Shawn Ryan Show - #80 John Lovell - How a 75th Ranger Built One of the Biggest Tactical Training Networks | Part 3

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

John Lovell is a former Army Ranger turned creator, homesteader and best-selling author. Lovell is the founder of the Warrior Poet Society, a values-based community geared towards training, preparedness, and spirituality. Part three of this four part series is all about the closing of Lovell's career as an Army Ranger and his transition into civilian life. Lovell outlines his early days in business and the beginning of his marriage and how to build a strong foundation in a relationship. We also learn about the origins of the "Warrior Poet Society," Lovell's now ultra-successful online community. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://lairdsuperfood.com - USE CODE "SRS" https://shopify.com/shawn John Lovell Links: Book — http://warriorpoetway.com Website — http://warriorpoetsociety.com X — https://twitter.com/johnlovell275 YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/c/johnlovell275 Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Previously on the Sean Ryan show. I was kicking open some palace doors, kick, kick, kick, and then the door flings open. And immediately coming through the fatal funnel of the doorway, we took incoming fire. Screaming right past me. I was a saw gunner at the time. I came up and I shot him in the face and just dropped him. I was a saw gunner at the time.

I came up and I shot him in the face and just dropped him. I'd never killed someone that close. My first mission, real mission, was in Haiti. And we didn't really see much. At the time, it was the biggest deal that I had ever encountered. How did you mentally prepare? When we come back, we'll start to talk about why you love the military and get into your transition

into civilian life. All right, John, we're back from a lunch break and we're getting ready to wrap up your military career, but one thing that I did when I asked you is you had mentioned that you had lost some buddies. I can't remember if it was on here, or if it was on, if it was on our break. But how do you, how do you deal with loss? How did you overcome that? I don't think I've overcome loss any more than I've overcome fear. It's like fear,

sorry, to pivot, but folks think of fear. It's kind of like, all right, you've been in the thick of it. So surely you mastered that, like no, no one can ever master fear just because you're a hero before. It doesn't mean you're not going to play the part of the coward tomorrow. Every day, the rents do and you're going to rise up and prevail. And so similarly, loss, I don't know. I doubt I'll ever really get used to that, you know of like if I lost my wife. How am I supposed to limp through this

life without her when we're so Strictly linked and knit together. Like how would I deal with that loss? I'm like, I don't know how I would It would not be pretty though, you know, I've like I don't know how I How. It would not be pretty though. You know, I don't know how I would deal with that. So now this far on my journey, how I deal with losses, I've got two buckets for it. One, as if someone who shares my faith, I believe I will see them in greener pastures one day.

And so to me, it's not a goodbye forever. It's a so long, I'll see you soon. I'll see you later. So one of my dearest friends, who's my first mentor in the Christian faith, I was in range of time with his name is Kevin, and so I served with him, and then years later, him in the ministry would marry me and my wife together.

And he'd need one of my good buddies. So he survived all the war tours and whatnot, but then got a motorcycle ride and died. And so that, I mean, I didn't handle super well. And that still hurts, of course. And I knew other dudes that died in Ranger Bat. Nobody I was really, really close to. Some guys that were like my platoon, and some of my buddies who got shot up,

and so that's hard, that's hard. But when someone's in the same theological camp, think of like, oh, well, as the apostle Paul put it Well for me to to live as Christ and die as gain, which means if your theology's really worked out, you're okay with dying It's kind of like, oh, I'm gonna die and then go be in everlasting joy with Jesus That's not a bad gig and when somebody you know belongs to Jesus, goes and sees Jesus, it's not this huge tragedy on their part. It is on hours who are left behind and missing them. At least this is intellectually true. And I'm emotionally catching up to this reality that I recognize, you know? And so,

anyway, that, theologically, is a bit of a bedrock for me. Where I have, I have the underpinnings to deal with loss. Now, when someone doesn't realize that this life does carry over into an eternity, and they do not land in, you know, in a good place. To think of like, yeah, I will never see that person ever again and they have gone to torment.

That's really hard. That's really, really hard. And so, um, I don't know how to handle that. Except to tell people about Jesus, you know, like, I don't know how to handle that, except to tell people about Jesus. I don't know how to handle that. So do you mind if I chime in? Please. I mean, this is a subject that we continuously touch on. You know, and we had spoken about how many people, how many people from the veteran community watch this show and have lost somebody. And so what I would like to kind of add to that is

something that's helped me get through, because I'm new to faith, you know, and so this isn't things that I was thinking about for a lot of the friends that I've lost. And so what's kind of helped me, because it's really easy to go down that road of self-destruction and pity and feel and sorry for yourself and it turns to anger and you know,

and you have to, especially when it comes to guys that have died in combat, I think. I think a lot of us consider considered an honor to die in combat. I don't think anybody I know that was killed in combat would have would have changed anything about really being there in the fight. Maybe maybe certain tactics, you know, in different situations or maybe wrong play, you know, but as far as being on the mission, everybody knows there's a good chance that it's gonna be you, you know,

and but we all still do it and we do it because the guy on the right and the left to us and the team and the brotherhood, right? And you have to think, one, would that person have wanted to be doing anything else at that specific moment in time, probably not? You know, I don't know anybody that would have taken themselves off the mission.

Yeah. Number two, how do you think that person would want you to live the rest of your life? Good call. You know, do you think they want to see you self and self-destruction mode and feeling sorry for yourself and not living your life to the fullest because they're no longer here? I highly doubt that if they did think that way, they probably wouldn't have been close

to you. You know, and so that's that's just some stuff that I think about when I've experienced loss is You owe it to them to live your life to the fullest, you know, and they're honored. So that's good Thank you. Yeah, I could I could totally get behind that if I'd kicked off. I would hope that me going out would strengthen your resolve to perform your mission better?

Or you get out of the military, find a new mission, and then go out and crush, find a new community, find a new mission, don't be looking back on me and what we did, find a new mission, find a new community, drive forward, and provide the adapt over come brother and let me be a little bit of fuel in your tank so that my legacy is to help you guys climb higher.

And that would be what I don't wanna know is, oh, you got sad and you drown yourself in a fifth of Jack every single night before you ate a gun. I'm like, bro, you're making, you're making my sacrifice worse in the way that you are turning inward of like, um, in that way. Honor me better than that, you know. Go live because I don't get to. Great way to put it. Great way to put it. You know, one other thing that I wanted to ask you before we get into the end of your military career is you had spoken a little bit about how you have adapted your leadership as you advance through a Ranger battalion. And so what

as you advance through a Ranger battalion. And so, how did your leadership abilities develop and what changed from the typical, maybe, mold of a Ranger leader? So, what I'd experienced is leadership through kind of fear, strength, competency, all those were ingredients in the cocktail mix that was leadership. Do this because I'm experienced, do this because I'm strong, do this because I'm scary, yell, yell, yell, do your thing. And that's typically how you raise up a private.

That's not as much how you talk to peers and whatnot, more, you know, when you're spec form off year, whether you're, you know, book sergeants or squad leaders, whatever, when you're mission planning and stuff, it's brothers, you know, outside of the big command structure, you're probably on a first name basis, you know, depending on your unit and like, out second bat, and our years, you know, that was kind of where kicked out. We would default more to first names. And we were putting our heads together and figuring out how we're going to take down something. And I never advanced real far up to be huge in mission planning, but at a smaller level, taking down buildings and and breach points and things like that, I was in. And so we had more of that camaraderie.

But what I wanted to do as I was a team leader and then squad leader, which I would punch out as a squad leader, is I wanted a different variable. I wanted my guys to want to follow my leadership, not because they had to, but because they wanted to. to and I found of like what would it look like? If my guys knew I was really looking out for them and I really loved them and I'm still hard on them I'm not give I'm not cutting them out Valentine cards and send them you know

Flowers or anything. I'm like I'm a, I'm still a gritty fire breathing ranger. But what would it look like if my boys knew I'd eat a bullet for them? What would it look like? And what I found is I started modeling that, you know, I've, the verses of like greater love, Hath no man than he would lay down his life for his friends. And I looked at Jesus who's a leader, but he led through sacrificial service. And that and what happened is he just, he inspired a whole group of people, strangers from all kinds of different backgrounds. That's a leadership mess when you look at who the disciples were. And he inspired them all to die for them. Like, wow, something to that. Maybe I should

lean into that leadership model since we are in the let sacrifice and die for each other kind of business. And so I leaned into that. What I found is, is when I really took care of the boys and they knew that in my very gruff way, you know, would love them, they'd love me back. And it kind of came to, I knew I'd arrived

when we went to a bar one night. I didn't go to the bar very often, just because it didn't have anything for me. I'd have a beer and then I'm done. That's about it. And I wasn't chasing girls. I was looking for a wife. And I didn't think I was gonna find one at the bar.

But I would go every once in a while, just to kind of a spree decor, let me hang out with the Joe's. Every once in a while, I'll just go out and that'll be a cool thing. And it's just one night where I can verify. No one's gonna drive drunk and no one's gonna get in a bar fight and go to jail.

And so that was good too, because Rangers get crazy. And so I was there, but somebody I didn't know, some dude comes up and he's talking to me. You know, that's cool. And we're chatting back and forth completely benign He's a military guy so am I and we're chatting back and forth and some of my some of my dudes from my squad Kind of like inch in and they're like eyeball in this dude And they just kind of inch in front of me and out to come between me and him now

I think that they were pretty inebriated, but whereas I was just having a good conversation, they had inserted themselves in a position of defend me from people that they don't know. And I'm like, bro, guys, it's cool, it's good. We're just chatting. There wasn't anything intense, but they didn't want anyone near me.

They didn't want anyone near me. You know, and so I thought that was, that was pretty cool. So you know you're a good leader at that point. That's when, that's when I saw my guys have my back, you know, in a real cool way of like, they were the impulse there. These, you know, yeah, yeah, anyway, young dudes.

And so I just remember that. And it was right, I remember that because it was right as I was, I'd been trying to do those dividends. I've been trying to make those investments. And I wasn't just like screaming it, due to now I had hard standards. And if you didn't meet the standard, well, there's some type of remediation,

there's some type of pain or something, but it wasn't done angrily as if I hate you, you dirt bag, now I'm gonna hurt you. It was they understood, no, when I cause you pain, I'm making you better because I want you to be better so that we can be better. And they felt the impulse, the rationale behind it was different. So even when I caused them pain, it was done in a loving way. You adopted that style of leadership at what age? 22, 23. When I first started this whole podcasting thing,

an online store was about as far from my mind as you can get. And now, most of you already know this, but I'm selling Vigilance Elite Gummi Bears online. We actually have an entire merch collection that's coming soon. And let me tell you, it is so easy Gummy Bear is online. We actually have an entire merch collection that's coming soon. And let me tell you, it is so easy because I'm using a platform that is extremely user friendly and that Shopify.

Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. What I really like about Shopify is it prompts you. All the things that you wanna do with your web store, like connect your social media accounts, write blog posts, just have a blog in general. Shopify actually prompts you to do this. You want people to leave reviews under your items?

You can do that on Shopify. It's very simple. Shopify helps you turn browsers into buyers with the internet's best converting checkout. 36% better on average compared to the other leading commerce platforms. Shopify is a global force for millions of entrepreneurs in over 175 countries and power 10% of all e-commerce platforms here in

the United States. You can sign up right now for $1 a month. It's Shopify.com slash Sean. That's all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash Sean. Now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in, that Shopify.com slash Sean. That's impressive. Well, I didn't get, I didn't say it was good at it.

Especially, that's impressive, especially in any soft unit. I mean, that is the road less traveled, you know? Well, I was, you know, what I noticed is, is different soldiers adapted or responded very differently to different kinds of leadership. I had one dude and he was just so jacked up. I ended up firing him. He shouldn't have been at range of baton in the first place. I did everything I could to turn him into a ranger

and he just wasn't capable of it. Shouldn't have been there. He got fired. I still remember the kid's social security number. That's how much paperwork I had to do on this guy. Wow. I still remember his social. I know my social, I know my wife's,

and I know this guy's social. Oh, ho, ho, ho. That's all, I know three social security, I don't know my kids, but I know this guy. I did that much paperwork on this guy, and eventually fired him. I couldn't, I couldn't make him into a ranger. I tried, but that was, that was my leadership failure.

I suppose. Other guys, I had one guy who's a former SWAT cop. He's a little bit older, squared away, and the guy was just so hard on himself. If I was to even when he was a private, under me, even if I just kind of like, if I was to wait in this guy, this guy already beats himself up so much that he doesn't need me to throw a right cross to him. He doesn't need any punishment, because right cross to him. He doesn't need any punishment. Because what he does to himself internally

is far worse than any, he's self-correcting leave him alone. Because if you kick him when he's already punishing himself, eventually that's gonna be a bitterness toward you. You know, and so I just let himself critique. It's just one, he's doing this thing. I'm like, you wonder, you know what I'd just let himself critique. It's just one, he's doing this thing. I'm like, you wonder, you know what I'd say? I know what you'd say, Sargent. Am I in, do I need to say it?

He's like, you do not Sargent. And it's never gonna happen. He's like, never happen again, Sargent. I'm like, I believe you. And that'd be it. Whereas if it was this other kid, I'm gonna light him up. I'm going to hurt you physically. I'm gonna make you do so much PT

that I'm an permanently ingrained, like a hot fire brand, and dear inner psyche, so that you would never dream of doing that. You won't even have a dream about doing that again. And so what worked for one, didn't work for the other. And so I realized, man, people tick different ways. And those are two dudes, I can see their faces right now.

They responded so differently. Still others of like they ran on a little bit more, the fuel they ran on was more of like anger and they spooled themselves up and they were intense. And they needed me to get a little intense too to kind of get them into something. And so other folks have like, this guy do real well. He just needs to know what in the world is going on.

He doesn't do well being left in the dark. And if you just give him a little bit general idea of the plan. So when you disseminate information, I need to make sure his key core questions are answered enough so that he can be good and drive on. Otherwise, his brain just eats himself, his morale plummets. He needs certain amount of information. That's just how his brain works. Whereas the other guys, they don't need as much information disseminated, he is going to, his morale would be, it'd be better not feed them for two days, you know, then do that. And so I was making a study of who responds to what and how should I adapt based on the individual needs,

not the, I will yell at everyone until I get my way. And though that seems pretty rangerific, that was not a good way to do business. So I was a good leadership policy. You were able to identify all these different styles of leadership and what resonates with your guys at age 22 years old. It wasn't as refined as I can now see it looking back.

It was kind of trial and error. I just knew I wanted to lead differently than some of the ways I was led. Now to also be quick to say of like, though I had some bad leadership, what I feel like is this was not a healthy form of leadership. I also had some really, really good leadership and Ranger Battalion. I love my platoon and the boys I served with the guys and we had really stellar. I was in at a time where our platoon leader was a former Delta guy who had been, and so his desires, I'm going to make this platoon in the image of, you know, the place I came from. And he set out to do that. We'd have on the ball, Staff Sergeant, I mean, Sergeant First Class platoon, on the ball.

And so these guys were known far and wide around range of a time. And so we were in like, our platoon was set apart as something really special because of these leaderships. And I got to enjoy that immensely, all the benefits of that. That was the leadership structure I grew up on. My team leader was pretty toxic, but I knew enough of, all right, I saw some things I wanted to emulate and some other stuff I wanted to reject. So it started, it jumped, started a leadership study for me. Interesting. That's, I mean, that's impressive. It's not a lot of 22-year-olds thinking like that. I don't think in any unit. So it's a compliment. Oh, thanks. You're welcome. But let's move into, before we wrap it up, the military career, is there anything throughout

your five deployments that you think we should document in this episode? No, I've said all kinds of stuff. I've never said before. Some of the kind of big war story pieces, those are the ones that stood out in my mind. And so I've retowed all this, it's amazing how foggy my mind gets. Like I don't think about all this stuff. I don't talk about even a tenth of all this stuff.

And of like going into what I just said, of like, man, I don't know if I've talked about that more than one or two times You know like anywhere just there's some of the detail there. I'm like I've never gone into this so No, we've covered a lot good. I'm glad you're doing it here. Yeah, so what you did five deployments. You did Afghanistan Iraq and then three more Afghanistan deployments right What when did you decide You're ready to move on so I would I'm not a military man. I was just a man that was in the military and There's I found especially with some scrapes of death, you know quite a few

That was insufferable also the opt tempo a lot of dudes kicked out especially with some scrapes of death, you know, quite a few. That was insufferable. Also the Op Tempo, a lot of dudes kicked out. They were just done. And so by the time I was got out, I was actually promoted to Weapon Squad Leader. That's the highest non-commissioned officer position in the platoon under platoon sergeant.

In my short time of like, man, I got, but it wasn't because I'd earned it. It's because the other dudes who were more squirted, they got out. So it's gonna like, I am weapon squadly. I should have been weapon squadly. I wasn't very long before I kicked out, but I also got infuriated by bureaucracy on that sucks

and we were very insulated from it. Like, Rangers, we have our fences and MPs are not even allowed in unless it's follow it military police unless it's kind of follow and hop pursuit kind of thing But we're very private and us being second-range of Italian meant we were across the country from regiment headquarters We're in Washington and all the other Rangers in Georgia under all the commander Simpson So we got to get away with all kinds of stuff back in a day When it was far more free and then you're kicked out on these small you know patrols and and and kicked out things where we wouldn't shave for weeks and so we're feeling like all right Yeah, we're getting all SF Grizzly, you know, and so

and so we're feeling like, all right, we're getting all SF grizzly. And so anyway, we got away with all kinds of stuff that I think Rangers today wouldn't get close to, but even still, a lot of the bureaucracy was just maddening. I remember one time where there happened to be a sergeant major who had a ranger who was man in a 50 gun on an active security perimeter, you know, if like he's doing a real world thing and he made him get down out of the turret to blouse his boots. Like, bro, this is not a stuff. It really makes my blood boil. So it wasn't looking back.

I'm like, man, I'm so spoiled that I wanted no restrictions. All this silly stuff of like ranger, suck it, drill, and ceremony of marching around and saluting and stuff and you know, shine your boots. And I'm like, what in the world does any of that have to do with combat effectiveness? Exactly. And a big fat goose egg. Zero. with combat effectiveness. Exactly. And a big fat goose egg, zero. You know, and so now I can immediately turn around and make a case for why it could should be done at the most basic rudimentary. Let's get everyone knowing how to march. It's like, yeah, but once

we have done that, it's better to be let's establish discipline, not in how shiny we can make our boots as targets for the enemy, but instead let's do it in our work ethic, our knowledge base, our nutrition, our choices, our tactics. Let's be really disciplined there. So some of that stuff just drove me crazy. I was burned out on war and not a lot of life I wanted to live. And so I put in, I did not reinless, they threw everything at me to reinless. And I said, no, to all that, I wanted to go in the military, I wanted to find a wife and get married. And I think the Lord wanted me to do some time in the military, but he had a plan to build out this whole warrior poet thing that I preach and hope to

faithfully embody and that means being extremely well-rounded in many other areas. And if I had stayed in some 20 years, like some of my buddies did, that would have been entirely way too monolithic. Warrior Posts, I never would have been born. I never would have been able to make the jump into the civilian world, having spent my entire, you know, the entirety of my career doing that. And a lot of guys have like, I go and hire instructors. You know, we have a training company, we train folks. And I was initially looking for resumes of his former soft guys, the soft monocer of like,

all right, what special operations unit were you in? You know, and what'd you do? And I thought that would be the most important. And it's just not. People want somebody who's got some experience who knows what they're talking about. And you got a resume, but I thought that would be the most important. And it's just not. People want somebody who's got some experience who knows what they're talking about. And you got a resume, but I thought resume was this important.

And actually it was, it was far less. It was, I wanted you to have a real world resume that was congruent with what you were teaching. But really I wanted a master communicator, and I wanted somebody that fit our ethos and our culture more. And that was a better fit. Somebody with a coach's eyes,

somebody with a, you know, know, who people liked listening to. And so that ended up being far, far more important as an instructor than, hey, bro, how many bodies did you stack in every what period of time? That ended up not being a good thing. And when I had buddies who had been in for a full career, they just couldn't make the jump to teach civilians. They couldn't see past their contacts that they had had. To them, they're still multi-cam madness running through the desert and trying to teach civilians how to do it.

No, no, no, that's not the context. That's not the kind, they don't understand half of the military acronyms that you just rock there with your incredibly specific vernacular. They couldn't make the jump. So I was happy to get out and I had a plan. I'm gonna go to college and I'm gonna buy a duplex and I'm gonna rent out the other side

to offset my mortgage and I'm gonna shop for a wife. That was my plan. How did that work out? I did my mortgage and I'm gonna shop for a wife. That was my plan. How did that work out? I did my plan. Did you really? It did. You went to school, you got the duplex and you bought a wife. Don't you?

You said you just, yeah, at the time the Ukraine was running a two for one special and so, I just kept the one that I liked the most and it was great deal, great deal. Free shipping. This is all terrible. You actually got to cut this, because this is human trafficking kind of joke, very inappropriate.

But you did. You bought a duplug, you run to the other side out, you went to school. Yep, it all worked out. That's what I did. Now I'd been on the prowl for a wife, for even in the military. And so I wasn't looking to shack up anymore.

I was trying not to do that. And I'm trying to be pure and I'm just thinking about wife, you know. And that's the hope, that's the goal. And so I was on the prowl for a wife. And I hadn't gotten the point where I hadn't actually dated anyone more than about two or three days and I went a couple years without even kissing a girl.

Which for me, in my background, that was something. So anyway, I was looking for a bride. And when I got into my college town in Georgia, I went to church and I'm looking to get involved in different ministries and I'm like, that's where you find a good wife. That's where you find a good woman is in these places. And so that's where I was shopping, but I would be pretty frustrated. I knew enough of what I didn't want, but what I didn't want excluded just about everybody. I just kind of, even in this big college town, I couldn't find a girl that I wanted to marry.

And I began to think over time that my standards were just too high. You know, I had my list, and maybe all this is just unreasonable expectations. So. Were they? Nope, I met my wife and found out my expectations were high enough. Oh, ha, ha, ha. Where did you meet your wife? Church.

But it's a little spotty because she was dating someone else who would become a buddy of mine. Oh. So I wasn't interested in her. I knew I'm like, that girl is a hottie. I recognize that, but she's also struck me as a diva. You know, and like, have you seen the hot crazy matrix?

I'm like, oh, she is hot crazy. No, that's a 10 out of 10 right there. Bro, good luck, good luck. Anyway, their relationship fell apart and they had been broken up for quite a while. And what I couldn't see before, then one day, I feel like it was just like turning on a light switch. And all of a sudden we looked at each other

with completely new eyes like, holy cow, how did I miss you? And we started dating and it was, I knew I fell hard and I fell fast. And so that would begin our courtship. And it was about five months after we really kicked things off, we were married. Five months. Yeah, we were engaged for two months.

Wow. Yeah. What's your wife's name? Rebecca. No. And you're in your 17th year of marriage now. Yeah. So, congratulations.

Thank you. What's the, what is the secret to a successful marriage? Some of your listeners are like, oh, come on, don't say this to me. It's not cliche, it's true. It's true. If you can pull off love in Jesus more than your spouse, you got a chance.

All marriages are fail and divorce or you end up living together as glorified roommates. That fire goes out. So you got to do a few things. One is tap into the source where love actually comes from. That's Jesus. Those of you that have been around SRS for a while know that we take mental health very seriously here. So seriously that in almost every episode you'll find a segment

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brain. Go to layeredsuperfoods.com, use the promo code SRS, you'll get 20% off. Guys, this is the real deal. These are the finest of ingredients. Check it out. LairdSuperfoods.com promo code SRS 20% off. Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave the Sean Ryan show review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. It also allows you to have a reference point. So both of you, as you grow closer to Jesus according to a biblical model, you are getting closer to each other

as you move toward that similar point. Otherwise, you're not the same dude that you were 10 years ago. Do you have any chance that you're gonna be the same dude you are now in 10 years? No. No, you're gonna be different and you don't know exactly what that's gonna look like.

And then you could say the exact same thing about your spouse and though y'all may be near and close in this point of your journey, at this point in time, you're near. In 10 years, your future self and her future self may be worlds apart irreconcilably. What is the guarantee you're actually going to grow together over time? Just because you share a house. Well, good luck. That's just not how it works. Too much data proves that that is not to the um, it is just not a true statement of like, oh, time and proximity means that we are ideologically growing closer. It's just not true. People change. This allows an anchor point or reference point and it provides a basis, a standard, which can be our foundation and our dispute resolution center.

So neither one of us are the ultimate authority, scripture is, period, all ties broken right there. You mean like all controversial ties. Not familial. And so, you know, love Jesus. Then you got to date your wife. Never, never stop pursuing her. This is something big. I was just listening to Mark Driscoll on Instagram who hates us all. And he said, Hey, date your wife or someone else will. Well, that's savage, but it's true, man. Hey, once you get married, that's not the finish line. That's the starting line.

And whatever you did to get her to marry you in the first place, keep doing that. And you will be able to walk hand in hand and happily ever after in the marriage. My marriage, man, it's good, it's strong, it's fun, it's vibrant, it's romantic, it's passionate, it's working. And so somebody can castigate me all they want regarding some of the foundational things that I've just said regarding faith, but what you can't deny is it's working. Maybe I'm a moron, but it's working.

So it must not be so dumb after all. How's your marriage? Great point. And so I'm like, if it works, then maybe just maybe you should remove the chip from your shoulder and lean in and think that there might be something that I'm on to here. Because most marriages are not working and mine is growing stronger over time, not weaker. We're becoming more in love, not more in bitter, and that is extremely rare. And it's taken a lot of effort because our first two years was not good.

Why is that? Because I was an extremely strong personality and she was too. I say it's it is what happens when an immovable object meets an unstoppable force and that was us. And so our marriage and our first couple months was really great. And after we'd settled into happily ever after together after a few months, we started locking horns and hard. Now her being a woman raised in the 21st century, she is caught up in the ether of mad third wave feminism. Every woman today is caught up in the effects of at least third wave feminism, meaning feminism is so infiltrated and affected our culture that a lot of our

marital relationships have been affected by feminism in ways that we can't even understand. For her part, she always wore the pants and all the relationships she had been in, and she had had kind of control and power in that, and she was a bit of a man-eater. had control and power in that. And she was a bit of a man-eater. She was beautiful and she was smart, and she was strong, and she was opinionated, and she was a little unyielding. And so anyway, and I believed I was in charge,

and I was supposed to be the leader of my home. And so that ended up being very tough. Our next two years would not be rainbows and butterflies. This would be tough. How did you work through that? So most folks will think you have marital problems. There aren't a lot of marital problems. Communication, that's the marital problem. There's not much else. Everything else is just personal problems brought into our relationship. It's,

oh, your selfishness bumped into her selfishness. And so you had a marital problem. But it was really just no year evil and you suck suck and she's evil and she sucks. And when you put that together, it's explosive and bad. And so, and I'm not saying people out there, you're evil and you suck. I'm saying you and me and you, everyone's evil except Jesus. And so we've got to somehow become less selfish people. We've got to become better people. And that just that took a couple years to gain a level of selflessness that would actually

make marriage be good. And that was a hard that was a hard fought war. Because I thought I was a pretty selfless guy before I got married. I've been ministry and I had some money for military and so I would take out big groups of friends and I'd pick up the check and I was in my own like gruff military way. I thought I was infiltrating into the civilian populace and I'd become one of them. And all of them look like I'm this wildly intense Chi-i-Joh action figure come to life like hardcore and in a little bit psychopathic.

That's how I was perceived. And I would find this out much later that I wasn't this super spy Houdini infiltrating the like no one knows where I just came from. No, everyone was keenly aware intuitively that I'd just stepped off the battlefield. So I was an intense force to be reckoned with,

relationally, even though I was doing everything I felt like I could in my power to be selfless and loving and kind. Still, me trying my hardest was still way too harsh to nurture a new blushing bride. I thought I was being sweet and understanding and patient and selfless because I was trying hard and compared that my former peers I was but I still wasn't good enough to actually flourish this woman I'd been given and I had to get better.

How was that journey to improvement initiated? The Lord I did deal with me specifically. Because I had to just bump in and like, so I thought I was a selfless guy and then you get married and all of a sudden I don't have me time anymore. It's us time. When I'm not, I'm working and I'm working on a degree, so I'm full time school and work and now, you know, I've got a bride to think about and when I have downtime it's kind of like I'm just gonna send the TV or sit on the couch and I'm

gonna watch Koni and the Barbarian. Arnold Schwarzenegger I'm gonna bring it way back. Fun story that's one of the very first movies we ever watched together. Nice. So anyway I'm gonna watch that and she's like, I don't wanna watch that. I'm like, all right, well, have a good one. I'm gonna watch good in the mirror. There's another TV over in that room. Yeah, okay, tell him, let's find, have fun with it. And then maybe you do compromise on the movie. Like fine, we'll watch over the hedge.

Boo, watch little cartoon maybe. And she's like, all right, it's not so bad. She's soft, she's sweet. I like cuddling up with her. I'm like, all right, well, what do you wanna watch now? College kid, you know and she's like, all right, it's not so bad. She's soft, she's sweet. I like cuddling up with her. I'm like, all right, well, what do you want to watch now? College kid, you know, I'm like, let's watch back to back, double header. Now, now it takes me and my wife

three nights to finish one movie. I'm right there with you. Like, sometimes longer. But like, we used to do double headers. Like, we watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy in a day once. Like what was I doing with my life? College. But you're, but you're unbelievable. She's like, I don't want to do that. Do you want to go for a walk? I'm like, no, I do not want to go for a walk. And then she'd get mad at me. And she'd be like, well, why won't

you go for a walk? I'm like, Oh, no, I will go for a walk. But you asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. I don't want to go for a walk. It's hot outside, lots of gnats. I don't want to do it. I've walked outside enough lately, babe. But so we got into all these little interchanges and I had to learn the ways that women communicate. And then we get in a fight about the idea of like wanting to go on a walk and will you go on a walk? And I'm upset of like, well, if you want me to go on a walk, just say, will you go on a walk with me? Just say, I don't like your tone.

And I'm like, I don't like that you're upset with my tone. Stop yelling, you're yelling. And so it's just how in the world do you communicate with this alternate species, you know, of like, holy cow, women were this enigma machine. And there was this, I remember we got an knockdown drag out fight over facewash, because a little bit later, after we hadn't been married too long, we started really needing to budget You know, and so we're budgeting. Let's do good finance stuff and she goes to the store and I say hey, that just get the necessities

And she comes back with this fancy face wash And I'm like Becca I said necessities and she's like well, I needed this. I'm like, Becca, I said necessities. And she's like, well, I needed this. I'm like, no, needs. It's basic food, doesn't have to taste good. Water, shelter, fire. You know, I've like, needs. She's like, no, I needed this.

And I'm like, we have soap. If like, but this is this special kind of fruit, fruit, whatever, popereso that she needs. And she's got 12 different kinds of soap that all have a certain purpose. And I'm a little skeptical that all these soaps are the same freaking thing with a different rebranded bottle and markup prices.

I don't think the base is just soap. And then everything else is this cosmic game that Johnson and Johnson plays with all of us. I have no idea. But anyway, we paid a lot for that. And so we got in a fight about it. And it was something that started stupid, but our pride bumps into each other and our misunderstanding. And so then I'll do the mature thing. I'll ask all of our friends to weigh in and we'll vote to figure out which one of us is right, which I say that was the mature thing. That wasn't

the mature thing that made everything worse and made my friends feel really really awkward and did nothing to settle me in my wife's dispute, but these are all little examples of Ranger John not realizing how harsh, realized what a man eat her. She was. I was harsh and she was controlling. And so both of us had our own different junk that we had to get better on. And so it was just awful learning to communicate and feel like, oh, I would start out the effort completely out of patience and then have to find completely out of patience and then have to find reservoirs of patience that I didn't have. And so man, just little by little, I was made to grow so that I could actually do this gargantuan task of loving this woman well. That's a hard thing to do to actually truly love someone, not as you think that you're loving them, but as they need and want to be loved. That's an entirely different measure. And it's much harder and you have to pull it off.

Are your marriage had seas of destruction sewn in it that you don't know about and that will later blossom into divorce. I'm glad we covered that. I am very glad we covered that. Let's move back a little bit, and then I wanna hit feminism. I wanna go there and cover that. But transitioning from military to civilian life, a lot of people, you and I both know this, there's a suicide epidemic

going on in the veteran community, talk about it all the time, you know, the drugs, the depression, the PTSD, TBI, now they're calling it operator syndrome. What kind of challenges did you face reintegrating in? I was ready to reintegrate. And so I wanted a new mission. And I kind of treated, I funny enough, I treated moving into the civilian world kind of as if I was going on a different type of mission and was still in the military.

So perhaps I'm pitching myself my own little operations order. You know, and what I'm going to do, I'm going to move in to this area of operation. I'm going to train these insurgents to be on home team. We'll call them friends. And like, I don't know, I just made it my next new mission to integrate into this otherworldly environment with people. I wanted to find a new mission. I did not want to be one of these guys that was looking backwards on what I had done. I definitely knew it was going to be a great barrier to making any new relationships relationships is if I had to have them compete against the folks that I just had

or to lord it over as if to shame them for not being Rangers. I just understood before I even met any of them, they will be weaker in many ways. They will drive me nuts, but they're going to have attributes and stuff about them that's gonna be better and cool. And I went there with more of an open hand recognizing these civilians will be better in some ways than my Ranger buddies, and they will be worse than others.

And I just wanna, that's okay, that's fine. But improvise, adapt, overcome, right? That's the special operations mantra. Well, then carry that into the civilian world. The civilian world is not going to change for you. You have to change to be able to integrate. And if you don't find a new mission and you don't find a new band of brothers, you're not going to make it.

So whatever PTSD you have, it will be made worse over time because you do not have a new band of brothers and you didn't find a new mission. You just look back. So live in the future. Live in the present. Live in the present and work toward a future that you are planning for, but you have to find a new mission and you have to find a new band of brothers and they're not gonna look anything like you're a past band of brothers, but understand that they are better in some ways

than your old band of brothers. Find out how they're uniquely better. It's gonna be easy for you to spot how they're worse. They're gonna be worse in a bunch of different ways. That's easy. I don't need to tell you to do that. You'll know how they're worse. Why isn't anyone on time?

You're supposed to be 15 minutes earlier, you're late. You know what? Why isn't anyone taking any of this scene? You think that's what we default to. Because it's an interesting point in a perspective that I've not thought of or heard of. Why do you think that in this isn't, I don't believe this is just

soft veterans or veterans, I think this is just humanity, but you know, when you say you'll automatically know how they're worse. Why do you think we always default to that mode? We never look just for how they're better. We always look at, they're not as good. We are quick to look at the flaws. Why do you think? Why do I think we do that? Oh man, that's a tough question. I think that I do that, and I could be wrong,

you know, I haven't had time to think about this, but I think that that happens because we had spoken about this earlier, and special operations community, you are always striving for perfection. That's good. There's no room for everything's a competition, fast as shooter, fastest runner, fastest swimmer, strongest guy, most kills, most operations, longest and everything you do in special operations is to prove your worthiness and to strive

for perfection and earn your keep. And I think that that probably has something to do with it. I mean, what do you do after every single house run? What do you do? D-Breefeet. Run it again. D-Breefeet. Run it again. D-Breefeet.

Run it again. Where did we mess up? You don't get compliments during those debriefs. It's all critiques, constructive criticism. And so I think that that probably plays a major role in why I'm like that. You know, but I think that all of humanity's like that. Maybe we're like that a little bit more over the top,

you know, in that aspect, but what's your take? Yeah, I'd agree with that. I think that's a good read. And Dick expanded to say, hey, I think it's just a human nature thing as well. And special operations, it takes certain, some good and bad elements of human nature and write it really large. Write it high. And so that means you'd be really good at certain virtues of courage, but really good at certain

vices too. So, but I mean, even like soccer mom, they want the best house in the neighborhood with the kids who are best at sports and make the best grades. And, you know, you got the newest, chuniest, brightest stroller with the newest minivan. And have I everybody wants to be somebody and you keep it up with the Joneses and you're climbing that corporate ladder at work. And you made the most money and you got the corner office. And so, you know, maximizing performance and wealth and status

and to be critical of other folks. And I think it's just pride. It's ego. I want to believe awesome things about me. And there's two ways for me to believe great things about me. Because I want to believe I'm amazing. And that's one is I've got to accomplish and be the best. And two, I need everyone below me. And it is easier than earning and excelling. It is easier to just criticize. And we have this insatiable me monster, this pride thing going on. It's probably why I don't like doing interviews.

I'm like, man, I've talked about myself so much. I feel very uncomfortable. That's why I just flipped it. I'm like, you asked me a question. I'm like, well, what do you think? I'm tired of talking about me. I'm so sick of me. My wife's gonna ask me something about me.

I'm like, please God, no, don't talk about me anymore. Baby, talk about anything else under the sun. Sean, warm me out for the month on me. But maybe that's in our human nature, you know, of just to criticize and to pull people down so I feel better about me. And it's an ugly thing. Let's talk about, let's move into some of your mission work. When did that happen?

So my wife and I were married. We worked through those couple years and they were really hard. After those two years of being married, we started getting better. Started getting fun. Year three, year four, going real well. I went into business, started a business, and that went very well. And I was making good money.

I started it from scratch. And so, and I'm working on a business degree simultaneously. It took me a long time because I didn't finish my degree right off. I kept working. I was working full time, started a company and married. And then we moved and I went to a different college. And so, was it your current company?

No, this is an entirely different company. Let's go on to that. Okay, sure. What was that company? So, it worked on commercial kitchen, fire extinguisher equipment. So, in all the restaurants, there's this fire suppression system that automatically puts out fires. And so, I helped start and then run a company that installed and serviced and maintained those things. They have to be maintained

every six months. So it's a recession-proof type business that allows for, you know, repeat whatever. And so I did all the marketing, the sales, and naming, and, you know, the books and the service until finally I could get a few other people working it and brought that up, made it successful. I had it in the black within just a couple of months and wrote my own salary for it. And so it was successful right up and I worked that gig for a couple years. Now that was happening. My wife and I, we were in a big house, we were enjoying it. She had this hot little outy convertible that I'd bought her and those were some fun happy years. We've been married about three or four years and it was going really well. We were having some fun and we were kind of, we had two firm hands on the American dream.

We were doing it, it was cool. Now, the next thing would be a little disruptive. My wife and I are both very interested in ministry, though we're both working jobs. So she's working at this time too. We don't have any kids. We are dreaming about, hey, you know what'd be real cool? If we did some missions work one day. And like, well, what are you thinking? Like a week or so? I'm like, man, it'd be fun to do something longer

to really give ourselves to a greater service. Let's really shake it out. Let's really help some folks. Let's do something radical for the Lord. Let's do, let's do a grand gesture. Let's really shake it out. Let's really help some folks. Let's do something radical for the Lord. Let's do a grand gesture. Let's do a great. And so that was really attractive. That was filled with, you know, sacrificial service, which was very attractive to us who will love the Lord. Well, and it'll be a fun adventure. And if you don't do it when you're young, when you're going to do it. And so we're like, yeah, let's punch out. I would do something like that. And then one night at church, an opportunity came by and somebody said, Hey, who would like to go, you know, do this mission's work for a year. And we're kind of like a year, year. Would you do a year? I think I'd do a year. I'm like, all right, well, Hey, what?

Just kind of signed up. Or we did more due diligence than that. We talked about we saw exactly what was going on and what that mission looked like and soft. It was a good fit, but very, very quickly we flexed on that and we decided, all right, we'll do that and we rented out our house. We boxed up all our stuff. We put it in storage and then then we punched out for the mission field. And we didn't really do a lot of support raising. We just feel like, I got some money. We'll just, I'll fund the mission. You know, and so we had a little bit of help, but really we we helped fund it. And so I had some I had some savings. And I'm like, this will be this will be fun. And so that's what we ended up doing. We ended up going to San Jose, Costa Rica.

So don't think beaches think inner city. And so dirty smog. Every once in a while, we'd punch out and go see pretty beaches, but we're inner city. You know, a lot of poverty there. Yeah, a lot of poverty. you know, a lot of people didn't have electricity or indoor plumbing. And so we'd be there, but we're also right there by the University of Costa Rica, Usehri, and so there was that we planted a church there. We were

live-in kind of student life directors for 30 different college students, college college students, from all over the United States, who would go there to learn Bible, engage in missions and learn Spanish. And so we were kind of their student life directors. Now on mission where we're doing all this, including a planting a church that I was the pastor of, I was teaching Bible classes, because I found out of like, I can, I really like teaching, and I found out, not only did I like it, I was, I was pretty good at it. Now, I'd already done some teaching in the military. I had an affinity for combatives, like in RIP.

I won the combatives contest for all of RIP. That was a lot of people, that was good. And in Ranger Battalion, I was one of the early guys who was really good at Jiu-Jitsu and combatives at Ranger Battalion. And so that was an old hat. And I teach that and I teach in the medical, and as a team leader, you're always teaching.

You know what it is? Squat leader, you're teaching as well. And I was pretty good at it. But I found that I got like a spiritual gift of knowledge and teaching at conversion. I was a terrible student. My whole life up until conversion. And then all of a sudden I became a good student

who loved reading. Just overnight, a love of reading clicked on on my brain. Wasn't there and then it was there. And so I've read hundreds and hundreds of books now. And these years on the mission field, I would spend for four years, I spent a broad on the mission, on the Christian mission field. And I fell into deep, deep study. And this is theology. This is philosophy,

Christian worldview apologetics, all theologies of mischeology, ecclesiology, eschatology, so tearyology, all theologies and whatever of hermeneutics, homolytics, exegesis of like, I study, I study church history, I fell in love with it. And so I would spend wild amounts of time studying. Like I would get lost in books where I would forget to eat. I would just get caught up like almost into trance and I would look up and I would have studied eight hours straight.

And then when I was studying, I was teaching. This is where I learned to teach, is on the mission field. And later, that teaching knowledge would pour over and to teaching tactical stuff. Now, the subject matter of what I'm teaching changed dramatically, but they actually delivery and being able to connect with students

and be lighthearted and then come in strong of all the teaching I was doing hours every day for years. And theology is my favorite subject to teach and I did it for years and loved it. One was the Water Poets Society formed. So did missions work for years? Then I would come back. I would get into the tactical training space, some leaving ministry now, and I want to get back into the only real skill I have was rangering. You know, it's, hey, let's do gunfight stuff and night vision training. And so I was working a job for a different company as a tactical trainer, and I did that for a few years.

I'm curious why you didn't go back to the Fire Accenture Business or the Fire Suppression Business in Kitchens. It sounds like you built a pretty successful company doing that. I could have, but it was someone else was the owner of it. Okay. And I came in and created it, you know, work there. I should have been a partner, wasn't, and then I was just the general manager. And so when I went for the mission field, basically, here's the keys, and I had no stake. And so it wasn't mine, you know.

And so anyway, that was handed off. So that, I could have come back to it. I think that was available to come back to, but I don't know, I had a different opportunity and I was gonna go back into this. So, or back into the old military stuff. Now, I had to start kind of gearing up training because on the mission field, I had dwindled away

to like, I had a librarian body. I had dwindled away into a skeleton. I was maybe 15, 20 pounds lighter than I am right now. I was, I got skinny because I've just read and teach all day. So I started training up and then got back, got into the tactical training. And I did that for a number of years. They were after more like military and law enforcement contracts and after training, SWOT, night vision and stuff. And I wanted to leverage social

media to access the civilian populace for everyday carry. That's what I was after. And so there was quite a natural departure and warrior poet society was born through it in that I wanted to bring to I wanted to I was on a certain journey and I called it and I came to call it the warrior poet way, you know warrior poet society. That was my own personal journey where I'm trying to reconcile these different parts of me where I personal journey, where I'm trying to reconcile these different parts of me, where I believe that a man should be fierce and strong and courageous and long-suffering and gritty and hard to kill and a good protector and all the virtues of a warrior, of a strong man, but also recognized, and that's not enough. You also need to adore your children and be emotionally available to them, and you need to romantically pursue your spouse,

and you need to be compassionate and loving and self-sacrificing and appreciate beauty and revel in awe and all these attributes that kind of like That's the that's the good stuff. That's the fire and the blood We don't fight just to keep fighting of like it's it's not just fighting for freedom But it's there's the enjoyment of freedom. It's like, I like to say of warrior poet, you see these two different elements. You can even say, what is the more important of the two? I think poet is more important. This is why.

The founders of the United States penned our Bill of Rights, the first one, freedom of speech, freedom of press, of religion, assembly, all the good stuff packed there. You can say what you want, you can meet with who you want, the government can't stop you from doing it. You know, we have the inalienable rights to life liberty, the pursuit of happiness, that kind of stuff protected and embodied in the First Amendment. They listed it first because to them, it was pre-eminent. It was most important.

This is the freedoms that you're supposed to do. Now, that's the most important, but the Second Amendment is the only way you keep it. That's it. And so you have the right to bear arms, meaning you got the most important stuff and you get to guard it from us, your government. So it's the second amendment because the first amendment isn't possible to keep without the second amendment. And so, whereas the warrior in the fight exists as a means to an end, the beauty and love and relationships is in and in and of itself.

Freedom of religion, relit, faith, family, speech, ideas. That's where all that stuff is. It's the poet, right? And so I want to be a good warrior and poet because I realize a man should be fully both. You should be a lion and you should be a lamb. A lion, you know, if you're all lion, you may be able to protect your family,

but you will not keep them. That is out of reach. You will divorce. Your family will fall into pieces. And it'll probably be your fault, lion, and a lamb. A lamb is not going to keep the respect of a wife for very long. She'll love you, but I mean, she desires somebody who can protect and provide and lead. A woman wants to be led in many ways. And you know, despite what the feminist would say,

I still believe women want to be swept off their feet, you know? Let's take a break and not a break break, but let's, I wanted to touch on feminism. Sure. Next on the Sean Ryan show. But your point remains, no one. No one trusts the government. Point being, why would you trust your kids

to be educated by the government? If what happened to our kids, I'm like, well, you gave them the government for their entire childhood and social media helped. That hurts to say, because I know it hurts people to hear, but the government raised them. And that's what happened. Government and social media,

hijacked a generation. What do you think the goal is behind that? Control. Control of everything. Former Navy SEAL Mike Ritland keeps it real on the Mike Drop podcast. He's the co-CEO of the All Secure Foundation, which assists special operations in active duty combat that's time-satterly. Nobody helps you shoot your gun.

They trained you, you had a shoot your weapon, so we're gonna train you on the things you've never been trained for, how to come home from war. Everything else that turns people away from it, we try to brand it, reduce or dismiss the kind of stigma that's associated with it. You have to.

Mike Drop, raw, unfiltered, intellectually sound, wherever you listen. or dismiss the kind of stigma that's associated with it. You have to. Mike Drop, raw, unfiltered, intellectually sound, wherever you listen.