the rising economic tide and people can't give up with inflation, right? There's a general consensus that like, you're savings accounts, you're my age, you know? Our savings accounts have like a 0.03% interest rate.

Why is that? Well, because at some point, our bunch of dudes on Wall Street said, we need them to invest their money in the markets. So how do we make that more advantageous? Well, we make it so savings accounts can't keep up inflation Which was averaging 1.1 to 2.2 percent per year? So if you're only making 0.03 percent Annually in your savings account, of course you're gonna invest your money be stupid not to you lose money keeping it in the account so this whole

Conspiracy of shitty economics, shitty policy making, shitty oil production, it's all coming together to this, I guess, a doomsday scenario where we are shut out. And I mean, I mean, frightfully so, you see it now, Europe's making it next year so that Americans have to have visas to travel there. Yeah. And my boss was like, how do you feel about that? I was like, it's about fucking time. We made to have visas to travel there. Yeah. And my boss was like, how do you feel about that? So it's about fucking time. We've made people have visas to get into our country forever. So what's fucking different? Nothing.

There's no more double standards. Nobody else is going to be like, oh, it's America. And he's fine. He's not going to do anything. No, absolutely. We deserve that. But we've been doing this shit for so long because we have the biggest dick in the playground.

And we're, hey, let us do what we want. We're going to skull fuck you with an M1 Abrams. And nobody can compete. Nobody can argue, right? We're, I mean, we're the world's hyper power. Yeah. So, and not so much anymore. We don't have the oil, gas, resources, financial stability.

Nobody's going to look at us that way. We're already fucking in steep decline as an empire. Kind of fucking watching. that way. We're already fucking in steep decline as an empire. As you were talking, I like looked at the dad Jones industrial average and like we are up 6% on the year. Like it's like nothing happened. If you look at the five year, it's just straight up. And then the max, if you look at fucking, what is it? 2008 to now, it's pretty much just a straight line up and what's also funny is uh... fucking so i gotta describe him benson was a trailer trash like hey y'all like that

drinking yeah that's it was like this finance guy at rotc class he's like hey y'all uh... what we're gonna do is squal to tank, right? And he was in finance. So dude was basically like, raid man when it came to money. So when I tell you this, like he did an anonymous financial spreadsheet by like these guys that came to our college and that he figured it out in 24 hours, came back and brought them the numbers. And they were like, it usually takes a people a week to find three out of the five problems and you found all five in 24 hours.

We're Harvard Business School, would you like a free ride? And so he was like on his knees, like, I'll do 20 years in the army, let me go to Harvard Business School. And they wouldn't let him, but I'll never forget when Cardinal Montgomery, our PMS, brought in a financial advisor and he was like, you guys need a 401k and a

Roth IRA and and fucking Benson said the same shit you're saying right now he's like the year over year savings you lose money like you have to play the game and it's just fucking wild. What's that? That same financial advisor that Benson Dome Rock is currently my financial advisor and he has changed his tune all together. Oh really? What? I don't know what Benson did to that man, but he is very much on the side of like, okay, here's how we're going to invest.

And, you know, AMC GameStop, like, you buy that shit on your own personal brokerage, don't sell it. Hold it. Oh my god. And he's like, you know, re-Richest man in Babylon, re-Dalias, principles of dealing with the changing world order and you'll understand And I was like this guy has been radicalized over the past ten years because I think you know He's fairly new when he started when he talked to us, but this dude is like he's like the financial

Conspiracy theorist that I love having invest my money for me makes me tons of return Yeah, yeah, Ben said literally like skull dragged his ass through the right in front of like he was in an auditorium and Benson was just like giving that marker said and it was like, oh, should I be paying? Should I be paying? I'm gonna leave a 20. Like, fucking, yeah, like, I mean, dude, so like that was a big thing and like leading up to this as I was talking to the guys in the discord and like the Patreon members and I tell them all the time, like this dude got out of the army and basically said, you know what? I'm just gonna go make a shit ton of money and get the fuck out of here.

Like if you, I'm gonna attack somebody personally, but I won't say his name. Let's say you're a Canadian and you work construction and you've lived in the same house for like your entire family generational time back to like the, oh my god, 1600s and your name is Mac from Halifax. No f- Hahahaha

How would you, what would you tell him? Like guys that are young guys and guys like that who they're like, fuck the fuck Canada fuck your fuck France Like I need to make some money. I need to do something with my life like looking back at everything you've done like what would you tell them? Well unfortunately, I'm not that well versed in international law or you know tax code, but I Would tell you that it something somebody said to me once is you, millionaires have seven streams of passive income in general, right? Military was, you know, it was active income. I got out, blown out knees, you know, a small bit of disability that worked out initially,

right? And so that gave me something that's kind of a fallback, but, you know, in reality, I want to stick to my principles. My principles are that, you know, I draw a line in the sand and if you cross it, you'll fuck yourself, right? And I'm willing to absorb risk to make sure that I don't lose sight of who I am or who I was, because the loss of an identity is more painful than any kind of loss of money, right? So when I got out of the army, I took a CSP free internship working out of a tech company in Boston, and they were a bunch of fucking cunts.

They were young dudes who thought they were all hot shit entrepreneurs. And I ended up on a fucking moving truck for six months collecting data as I was doing donation pickups for nonprofits. I was recording how long it took to fucking get a mattress up the stairs and how many stairs and down the stairs and how many stairs and how long it took

to disassemble the dresser of Bedframe so that we could code all of this stuff into technology. How much cubic volume a king size bed frame takes up on average so that I could calculate route planning and do spoken wheel logistics, middle mile last mile, are we going to take this ship and ship it down to Guatemala on automated fucking barges that run down the Mississippi River. How much is taxation at the Panama Canal? Random shit like that because my bosses were losing

that fucking mind. I worked nine months without a day off. So no Saturdays, no Sundays. I was over at my boss's house designing. I taught myself software design. I taught myself skills that were kind of nested under my existing ones. I was a pretty good project manager in the Army

as good as you can be in the Army without an S3 getting in your fucking way or rank you know conflating what you can and can't approve you know a fucking 32 page risk assessment in case some dumb dick gets fucking electrocuted by a 15 kilowatt generator doesn't bring up fucking grounding and we absolutely need the fucking trash because the kernel has to have air conditioning. Then you get past that, it should, it gets a lot easier, right? So What I learned in that, I ended up going to Serbia for three months. I sat in an engineer's apartment, chain smoking black Russian cigarettes, which If you do live in Europe, smoke black Russian cigarettes, they're fucking fantastic. You can get them in Serbia, but they are wonderful. And I would sit there and eat handfuls of meat, just just lamb and drink a carcassacha with them every night, but I had a fucking monitor in my laptop,

and I was designing, I was doing software design, I was doing backlogging, road mapping, and I taught myself all of this shit, right? And so, you know, first things first, be willing to learn and go figure out what skillset interest you, right? Like, I don't like graphic design But I got good at it kind of like software design, but I got good at it

And it took me hours and hours and days and days and I was really fucking bad at first and that's okay And it's like it meant your time right? In bad at something's like the first step to be it's okay at something and You know project management was always there when you get out of the army you realize there's a lot of technology This is the army has no idea about like dude. I could get rid of every ARR and MRR Training meetings and it command and staff with one fucking gecko board powered by Excel That's fucking simple and if they have questions look at the fucking Excel Yeah, so it's it's kind of egregious.

But I came back from Serbia, hadn't taken any time off. My boss gave me a week to like go recover because I was running on empty. I came back and he said, you know, well, your vacation's all water under the bridge. Well, I was like, you mean you forgive me for taking the vacation you told me to take. He's like, yeah, also, we've changed our entire strategy over the past week, and we're going to fire these two people. Who are my hardest working people? I told him, Alesson, I learned during the Syrian retrograde that you can make those numbers say whatever the fuck you want, but if that shit doesn't get back home, those numbers don't mean shit,

right? But ultimately, you can tell me that firing these two people is going to make 35,000 more dollars per month, but that's bullshit. cut workforce you've cut their salaries but their salaries equal to like fucking ten k so he told me that i didn't know he was talking or who i was talking to i told him he's a fucking twat he told me i can't talk to him like that i told him to go fuck himself and then i went into the room called the two people who's gonna fire i said hey you guys get to keep your jobs probably gonna get fired a week later. He asked me if I would agree to a one month off boarding

I said sure go fuck yourself And I did right so rule number two, you know rule number one being be ready learn go out and do some self-study Do a passion project design a fucking app and figma. It's free. Yeah Bigma I GMA you don't even have to fucking download just go on there start fucking around Right and then if you really want to get some money go on fucking up work go on fiber just pick up a skill Right because I got out of the army. What was my skill? Figure out how to air drop ammo and fucking Syria If you can shoot move communicate battle drill one alpha battle. Like, oh, I know what a rocket sounds like.

Okay, bro, it's all valuable skill because once you learn to weaponize that and use it appropriately, you're so much better off, you know. And so, I ended up at a different start up. I took a job that was not the most advantageous. I had a job at the Pentagon lined up. It was making private 120K as a senior research operations analyst for Army Strategic Command. Found that about six months later that I would have been spearheading the Afghani retrograde from the Pentagon side.

I'm glad I voted that shit show, but it was really because I orchestrated the majority of fifth groups retrograde out of Syria, which is why my former boss recommended me for the role. I had another job where I worked fully remote and customer success out of Boston, which was just... I liked them, they were nice people, but they were incredibly liberal and I knew they would hate me. So there was another job paying about 75k in Austin. My girlfriend at the time was at Leonard Wood, She was happy to move to Hood. She loved learning her lessons. She will not be doing that again. So I moved there and I took this shitty job, but I knew it was the best investment. It was working in oil and gas. And two years later, my boss quit. We got acquired.

They promoted me to VP and things have been good ever since. So you know, and all I did was shut the fuck up, be fairly humble about it, teach myself whatever was needed for that job. I mean, there were times when I was fucking YouTube and had to do my job. You live in a world where all of mankind's knowledge is in your fucking pocket.

Like, I can Google right now how to do Wayne Scout paneling, how to fix my own fucking plumbing. Like, I can do all of this shit. I taught myself how to do graphic design. I taught myself product and product management. I taught myself code. Like, all of it is with, you don't even have to fucking pay for it, dude. The only excuse you have is that you're a lazy sack of shit.

Or you have aspirations, right? Like, you and I talk all the time. You're happy doing what you do. That's okay. You know what? Because I'm fucking miserable doing what I do. So, yeah. Yeah. I was happy fucking what you do. That's okay. You know why cuz I'm fucking miserable doing what I do Easy, you know, but if you're sitting there it's like it's like me right? I was lifting like a motherfucker and I got up like 285 pounds. I was delivered 405 for three sets of 10

Like it was my fucking job, dude And then I came home and walked upstairs and I like fucking collapsed on my couch You know, and I looked at myself in the mirror and they told me you're fat fuck dude. Like, granted I also dropped some shrooms and I had a good talk with God probably. Probably, you know, probably, maybe. In my head it was like an older me and a cabin in the woods, another long story. But he said you know, you got out of the army, you took a break, stopping the lazy sack of shit. Like, you're not happy, find a means of the army, you took a break, stopping the lazy sack of shit. Like, you're not happy, fine, it means to an end, right?

The army, logistics was never the goal. It was to be the better green beret, to be a better officer. You know, if you're not doing something to facilitate what you want, that's a fucking you prop, man. You know. So, my advice is get off the fucking couch, buy the skillset, and be good at it. Yeah. And you're probably soaking at it, that's okay.

I think that's like probably the best thing you've got. And it's probably the stupidest thing, but nobody's gonna realize that. It's like your key to success was definitely like, I remember somebody called you a mascot in a clown. And it was like, yeah, that guy's a dick. Fuck it, but it's funny because it wasn't that you were a mascot in a clown is that you had a smile on your face while you were sucking and that pissed people off.

You're like, you know what, I suck, fuck it, I don't care. Like, I'm just, I'm not believing. Like, I'm gonna be here. Like, fuck you, I'm staying. And it pissed people off. It really did because you were having a good attitude Well being the worst at something and they're like no be poop who face be sad and you're like no like fuck you I know I suck. It's gonna only get better with time

But I'm not gonna sit here and be sad about it like this is like it was almost like a an autistic amount of realism For like learning a new a new skill set. You were just like, no, I am new. I suck. I will get better. Ha ha. And it's like, stop that. Like, be sad.

Submit to my greatness. It didn't happen. And that was the thing. It's like, you talking about that and like everything I'd seen. It was always like, nah, I suck. It'll get better. Whatever. Like fucking, you know man, the world always wants to hear what you're bad at, right? They always want to hear

that you're having trouble. And that sounds crazy. I have an uncle, his name's Bill Sambelo. He's like, try to be the Bill Nye of history, so Bill Sambelo of the history fell out. He told me this when I was like fucking ten, and it fucked me up. He's like, Tobin, no human can ever be genuinely happy for another human success. What the fuck does that mean? And it's kind of true. Yeah. Right? You hear somebody get some better salary than you. It's like, what the fuck? Like, fuck that guy. Like, he's a piece of shit. I can do that, right?

I live my life. I fucking spite. I'm not going to play some shit. Like the reason why I did the things that I did to get where I am right now is because when I left home at 17, my grandpa That looked at me and said, if you leave, you'll only ever work a tractor supplier McDonald's. I went back and now I'm an executive at a fucking oil company and I said, hey, Know what I'm doing? Nobody wants told me that I ran like a fucking girl and then I was doing sub 12 minute two miles. I believe you, you stupid.

I was like, I was running past you, like, I don't know what you can't tap, land, raid, listen, you stupid fuck and just, you know, it ran off. But the world wants to hear everything you suck at, dude. They want to hear that you're upset. They want to hear that you're fat. They want to hear that you're scared, right? But as soon as you say Oh Yeah, man. I'm fucking good at my job. They're like oh arrogant aren't we?

Well, you know what motherfucker? It took me a long fucking time to be good at my job Like and that's that's the one thing that really pisses people off about me in general is like I'm humble about it But if you ask me like hey tommon or you okay like yeah, dude. This this shit's easy Like that what do you mean? it's easy like yeah dude I fucking some days I work it from home and like at noon I go play fucking video games because I'm done like everything I need to done all the wheels or motion why because I'm good at what I do because I spend time to learn and you know being bad at something is fun as shit, dude. Because you're fucking off. And nobody does a lot.

Like, you can just, you can just, you can be fat, you can be weak. But then the journey, like the first time you benched 315 for more than one rep is like, that's a great fucking day. Because you remember when you were maxing out 135, you know? Like you can't have the gratification of being good at something. If you don't have the experience of really being shit at it, you know, that you can't have the gratification of being good at

something. If you don't have the experience of really being shit at it, you know, and if you remember that when you're bad, there's no reason not to be happy. You're on the right path, you know? I, it's, it's funny because like I, I think about that exactly what you said. If you, if you never have bad at something, you don't feel the gratification for it. And I'll, I'll be the like a good example of this is like, you know my background and like my whole life, I've been just a physical fucking specimen. But it's never been a thing of something that I cared for.

It was just like, oh, I've always had an eight pack, I've always been in part of the thousand pound club. It doesn't matter to me, like a 300 APFT doesn't fucking matter. But the minute you got a 300 APFT, you slapped so many dicks, you like flicked people off, you were like fuckin', you were like Will Farrow leaving a job that he hated for 10 years, just like, fuck you, fuck you, you're cool, fuck that guy, like, and like, you're,

like, I remember sitting there thinking, I was like, why am I not excited? Like, what, and you're right, it's like that climb is so much better than just like being it's like that climb is so much better than just like being good at it. It's so much better, because then you get to, exactly like you said, you get to be out of spite for their shit heads

who talk so much crap to you. And I'd say this all the time, but like second place is fucking hungry. And there is, and I don't know what it is, but there is no magical unicorn out there. And out of all the magical unicorns that I have met that like hold first place for the rest of their life, they don't have that.

They don't have that second place hunger. And it's, it doesn't exist. Like the first place doesn't stay first place forever. Eventually second place or a Tobin Cooper comes along and just punches them right in the head. And it's the funniest shit ever and it happens. It's going to happen.

And so you're exactly right. Just keep grinding away because they will fall. They are the first place isn't working hard. I promise you. I promise you. Well, there is a good quote that I like, which is that there's not a lot of company on the extra mile. Right?

No. And so, you know, everybody stops running at that two mile mark, but if you can just go a little bit further, you're gonna go significantly higher. I think nowadays, and we talk about this a lot over text, because a lot of our peers are getting out of the army, they're kind of right now. And like, I got out with the 11 other lieutenants and I think one of them's a rugby coach a lot of them want to go get their NBAs Then are either unemployed or still pursuing a different degree now because they realize the NBA doesn't fucking matter And I get constant LinkedIn messages about like Tobin how are you doing this Tobin? You know, hey, you got any advice and it's like no you fucking hated me dude like when these are people that They just talk shit and I look at it like a, I won't name names, but there are people that call me a sexist, a showbizness, a piece of shit, a degenerate,

whatever, and it was because like, they had something over, me they had experience, they had something, right? But I tell people it's all the time, you can't replace getting it, right? And nobody can really quantify what it is, but you get it or you don't, right? And I got it, and I had no problems, Constantly. I had no problem being picked on. It's just, I was like fucking 180 in high school at five, too. I was a butterball turkey of a human being

with my same personality. So like, I just got bullied all the shit. I was like, yeah, whatever, bitch, it's, yeah, then shut up. And I was just fucking shabby and then shaken. And so now it's like, everybody wants to be my fucking friend because now I have something over them and it's like, dude, where were you when I was like, I needed help?

Where were you when I was trying to like decipher regulation or when I needed to write a fucking SOP or when I needed a fucking land and ammo request filled used to be fucking? Like, yeah. It is, right? And I, it, I can tell you what It is. Right. And I, it, I can tell you what it is.

It's the ability to shut up and listen. And that is, that, that is something that you can tell somebody has or they, they don't even know that they have. And I, I, I specifically remember, and I love this story. It's my favorite story because When I first met you you were elbow deep in a vending machine trying to get a stack of Oreos that had fucked up and you looked at me I just come through the door your elbow deep and you're like trying to get these fucking snacks and you grab them and you go, I need to get fucking home soon. I hope this class isn't last long because there's a fat ugly bitch in my bed and I need to get her out before she starts stealing shit and I was like, what is that? Like fucking like, but like it was, it was kind of this like, you were real about it, but then like, your reality also set into yourself.

And that was something like, exactly like you said, like everybody in ROTC and the army was like, no, no, no, no, I'm not, that's not me, that doesn't, like I'm Robert, you're a glue, whatever you say, sticks to you, and you were just like, somebody would throw a tomato at you and you'd wipe it off, you're like, are we fighting or not?

Like, let's fucking do this. And it was just like, hold up. And it was like a reality with everything and the ability to say, you know what, I need to shut up and listen for a second. And then just drive on with it. And like, it's funny when you see it and you meet those people, right?

It's like, everybody can become a listener. But it usually takes some trauma, it usually takes some failure. And then you start to see right? It's like, everybody can become a listener, but it usually takes some trauma, usually takes some failure, and then you start to see it, you're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, that guy's actually listening to listen, like holy shit. And then you and I went to Fort Bragg

and your life changed and you came back and started handing out fucking biscuits, and it was hilarious. That was the hell of an experience. It's weird to walk into a room of 30 people who despise you You know, I was like I came in a semester later You and Campbell you know you were buddies from the start I had that

Dick had with me who was like a Participating cadet couldn't run a mile and he would collapse inside like pick him up and like help him and that's what got me enrolled and Eventually contracted once I stopped smoking fucking camel-wide menthols. But, you know, there was, I think we were doing presentations. I was on patrol-based operations. You had a partner that was the name fucking- Oh, this was it. Yeah, this was- We were in the library and I was like, you know, I was hitting on women and like I walked over to you guys.

I was like, I should presentation go. And you guys were like, you and Davis were practicing and I was like yeah, I'm doing patrol based off some all by myself, but you know whatever I figured out and you're like how'd you structure your power point We did this whole thing and I went in the next day and Colonel Warden was just fucking he was trying he's taking scouts home and I just I Realize that I don't give a fuck about wrong dude. I'm supposed to be bad at this like he's he's done patrol I've never been in a fucking program. I'm gonna be more fucking beautiful I'm like that you can tell the rest of the story

I love the story I love the story because it was like You had all the spotlight Rangers up there because he made us all Colonel Gordon was a lieutenant colonel who was like literally the hardest motherfucker He used to win it rained. He was like, let's go make you crawling mud for an hour for PT And just would like show up hung over on a Monday with five o'clock shadow and be like, I need to sober up, let's run six miles, uphill all the way. And it's just a hard motherfucker.

Like, used to take all our fall break, all our spring break, and just do FTXs with it, and shit down our throats. And welcome. Hi. Tiny stick for seeing. Tiny stick, yeah. I'm like, no, he.

That's not me insulting him. I think he's a great guy, but I mean seriously. Yeah, if I ever see him again, he won't pay for a single food or fucking drink ever. Like, yeah, he's great. He's great. But, and he made us teach a class like from the infantry FM,

and every time somebody got up, he would just insult them. It was like indirect fire coming at them. And he would not just insult them, he'd be like, that's wrong, explain this. No book in front of him, he knew it verbatim. I would just slit the throat and then be like, okay, sit down. And then he...

I think the record of that one was like two minutes and 30 seconds. Yeah, two minutes and 30 seconds, people had lasted. And so Tobin was the first one to get through it. He got through the whole fucking PowerPoint. And like at this point, like Tobin said, he was 30 people, we're in the room, and they all hated him, and he was the joke in a mascot, and I'll never, I texted you.

I was like, please come to the library and show me how you did that. And basically, I stayed up all night, measuring the cards, listening to you, and just, I mean, you weren't the physical specimen you became, but it was just like, you taught me like that you can't let him get to you. You just have to absorb the fire. And so we taught me and my partner.

We were the only partner one. It was like the 12 steps of like a patrol base or the 12 principles of a trolling or whatever. And I got through my like eight and he had the last four and he blew you off. I'll never forget. He left early. You and I stayed there, went and got dinner and then went back. And he got demolished. And then Kurt Algorn and Hagmey teach the rest of it.

He was recording me. He had his phone up recording. I was like, dude, I think I hugged you. I was like, holy shit. And then like, you remember what he would say, wrong? Yeah, wrong. I'm like, all right, we're out of your sir. Anyway You brought your sir and brought me through so much shit

Hey Cooper, you're a fucking Roger sir Roger sir, yeah I mean 6 a.m. Roger sir, we need to eat negative sir Negative sir Live with the dream Like Just peep dude, people folded like fucking chairs Like people who were like I want to be an airborne ranger

And then one minute in front of Colonel Gordon it did it but it porky the fucking pig up there But the the the the the assaulting force with the dead it's wrong sit down. Oh god Yeah, just fucking shit on That's what comes down to man. It's just being comfortable being bad at it and like just take criticism, fuck it. I mean, that's even in my job now. I think you were the first person to say it because we were doing those fucking blue cards.

And you're like, you know, a military bearing, like four Cooper resilience, 10 big punch. 10. Yeah, I went in, when I first got this job, we have like the display of our software and I was brand new and I got fucking ripped. But it's the same thing. I was like, okay, well, you know, I hate. Everything's fucked up. I'm new, not my fault. But I'm taking notes, right? Time to get into it, change gears, right?

And that's why I got promoted, that's why I am where I am, right? And you can take a fucking punch and realize most of the time it's not about you, dude. It's a projection of their lack of self-confidence or their ego or it's that they just want an objective completed if you take that and never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence or self-consciousness like just drive on you be dead fuck you there you're gonna be good and then one like CEOs didn't start out by being fucking CEOs they started out by being fucking salesman or engineers and they sucked, you know, like be bad. Fuck it. You get better It

It goes back to I Think a bigger one was like because the Colonel Gordon there The trench and all that shit that he would just I mean we would do these field exercises that just Like he had he made a bunch of cadets assault a trench and just and it wasn't just like clearing the trench getting through it It was carrying all those fucking bodies out of the trench to you and I had to do a mask How have you saw it cradle to fucking grave? Yeah, yeah

Until you put these people on a We try to We're some picture of us with a schedule just like. Right, I get people six foot fucking wall and a trekk. I just remember looking over at you after like the fourth one and I was just like, you good? And you're just like, I don't care. I'm gonna throw up and then keep going.

And I was like, all right, cool. And it was just like, like you said, like there's like that, there's a membrane there. There is a membrane that once you push by it, that extra mile or whatever, where people quit, you'll feel the resilient, the resistance give in anything, anything you do. Like if you're learning coding, if you're doing BJJ, you're doing military tactics, law school, whatever, there's like this little fucking wall that's not real. And then once you push past that, it's it's like oh it all starts falling into place

And you're like oh shit dude. I think that there's also just this Expectation of time right is that we talk about the people that are naturally good at things Yeah, you saw when we went to Fort Bragg Special forces more officer cadmine were with these dudes who were MCOs or even officers that are dropping down to warrant Yeah, and you see him as soon as they get tapped and you just see they're fucking done. You see people like laying went through a flight school, right? And Green Berets, they reclass and become a flight warrant, whatever, because like they want to do something different.

And as soon as they get a cockpit, they freak out, because they've never been bad at things, right? And so I would say that it's like BJJ you and I yeah way back in college I've done wrestling but I had never done BJJ right and you took me in Carmen is like the first winter break we had you like yeah show up here 6 a.m. I was like fuck and I showed up and you scorpion my ass my ass touched the back of my head and I like to crawl off the mat as I'm a need a minute. I'm a never went back. And I really just, I knew, even if I did this every day

for 10 years, I still wouldn't be better than you. But it wasn't you. I was trying to be better than that fucking PFC that I was eventually just working here. And what did that mean, right? Could you still want my ass? Yeah. Is that OK? For sure. Like, I'm comfortable with that. I've come to terms with the fact that there are some people that have trained so

long that I would have to train every day for five more years to even have a fucking chance, right? But like, I still went to Korea when 37 and 0 mixed martial arts. I still don't rocked every fucking private that I can everybody that I came to. The heavyweight champion of third time. Every time it was like, but you know, you know, the narrows go forth fighting. I mean, your dad like fucking like beat your nose off. He's like his bath doesn't vibe a lot, right? And like every time I did it, I just thought, you know, it could be worse. It could be fucking coding. I could at least win. I know I can win You know, and so it's even if you're not gonna be the fucking best. It doesn't mean you don't fucking try Yeah, you you win and I mean that's the thing is like you you you so red you just said

Hey, I'm gonna learn and then you went off to like I remember being in Bullock and you were like Hey, I'm fighting for the heavy the heavyweight title of third core. And then the next, like, I went to bed, or I woke up, I just remember being groggy. And I just see this photo of you, like, are you not entertained? And it was you winning the third core heavyweight MMA title. I was like, I'm so proud of him. Like, you went from like a joke and basketball shorts to exactly like you said. You just stuck to it.

And then you were like, fucking hand in out biscuits to fucking sergeant majors and fucking e7s like they were hotcakes just like and you get to lose and you get to lose like fucking... there's so many pictures of people frowning you know but I and it's something I take pride in yeah I would love about my girlfriend currently we've been dating for like three years is she like saw all these medals and trophies on the wall of like you know, 19 DSC light heavyweight, you know champion Eighth Army light heavyweight champion third quarter light heavyweight champion, right? 37 and zero and it just never phased her it took two years to somebody came over to my house I was like 37 bites. That's a lot and she's like This and it's like you know somebody

Stay on the way. Exactly. And so it's you realize that like you know I've done impressive things and I'm happy with where I'm ending up in the journey I still have with Adam you know it looks a lot different now but it just comes down to like first of be comfortable with you like there is no other you as fucking corny as that sounds but like there are people there's a general lack of competence in this world and if you can figure out how to just figure it out do you fit foe figure the fuck out. Have that gene use it if you don't get it. And just you know we always call it the private answer and if the army taught me one thing it's like it is that fit foe mentality. I remember like shown up at PT, right? And I showed up at like 603.

And somebody was like, why weren't you here at 555? And I was like, well, because nobody told me. It's like, well, it's on the fucking schedule. We'll figure it out. And I was like, okay, well, why aren't you wearing this uniform? Nobody told me. That's not a fucking answer.

That's unacceptable, right? And if you eat, that's the only advice I can give to anybody. Message to Garcia is a great book as a follower, right? It's a good follower book. Shut up and do what you need to do and figure out the fuck out for yourself. But then you have to expand on that. And once you're a leader and you can actually figure out how to find answers and get out of that, nobody told me mentality.

Like nobody helped me. Nobody gave me anything. Like the pride on the other side of that. If you do it yourself, just fucking astonishing, man. Like, my parents were absent when I was like, I ran away at 17, dude. I was like, I was waiting tables at night until midnight and then I'd go to PT at 5 a.m.

like I was fucking exhausted. I didn't have time to give a shit who was criticizing me. I'm gonna work my dick off, right? But like, I refuse to make excuses for piss poor performance. It doesn't make sense, right? And I have a weird neuroticism around planning. I know exactly where I'm going to be doing it five fucking years. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, I spent a ton of fucking week. I said on my couch, I was getting

ventures over. There's no more PCSs. Now what's gonna tell me I have to pull. There it goes. I'm not Captain Cooper anymore. I'm fucking tell the dude should be. Oh, yeah. So it's a great feeling, but if you're a lazy sack of shit sitting on the couch, figure it out. That's good. That's good. It's the Colonel Gordon.

Pretend like you know. I'm supposed to do that. I suppose you did. Or yeah, fit foe. Figure it. The fuck out. That's kind of the weird thing, and it's, I don't want to keep two looks, I don't get to go soon, but it's like, it's fucking hilarious when you meet civilians, and they're just like, oh, I didn't know that, it's like this, that sunken jaw, the mouth slightly

tilted open to help, the mouth breather, inhale air, and it it's just I didn't know nobody told and it's like how many times you and I got school flocked for not figuring it out and it's like if you didn't know something as a lieutenant in the army or an NCO it was just like well I gotta go find out I'll be up till like 5 a.m. and then you just like you crack a monster and you disappear and you just figure it the fuck out like there was no excuse excuse. I see. First off, you're absolutely right. We got face fuck for just about everything. And I remember being on a range as a cadet when we were like learning to group in zero,

I had never shot an M16 and M4. Any style of military rifle, I was in Boy Scouts. I was like the limit of my exposure, right? And I was, I could not fucking group in zero. After, I mean, I learned very quickly and we went out shooting, I like taught myself, right right I was really bad at it and I was okay with being bad at it till Karna Warden came over and I had no I started with 18 rounds in my magazine and he's like how many rounds do you have left I was like I don't know sir he's like you're not

counting I was like no it's like get the fuck off my range it's fucking fucking yeah yeah yeah no and I went to a joint business exchange task force as I was getting out of the army, worked with group to general electric appliances in Louisville, right? And what they do is they said five different MOSs are from group, typically green berets, but they needed a supply chain guy for this year. And so they went, you know, the group S3 came to me, they liked me, I kept bringing them like the little airplane shots of whiskey And you know they they were trying to paint me back I guess and they said, uh, you know

We need you to go figure out this supply chain gap that they're having and so I went over there And I did it. I like found a three million dollar hole in their supply chain I figured out I rewrote their labor contract figured out a new incentive model for their Technicians that go around it's like Re revenue per day versus cost-completed per day, you know. Anyway, I rewrote this whole thing, rewrote their geographic multiplier for their servicing, and I did it all in three weeks, and it wasn't harsh. And it's not that I'm super fucking smart. It's that nobody ever cared. And when I was there, I met a lady named Janice Wonderful candy on her desk

For 30 years she said at that same desk and that same cubicle that same fucking building looking at the same fucking spreadsheet every day looking for data anomalies as a Janice If I don't like go strapping or you know jump on a Wednesday like I want to put a fucking gun in my mouth I have a Mossberg 590 shockwave sitting on my couch just waiting. Yeah, it's just a quick day. Every day, it syncs, sirens, something, maybe. You know, double outblock right through the dome piece. How do you do this without wanting to kill yourself?

But she said, I'm happy. Yeah, I was like, what do you mean? She's like, it's consistent. I know what I need to do. There's no change, right? And at that point, I came to the conclusion that nobody's disproved that 75% of the world isn't fucking sentient.

Right. There are NPCs. There's NPCs. And when they're not here, they're sitting at home teeing up against the wall. So I realized that I have a unique ability, along with people like me, to just think and do things and be interested in and shift paths and

My Polish engineers are always so shocked with Americans that we can choose to have so many different lives You know, I was a I was a fat fuck college kid who you know got a degree in communications 30s degree in the fucking country and Somehow I ended up as the vice president of technology in a loyal company. It's like how did you do that for a family of companies? How did you do that? Well, I have no fucking idea to be honest with you. I just kept making the right decisions consistently. But I was in the army, and then I got out of the army,

and then I was working in nonprofits, and now I work here, and I don't intend to stay here. I intend to go start a business, to go be with my friends, and you know, have a life, and homeschool my kids or whatever the fuck I want to do. That is very atypical. Most people are stuck in one life, dude. That's a very, for me, that's depressing.

I can't imagine. But I think the Army, PCS, cycles, that kind of, you're a new job every year kind of guy. You go to PLXO, Commander, then your captain's career course, come back, Commander, get in them. But if you stay stagnant, that Henry table says that if you have sex and food on call, you're going to get complacent. Yeah, just don't be complacent.

Just figure out what's next. And I tell my girlfriend this all the time, and I keep telling her every day, find a means to enact whatever that is. If this is going to facilitate you going to be a better professor, or a better mother, or a better professional, or a better lawyer better lawyer whatever the fuck you want to do you have to gear it towards that because if you're just bad at things for the sake of being bad at things And you're just learning it to go down a dead end. It's all gonna hurt Like going to logistics ball like dude. It was fucking mind-em-ing. I watched Citadel, Cadagia's

Yeah, it's fucking dog. And I kept telling myself, everybody would always say, like, I'm going to rage infantry. I'm going to be in special forces. I never said that shit. Because I didn't fucking know. People always love saying they're going to do shit. Because you can't hold them to it.

It'll always be something. I wanted to be a ranger. Or I'm going to be a ranger. And the next thing you know, it's like, I blew up my back during rast. It's like, of course you fucking dead, but you told everybody for five years you're gonna be a fucking ranger So you know pussy, you know like at least yeah, just like own it just to say yeah I'm kind of a bitch and I do not like being cold like that's okay But I always

Withheld that so that I could go to SVA so I could be the best officer so I could be a general and then when I realized that Reality and expectation would never meet and you know, I put that line in the sand man. I told the army be the good guys I realized we weren't the good guys anymore. It's time to go. Yeah, that I Think you and I both because we both did time in group and that was the hard truth It's like we both wanted to do that and then like it just like Because we both did time in group and that was the hard truth. We both wanted to do that and then it just like, holy shit, this isn't right. And then you switch gears and you just gotta keep going.

And it really is. It's everything you're saying spot on. It's been great. It's really hard for people to understand that you're gonna fucking suck. It's gonna be okay. And you just gotta keep going. And yeah, I can't add odd to that. That's perfect.

And so- I'll tell you man, the best thing you can do, when you're doing all of this, and I'll do you two sentimental or fucking jerky off, it's to have good friends. And to have, like, you don't need to be friends with everybody. Nobody needs to like you. Your friends may envy you.

You know, the people that you think your friends are might envy you, but in the end, you need two to three good people that are gonna be in your corner and know you, right? And it's the great fear of being known and understanding that it's okay to be weak, it's okay to be bad at shit, and to have friends who don't give a fuck. And it's like, no, I have you, I have lane, and that's about fucking hit, dude. Everybody else has some kind of tie from work, from there's a, you know, some kind of obligation as to why they keep talking to me, but, you know But even when I was bad at things,

you wanted to help me get better. Even when I was damn near suicidal, because I was quickly uncovering that the world was not as straightforward as I thought it was. I could have swore we were the good guys. It turns out most of the time we're the stormtroopers. Yeah, that was a hard realization to come to. And so if there's one last piece of advice I

can give it to everybody, it's know who your boys are. And you don't have to maintain that shit every day. And if you do have to maintain that shit every day, they're probably not your fucking boys. And just find out who's right. And the people that make you feel the best and blow up your fucking ego, probably not it. I remember we were doing jujitsu one day and you ended up with your fucking key top off, wrangled your legs around me and waved your fucking purple belt in the air in front of everybody. It was like, this fucking spank in me with it. And I was like, all right, well, new motivation never let that happen again. But in the end, you're my fucking boy. I know you were doing it because hey, it was funny as fuck and B

I would never let it happen again. Well, I want to I want to caveat that because there were many many times that we had one dick cheese fucking cadet who got every metal everywhere every time and When he would fuck with us my god did we drive him to to suicide by fucking like nobody picked on us except you me and late Like it was like nobody picks on us but us like and I mean, I remember we we used to back you so hard We had him almost crying. He was like you and these two fucking hype men and you're fucking is bullshit Remember he would come up and he'd say something like you don't have to fuck your talk about I was like I

You want your cat? Don't do your boy. Doesn't matter if it was an insult they got you back I'm taking a take it a one out of ten insult to ten out of ten because he can't reply because there's only oh you fucking Look stupid feed except you But You fucking look stupid feet except you Alright man That's about it. I don't want to keep you too long, but that was awesome man. I really appreciate it Any time you want to talk you know where I'm at Yes, good boy. Yes, love you man. Love you too. Bye. Bye. Bye

Thank you, man. Love you. Love you too. Bye.