WEBVTT 00:00.605 --> 00:01.612 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Jamie Cochran. 00:01.733 --> 00:02.680 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Life Babin. 00:02.700 --> 00:03.043 [SPEAKER_00]: Mead Win. 00:03.264 --> 00:05.400 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Extreme Watership Podcast. 00:07.304 --> 00:12.210 [SPEAKER_01]: Our life, we got a great topic for this week's podcast, starting a new venture. 00:12.851 --> 00:30.154 [SPEAKER_01]: So whether that's, I want to start a business, maybe I want to make a little bit of a career change, maybe I want to enlist in the military, maybe I want to start a family, there's a lot of things that we should be thinking about and analyzing before taking the step to jump into that new venture. 00:30.695 --> 00:33.278 [SPEAKER_01]: So from your perspective, 00:33.258 --> 00:38.025 [SPEAKER_01]: If we've got people out there that are thinking about making that change, maybe starting a new business. 00:38.645 --> 00:39.286 [SPEAKER_01]: Where do they start? 00:39.547 --> 00:41.509 [SPEAKER_01]: What are some things that we should be thinking about? 00:42.010 --> 00:44.774 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a great topic because we get this question all the time. 00:44.894 --> 00:51.643 [SPEAKER_00]: From people that maybe aren't happy with a current job, want a new job, many people want to start their own business, they want to be their own boss. 00:51.663 --> 00:54.507 [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of the dream that they want to achieve. 00:54.487 --> 00:56.930 [SPEAKER_00]: And the reality is we both know is that's hard. 00:57.110 --> 00:59.093 [SPEAKER_00]: That's a hard thing that's a long path. 00:59.513 --> 01:03.959 [SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of people probably don't realize what they're getting themselves into. 01:04.260 --> 01:07.203 [SPEAKER_00]: I have a lot of people talking to me about wanting to write a book as well. 01:07.564 --> 01:08.345 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to write a book. 01:08.926 --> 01:11.108 [SPEAKER_00]: I try to tell them for extreme ownership. 01:11.148 --> 01:17.777 [SPEAKER_00]: But Jaco and I have 10,000 man hours tied up in writing and editing and editing and editing. 01:17.757 --> 01:31.056 [SPEAKER_00]: you know just over and over and over again so it's a it's a huge lift to try to do those things and put in that for nothing a lot of people maybe don't realize that and some people want to be decisive right so they just I want to go all in on this. 01:31.096 --> 01:31.918 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to be my own boss. 01:31.938 --> 01:32.859 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to launch my own business. 01:33.300 --> 01:34.922 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's jump right into this 01:34.902 --> 01:53.164 [SPEAKER_00]: quit my job, you know, take out a second mortgage on my home, dive right into hanging a shingle somewhere, and investing a ton of money into products or services or whatever it is, hiring people, locking down rent or purchasing a bill that whenever it is. 01:53.144 --> 01:54.186 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't advise that. 01:54.306 --> 01:55.348 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that's a good call. 01:55.448 --> 02:02.700 [SPEAKER_00]: I think what they should do is what we talked about on previous episode, which is take iterative steps in the direction that seems best. 02:03.101 --> 02:08.250 [SPEAKER_00]: So if I want to go that direction, what's the smallest step that I can take in that direction? 02:08.230 --> 02:37.782 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's one of the ways that we mitigate risk on the battlefield is instead of you know we're getting shot at from a particular direction Instead of trying to set back and make the perfect call based on the just my new tiny amount of information that we have I should take an intercept hey Sean take a couple guys get to the rooftop and tell me what you see Before I commit all of my forces to some giant flanking maneuver or breaking contact or you know maneuvering left or right or assaulting the position 02:37.762 --> 02:41.167 [SPEAKER_00]: The probably the best step is like what's the smallest step I could take in the direction? 02:41.187 --> 02:43.570 [SPEAKER_00]: That's a way to mitigate risk. 02:43.590 --> 02:51.881 [SPEAKER_00]: And you don't want to be in a position where you launch a business, you went all in, you took out a second mortgage on your home, you quit your well-paying job. 02:52.362 --> 02:56.728 [SPEAKER_00]: And now you and your family are living on the streets because you got kicked out of your home, because you can't pay your bills. 02:57.509 --> 02:58.270 [SPEAKER_00]: None of us want to be there. 02:58.290 --> 02:59.652 [SPEAKER_00]: That's a bad place to be. 02:59.632 --> 03:07.781 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, I think taking this smallest step in the direction that seems best based on the information that you have, then reevaluating and making some adjustments. 03:08.261 --> 03:16.650 [SPEAKER_00]: And once that, if that business starts to prove successful, awesome, then you can get to a point where you're so busy doing that that you really can't keep up with your primary job. 03:16.670 --> 03:18.452 [SPEAKER_00]: You might have to walk away for your primary job. 03:18.472 --> 03:19.793 [SPEAKER_00]: There's going to be a little element of risk in that. 03:20.114 --> 03:25.960 [SPEAKER_00]: Don't just dive right all into something before you really sure that that thing's going to be successful. 03:26.007 --> 03:34.982 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's definitely a line of that in the culture where that's pervasive and it's not just with starting a new business, it's with all kinds of different things. 03:35.002 --> 03:36.725 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, hey, you know, New Year's resolutions. 03:37.646 --> 03:39.750 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, when's the busiest time of the year for a gym? 03:40.270 --> 03:41.232 [SPEAKER_01]: January 2nd. 03:41.212 --> 03:42.275 [SPEAKER_01]: Everybody shows up. 03:42.355 --> 03:43.698 [SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's ready to get after it. 03:43.738 --> 03:44.962 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm going to change everything. 03:45.443 --> 03:46.786 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I bought this membership. 03:47.087 --> 03:48.611 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I signed up for a marathon. 03:48.691 --> 03:49.573 [SPEAKER_01]: I did all these things. 03:49.694 --> 03:52.681 [SPEAKER_01]: And then what happens is there are two weeks down the road. 03:52.842 --> 03:53.464 [SPEAKER_01]: They're injured. 03:53.504 --> 03:54.045 [SPEAKER_01]: They're limping. 03:54.105 --> 03:54.707 [SPEAKER_01]: They're burn out. 03:54.747 --> 03:57.313 [SPEAKER_01]: And then they're just going back to the road habit. 03:57.333 --> 03:57.955 [SPEAKER_01]: So, 03:57.935 --> 04:08.876 [SPEAKER_00]: I live that to in our discipline equals freedom reset the death reset that we have with a jockel fuel a national front our leadership is holding business and we do this. 04:08.896 --> 04:14.627 [SPEAKER_00]: So every every you know first of January it's 30 30 days of of getting after it. 04:14.607 --> 04:18.898 [SPEAKER_00]: So you know on the path training nutrition and it's awesome. 04:18.918 --> 04:24.052 [SPEAKER_00]: We have thousands of people that participate in that and a couple years ago I was all in on the death reset. 04:24.092 --> 04:25.235 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going and I'm going hard. 04:25.255 --> 04:30.810 [SPEAKER_00]: I kind of let things up a little bit over the Christmas holidays We might nutrition plan and my training plan 04:30.790 --> 04:43.222 [SPEAKER_00]: And so when I came back January 1, I was trained in jujitsu every single day, back to back and I'm talking training hard, going all in, heavy rolls, working out on the path, getting after it. 04:43.882 --> 04:53.211 [SPEAKER_00]: And after about day five of that, I sustained a back injury that set me back for like three weeks where I really couldn't train hard, really couldn't do a whole lot. 04:53.511 --> 04:57.355 [SPEAKER_00]: And so instead of actually getting me where I needed to go, 04:57.335 --> 04:59.559 [SPEAKER_00]: Because I was all and I was gonna make it happen. 04:59.799 --> 05:08.914 [SPEAKER_00]: I actually I actually it set me back and it took me well into February or March until I really got back on to a good training path So you're gonna take get rid of steps. 05:08.934 --> 05:20.794 [SPEAKER_00]: It's great to be on the path But you want to do that smartly the long term sustainability for the strategic mission to reach those those long-term strategic goals is what we're talking about 05:20.774 --> 05:29.407 [SPEAKER_01]: So when we talk about that era of decision making and you said the word risk mitigation, I think a lot of people view risk mitigation in the wrong light and I did too. 05:29.487 --> 05:33.754 [SPEAKER_01]: When I was a young guy in the military, I viewed risk mitigation as a negative. 05:33.774 --> 05:40.684 [SPEAKER_01]: Like any time a senior officer came to me and talked about risk mitigation or said, hey, show me what you've done to mitigate risk on this operation. 05:41.285 --> 05:43.348 [SPEAKER_01]: I looked at them as being like riskiverse. 05:43.649 --> 05:47.254 [SPEAKER_01]: Like they don't want me to go on this operation because they're riskiverse. 05:47.234 --> 05:51.122 [SPEAKER_01]: And then I had a really amazing commanding officer when I was a troop commander. 05:51.422 --> 05:53.086 [SPEAKER_01]: I was talking to my commanding officer. 05:53.106 --> 05:57.414 [SPEAKER_01]: He really changed my perspective on risk mitigation. 05:57.454 --> 06:02.003 [SPEAKER_01]: Because what he told me is risk mitigation is all about. 06:02.337 --> 06:03.919 [SPEAKER_01]: your ability to be aggressive. 06:04.440 --> 06:19.682 [SPEAKER_01]: So if I want to be able to go behind enemy lines with my platoon of 16 people without the ability to really support or reinforce us, I have to be able to mitigate risk to my force along the way. 06:19.742 --> 06:27.754 [SPEAKER_01]: So it reframed this to now when I think about risk mitigation, what I think about is it's what allows me to be default aggressive. 06:27.734 --> 06:36.448 [SPEAKER_01]: It's not wise when starting a new business to go all in and put all of your eggs in one basket and to leverage a second mortgage on your home. 06:36.988 --> 06:41.335 [SPEAKER_01]: The best thing to do is mitigate risk take those iterative steps along the way. 06:41.836 --> 06:48.206 [SPEAKER_01]: And then when you've gathered enough information and your confident that this is a business that can work and you're moving in the right direction. 06:48.787 --> 06:55.277 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, because I've taken those smart steps to mitigate risk along the way, now I can be default aggressive. 06:55.257 --> 07:00.504 [SPEAKER_01]: and I can deploy that capital that I need to deploy in that area, confidently, I can take that loan. 07:00.624 --> 07:05.670 [SPEAKER_01]: I can leverage that mortgage confidently because I've mitigated risk along the way. 07:05.850 --> 07:11.677 [SPEAKER_00]: You have to very carefully evaluate the purpose, the goal and the insane that you're trying to achieve. 07:11.717 --> 07:13.620 [SPEAKER_00]: For sure, I think that's what we're talking about. 07:13.640 --> 07:14.982 [SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about crafting a mission. 07:15.622 --> 07:16.724 [SPEAKER_00]: What does that actually look like? 07:17.184 --> 07:24.994 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think when you have that mission, then you can start to take some steps in the direction, 07:24.974 --> 07:29.941 [SPEAKER_00]: The mission needs to be, I love that you have a bigger mission for primal beef and to think about that. 07:30.001 --> 07:45.784 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's, we have a bigger mission to take the lessons that we learned in combat to impact people's lives, to make them better and make everybody around them better and to share those lessons is widely as possible to as many people across the world as we possibly can. 07:46.186 --> 07:48.409 [SPEAKER_00]: That's our mission, and that's a huge mission. 07:48.429 --> 07:51.874 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a huge goal, but I think it should be a bigger mission, right? 07:51.894 --> 07:52.915 [SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, it's bigger than you. 07:52.935 --> 07:57.782 [SPEAKER_00]: It's something that hopefully lasts beyond you, beyond your legacy for generations to come. 07:58.543 --> 08:03.990 [SPEAKER_00]: I think what's not a good mission is I don't like my boss, and I want to be my own boss. 08:04.471 --> 08:05.171 [SPEAKER_00]: That's not a good mission. 08:05.892 --> 08:13.763 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, there's some good in that, but I think just like anything, if you want to start your own business, if you want to dive into something, 08:14.502 --> 08:23.044 [SPEAKER_00]: It starts, like from a combat mission planning standpoint, it starts with evaluating the mission and what you want to do that the purpose goal and set you trying to achieve. 08:23.176 --> 08:25.239 [SPEAKER_00]: And then it starts with some intelligence gathering. 08:25.259 --> 08:26.381 [SPEAKER_00]: You need to gather some intelligence. 08:26.622 --> 08:32.751 [SPEAKER_00]: He's what a lot of people are not doing is go out there and actually talk to people who started their own business, find out how they're doing. 08:33.172 --> 08:34.895 [SPEAKER_00]: And you should talk to people who are successful. 08:35.776 --> 08:40.504 [SPEAKER_00]: That's kind of obvious that we see that, but you should also talk to people who were not successful. 08:40.905 --> 08:45.432 [SPEAKER_00]: Because there's many, many of them out there who started their own business and it didn't work out. 08:45.492 --> 08:45.933 [SPEAKER_00]: And guess what? 08:46.193 --> 08:50.500 [SPEAKER_00]: They realized that being their own boss wasn't actually all that was cracked up to be. 08:50.480 --> 09:17.348 [SPEAKER_00]: And when you start digging into this and realizing you know what does it mean to be everyone people want to be an entrepreneur they want to be in their own boss There's some really tremendously great things about that and that's awesome and there's something great about building your own business But I think you have to recognize that at best case scenario it takes years and years and years effort to make that successful where that can actually pay the bills And where that can actually grow in most cases that's actually what it takes and being your boss means that you don't get paid time off 09:18.037 --> 09:20.821 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you are working all the time. 09:20.841 --> 09:23.325 [SPEAKER_00]: There's really never a time when work isn't happening. 09:23.946 --> 09:32.940 [SPEAKER_00]: And there's many, many times where like, I put my kids in bed and I'm cracking my computer and I'm staying up, you know, all my work and all stuff, you know, you're diving into things. 09:33.020 --> 09:34.122 [SPEAKER_00]: It may mean, 09:34.102 --> 09:45.479 [SPEAKER_00]: days of sleepless nights, you know, to accomplish a task or make a project happen, it may mean, you know, taking a second mortgage out on your home, you know, to make sure that you can meet payroll. 09:45.940 --> 09:50.807 [SPEAKER_00]: So you don't have to let employees go, you know, when you're going through tough times, there's a lot that goes into that. 09:50.908 --> 09:55.755 [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a lot of risks that happens, you know, because of that, you know, it might mean that, you know, it might mean that, you know, 09:55.735 --> 10:14.132 [SPEAKER_00]: you don't have health insurance right or you don't have a 401k plan all those things that we take for granted you have to be the one that's running payroll you have to be the one that's running the administrative task until you get your business to a point where you can afford to hire someone that can these are things that a lot of people don't think about when they just start diving into it and saying oh I want to be my own boss 10:14.348 --> 10:16.092 [SPEAKER_00]: because he got some frustrations with their current. 10:16.112 --> 10:17.955 [SPEAKER_01]: And to your point about, hey, what's the mission? 10:18.156 --> 10:20.541 [SPEAKER_01]: If your mission is, well, I just don't like my boss. 10:21.342 --> 10:25.591 [SPEAKER_01]: That's not going to carry you very far when you are now responsible for all of those different things. 10:25.651 --> 10:29.860 [SPEAKER_01]: And you don't get to turn yourself on off and there's constant problems in any time there's an issue. 10:29.840 --> 10:32.263 [SPEAKER_01]: You're the one that has to solve it and has to fix it. 10:32.684 --> 10:40.374 [SPEAKER_01]: But if you're your mission of wanting to start this new venture is grounded in something that's really meaningful to you, then you're willing to pay that price. 10:40.514 --> 10:43.618 [SPEAKER_01]: And it becomes not just an anchor, but it also becomes a guide. 10:43.718 --> 10:55.493 [SPEAKER_01]: So when I was talking about primal beef, you know, the overarching mission for me for wanting to start a business was to be able to give something or provide the opportunity for my children and to take something over for the family. 10:55.810 --> 11:06.063 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, when you talk about the business itself of primal beef, we have a mission for primal beef, which is to provide the American people with all natural, single-sourced American beef. 11:06.243 --> 11:08.546 [SPEAKER_01]: So that's the mission for primal beef itself. 11:09.267 --> 11:19.180 [SPEAKER_01]: And having that mission allows everything to kind of nest underneath that, because if I have to make a decision, as a leader, my decision is made in light of that mission. 11:19.841 --> 11:21.042 [SPEAKER_01]: Is this 11:21.022 --> 11:23.826 [SPEAKER_01]: providing that service to the American public. 11:24.247 --> 11:25.508 [SPEAKER_01]: Is this supporting this mission? 11:25.589 --> 11:29.414 [SPEAKER_01]: If the answer is no, then I probably shouldn't make that decision. 11:29.474 --> 11:35.343 [SPEAKER_01]: But how many people do you know that start company or that run a company right now that's very large and very successful? 11:36.124 --> 11:39.569 [SPEAKER_01]: And you're asking them like, what are you using to make that decision? 11:39.769 --> 11:42.313 [SPEAKER_01]: And they're not looking at it through the light of the mission. 11:42.633 --> 11:46.118 [SPEAKER_01]: They're just using some other data point to make a decision. 11:46.098 --> 11:56.549 [SPEAKER_00]: People look at a company like Ashlong Front, and they see that we're successful, they see that we're having impact, they see that we're growing, and they think, oh, that was so easy for them, right? 11:56.569 --> 12:00.092 [SPEAKER_00]: People, it's so easy to look at somebody else and say, oh, man, they just made that happen. 12:00.313 --> 12:06.159 [SPEAKER_00]: What they don't see is the years of effort that took place before to get it to where it's successful. 12:06.239 --> 12:13.506 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think for Ashlong, when we lost Ashlong front, 12:13.688 --> 12:29.807 [SPEAKER_00]: Our very first client fresh on front was in December of 2011, and we officially launched as an LLC in February of 2012, and so for the first few years, I had no idea whether this thing was going to ever pay the bills. 12:29.787 --> 12:33.672 [SPEAKER_00]: I turned down some lucrative job offers because I believed in what we were doing. 12:33.833 --> 12:36.116 [SPEAKER_00]: I understood that we had some leadership lessons that we could share. 12:36.436 --> 12:39.881 [SPEAKER_00]: I understood that it would be helpful for people and it was needed in the world. 12:39.981 --> 12:41.583 [SPEAKER_00]: And we absolutely believed in that mission. 12:42.465 --> 12:46.010 [SPEAKER_00]: But thank God my wife had a great job that could pay our bills at the time. 12:46.230 --> 12:51.998 [SPEAKER_00]: And I did, Eschon front was not something that paid our bills at all in the first couple of years. 12:51.978 --> 12:59.347 [SPEAKER_00]: And chocolate had a full-time job with a mortgage company who's he was working for and he was doing work with Ashalam Fraun and working with our clients. 13:00.028 --> 13:03.753 [SPEAKER_00]: And he was teaching leadership and learning a lot with that mortgage company. 13:04.414 --> 13:13.125 [SPEAKER_00]: But it really took, it probably was probably a solid three years before we ever were at to a point where we're like, this can actually pay the bills. 13:13.105 --> 13:24.704 [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember the point in Jocco's life where as the book was about to be launched and he realized, okay, Ashlon front is now up and running and we have enough clients and there's the opportunity for more clients. 13:24.744 --> 13:29.832 [SPEAKER_00]: And he could really see that and he was going to step away from that mortgage business at commit to Ashlon front full time. 13:29.812 --> 13:40.179 [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember him describing to me his daughter's reaction to that, and she was like, No, Dad, we're going to be living on the streets, how are we going to bear bills? 13:40.820 --> 13:44.049 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is, it's kind of funny that we laugh about that now. 13:44.089 --> 13:46.555 [SPEAKER_00]: Look, that is a reality, that's a reality. 13:46.535 --> 13:49.219 [SPEAKER_00]: That's a real thing that he had to consider, right? 13:49.659 --> 13:54.185 [SPEAKER_00]: He's taking risks by stepping away, but how we mitigate risk is this iterative step, right? 13:54.365 --> 13:57.309 [SPEAKER_00]: He didn't just launch all in initially, he had a full-time job. 13:57.329 --> 13:58.291 [SPEAKER_00]: He was doing this part-time. 13:58.951 --> 14:07.783 [SPEAKER_00]: I launched it as a full-time job because I believed in it, but I was able to do that because my wife had a great job, but she was our first angel investor. 14:07.763 --> 14:25.738 [SPEAKER_00]: As I like to say, you know, in echelon front and she believed in what we're doing and she encouraged me to do it and she saw the possibility even really Way beyond anything that I could see at that point it took years to get it to where we wanted it to go Your default position should be everything is going to take a lot longer than you think it's going to 14:26.090 --> 14:27.812 [SPEAKER_00]: And you're going to have to work a whole lot harder. 14:28.293 --> 14:28.934 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely. 14:28.974 --> 14:34.201 [SPEAKER_01]: So we know the importance of iterative decision making, mitigating risk along the way. 14:34.361 --> 14:36.744 [SPEAKER_01]: We know that we have to understand, what's the mission? 14:36.764 --> 14:40.790 [SPEAKER_01]: And again, it's not just for business if we're talking about improving your health. 14:40.830 --> 14:42.072 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, why do you want to improve your health? 14:42.092 --> 14:43.133 [SPEAKER_01]: Why do you want to get in shape? 14:43.554 --> 14:46.237 [SPEAKER_01]: If you want to change your careers, what's the overarching goal from there? 14:46.277 --> 14:48.540 [SPEAKER_01]: So you have to understand what you're trying to achieve. 14:48.921 --> 14:51.945 [SPEAKER_01]: The next thing for me that comes to mind for my experiences, 14:52.499 --> 14:54.701 [SPEAKER_01]: It's always important to keep things simple. 14:54.721 --> 15:17.764 [SPEAKER_01]: It's always important, but never as much so as in the start-up stage of a new venture, specifically if we're talking about a business, keeping things as simple as you possibly can inside of your operation because the more complex you make things and the more out of alignment with the mission that things become, your odds of success become dramatically decreased. 15:17.744 --> 15:22.854 [SPEAKER_00]: No doubt, and this is why Simple is the second law of combat, right? 15:22.874 --> 15:24.497 [SPEAKER_00]: And the first law of combat is cover move. 15:25.118 --> 15:27.082 [SPEAKER_00]: You've got to build a team. 15:27.883 --> 15:31.330 [SPEAKER_00]: That music supports one another, recognizes what that Simple mission is. 15:32.392 --> 15:34.656 [SPEAKER_00]: Those things are defined in a simple, clear, concise manner. 15:34.776 --> 15:40.647 [SPEAKER_00]: If people get that, they understand what the goal is, you could start to build out a team that can 15:40.627 --> 15:43.269 [SPEAKER_00]: mutually support one another to work toward that goal. 15:43.289 --> 15:45.351 [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to have to prioritize and execute as well. 15:45.651 --> 15:48.694 [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to have to take a step back and look at, okay, what are the priorities? 15:49.174 --> 15:53.198 [SPEAKER_00]: We love to launch all these different things and all these different products, but you can't do that. 15:53.218 --> 15:55.260 [SPEAKER_00]: You got to say focus on what you need to do. 15:55.620 --> 15:59.103 [SPEAKER_00]: We've got a lot of people talk to us about what we could do. 15:59.123 --> 16:02.526 [SPEAKER_00]: I just want to front and say, you guys would be great in like the crisis management. 16:02.546 --> 16:06.349 [SPEAKER_00]: You should focus into that area or have a niche focus on this particular industry. 16:06.630 --> 16:10.633 [SPEAKER_00]: Are they tell us, hey, you know, you've got experience in the SEAL teams and in combat. 16:10.613 --> 16:16.822 [SPEAKER_00]: really target like tactical training and focus on that and look, there's plenty of great people out there that are doing that. 16:16.842 --> 16:21.269 [SPEAKER_00]: We decided that what we could do was focus on teaching leadership. 16:21.309 --> 16:31.504 [SPEAKER_00]: That is what we do and everything we do, including the field training exercises, which are our hands-on training that we do at echelon for all this t-shirt that I'm wearing here from our awesome FTX team. 16:32.746 --> 16:34.329 [SPEAKER_00]: That is not a tactical course. 16:34.349 --> 16:36.672 [SPEAKER_00]: We're not teaching people how to clear 16:36.652 --> 16:37.994 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of people out there that do that. 16:38.395 --> 16:40.217 [SPEAKER_00]: What we teach them to do is lead. 16:40.297 --> 16:41.379 [SPEAKER_00]: We teach them how to lead. 16:41.399 --> 16:51.073 [SPEAKER_00]: That is a leadership course where you get to learn through hands-on training about how to look around, see what's actually happening and lead with the laws of combat that we teach. 16:51.133 --> 17:06.456 [SPEAKER_00]: And of course, that fourth law of combat, decentralized command, you have to build a team of the leaders who understand that mission, understand that goal, and can work to achieve that goal and overcome problems without you having to make 17:06.638 --> 17:20.871 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, when I think a simple, you know, a good kind of example of that for me is when I was a CEO of the construction tech company that two of my former teammates in the seal teams founded, if you went outside or looking in, it would seem anything other than simple. 17:21.451 --> 17:34.283 [SPEAKER_01]: We had a massive factory with a robotics line that was using software that they generated to break down custom homes, design-wise, into a series of wall panels, floor panels and 17:34.263 --> 17:45.776 [SPEAKER_01]: And then that software communicated with the robotics line and the robotics line with very minimal human input would frame that house out in about six hours on this factory floor. 17:46.157 --> 17:53.265 [SPEAKER_01]: So if you were to come in and I was to say, we keep things simple, you'd be like, this is anything but simple, this is remarkably complex. 17:53.886 --> 18:03.797 [SPEAKER_01]: But the reality was simple for us meant we needed to be the best home builders on the planet. 18:03.777 --> 18:10.271 [SPEAKER_01]: anything that takes away from our ability to be the best framer's on the planet, we're not even wasting our time on. 18:10.793 --> 18:16.285 [SPEAKER_01]: And we had competitors that had way more funding than we did, our lead competitor had a billion dollars of funding. 18:16.906 --> 18:20.655 [SPEAKER_01]: And with that billions of dollars, they chose to violate the principle of simple. 18:21.096 --> 18:23.541 [SPEAKER_01]: And instead of focusing on their key business unit, 18:23.521 --> 18:35.718 [SPEAKER_01]: of framing and custom home building, they started to get involved in these different areas of construction and because they violated that rule of simple, they ran out of money, a billion dollars, they ran out of money. 18:35.739 --> 18:44.711 [SPEAKER_01]: If they would have just kept that billion dollars simply focused on their primary business unit, then they would have definitely out-competed us, but they didn't. 18:44.812 --> 18:48.176 [SPEAKER_01]: So, simple doesn't necessarily mean there's not a lot of things happening. 18:48.637 --> 18:50.760 [SPEAKER_01]: It just means I really have to understand, 18:50.740 --> 18:57.508 [SPEAKER_01]: What's going to bring us success and be willing to have the discipline to say no to all of those other different things? 18:58.049 --> 18:59.791 [SPEAKER_00]: That is a fantastic point. 18:59.831 --> 19:16.191 [SPEAKER_00]: I think for anybody and whatever venture you're trying to do and you know Simple not only in your goal right but in your processes on the administrative side as well too I mean when you first launch a business and you've got all these different piece of parts and there's a million different software applications out there 19:16.610 --> 19:20.237 [SPEAKER_00]: the more that you could simplify those things, the more efficient and effective you're going to be. 19:20.458 --> 19:30.619 [SPEAKER_00]: And even in the complex world that we live in, you have to simplify things to a point so that everybody understands what their role is, what they're trying to do, what they're trying to accomplish. 19:31.260 --> 19:34.146 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's a huge thing that I think you have to put. 19:34.126 --> 19:46.421 [SPEAKER_01]: And even outside of the venture of business, when you talk about your own personal goals, things like that, when I decided that I wanted to be, or try to be in the SEAL teams, that was my goal. 19:46.441 --> 19:47.142 [SPEAKER_01]: That was my mission. 19:47.763 --> 19:49.085 [SPEAKER_01]: And I kept things very simple. 19:50.006 --> 19:57.315 [SPEAKER_01]: Every single thing, every single decision that I made from that point on was basically looked at through the lens of, is this going to help me, 19:57.295 --> 19:58.396 [SPEAKER_01]: get into the seal teams. 19:58.536 --> 20:00.198 [SPEAKER_01]: And if the answer was no, I didn't do it. 20:00.779 --> 20:07.987 [SPEAKER_01]: So I chose to go to a college that had a program that I thought was going to help me, my chances of getting to go into the seal team. 20:08.007 --> 20:10.129 [SPEAKER_01]: So kept it simple, made that decision. 20:11.270 --> 20:14.594 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, a lot of guys like to go out and party on the weekends in college. 20:14.614 --> 20:20.080 [SPEAKER_01]: To me, it was a simple thing that I just decided, I'm not going to do that because it takes away 20:20.195 --> 20:24.224 [SPEAKER_01]: from potentially takes away from my ability to go into the Navy. 20:24.425 --> 20:35.530 [SPEAKER_01]: If I was to go to a party and maybe get in trouble with the law, because I was an e-braided and made some bad decisions, I'm not going to get picked up for a contract to go to the Navy. 20:35.891 --> 20:39.098 [SPEAKER_01]: So having that simple understanding of where I'm trying to go, 20:39.078 --> 20:45.534 [SPEAKER_01]: made decision making remarkably easy for me, so these principles we're not just talking about starting up a new business. 20:46.096 --> 20:51.068 [SPEAKER_01]: We're talking about anything that you're wanting to pursue and wanting to chase the inner decision making. 20:51.449 --> 20:54.176 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, when did you decide that you wanted to try and be a seal? 20:54.196 --> 20:55.078 [SPEAKER_01]: Like how old were you? 20:56.071 --> 20:57.234 [SPEAKER_00]: I was a kid, definitely. 20:57.254 --> 21:01.205 [SPEAKER_00]: I was probably 12 or 13 years old and, you know, red, red books. 21:01.245 --> 21:05.496 [SPEAKER_00]: Like Dick Marcin goes road warrior and it's starting to get my hands on other books like that. 21:05.596 --> 21:09.747 [SPEAKER_00]: And, and then I watched this awesome movie called Navy Seals. 21:09.808 --> 21:10.750 [SPEAKER_00]: Greatest film of all time. 21:10.770 --> 21:12.114 [SPEAKER_00]: Greatest film. 21:12.495 --> 21:12.595 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. 21:12.895 --> 21:15.998 [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, Charlie Sheen, if you haven't seen it, go watch it right now. 21:17.139 --> 21:29.832 [SPEAKER_00]: But one of my proudest moments in combat was quoting that on actual combat visions, which we referenced in extreme ownership, but some of the most cheese ball lines we've been having navy seals. 21:29.972 --> 21:37.620 [SPEAKER_01]: When that movie was over, and you finished reminding the VHS tape, did you then immediately go to your recruiter's office and sign up? 21:37.600 --> 21:38.441 [SPEAKER_01]: Is that what happened? 21:38.481 --> 21:39.442 [SPEAKER_01]: That is not what happened. 21:39.462 --> 21:40.143 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, interesting. 21:40.243 --> 21:45.710 [SPEAKER_01]: So you took some iterative steps to help you get to the point to where you were prepared for that journey. 21:46.010 --> 21:54.300 [SPEAKER_00]: I started to reach out to some people to talk about what that might look like and what a career in the Navy might look like and gather some intelligence on, you know, did they enjoy that? 21:54.320 --> 21:55.321 [SPEAKER_00]: Do they not enjoy that? 21:55.461 --> 21:59.406 [SPEAKER_00]: Do we know anybody who's in the SEAL teams and 21:59.386 --> 22:25.900 [SPEAKER_00]: this is what we're talking about is getting that information and then starting the path of like there's there's years long physical training and preparation that you have to have I was not a swimmer in high school I didn't have any background in that so that was a huge thing I was a football player so I wasn't a great runner either and and I had to really put a lot of time in Africa started to get to you know to work in that direction and and then I decided I went to the Naval Academy to pursue that dream of 22:25.880 --> 22:30.988 [SPEAKER_00]: of being a SEAL, I didn't get selected for the SEAL program out of the Naval Academy after four long years there. 22:31.088 --> 22:53.322 [SPEAKER_00]: As actually one of the best things that ever happened to me, I spent three years in the service fleet, it was a great experience there, learned a lot of that leadership, and made me put in the work and take extreme ownership of some failures on my part of not having to disobey an effort to work toward giving me the best chance of success and was finally selected for the program, you know, three years after graduation 22:53.977 --> 22:56.960 [SPEAKER_01]: I had very similar experience, you know, it wasn't an overnight thing. 22:56.980 --> 23:03.687 [SPEAKER_01]: There was a lot of iterative steps that had to be taken in that direction to get me to the threshold of being able to do that thing. 23:03.727 --> 23:15.939 [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, when we talk about, you know, these new ventures, the last thing for me that I think about, and it's the one that ties all this together, is probably the most important factor of all, is the ownership piece, and you just set it. 23:16.339 --> 23:19.883 [SPEAKER_01]: If you want to start a business, everything is on you. 23:19.863 --> 23:38.783 [SPEAKER_01]: you're responsible for every single decision that happens inside of that business and there's going to be setbacks and there's going to be failures and you have to have the humility and the ability to analyze those failures, take ownership of those failures and then take corrective actions and make sure that those same mistakes aren't happening again and again. 23:39.877 --> 23:45.968 [SPEAKER_00]: No question, extreme ownership is a paramount and anything that you're trying to do in life. 23:46.049 --> 23:52.040 [SPEAKER_00]: And particularly when you start a business, you got to own it all and you can't blame other people. 23:52.881 --> 23:55.045 [SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, when it's just you, there's nobody else to blame, right? 23:55.226 --> 23:57.750 [SPEAKER_00]: But are you go, are you go wants to blame others? 23:57.770 --> 23:59.113 [SPEAKER_00]: Are you can blame market conditions? 23:59.133 --> 23:59.674 [SPEAKER_00]: You can blame, 23:59.654 --> 24:07.505 [SPEAKER_00]: customers, you can our potential customers, you could blame independent contracts to other people that you're using, you can't do that, you have to own it all. 24:08.486 --> 24:11.370 [SPEAKER_00]: And just like you said, this applies to anything that you're doing. 24:11.830 --> 24:14.754 [SPEAKER_00]: We get people to ask those questions, look, I'm thinking about changing my career. 24:14.894 --> 24:15.996 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to go do something differently. 24:16.597 --> 24:17.338 [SPEAKER_00]: So what should I do? 24:17.898 --> 24:23.226 [SPEAKER_00]: Do all the things that we're talking about, take an iterative step, reach out to people in that, a different career. 24:23.326 --> 24:28.733 [SPEAKER_00]: If you want to work in a different company, go talk to people in that company, find out what it's actually like there, gather and tell, 24:28.915 --> 24:33.923 [SPEAKER_00]: You wanna make a career change, talk to people in that career, learn from them, what are some of the good things? 24:34.084 --> 24:35.045 [SPEAKER_00]: What are some of the bad things? 24:35.406 --> 24:38.270 [SPEAKER_00]: Write down a pros and cons list, think about that. 24:38.310 --> 24:39.873 [SPEAKER_00]: These are really important things to do. 24:39.993 --> 24:54.377 [SPEAKER_00]: When I tell people to do that, what often happens is, they start to go gather intelligence about a potential career change or potential new job opportunity, oftentimes what they learn is that where they are at is actually pretty awesome. 24:54.397 --> 24:55.058 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, 24:55.291 --> 25:01.479 [SPEAKER_00]: they get a better appreciation for where they're at and maybe things aren't all they're cracked up to be elsewhere. 25:01.719 --> 25:10.470 [SPEAKER_00]: They say where they are with a new attitude and some renewed energy and some power with extreme ownership and they have a great career where they're at. 25:10.490 --> 25:11.010 [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely. 25:11.451 --> 25:14.134 [SPEAKER_01]: So that brings us to this week's immediate action drill. 25:14.374 --> 25:19.020 [SPEAKER_01]: So we want you to make, if you're thinking about a big change, if you're thinking about starting a new venture, 25:19.321 --> 25:30.293 [SPEAKER_01]: We want you to make a pros and cons list, and then we want you to evaluate that list and look at what is the first iterative step that you should take to see if this is the right course of action for you to follow. 25:30.526 --> 25:49.625 [SPEAKER_00]: Conduct an honest self assessment, go out and gather intelligence, whether you want to start your own business, whether you want to make a career change, whether you're looking for a new job opportunity, go talk to people, talk to people who have positive things to say, who've done it well, and it's a successful talk to people who haven't been successful. 25:49.985 --> 25:55.431 [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe have some negative things to say, so that you can evaluate the risks that you might be taking. 25:55.451 --> 25:57.833 [SPEAKER_00]: And then you can make that pros and cons lists. 25:57.813 --> 26:08.908 [SPEAKER_00]: and you can take an iterative step in the direction that seems best with the information that you have, the smallest step in that direction, then you can reevaluate, reassess, and make some adjustments. 26:09.168 --> 26:11.892 [SPEAKER_00]: When you do that, you're going to be able to understand the risks that you're taking. 26:12.092 --> 26:18.100 [SPEAKER_00]: Take steps to mitigate those risks, and that is going to set you up for success when you're starting a new venture. 26:18.120 --> 26:27.533 [SPEAKER_00]: When you do that, you're going to be able to lead and win.