The Daily Stoic - Jack Carr on Writing, Becoming World Class, and Building Character

Episode Date: June 4, 2022

On this live edition of the podcast Ryan talks to author Jack Carr about his new book In The Blood (which you can buy at The Painted Porch), how his experiences as a Navy SEAL have impacted his writing career, how your character impacts your life and work, and more.Jack Carr spent 20 years as a Navy SEAL, where he served as a Team Leader, Platoon Commander, Troop Commander, Task Unit Commander and sniper. Now, he’s an author behind the New York Times bestselling Terminal List series.Inspired by the feelings and emotions of actual experiences serving in conflict areas around the globe, the novels follow James Reece, a Navy SEAL sniper who becomes embroiled in the world of conspiracies, international espionage, and revenge. Jack joined us for a live recording at my bookstore here in Bastrop, Texas for a live recording to dive deeper into his experience as a Navy SEAL, and the inspiration behind his newest book in the Terminal List series.NED Products will help you perform better, sharpen your mind and get consistent, quality sleep. Go to helloned.com/STOIC or enter code STOIC at checkout to get 15% off.The Jordan Harbinger Show is one of the most interesting podcasts on the web, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt, and more. Listen to one of Ryan's episodes right now (1, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today.Since 2007, MyBodyTutor's daily accountability and 1:1 coaching has been the most effective way to get healthy and stay fit. To save $50 all you have to do is go to MyBodyTutor.com, join, and mention Daily Stoic when they ask how you heard about them.Ten Thousand makes the highest quality, best-fitting, and most comfortable training shorts I have ever worn. Ten Thousand is offering our listeners 15% off your purchase. go to Tenthousand.cc/stoic to receive 15% off your purchase.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers, we explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and

most importantly to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. As you know, the book I'm working on now is about discipline, one of the core stoic virtues. Courage, temperance, moderation, discipline, self-discipline as Mark really says, and then justice, and wisdom. But I think this idea that we have to treat the body rigorously, as Seneca says, that we

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problem. We all know what to do. Saying where people struggle is in sticking with the plan consistently, consistency is the key to great results. You need daily personal coaching and accountability, and that's what you get with my body tutor. So if you're ready to make health and fitness a priority, Adam and his coaches at my body tutor are the best in the world at delivering daily accountability and one-on-one coaching. And Adam is giving daily stoke listeners 50 bucks off their first month to say 50 bucks.

All you have to do is go to mybodytutor.com, join, mention daily stoke when they ask about how you heard about them. And if you have questions, Adam wants you to call their texts and you can find his personal My friend Steven Presfield turned me on to today's guest, Jack Carr. He spent 20 years as a Navy SEAL, where he served as a team leader, platoon commander, troop commander, task unit commander, and a sniper. And if that wasn't enough, he decided to start a second career as a novelist and his novels have blown up, sold hundreds of thousands of copies at number one in the New York Times of Cellar List. It may be turned into a series starring Chris Pratt for Amazon.

And I did Jack's podcast a few months ago and he was very nice, very generous, very kind, and had read my stuff. And he said, hey, I'm going to be in Austin in May to record the Rogan podcast. It's the week my book's coming out. I know I have a bookstore, would you want to do an event? And I said, we just haven't done any events for at the Pain Porch because to be quite honest, I'm traumatized about them. I remember doing a book event once in Hawaii, early on in my career, and one person showed up.

And then I've done other ones where I've flown across the country and like 10 people were there. And that's just heavy. It's heavy to ask an author to spend time away from their family to travel, to go do a thing, to meet a relatively small amount of people. And I just take that, it's like if I'm going to do an event, I want lots of people to come because I wanted to be worth the author's time. And I just, we've never done one here at the Pain and Ports, COVID intervening.

And I wasn't sure if we could do it. And he was so insistent, he said, trust me, it'll be great. And I'm glad I listened because it was great. About 100 people showed up. He signed books for literally hours. It was an awesome experience. And what we did, as part of it, to make it worth everyone's time, is we recorded a live podcast out on the back porch at the Pated Porch, the Stoa, if you will, we have a mural that's inspired by the ancient Stoic, Stoic, meaning porch in ancient Greek, where Stoicism was founded, the Stoic Pocula. So I thought it was fitting Jack and I had about an hour conversation and then we kicked

around some questions from the audience. That's what today's episode is from. We were talking about his new book as part of the Terminal List series. The new book is part of the Terminal List series. The new book is called In the Blood. It's great. He signed a very nice copy for me. And that's what we talked about in today's episode. You can check out all of his books. He's one of the best there is doing this right now. His novels follow James Reese and Navy SEAL SINYPERper who's constantly embroiled in a world of conspiracies, international espionage and revenge. And in today's episode, Jack and I are live here at the Painted Ports and Master of Texas, talking about creativity,

talking about writing, talking about the difference between ego and confidence. And what it means to be elite at what you do and I'm excited to bring this interview to you. You can go to official jackcar.com for his website You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram jack car USA car has two ours and we still have a handful of sign copies left over from the signing of in the Blood which you can pick up at the painted porch.com So we're here at a bookstore and I wanted to start with books. Your mom was a librarian, right? I don't want to say that's the competition,

but it is the competition bookstore. Yeah. Talk to me about your early introduction to books and reading. I imagine that was quite formative for me. Yeah, I can't remember a time when I wasn't in grossed in a book or surrounded by books or collecting books or adding to my library. Yep.

It was just a natural part of growing up, just like sitting down at dinner with a family or anything else, just having books around and sitting down to read at night before bed or on vacations during the day and just having that time was just as natural as anything else that we did. So I can't even remember a time where I had to be forced to read or say,

yes, kids, go over there and read. It was just always something I loved to do. And so I always knew the one day that would be my profession. It doesn't sound like from what I read that your parents babyd you when you came to books. It sound like you were were reading the kinds of books you're writing now at a very young age. Very early age, maybe a little too early

in some cases. It wasn't like they, after I started reading the things that my parents were reading, which was about fifth grade. Like fifth grade was the kind of transition from kind of the young adult type books and into the stuff my parents were reading. So there's probably like a year there

where a lot of what I read, I didn't really comprehend. So then by sixth grade for sure. For sure in sixth grade, I'm reading the exact same things and I'm comprehending all of it. So yeah, Tom Clancy, hunt for a October came out in fifth grade. So I was engrossed in that little technical, you know, for fifth grader.

Sure. But then I'm finding David Morrell and Nelson DeMille and AJ Quinnell and JC Pollock and Mark Olden and Louis LeMorne and Stephen Hunter and all these guys in that time frame who his protagonist had backgrounds in Vietnam. So they were either marine snipers or they were army special forces

or Navy SEALs or CIA paramilitary. So I was reading the books with protagonist that had backgrounds that I wanted in real life, one day and back then we couldn't get on the internet and just be like Navy SEAL training and look at it or anything so you had to rely on the very few books out there that were nonfiction, but then the pages of these thrillers.

And you'd figured that, hey, David Morrell probably did some research, you couldn't check on it, but you'd into what he's writing about. So I just, I love being transported by those stories and knew that I'd do it in real life. I remember reading the Clive Custer books, which were, you know, they're like this thick. And then on the back, it was him,

and a car. With his classic car, that he was writing about in the book. And you're like, oh, this is also a job. And then this is potentially a lucrative job. I remember being, that was my sort of first peak into publishing as a thing. Ah, yeah, so that was a good idea.

So he has two museums, one in Colorado and one in Arizona. And I guess that helps with tax purposes. But it's actually a museum that people can go. But they're just his classic car. That's just a collection. Yeah, it's fantastic. And he, unfortunately, he passed away a couple of years ago. Actually, just last night, I was talking to somebody and the museum in Colorado, I think,

is still it's in the trust and I'll ask to up with a couple of cars out there in the Phoenix area that I was asking about if one might, if one's up for sale for someone to let me know. And I didn't preserve that piece of kind of you know literary history Because I saw those too. I saw the cars in the back of Clackusler I saw the guns and the Mac Bowling novels anybody read Mac Bowling here back in the day. Yeah All right, give it up for Mac Bowling. Yeah, I like it. So he had all those guns in there So I was always of course it was always something completely impractical like the desert eagle 50 cow

pistol that he's carrying concealed somehow But still as a sixth grader, seventh grader, and that was so fantastic to read those things. I absolutely loved them. I think it gives you a big sense of what you're capable of too in like fifth grade that you're reading a book that's like 900 pages or whatever, right? Like I think there is something about fiction too

where if you grew up reading those books, then when you wanna tackle some big nonfiction thing, you're like, oh yeah, I can read a thousand page book. I used to read those when I was 11 or whatever. I think there is something about the genre fiction that makes you put away any sort of intimidation by like a big book. Yeah, I was never intimidated by the size of any book.

Yeah, that's for sure. And that comes in handy when you pick up like wins of war, war and remembrance by Herman Woke. I'm sure fantastic, by the way, historical fiction for kids. I think it's a great introduction to actual historical fiction, like actual reading or nonfiction about an event that can sometimes

be a little dry. Yeah. Introduction through historical fiction, like killer angels or Winds of War, Warner Memorands, those are just such great introductions and give us just a great history of like World War 2 in particular for those for.

Because then when you read the real books, the names are familiar. The names, the name is in the sense of what it's. Yeah, I remember a lot of canal. I remember these things. So it's, yeah, it's a great touch point with history for sure because it's so approachable, which is great. It's not super intimidating like it's the history of World War II or like Winston Churchill's memoirs or something like that.

It's like, oh boy, but when you approach it from historical fiction standpoint and you're reading about these events through the eyes of a family that's relatable, especially like Herman Woke does where you have generate multigenerational and it just makes it, you get to know those characters and therefore you get to know the history. There's a quote about Theodore Roosevelt I like like one of the biographers is that Theodore Roosevelt grows up reading about the great men of history and decides he wants to be just like them. And so is it the sense that you're sort of reading about all these characters and then you're

like, oh, but you can actually, not just I could write about it, but that I could actually do the stuff that they're doing in the books. I think it went the other way because I knew earlier that I was going to be in the military and that was just innate. It was in my blood. Hey, in the blood. It was just something, and it was just something that was drawn towards. And I think a lot of that had to do with my grandfather who was killed in World War II, but

I grew up with pictures of him and his squadron. He was a Marine Corps aviator and flew the course air. So that's the plane that had the gold wings that folded up like that. He was called off Okinawa in 1945, but I grew up with the silk maps that used to give aviators back then, because if you hit the water with a paper map, it would disintegrate, but a silk map would just get wet, still could use it. And I had his Marine Corps aviation wings, had all that stuff,

and so I just knew that I was going to serve my country in the military. But so that came first, and then I was researching researching as much as you can as a young kid, researching anything warfare related, and then terrorism and insurgency, encounter insurgency, and some of the earliest memories of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis and the insuing incident at Desert One that happened after that. So all those things were just a part of my childhood. And I still think of them as very formative events. I can remember the time magazine in Newsweek and the covers of the newspapers of that event in particular. But then as I got

older, so then when I reached the ripe old bit of 10 and started reading thrillers, then I was like, okay, first military, and then I'm gonna write thrillers exactly like the kind that I'm enjoying so much today. Yeah, when actually I interviewed Stephen Pressfield here before this has become a book story, it was like the first person that saw it, and he was wearing this World War II bomber jacket in the Highland community,

and it had the maps sewn inside. It was really cool. Yeah, Stephen Pressfield's great. I mean, he obviously has all these amazing books that he had, Afghan campaign, Gates of fire, or legend of backer vans, but he also has a series of books on creativity and the first one is The War of Art. And I got so much from all of his books, in particular, that one, and then Turning Pro. They all say, essentially, you're going to have to sit down, be professional and do the work. Essentially, that's what

he's saying. Don't get distracted, really. But I remember him saying that you're a professional, you're a writer, sit down and write. You don't get writer's block because you don't have a trucker getting trucker's block or a dentist getting dentist's block. You sit down and you do the work. And so that was, to hear that from him was pretty cool. So I've never had to contend with writer's block. And then when I left the military and I was flying to South Africa and then Mozambique for a research trip, it has occupation on that entry form and so I wrote down author. That's when you turned pro in your head.

In your head you have to turn pro and so it's just okay, now I was a special operator for the last 20 years, now I'm a writer, now I'm an author. And I think that really helps put things in perspective and makes you sit down and do the work. It's not a hobby, it's not something you're hoping that will happen, you are all in. I was gonna ask you about that. So you have this 20 year career in the military and then you transition to writing.

I wanna talk about transitions. But I do think writing is easier when you've had a job before or a career before because then you're able to Be like this is a job. This isn't I think a lot of people think of creative professions as being this sort of ethereal fun View the muses visit you but it's a job and you have to you have to be an operator in it a professional in it the way that you would train and Practice and show up every day

for any other kind of profession. Oh yeah, oh yeah, and it's interesting because with a family and for those of you that have kids at home and dogs and spouses and all the rest of it, if you're not actually sitting there typing kind of like maybe if you're not painting, if you're not physically engaged in the act of sculpting something, people think

that you're not actually working. Yes, that's not the case. That's not the case. Yeah, that's not the case. That's not the case. Yes, that's not the case. You have to think through these things. So for this latest book, I started renting Airbnb's around Park City. And I found this great little log cabin that had a stack of wood outside. So I chop wood out there.

I throw it in the wood burning stove. There was a couch right there, a little table, a kitchen, bedroom bathroom, but that was it. It was all close right there. So I could go from one thing to the other. And as I was typing away, or I started to think I got a whole hungry, I'd go make a sandwich, but I'm still, even though I'm not physically typing,

I'm still thinking through what's going on on that written page, thinking through some problems I need to solve on that written page. So it's still work, but it's interesting when people see you not physically writing. It's like, oh, you're not working right now. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Well, I think you have to let the subconscious work

on the thing, right? So it's like there's kind of two phases of doing it. There's the, I'm intentionally thinking about this, I'm writing right now, and then there's also the, it's in there in the back of my mind. It's working on the equation, the computer is chipping away at it, and then this sort of breakthrough happens when you kind of least expect it.

Oh, yeah, I mean, you have to be thinking, I mean, you're thinking about it all the time. But it's those interruptions that take you away from it, that make you focus on something else for a minute. For me, that's, I don't know how it is for everybody else, but for me, that's the real killer. Like, I need to be, it doesn't matter if I have just a blank white wall in front of me, that's fine. It doesn't have to be a great beautiful view of mountains or ocean or anything like that. Blank wall is fine. As long as it's quiet and there's no interruptions. And for those who went to work during COVID at home,

they might be able to relate to the fact that if you have a home office and you close that door, but whatever reason it acts as a magnet for children, for dogs, everybody, it's just like, I don't know what it is. Like they don't want to talk to you in the door is open, but it's closed, it's like, so that's just kind of how it goes. And everybody had to experience a little bit of that,

especially in the early days of COVID, I think. Yeah, so talk to me about the transition, because when I talk to athletes and people who are in the Armed Forces, that's the big transitioning out to the new thing, which I actually think they have a sort of a unique set of experiences that can help people, because we're all transitioning from one thing to the new thing, which I actually think they have a sort of a unique set of experiences that can help people Because we're all transitioning from one thing to another new world. How did you think about, you know, sort of that like

special forces to I can identify as a writer walk me through that transition for you Yeah, I was very lucky and that I knew what I wanted to do a lot of people I don't think they really know and if they think they know they know maybe from a movie or from maybe a book that they read or something they heard from somebody else and then they devote, let's just take law. So your trans-dushing from something and you saw law and order on TV or you read a John Grisham book or a Scotch-Row book and you're going to do that. And then you spend this time in law school and then you get to your first firm or you go into your DA's office or whatever. And it's not quite what it was like

when you watch the movie or firm. And then you're like, well, I've invested all this time. It's not really what I thought, but I guess now I'm gonna pay back this loan or I'm gonna have a family and a child and all this stuff and you're just off you go. And you're kind of in this thing that wasn't really your calling

or you thought it was, but you didn't know. Or you're calling for a while, right? Like sometimes we do things, there's a season or a phase of your life and then that phase ends and you have to do that next thing. Yeah, yeah, so I was just very lucky that I knew that writing was my thing, it was already my passion,

I already spent so many years essentially giving myself an early education in the art storytelling by reading all these books, growing up. My mom introduced me to Joseph Campbell and here with a thousand faces through this series of interviews that Bill Moir's did with Joseph Campbell called the Power of Myth in 1988. But I always enthralled because as a kid he talked about how it inspired George Lucas for Star Wars and this mythology that here was journey and all this. So I took that on board very early. I didn't find that later in life and then say,

I mean, I can work this into a story or something like that. Maybe I should get this writing thing a try. It was already, this foundation was already built. So that foundation was built with reading as a fan, even though I was studying it. I didn't look at it as studying it. I just looked at it as coming at it from a fan's perspective. And then I had this study of warfare. So I'm studying all these warfare and terrorism studying it, I didn't look at it, studying it, I just looked at it as coming at it from a fans perspective.

And then I had this study of warfare. So I'm studying all these warfare and terrorism and certain season counterinsurgencies academically. And then I get into the SEAL teams and then September 11th happens and I go to Iraq and I go to Afghanistan. And then I get to practically apply that warfare. And so now as I'm getting out, I have that foundation that's been built up over all these years.

And now I can put all of that into my writing So it becomes very personal even though it's complete fiction I get to go and think about if my character gets ambushed. Let's say in Los Angeles, California I can go think about Baghdad 2006 and think about what it was like to get ambushed there And I can take those feelings and emotions and then apply them to a completely fictional narrative So it rings true. I don't have to go track down a sniper from Ramadi in 2006 and then ask them questions and then have those answers get filtered through whatever biases or preconceived notions

or maybe other books or movies I've read about sniping or about Ramadi in 2006. I can just directly translate what it was like to drop over the wall of our compound and move into the city with a small sniper team and I can just put that directly into the novel without any sort of filters. So, so I was lucky and that I knew what I wanted to do. My passion is writing, my mission is taking care of my family. That gives me my purpose driving forward. And I think a lot of people, regardless of

what they do, whether they're coming from special operations or they're coming from a professional sports team or their Olympic athlete, and they didn't make the team for the first time, and they've been devoted that for so long, or maybe a death of a loved one, divorce, just a job transition, any of those things, I think it's so important to identify that passion and that mission so you can find that purpose and move forward. Yeah, I don't know if I would phrase that as lucky

to me that's strategic, right? So I think it's like the worst time to the worst way to find a new job is to first quit your old job, right? So I think it's like the worst time to the worst way to find a new job is to first quit your old job, right? Because now you don't have the, like, I think about it as like, you gotta figure out the next thing so you can train, so you can think about it. So also, the education can be subsidized.

Like I tell this even to people that I work for me is like whatever you do next, like there should be like a year period where you've decided to do that thing and then what can you get out of that time? I spent a year at American Apparel very clearly, I was going to leave to become a writer, but Robert Green was like, what are you gonna do

with this year? Right, how is that year going to subsidize and educate you and set in motion the stuff that you're gonna need? So you're not starting on day one where I'm building this thing from scratch, right? You wanna learn the things, see the things, save the money, et cetera. You gotta start the transition before you leave, right?

Before you jump, I hate this, I don't wanna do this, I'm leaving, then I'm gonna figure out that thing. I think you start the transition early. Oh yeah, I was very fortunate in the military. Once you tell them you're getting out, so I started as enlisted and then I became an officer and as an officer you drop your papers and tell them you're getting out.

And essentially you go in this other pile and you go in that pile of, now it's your time to get out and you're kind of off our radar and you go stand in line at medical, you go stand in line at dental, you go to these transition program things, you get read out of CECA programs, you turn in gear, and before you do any of that thing, those things, because it's gigantic bureaucracy, you stand in line to make your

appointment, to come back and do those things. So I had a little time, exactly. So I had this time, I was in this other pile where I'm not really on anyone's radar, and that gave me time to write. So I had exactly what you're talking about there this time, and I made use of that time to write that first book and make it as good as I possibly could. Yeah, Robert said it's gonna be a live time or dead time. You get to decide, right? Is it a dead year where you're getting paid

or not doing anything or is it a year where you're doing X, Y, and Z? I think also I thought about that during COVID. Like, okay, these things are now off the table. What do you have to show for that time? And then people, I can't wait to do this, but they're not actually starting the thing. Marcus really talks about this in meditations. He says, like, you could be good today, but you choose tomorrow. And press field talks

about this in the war of art. It's like, nobody says, like, I'm going to do it. I'm just going to, or I'm not going to do it. They say, I'm going to start later. But you have to do the warm up face. You have to do the prep while you ideally someone is picking up the tab. Yeah, that's very helpful. If you're in that kind of a position, but sometimes there's so many authors out there that they get up so early and they work and then they go to their job and they come home

or then they write so late. And there's so many stories of people doing that until they get that first novel done. And then they start going to Thriller Fest or about your con or these different events where you can sit down with agents and you do speed dating with agents and you talk them for five minutes, you know, and you go to the next one and the next one and I know so many people have found agents that way

rather than with the quarry letter that you send out and who knows if it's actually going to get there and it just allows you to kind of tailor it's just educating yourself on what you want to do next rather than just hopping right in but just educating yourself, taking a breath, looking at it, making some strategic plays, like putting aside that time to go to thriller fest, maybe twice, maybe three times, maybe four times, gets to know people who are then gonna give you a blur because you have that emotional connection

to them and that relationship built very naturally. So there's a lot of things that you can do strategically rather than just say, oh, I don't know anyone in Hollywood, I don't know anyone in publishing, I guess I better not even start because I would even know if I had something where to send it. And I think a lot of, I don't know anyone in Hollywood. I don't know anyone in publishing. I guess I better not even start, because I don't even know if I had something where to send it. I think a lot of people just don't even start for that reason. One thing the Stokes all have in common is that they love to learn.

They love to learn from people who had experiences, had insights, had interesting lives. That's one of the things I love about podcasts. It's like an hour or two hours or three hours sometimes right into the brain of a person who thinks very differently or has experienced things, very different from what you've experienced. And that's something I always feel when I listen to my friend Jordan Harbinger's podcast, the Jordan Harbinger Show, which is the sponsor of today's episode, is show as interviewed basically everywhere. You can listen to this episode with Robert Green on the laws of human nature, or both my episodes.

Or I talk about solving for what you want in life. I talk about my book, Conspiracy, or stillness is key. I mean, he's had literally everyone you can imagine on professional art foragersagers to billionaire entrepreneurs, to mafia, hitmen, to models, to professional athletes. He did this episode about birth control and how it alters the partners we pick and how medicine can affect elements of our personalities. He talks about just everything you can imagine.

It's just a great show, I recommend it. The podcast covers a lot, but I think the one thing that's constant is that he always pulls useful bits of advice from his guests. And I can say that from experience. I always feel like the interviews I do on the Jordan Harbinger show get something out of me that I didn't talk about. The interview I did just a few days earlier. Like the, when I would point you to those interviews,

if I would say, hey, someone's like, hey, what's a podcast you are on? I connect you, I might link you to one of my episodes of Jordan, because it would be different from all the other ones. And I think that's all you can really ask for from a podcast. I enjoy it, I recommend it.

There's so much there. You can check out JordanHarbinger.com slash start for episode recommendations or just look for the Jordan Harbinger show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you to Jordan for sponsoring this podcast and I hope you give it a listen. Well I'm curious like whenever someone does something that's sort of very far a field from what they've done before, like how did they know they could do it, right?

And I saw a post you did a while ago where you're like when I was thinking of the terminal list, you're like, this is the actor who's gonna play it. This is who my publisher was gonna be. This is like, so there's, you can see that two ways. One, there's a kind of an ego in it. Like of course all these people should work for me. There's also a kind of pre, like a planning

and a strategy to, so like when I see people who are thinking about doing some hard thing, like I want to start a company or I want to write a script or I want to do a book or I want to start my own business, that tension between like, of course I can do it and of course it's going to go all the ways that I want it to go and this sort of humility of like, it's going to be really hard. And I'm not sure if I can do it.

How did you think about, like you said you knew, but did you really know like where those dreams or like, and you were like, I'm gonna work really hard to make that real, or was there some part of you that was like, kind of like believed it was a destiny or something? I think it may be a little bit of naivete, perhaps, which can also play into your favor

because you don't overthink it. And when I wanted to do something for so long from my earliest days, it was just in my head as of course this will happen. So I never wasted bandwidth on worrying about it not happening. And people have done it before me. And so I see people, there's a lot of names on that New York Times list in the number one spot that we've seen there for 30, sometimes 40 years. Some of them are dead.

Some of them are, yeah, exactly. Yeah, you've got Tom Clancy up there. You know, you have Robert Ludlow up there. You have these estates continuing these characters in many cases, Vince Flynn. So you have that as well. But I saw, hey, someone did this before, just like in sealed training,

someone made it through this. Yes. I'm gonna make it through also. So it's as simple as that in my head anyway. So I'm gonna be one of those people that makes it through. It's been done before, of course I can do it. There's a Marcus quote. I love he says If it's humanly possible know that you can do it also, right? So it's like a lot of like just it feels arrogant

But it's actually true. It's like look these people are in special. I think when you meet an author for the first time You're like, oh, you're not this like genius who to set you this is a job. You figured out how to do this thing. I think You sort of realizing like it can be done and the proof is like lots of people have done it Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's it's it's one of those things where obviously you have to put put in the work But you can also waste time studying how to do something sure almost too much Oh, and it's gonna be different for everybody But you can read tons of books on how to write You can go online and read tons of books on how to write.

You can go online and read tons of blogs on how to do something and spend the rest of your life really just doing that. But what I did is I went to the back of some of the books that I really liked. So I went, I saw Wise Vince Flynn thanking Emily Bessler at Emily Bessler Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. And Wise Brad Thor thanking the same Emily Bessler person.

And I thought she will be my editor in publisher. And she didn't know me yet. I had no connection to publishing. Brad Thor, thanking the same Emily Bessler person, and I thought she will be my editor and publisher. And she didn't know me yet. I had no connection to publishing. And then same thing with Chris Brad in the show. I just thought, okay, who's that actor that needs to play my character? I'm not even published yet. I'm just typing away in first couple chapters.

And I thought, oh, Chris Brad, yeah, he'll do it. That's the guy. He was in Parks and Rec, and then he was a role in Zero Dark Thirty as a SEAL. So I got to see that transformation that he took from Andy Dwyer to being the Zero, the seal in Zero Dark 30. And I thought, well, he'll play Navy SEAL sniper James Reese. Yep. And then I thought, well, it's only natural to pick my director since I'm doing all this. I'm typing away.

And I think, well, Antoine Fuqua, he's amazing. I love everything that he's ever done. I love what he did with Shooter, Point of Impact, even though it's different than the book. I still loved it. Obviously, training day, incredible, replacement killers, you know, and I thought, yeah, he'll be the director. That's, and then I just kept writing,

and that's all the thought that I gave to those things. And then a friend on the publishing side of the house asked me one day, I was, I was about a year away from getting out and he said, hey, do you think Brad Thor, you'd like to talk to Brad Thor and I said nah what he talked to me First he asked me do you know who Brad Thor is and I said yes, and I said you'd like to talk to him I said how'd be amazing when he talked to me I never thought a million years that this moment would talk to me. He said yeah, let me set it up And I said oh geez they'd sat next to each other to banquet my friend had a lemon these foundation banquets and he'd helped

And I said, oh geez, they'd sat next to each other to banquet. And my friend had, I remember these foundation banquets and he'd helped Brad with the seal portions of a few of his books and set up this call. And now I know how often that authors get asked about these sorts of things, but at the time, I just made sure that I was in the right place at the right time, ready for that call. I was in Los Angeles and I was in this corner

of a parking lot and I remember I was in my land cruiser and there's no air conditioning and it's really loud if you have it on. So I wanted it to be quiet. So I'm just baking in this corner of a parking lot. And I remember I was in my land cruiser and there's no air conditioning and it's really loud if you have it on. So I wanted it to be quiet. So I'm just baking in this car, sweat stripping onto my legal pad. And we had this great conversation where it was essentially a job interview.

And he asked me why I wanted to write and all those sorts of things. And I talked to him about my mom being a librarian and this love of reading and all of that. And he finally said, hey, stop talking. I have work to do. But he's like, hey, if you write this thing, your friend told me some of the things that you said, hey, stop talking. I have work to do. But he's like, hey, if you write this thing, your friend told me some of the things

that you did in the SEAL teams, and as a thank you for that. If you write this thing, I'll let Emily Bessler at Simon and Schuster know that it's coming. And I said, that's all I need. And he said, one's gonna be done and I said a year from today. And he said, don't call me,

through this year, I'm not gonna give you any advice. So I'm not gonna give you any encouragement, I'm not gonna give you any encouragement, but if you write it, let me know. And called him back a year to that day and said, hey, it's done. And he remembered me and he said, is it done? Or is it as good as it can possibly be? And I said, well, I could probably spend a few more months

because I came like skidding into home play type of thing just to make that deadline, my first deadline. And he said, take your time, make it the best, you can make it and then we'll send it in. And I said, Roger that. So I spent another four months editing and then call them back in November of 2016 and said, Hey, it's as good as I can get it. And he said, Okay, I'll let them know. So I sent it in and Emily read it. And Brad thought that she'd read it and read the first sentence or two and say, Brad, what do you want me to tell this guy? But instead, she loved it and learned to publish it and so next thing you know i

go to new york and it's worked out for her to yeah no it's great you know it's been fantastic and then on the series side of the house with chris pratt books coming out there's this that's not even published yet but there's this galley copy which is like a rough draft that comes out in ahead of publication and i got a call from my friend jerry char and uh... he calls me out of the head of publication and I got a call from my friend Jerry Shaw.

And he calls me out of the blue and he asked me if I remember him, which of course I do. And then he said, you remember what you did for me in the seal teams? And I did not. And he said, well, you set me down on your office, talked about transitioning out of the military. You introduced me to people in the private sector and no one else did that. And I always wanted to thank you. And I said, no problem.

How's it going? And he said, it's going great, but I heard you have a book coming out. And I said, yeah, it's coming out about five months. I have a rough draft I can send you. And he said, I'd like that, but I'd like to give it to a friend of mine. And I said, who's that? And he said, Chris Pratt. And I was like, oh, so I sent it to him. He read it just to make sure it wasn't horrible. And then he gave it to Chris in December of 2017, and Chris read it at the end of December, and called the next week and wanted to option it.

So, and Antoine got it the same, essentially the same week. He got it through another friend, a CEO, who they worked together in Hollywood, gave it to Antoine, Antoine wanted to do it as well. So he called Chris and said, let's do this thing together. And Chris said, yes,

and now we're all executive producers on it. And Jerry Shaw, axing it is an advisor in it, is a producer in it. And he made it really what it is because he was on set every single day to make sure it was rooted in the dark, gritty, primal, authentic nature of the novel. So without him there every day, and without Max Adams, who's a former army ranger and a writer there every day, and our other friend Raymond Doza there every day, who does a technical advising in Hollywood, those three guys were on there every day, and our other friend Raymond Doza there every day who does a technical advising in Hollywood, those three guys were on set every day,

and they were so invested in it, it would be a completely different show without those three involved. One of the through lines I see through that story, and it was a piece of advice I got from Tim Ferriss, who is like, treat everyone like they can put you on the front page of the New York Times, because eventually you'll meet that person, right?

And so I think about the favors that people were doing, you for your friend, Brad Thor for you, and you think about, you don't know at the time where this person's going to end up, what's going to happen, what opportunity they're going to come to you. But I think as a general rule, if you help people, it ends up helping you in the long run. Yeah, probably, and I don't think any of us ever thought about it in those terms. You know, it's just, Jared was an amazing seal and just was going to help him whether he stays in or gets out. My other friend that for the next to Brad Thor, like he knew me mostly by reputation.

We knew each other, but he knew me really by reputation in the teams and was willing to risk his political capital on me. So that's a part of it. So you can't expect these things to happen, or I guess the better way to put it is you have to be ready. So when someone cracks that door, you can kick it in. You have to have done that work that allows someone to want to risk their political capital on you to make that introduction or to crack that door because if you're just want, want,

want, and haven't done the work, no one's going to risk their capital on you to help you up. But you have to be ready. You have to be ready to kick that door. You have to be ready to breach it. Well, speaking of doing the work, there's a military maximum that I'm help you up. And, but you have to be ready. You have to be ready to kick that door. You gotta be ready to breach it. Well, speaking of doing the work, there's a military maximum that I'm sure you know, which is that amateurs talk about strategies,

pros talk about logistics. I think I see that with writing where amateurs talk a lot about tools, right? Like, what's the right, no pad I should use? What's the right software? They want to know like, specifically, how you do it. And it's like, really the way you did it was, you spent 20 years getting the experiences,

and then you sat down and you put your ass in the chair for a long time. So I think people often, they sort of mythologized, like, how kind of typewriter did Hemingway use? Which really, in the end of the day, doesn't matter what matters is the sort of sitting down and doing the work of it. Whatever that thing is.

So this is true, this is true, but I did do a little bit of that. And so when I talked to Brad, I thought of that first time, I was doing through some elicitation. So for those who've been in the, the human side of the intelligence services, I somehow managed to work in,

what kind of font does Emily Bessler like? What kind of spacing, so when it arrived, does she like it bound? Does she like it electronic? So I sent it to her exactly the way she would have her assistant turn it into if she'd asked it for it. So it's the font, the spacings, the margins, not being bound, but just being stacked up right there. So I sent it to her exactly the way that she would want

to have received it very professional way. So, so I, it's that help, they're not. But I think that's a big part. A lot of people get so consumed with what they want to do and their thing that they don't stop and think about the other person in the transaction or in the fighter, the argument, or whatever the adversary, right? You don't think about like what's going through their mind. How are they? I often just like think about how many stacks of manuscripts this person has to go through. Think of the crap that gets thrown. Think about how much bad stuff they see, right? And really thinking about what the world looks like from the other person's perspective is more than just being empathetic and nice is also like how you succeed because you thought about priming it so it actually works.

Yeah, and yeah, no, it's, I mean, what a crazy, crazy journey, but with Emily Bessler, it's time for an issue. So I thought, hey, if Emily Bessler wants to put aliens from outer space coming down in this thing and turn this into transformers, guess what I'm going to do? They're going to be transformers in this thing. Yeah, sure. Sure. But she didn't really, I mean, she didn't want to change anything. She asked me, hey, did this, would he really say this here, would he do this here, and a third thing I can't really remember right now?

But those were her content edits for the entire first novel, and it's been the same for all of them, very few content type edits. And I think that's because I stayed true to the theme. I put that from Stephen Pressfield again. I misinterpreted something he said on Joe Rogan. He was really talking about a playwright in New York, writing a couple sentences down to keep him on track for a play.

And I took that as, Stephen Pressfield uses a one word theme for all his novels that he puts on a yellow sticky and puts on his computer. And so that's what I did. So I put Revenge right there. So everything stayed on track. It's like a mission statement.

Yeah, exactly. but kept me, and everything had to tie back to that, whether it was directly or more importantly, indirectly back to that theme. So I think that really helped keep me on track. And also, I didn't know how things would be once it got to Simon Issues, or I thought maybe they might say,

hey, can I lay off some of the second amendment stuff? Or does he really have to have opinions on freedom? So never once have they ever even hinted that I change anything. And I've had complete creative control. And that's been really cool with Amazon as well. I mean, they had some concerns about the violence. But when they came back down and we finally

we worked everything through, they came down on the right side of it every time. They took a big gamble on not doing what they've done before. And the benefit now is that they're seeing it test and don't tell anybody. I don't think I'm allowed to say this, but it's tested off the charts with test audiences. So they've done something that's been a little different. They were very nervous about it and it's paid off, at least with test audiences so far. So that's pretty cool.

That's pretty cool. I was thinking about this the other day. I don't want to get too political,. I was thinking about this the other day, I don't want to get too political, but I was thinking about, there's this backlash against what we call elites, right? People who've trained or studied or experts in a thing, and I get it, they're not perfectly messed up. But I was thinking about the danger of the backlash

against elites because like all the people I really admire or like, or have done work that's influenced my life are elite at what they do. I mean, it's called the special forces, not the regular Joe forces or whatever, right? Like, it's the whole point is about being really good at what you do and what goes into being a lifelong student or expert of that thing. And so I was and I've noticed it's like whether I'm speaking to a sports team or people in the military or I'm speaking to like a hedge fund or whatever, that how similar people who are elite performers at what they do think about the world, the training, the craft of it, being the student of it, and how, and being now elite at more than one thing, your

military experience and now being a great writer, how do you think about that, like getting world class at a thing? And what advice might you have to someone who wants to be like best in class or best in the world or part of an elite group, make a team, a division or whatever? How do you think about that?

Yeah, well, I think it goes back to that foundational element of character. And there's a great book called Once in Eagle, Bans on Meyer, which is Historical Fiction. Again, it follows two people from before World War II, or World War I, up to Vietnam. And it's really a case study in leadership.

But once again, you're learning a lot about World War II, you're learning a lot about World War I, you're learning a lot about the inner war years. So you're lot about World War I. You're learning a lot about the inner war years. So you're getting its education there, but you're also getting an education in leadership. And one of those officers is a staff officer. And he's always just a little bit ahead of the guy who was enlisted in World War I.

Got a battlefield commission. He's the soldier soldier. And they're working their way kind of up through these ranks over the years. But really, the lesson of the novel is to see your character and your reputation will take care of itself. So you start from that foundation and then for me, I mean, I don't know how it is for anyone else, but my goal is always to be the best operator I could be and the best

leader I could be. So everything that I did in life had to propel me forward in one of those, in those areas, right there. So everything that I'm reading, studying the enemy, staying up to date on their tactics, and their adaptation, staying in shape, getting on the range, getting out there with the guys, even when I work my way up to a point where I don't really need to be out there on the range

with them anymore, still going out there and still being near the top. Might not be the fastest anymore, might not be the best shot anymore, but I'm certainly up there. Sure. And so I have most of everybody else going, oh wow, when I get to that stage, in my time in uniform, I want to be as good as he is,

type of a thing. So you're always out there, you're always pushing, always trying to make yourself better. And now my goal in writing is to move the genre forward, even if it's just by a degree, with each and every book, and then also to get better, obviously,

with each and every book, because people have trusted me with their time, and they're never gonna to get that back. So they're listening to it for 13 hours on audio read by Ray Porter who's amazing by the way. You don't read him and no, if it was nonfiction I would but I want the best person, the best narrator out there to be to be reading these things. And oftentimes I don't even know how to pronounce some of the names because I've just read

them. I've just put them together. But now I'm actually saying. Oh, you actually read it. You're not Oh, they actually created. Yeah. Yeah. You're not sure how to pronounce it. Yeah, so now that's Ray Porter's job. You know, I have no idea how to say like half the names in my book that are foreign names.

No, they just exist as characters. Yeah. Like literally like symbols, not a thing. Exactly. Can I like a title of the first book, The Terminal List? I never set it out loud for like two years. And then, because yeah, I'm just looking at it, it's just on the paper and it looks great.

And it totally, it encapsulates what the books about, the themes, it works on a couple of different levels as well. And but then when the first time I set it out loud, I was like, oh, those two else, the terminal list. I'm like, oh, they kind of roll together if you say it too quickly. So same thing with the names. So that's, yeah, that's kind of just how it goes.

But how did I get on that? I don't even know where I was going with it. There's a Greek expression, character is fate. Right? So like the process, the rules, the standards you hold yourself to, the commitment ultimately gets you, is destiny. It's deterministic. Right? I mean, you can also trip and fall, and you will at some point, you're going to get,, you can also trip and fall, and you will, at some point, you're gonna get, if you don't trip and fall, you're gonna get hit, and you're gonna hit really hard. But that's part of the team.

But that's part of the team. Do you have a resilient character, or do you have a fragile character? Do you have a character that's willing to improve or a character that takes things personally? Or write the character ultimately determines where you're gonna, it's not saying you're gonna be great tomorrow, but it is deterministic and predictive

of what the output's gonna be. Yeah, and I think it's really about that constant improvement being a lifelong student over whatever you're doing, whether that's warfare or whether that's writing for me now, I'm a lifelong student, so I'm never gonna get to that. I never use the term expert ever on anything, and I'm always striving to be better tomorrow

than I was today. So, we have a saying in the SEAL team, is you're gonna earn your trident every day. And that's what you owe the people that came before you, the legacy that they passed on to you, and that's what you'll future generations of SEALs as well that are looking up to you. They're just coming up the ranks.

So, it's earning that tried and every day and the same thing. I'm earning that trust of the readership every day, whether it's an Instagram post or a guest on my podcast or a novel as much thought goes into every single sentence in the book, it goes into any Instagram post or any question that I ask someone on my podcast because once again people who trust me with their time, they're not getting it back. Well, it's true in writing to your last book, we'll never write your next one. I have a little sign on my desk upstairs and it's on the wall. And says, are you being a good steward of stoicism?

The idea that you, so you get the success or the platform. And then yes, it's nice and it's a reward for your work, but it's also a certain amount of responsibility and obligation. And you have to earn it every day. You have to live up to it, you have to uphold the ideas that got you there in the first place. And we know what happens when you don't, right?

It might not be an immediate decline, it might not be some calamitous collapse, but it is eventually the end of the forward progress that you're talking about. Oh yeah, I gotta keep moving forward. I talk to the kids about that all the time. I try to say that as often as I can work it in naturally, to never miss an opportunity to make somebody's day

and keep improving, always just steady improvement. And especially in the days now social media with these kids, our kids coming up, when they're seeing that snapshot of somebody else's life that looks just perfect. And really if that's a personal account or if it's a company that's trying to sell you something, it's still an advertisement, regardless.

And so at least recognizing that, but then you have to operate within that environment everyday and still make slow and steady progress when all you're seeing is somebody else or comparing yourself to somebody else and that one second of their day, that is tailored to give you that advertisement whether it's personal or professional.

So I try to talk to the kids about that as much as I possibly can because they have to contend with it essentially their whole lives where it came into our lives a lot later and we can kind of look at it and know what it's doing to us and know what it exists for and realize, hey, this is a tool that we can use

and I try to use it in a positive way. Obviously, most of it is negative, I would say. If I had to guess, if I had to say, which way is it more positive or negative, I would say is probably more negative, because you have to take active steps to remain positive on there and add value to people's lives with what you're doing in these engagements

when there is so much negativity coming out there. If you're any sort of a public figure, and oftentimes if you're not a public figure like for high school kids I mean there is so much coming at them from peer groups and from tech companies and advertisers and everything else that wants to influence behavior and even thought. That's something that we didn't have to contend with when we were 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 years old. I told you about my routine a million times. Every morning I get up and I go for a walk or a run with the kids. Occasionally it's a bike ride, but every day it's active time in the morning with the kids. So I usually sleep in my running shorts, so I just pop up and go for the walk. And then sometimes I'm jumping straight in the pool in those same shorts with the kids in the summer and

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All right, one more question then we'll go to the audience. How do you, I imagine, as I do it a little bit, sort of marvel at when did the terminal was come out? 2018? 2018. There's a lot of books in a short time. People make it like how do you do it? I imagine I'm exhausted. I'm. 2018. There's a lot of books in a short time. People make it like, how do you do it? I imagine it's a magical solution.

Writing a lot. It's not a magical solution, but it's that, what when we say characters' fate, the sort of process is also fate. If you spend a lot of time writing, publish books come out of the other side of that. Yep, oh yeah, I'm exhausted. I prioritize things and put sleeping,

eating right and working out at the bottom. Okay. That's just how it is. So hopefully I'm going to start changing that. I'm going to need to start changing that because you can only drink so much coffee and so much bourbon before it starts to do a two impact. Also, if you think about it from a sustainability standpoint, you can only sprint for so long. You have to learn how to pace yourself.

Yeah, to care yourself. Yeah, that's good advice. I'm going to write that down. And. Yeah, yeah. To carry yourself. Yeah, that's good advice. I'm going to write that down. And see if I can work that in later. But so far, it's felt like a full-on sprint. But I feel so fortunate that the books are resonating with people, and the series seems to be resonating

with audiences. So I feel like this is the time to sprint. But it would be wiser to start today with some exercise, and maybe some journaling, or maybe take a little, take a breath, and meditate. But by that point, or maybe take a little, take a breath and meditate. But by that point, like the kids are up and screaming at a time for school and we're juggling a dog's barking and we're like, ah, chaos.

And then I gotta work in the writing however I can. But that's just life right now. Yeah, there's gotta be, I think, space like for an athlete to rest and recover. This is the number one contributor to injury is overtraining, right, or over doing it. It's a good advice. I'm gonna write down. Yeah.

But yeah, thus far, it's been the process has been to come up with a one-page executive summary, kind of like a book flap jacket. And then I ask myself the question, hey, is this good enough for me to devote one year of my life to? And if the answer is yes, then I read it again and say, hey, is this good enough

to have someone risk their time on? That's never gonna get back. And if the answer to both of those is yes, then that's the project, that's the one. And I come up with a title right away because I don't wanna have this bandwidth, worry, don't, man, I gotta figure out this title as I'm writing.

I have a theme right away. Now it's more than one word. It's turning to about a sentence, but I have that to guide me as well. And I turn that one page executive summary into an outline. And then I take that outline and turn that into the novel. So that's been the process thus far to include the sixth one that I'm working on right now. But eventually, I'm going to have to, I think that process works well for me, but I'm going

to have to structure it into my day a little, a little better than I have in the past. Because once again, it's a, yeah, as you said, it's a, you you only sprint for so long. Yes. If you want to do it for a long time if you just want to sprint for a short time you can. That's hence the sprint. All right let's do questions try to be loud and then we'll also repeat the questions and we'll go from there. Go for it. What's the sentence or words of the post it in open the six now? Oh you know I'm still working on that one so I have it I have the one page executive summary and I have the theme, I have the title, which is classified. And I'm turning that into the outline right now,

I have beginning, middle, and I have all that sort of a thing, but there's one theme that I need to work on that's going to take it all the way through. So I'm still working on that one sentence for this one, but it'll come quick. It'll come before I start the writing process. So I'm still working on that one sentence for this one, but it'll come quick. It'll come before I start the writing process. So yeah. What would you say, this book's theme is? This is a sniper centric novel of violent resolutions, but it's a sniper centric novel is really

what I went with the whole time here. But as I started writing, another theme emerged very quickly, and that was one of forgiveness and it wouldn't necessarily be one that you'd associate with one of my novels, but it works in very naturally into the beginning, into this chapter that I wrote, which is chapter three, and it's on the website, I released a PDF of the first three chapters and the prologue and the preface. This is where the mom comes in, right? Yeah, the mom coming down, the matriarch of the Hastings family. And I was probably the favorite chapter that I've ever, ever written.

And it's just very naturally this theme of forgiveness worked its way in, and then that worked its way through really the rest of the novel. But don't worry, still people get blown up and get stabbed in the eyeball into capitated. So don't, yeah. So don't worry, it's still one of my novels. Good, now. on the ramp back there

the signature weapon that's how your logo and the jay free uses for a whole team is good uh... how did you decide on that act to be it's yeah so the question is how did I decide on it right there bam the uh... the winkler tomahawks rnd hawks from winkler daniel winkler i didn't uh... in north karyl i'm and uh... so i got to know daniel winkler Tomahawks, the R&D Hawks from Winkler, Daniel Winkler, I didn't in North Carolina. So, I got to know Daniel Winkler a long time ago, and he started making axes, Tomahawks, for some of our more elite special operations units, and they were all a little bit different

depending on the unit. But they used to be given like ceremonial. Some guys took them down range, actually used them. But I was always drawn to the Tomahawk. Well before, I knew Daniel Winkler, and I had these Tomhawks growing up as a kid when Cold Steel came out with a like a new modern version. Like I had that right away and then I had the Ranger hatchet that they had that was kind of a throwback to Rogers Rangers and all that. So I was always drawn to the Tomhawk for whatever reason. And then it started getting used in the War on Terror

and started being used down range and being given to guys is ceremonial type of a gift when they get to a unit that's or prove themselves in that unit. Then I got to know Daniel Winkler, same way and he did the knives and the hatchets for last of the Mohicans. Just an amazing guy. I've been out to spend time with him and is placed in North Carolina and just became a dear friend and then when I retired from the military I gave my kids four things. I gave them a Bible with their name on it. I gave them a compass, an old nautical compass. I gave them a leather-bound constitution and then I gave them a winkler tomahawk.

I said, here's the Bible in the compass to help guide you. Here's the constitution that holds our natural rights and then I give them the tomahawk and said, here's the means to defend it. So after that I was writing the book and I made it to the Tomahawk and said, here's the means to defend it. And so after that, I was writing the book and I made it to Simon and Schuster and had this publication date and I was thinking, you know what I need to, I need a symbol. I'm like, huh, and I looked at those gifts

and I took two of them and I put them on the ground and crossed them and I took a picture of it and I sent it to my publisher Emily and I'm like, hey, what do you think, what do you think about this? And she said, I love it. And then I sent it to Daniel Winkler and I said, hey, is it cool if I use this for my logo? And he said, absolutely.

So that's how the Cross Tomahawks were born. And yeah, they have a starring role in the series with Chris Pratt coming up. So and my goal of air was kind of to make it the, kind of the Rambo knife of the 21st century for those who grew up during the 80s. So yeah, and not really shockingly, I guess, but Amazon was on board, so yeah, pretty cool.

Pretty cool. So you started to touch on this with some last questions of Brian. Obviously you're an author, but you use somebody other thing to podcast, because you have a brand. So you've kind of become a brand of your own between everything you do.

How do you see the relationship between writing books and also podcasts, brand relationships, social media, stuff like this? Yeah. How do you see that relationship? Yeah, so the question was about being an author, but then also creating a brand, essentially. And I recognized early on that if. Yeah, so the question was about being an author, but then also creating a brand essentially. And I recognized early on that if I wanted to keep writing,

I needed people to buy my books. That'd be aware that I existed. And that this was, at the time, I'm writing in late 2014, 2015, 2016, I'm finishing up and then editing, and then sending it to Simon and Schuster. And I didn't really, as I was writing, I wasn't spending time looking at other authors' websites or looking at social, I had no social media. I wasn't coming from politics, I wasn't coming from sports, I wasn't coming

from anything that gave me any sort of background or recognition. I had zero recognition, but as I finished it up and then sent it to Simon and Schuster and then they accepted it. And then I wanted to publish it obviously, but then I started thinking, oh, okay, maybe I need a website. And then, cause I still thought at the time, one of the draws of being an author was you could go to a cabin in the mountains of Wright,

send it to New York and then write your next book. No, that's, I mean, that would be, that's an outlier. If you're doing that, like you wrote 50 shades of gray or you're JK Rowling or something along those lines. So those are the outlier. If you're doing that, like you wrote 50 shades of gray or your JK Rowling or something along those lines Like those are the outliers like we know all those names twilight. Maybe you can get away with it But for everybody else you have to build that readership and there are things that I could do today That you couldn't have done in 1995

85 75 so all those authors I read growing up I would love to have known more about them I would love to have known when their next book's coming out. But back in the 80s, you didn't know, is it going to be a year? Is it going to be two years? It's going to be two and a half. You had no idea because there were very few authors that were on this one book a year schedule. A Clive Custler did it early on.

He was one of the first Stephen King started doing it, even though it wasn't a series character, it was just different books. So those are kind of the two that started it. And then by the late 90s, that I turned into, if you had a recurring character, that's what people wanted. So you have Daniel Silva with the Gabriel O'London series, you have Vince Flynn, then you have Brad Thor,

so you have these recurring characters that are series characters that are now coming out every year. But there are things that you could do in 2015, you couldn't have done in 2005, certainly not 1995, certainly 1985. So I thought, well, if I was an author in 2015, you couldn't have done in 2005, certainly not 1995, certainly 1985. So I thought, well, if I was an author in 1985, when could I thank people for buying my book? Well, at a book signing, maybe at a convention,

but that's it. Now, when can I do it? I can do it every day on social media. When someone reaches out and says they bought the book or they post it, guess what I can do? I can repost that and then I can send them a thank you. I can send them a little thumbs up and American flag and I love doing that because I am so thankful and so grateful that they did that and then told a friend and maybe they're

followers, maybe they have two and maybe they have 35 million. Maybe they have everything in between but that's something an author couldn't have done back in 1985. Same thing with the podcast. We couldn't have had a podcast obviously back in 1985. Well, what can podcast. You couldn't have had a podcast obviously back in 1985. Well, what can I do today? I continue to build that readership with a podcast. I can engage with my audience with a podcast. I can add value, hopefully, to people's lives

through that podcast, through my engagement on social media. So everything that I do supports the book, or support the books in general, but it's just another way to engage with an audience, provide value to them so that when the book comes out, they will get it. That would be fantastic, but it's all about building that readership in ways that you couldn't have done 30 years ago.

Yeah. Can you see movie making becoming a third career, or were you going to say through your writing and an absolute set? Part of that. Yes, so there have been many an author who have been lured in by Hollywood over the years. I'm well aware of that. So the books are always remain my focus, and I have a bunch of other projects now working in Hollywood that are in various early stages. And you never know if they're going to go anywhere, but for me it's just fun to do.

I'm learning something new. I'm learning about screenwriting, the showrunner for the terminalist, David DeGilio really took me under his wing right away. We wrote this pilot episode. He really wrote it and I was just learning and he was mentoring me along. And it was so fun to work together.

We've talked every day since December of 2019 to include today. And so I learned so much about that and then being on set. I got to add so much more to it than the normal author would have. That's what I was told anyway. So then people start talking, just like they do in any industry, and then call start coming in.

So I'm talking to a bunch of different people in Hollywood about different projects. And who knows if they go anywhere, if they do great, if they don't, you know what, I can use those ideas and morph them into my next novel. Or I can create other stand-alone based on those ideas. So, I have a lot of ideas and I love working on them and I'd love to do some more Hollywood projects. But right now it's the books. And then I'm outlining season two of the terminal list. If we get that, get another season,

then have this outline built out. But there's an issue with that one for those of Red True Believer because that one's building towards a threatened Russian invasion of Ukraine. And now that's happened. So I can't stay too true to that, you know, the plot. You have to get a little creative in that sense. But I love all these creative endeavors. I feel so fortunate. Speaking of public, have you been operating in capital or the cameo? Keep your eyes peeled on July 1st. Is there anything that surprised you thus far in your transition and the reception to work? Yeah, a question was that any of it has surprised me.

I guess just a lot of surprises, that one was that I couldn't just lock myself on a cabin in the mountains and write and expect people to know who I was and by the books. So that was one, but I adjusted quickly. And the other one was, I guess, mostly from, I was surprised that Simon and Schuster or Hollywood didn't want to change anything really about the, I guess some of the foundational elements of these novels. So I guess that was a surprise just because I didn't know, because I have no touch point, didn't have any touch points with both those industries going in. And then the other one on the Hollywood front was that anything gets made in Hollywood at all.

That's that, that is now a shock. I didn't know to be shocked by that, but now that I've seen this whole process, I can see, ah, okay, now I'm surprised that anything gets made or that anything good gets made, because there are so many opportunities for things to totally derail. There's so many people involved, you really have to put a great team together, just like anything else in life, and you all have to trust one another. So Chris and AntsOne and our showrunner and Gerr Chah and Raymond Doza and Max Adams,

like this core team of people that were so devoted to this project kept it on the rails. And so I can see how if you had a couple people as part of that team that had some other vision or whatever it is, I can see how things could derail very quickly. And then also how great everybody is in Hollywood at their jobs.

I guess I didn't really think about it ahead of time, but I walked on set and everyone is so good at their individual job and they're at the top of their profession. And I guess I didn't really think about it before, but now I understand why people hear about Hollywood. Only the person that can plug this thing in can plug this thing in. And that's because this thing is a Lamborghini and it is flying around the track at over 200 miles an hour. And if one part of that engine is doing something different

for a second because they get distracted, guess what, tink, tink, tink, tink, and that thing is going into the shop. So you have to be so devoted to your very specific task. And then the other thing is how similar Hollywood is to a military operation. You have craft food services that I need to feed the troops. You have the explosives guy on set,

like a breacher in your platoon in the SEAL teams. You have your armor right there, there's checking weapons in and out, doing the serial numbers, doing the inventory. You have your mobility guy who has the vehicles set up for the right scenes and has in the right places, just like you have a mobility person in your platoon. And we have Antoine Fuqua, he's the commanding officer.

He's the top, he is setting that tone strategically for everybody. And then you have Chris Pratt here setting the tone tactically for everyone. And so that, how similar it was to a military operation or a military unit, that was, I guess that was a surprise, but only because I hadn't thought of it before. Let's do three more and then,

Jack will sign all your books inside. sign on your books inside. Yeah, so question was about the Danger Close Podcast. They come out on Wednesdays and Fridays. And that's how I decide who to have on. And yeah, so I didn't really know going in. I just thought it was going to be another way to really talk about some more contentious issues that really social media doesn't lend itself to when you get asked a question about something that you really want to go into maybe detail or have a discussion about rather

than just giving a single sentence answer that leads itself to just more attacks and you know, you don't want to engage. But then it really right off the bat, I mean, it hit right off the bat. And I was very lucky that I reached out to Ironclad who produces it because it's important, just like in anything, like with a sniper weapon system to know your capabilities, end your limitations. So my capability was, okay, I could order the podcast little thing and I could plug in the headsets

and I could get the cards and I could set up, this was a stretch, set up the camera and press record and press record like there, but anything else, that was beyond my capability. So figuring out how to get a password for some sort of a platform and put it up there, create a graphic, or spend the time reaching out to people and setting things up in a professional way. So Iron Cloud does all that and that's something that I could never possibly do. And now they also handle all the bookings for me. So if it's a friend that I want to come on, I just link them up and they get them

in the schedule. And sometimes people reach out, like Bill Barr, he reached out or his publicist reach out, I guess, and wanted to come on, so former attorney general. And he came on last Monday, and that'll come out in a week or two. But when that one was really quick, that's one of being adaptable, comes in.

So I had to read that book, which is fairly thick, for those of you who've read it, it's fantastic. But then we got to sit down and talk. And I was a little nervous, you know, easily sharp. And I was coming off a trip, coming off sick freedom days in Phoenix last weekend and got home super late and then put my questions together. And he was so great.

He was so sharp and on it. But I think we could have talked forever. I thought that he was gonna just, like who's this guy? That's gonna just get through this thing. But he was fantastic. I think we could have talked for three or thought that he was gonna just, like who's this guy, that's gonna just get through this thing. But he was fans, I think we could have talked for three or four hours. And I kinda went fast on it

because I was just being very cognizant of his time because of who he is. But next thing I know, he's inviting me out to DC for a scotch. So we'll definitely be doing that at some point this year. So yeah, I just like to talk to people who are interesting and then also it's an opportunity to talk to friends because I'm so busy all the time that it's like,

oh, I can turn my phone off for an hour, for two hours, not have my email popping up and I can just talk to catch up with a buddy. Let's record that and put it up online and see if people like it. So it's fun for me to do that. Back there. Sir, so under a DNA kind of personal teaching

or conflict between kind of your previous professional, which was primarily in the shadows versus this, which is much more repassion and public facing. Yeah, so the question was about any sort of conflict between my last profession in the military and then what's now more obviously a lot more public. And yeah, you have to kind of just get over it. So if I want to be an author and I want to continue to be an author, which is what I love doing, guess what else comes along with that?

These other things, these other responsibilities. So for me, it was just like that's just how it goes. And I didn't really put too much thought into it other than conducting myself in a way that's real and authentic and thoughtful. And I try to do that no matter what I do, but that would have been true regardless of whether I'm public facing or not.

And I think that authenticity piece really helps today also because back in 1985, 1989, 1993, you didn't really know who somebody was, you got their book, and maybe you could take some things out because of even if it's fiction, just out of the pages, ish. But there wasn't a way to really get to know them. You didn't really know.

They're back right? I didn't know if they seemed like a nice person. I don't know. Maybe you saw one interview with them on a morning show or heard them on the radio once. And they seemed nice. Oh, that guy did not seem very nice. He got off of the wrong side of the bed.

Oh, she's now I'm not gonna get his stuff. But I think that authenticity piece really helps today. Because you can't really be fake for, I mean, you can do it maybe for a little bit online on social media. But if you do it for too long, I mean, you can do it maybe for a little bit online on social media, but if you do it for too long, like one, the real you is gonna show, and it must be just exhausting. So who has time for that? So the conflict, I didn't really have a conflict in changing professions, I just knew that it was, this would be a part of it.

All right, last question. Do you have one? So out of every kill in your book, which kill is your favorite in a lot? Ooh, I've never been asked this question before. That's a great one. Which kill is my favorite and why? Oh, that is such a great question. And sometimes people ask me like my favorite, which book is my favorite? And it's always the last one that I've been working on,

and now it's number six that I'm working on right now. And I think that's just because of the investment and being, and actually loving doing it and then loving creating the characters and then having them interact through dialogue and so I just love every part of it. So I love the one I'm working on now more than the ones in the past because those ones are already in the past. But favorite kill. Oh man, Savage Sun and the Cabin is pretty good just because it was pretty

creative and I'd never seen that anywhere before. Oh, man, Savage Sun and the Cabin is pretty good just because it was pretty creative and I'd never seen that anywhere before. If I haven't read it, I won't spoil it. The capitation was pretty good, you know? It's, yeah, that was a good one. That was a good one. I don't think I've ever told this story before. So where did I get that one?

And so I was talking to someone who had, when involved in the Iran Contro affair. And they had spent time in Central South America. And they mentioned this thing that happened with the shining path gorilla movement. And that's something that they did. They did actually, they eviscerated people right here, attacked their intestines to a tree

and had them walk around it as a message to others. And I was like, hmm, that sounds like a good, that seems like a great thing for James Rastow. Yeah, so I did, I filed that way. And also there's a couple of ran-contra things for those that are paying attention. I dropped little tidbits in there because of the cold war and what I want to go back to in this floor

with James Reese's dad and that sort of a thing. But that's where I got that idea was somebody mentioned it and I was like, hmm, that sounds interesting. And that's the one that I get asked about most when people, when I mentioned the Amazon series. As soon as I mentioned the Amazon series was coming out, people either said, Amazon will never let you do this or I hope Amazon keeps that scene in. Those are the two.

And every time that happens, screenshot, send to Amazon. Screenshot, send to Amazon. Screenshot, so they have like five of them. Like stop sending us these things. So you have to wait and see if it actually made it in there or not. All right. Thank you all for coming. Thank you for.

Absolutely. Thank you guys. We'll take care. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes That would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode episode. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke Early and Add Free on Amazon Music,

download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up.

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