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Speaker 1: Lute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to soft web Radio Special Operations, Military Nails

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Speaker 1: and straight talk with the guys in the community.

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Speaker 2: What's going on? Welcome back to another awesome episode of

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Speaker 2: soft Rep Radio. I am your host, Rad. That's right,

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Speaker 2: like surfer dude from California, San Diego Rad. You heard it.

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Speaker 2: It's Rad and I am hosting this show yet again.

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Speaker 2: So thank you to the new listener and viewer who

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Speaker 2: are tuning in, and to you the veteran watcher and

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Speaker 2: you know, been around for years so much, Thanks so

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Speaker 2: much for supporting us at our merch store and in

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Speaker 2: our book club. And let me just touch base on that.

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Speaker 2: So we have the soft rep dot com forward slash

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Speaker 2: merch store, So go check that out. Just click the

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Speaker 2: link if you can. It'll be put up right about

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Speaker 2: here in the in the video or down below in

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Speaker 2: the comment section where all of the links and everything

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Speaker 2: for my next guest will be posted as well. We

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Speaker 2: also have the book club, which is the gym. Right

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Speaker 2: Reading a book is a gym. I'm just gonna keep

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Speaker 2: saying it. You go read a book, you get some knowledge,

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Speaker 2: it grows your mind. And then you grow. So keep

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Speaker 2: reading books by going to soft rep dot com Forward

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Speaker 2: slash Book hyphen Club and that has like branded Webb

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Speaker 2: and the guys behind the scenes have picked these books

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Speaker 2: out for you to read in the Special Operations community.

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Speaker 2: And it might be like you know, the natural about

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Speaker 2: Roy Hobbs, it may not just be so storming a ship.

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Speaker 2: Just go check out a book and read a book,

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Speaker 2: and then and then and enlighten yourself. Now, my guest

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Speaker 2: does need an introduction, but doesn't need an introduction at

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Speaker 2: the same time. Coj Larsen, Welcome to the show.

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Speaker 3: Rad I am stoked to be here. No cooks allowed.

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Speaker 3: Valleys go home. You're you're making v feel right at home.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, bro, you are probably a water child you okay.

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Speaker 2: First of all, college is a former Navy seal all right?

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Speaker 2: Serve like five seven years in the seals? Is that right?

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Speaker 3: Thirteen years? Actually have total service between my active duty

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Speaker 3: and my reserve time.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah right? And what was your retirement grade when

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Speaker 2: you got out? Tenant commander, lieutenant commander? Okay? Is that

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Speaker 2: like an five six four oh four?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Okay, Sorry Air Force story.

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Speaker 3: About making five that's not worth it.

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Speaker 2: No, it probably is worth it. My listeners like I

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Speaker 2: made O four? Why didn't he make O five? What's

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Speaker 2: the question here? But again, coj, you're also a journalist, right,

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Speaker 2: and you've taken the military culture that has, you know,

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Speaker 2: shaped you through that course of your career, and you've

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Speaker 2: brought it to journalism and also documentaries and all sorts

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Speaker 2: of other things. And folks, please, he has such a bio.

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Speaker 2: I want to read a little bit about it real quick. Here.

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Speaker 2: That was sent over to me by Okay, so Kage

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Speaker 2: Larson is a former Navy Seal Lieutenant Commander, award winning

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Speaker 2: journalist and filmmaker. He's been is it nominated for an

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Speaker 2: Oscar or did you get an Oscar?

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Speaker 3: Nope? Just nominated forever.

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Speaker 2: It's okay, Yeah, that's okay. You gotta wear the bow tie,

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Speaker 2: I bet you. Okay, that's cool. You did win an Emmy, though,

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Speaker 2: didn't you for like Merrick? Is it for lock Up?

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Speaker 3: No, I've won a couple. When I was at Vice HBO,

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Speaker 3: we want to Advice of Primetime Emmys, And that was

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Speaker 3: a really sort of innovative time in the media to

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Speaker 3: be at place.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you were because you were at the right time

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Speaker 2: at the right place, doing the right things, and it

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Speaker 2: all Rubik's cubed itself for you to be I mean

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Speaker 2: this was like twenty eleven, twenty ten timeframes, so really

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Speaker 2: today we're twenty twenty five. Like I hate to say,

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Speaker 2: it's like fifteen years ago, but or ten years ago,

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Speaker 2: but still, so let me keep reading this his career

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Speaker 2: operating in high stakes environments from the battle to the boardroom.

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Speaker 2: After years of leading special operations across the globe and

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Speaker 2: reporting on global crisises as a CNN correspondent, he set

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Speaker 2: his sights on a new mission, financial empowerment for the

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Speaker 2: military community. We love that. I was talking to my

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Speaker 2: wife about this and she's like, oh, this is a

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Speaker 2: great guest. And as the co founder of a Guild

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Speaker 2: of the Guild Financial, a fintech investing platform designed for

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Speaker 2: service members, Kash helped thousands of military members take control

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Speaker 2: of their financial futures. Now, as a part of the

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Speaker 2: Sebert Financial, he continues that mission, ensuring that those who

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Speaker 2: serve have the tools to build lasting wealth. Kash's remarkable

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Speaker 2: journey has captivated many, drawing. He has over one hundred

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Speaker 2: and fifteen thousand followers on Instagram, where he offers a

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Speaker 2: glimpse into his extraordinary experiences. His story one of service, resilience,

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Speaker 2: and reinvention, making him an unforgettable individual in our lives.

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Speaker 2: And we're going to crack this egg and talk to him.

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Speaker 3: I mean, you can try, but it's it's elabyrinth racked

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Speaker 3: and an enigma, you know.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I have a key to the enigma though

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Speaker 2: the cracking gave it to me from the bottom of

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Speaker 2: the seafloor one day. Yes, he just came up here.

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Speaker 2: Rad you can crack it. Well, caj Let's talk about

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Speaker 2: military personnel needing positive investment advice and something that you

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Speaker 2: seem to be passionate about. Let's just dive into the

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Speaker 2: financial aspect of what your company is here trying to help.

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Speaker 2: And while your Instagram has everybody coming to you for advice.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know it's funny. This is really actually

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Speaker 3: the third act of my career. I like to say,

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Speaker 3: like my first decade of work was in the military

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Speaker 3: and in service. Obviously my second decade of work I

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Speaker 3: built a body of work in media, So I spent

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Speaker 3: ten years in media and now in this sort of

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Speaker 3: third phase of my life, there's been another inflection point

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Speaker 3: and I'm really focused on money and financial health and

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Speaker 3: literacy for the military community. It came about in a

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Speaker 3: haphazard way. You know, I wasn't in the early part

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Speaker 3: of my career. I really was not focused on financial

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Speaker 3: health and wealth. I was focused on gunslinging, on being

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Speaker 3: the best seal I could be. And then when I

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Speaker 3: transitioned out, I fell into journalism because I needed a

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Speaker 3: way to pay for graduate school, and I found I

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Speaker 3: was pretty good at it because I'd spent all this

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Speaker 3: time down range and I just translated those skills, traded

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Speaker 3: my gun for a camera and started doing that and

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Speaker 3: achieved some success in that. And then because of my

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Speaker 3: success in media, I was really focused a lot on

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Speaker 3: veterans philanthropy and helping fellow veterans like myself successfully transition.

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Speaker 3: And somewhere along the way, I realized that it's all

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Speaker 3: good for veterans to have purpose and it's important, but

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Speaker 3: perse also matters. You could do all the meditation, all

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Speaker 3: the saunas, all the cold plunges, all of the really

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Speaker 3: good pilanthropic stuff that I believe in so much, but

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Speaker 3: if you come home to a mountain of thirty thousand

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Speaker 3: dollars a credit card debt, the stress on your life

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Speaker 3: and on your health that's going to impact you. So,

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Speaker 3: along with a Navy intel officer who was my co founder,

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Speaker 3: we built this company to serve what I consider an

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Speaker 3: underserved population that's really been kind of left behind by

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Speaker 3: the private wealth community hundred percent.

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Speaker 2: And sometimes people come home and they see this over

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Speaker 2: mounting debt and it's really not so overwhelming such a debt.

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Speaker 2: It's just for them at that moment in their life,

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Speaker 2: there's bigger debt that can make you not want to

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Speaker 2: come out of your cold plunge. You're like, I'm just

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Speaker 2: gonna stay in here forever. I'm so over my head,

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Speaker 2: you know what I mean. And so sometimes people get

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Speaker 2: so distressed over some what I think may not be

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Speaker 2: such a burden of finance because you can still there's

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Speaker 2: always a path to bankruptcy. Okay, there's bankruptcy. You can

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Speaker 2: bankruptcy if you have to. So, no, there's nothing worse

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Speaker 2: than you know, the ultimate end. It's like, how am

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Speaker 2: I going to feed my family? And I'm no good

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Speaker 2: of a person. This money's over. You know, I spent

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Speaker 2: too much money on the credit cards. You know, the

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Speaker 2: annual percentage rate is just jacking me every single month,

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Speaker 2: you know, et cetera. I mean, those are real things,

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Speaker 2: but military personnel don't really make rock star money. Right.

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Speaker 2: You can go look up the grade of a lieutenant

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Speaker 2: commander who served twelve years in the Seals and see

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Speaker 2: exactly what you should be making unless you have like

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Speaker 2: airborne or hazarduced duty pay or deployment pay, you know.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and of course I had all those things, right, Sure,

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Speaker 3: sure pay dive pay, but you know, you know what twenty.

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Speaker 2: Bucks now, but nobody knows the difference. It's like it's

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Speaker 2: like forty bucks a month.

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Speaker 3: One hundred and fifty bucks a month to jump out

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Speaker 3: of a perfectly good airplane, you know, yeah, twelve parachute.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's it's like, here's an extra forty

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Speaker 2: bucks on your paycheck. Kid, you're airborne qualified. You're like,

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Speaker 2: all right, fine, that's like my dad. One time I

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Speaker 2: heard him talking to my mom. They were laying in bed,

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Speaker 2: talk of finances, and she's like, Jack, so you're saying

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Speaker 2: that you make about two fourteen an hour twenty four

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Speaker 2: to seven. Right, So if we did my dad's paycheck

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Speaker 2: back in the nineties, break it down as a sergeant

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Speaker 2: for East seven Green Beret. He's making about two dollars

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Speaker 2: and fourteen cents an hour twenty four to seven active duty.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and look, all of that is true, Yet

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Speaker 3: we can still hold two complex thoughts in our head

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Speaker 3: at the same time. At the same time, while on

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Speaker 3: a salary basis, military personnel tend to make less than

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Speaker 3: their socioeconomic peers. They have some incumbent advantages that the

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Speaker 3: civilian sector doesn't have. So where I've been focused in

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Speaker 3: terms of the active duty people is on maximizing those

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Speaker 3: competitive advantages, things like bah right or subsidized healthcare, which

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Speaker 3: is a real drain on private sector employees, but in

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Speaker 3: the military, like, let's be honest, we have socialized medicine.

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Speaker 3: It's pretty damn good and it works for us. And

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Speaker 3: that's an incumbent economic advantage. So there's some structural things

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Speaker 3: you can do to maximize your time while you're in service.

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Speaker 3: And then lately, my real postsy of effort has been

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Speaker 3: on what people do when they get out of service,

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Speaker 3: how to maximize their time in the military to lead

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Speaker 3: brog and springboard to a higher trajectory. And because of that,

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Speaker 3: I've been focused largely because I am one on veteran entrepreneurs,

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Speaker 3: people who have successfully gone from military to money. And

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Speaker 3: there's this incredible legacy in this country going back, you know,

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Speaker 3: even before my dad and your dad's era, of veterans

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Speaker 3: coming back from war and building the greatest economic engine

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Speaker 3: in the world's ever seen. Right, Fred Smith built FedEx.

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Speaker 3: You have the founder of Enterprise rent a car was

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Speaker 3: working at on the USS Enterprise and then founded Enterprise

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Speaker 3: and named it as such after the USS Enterprise.

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Speaker 2: Broad That just dawned on me today. I was this

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Speaker 2: day old when I learned that Enterprise rental cars. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's cool.

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Speaker 3: So you got veterans building these massive, big businesses, contributing

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Speaker 3: to the economy and really doing well. And so I've

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Speaker 3: been real focused on highlighting those and on giving back

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Speaker 3: to programs like programs that I went through that helped

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Speaker 3: create these entrepreneurs. And I'm not saying every veteran has

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Speaker 3: to be an entrepreneur, like I wouldn't wish that on anybody,

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Speaker 3: just like I wouldn't wish most people have to go

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Speaker 3: through buds. That is a unique and difficult road to hoe,

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Speaker 3: but there are in certain cases, it's an amazing opportunity

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Speaker 3: and there's lots of good things that veterans can do

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Speaker 3: when they transition out to not fall into these kind

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Speaker 3: of like dregs of society, lower socioeconomic traps that are

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Speaker 3: out there for you.

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Speaker 2: Know, I'm fortunate to be in this position. I get

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Speaker 2: to meet a lot of folks like yourself and a

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Speaker 2: friend of mine. He uses that entrepreneur constantly with his company,

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Speaker 2: Warrior Rising, where they go and veterans submit to him,

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Speaker 2: and then he goes to this process of like, Okay,

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Speaker 2: we're going to bring you six finalists to this big, huge,

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Speaker 2: elaborate event, you know, with all these tuxedos, and everybody's

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Speaker 2: now going to win maybe one hundred thousand dollars towards

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Speaker 2: their entrepreneur job. And this one lady she stuck out.

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Speaker 2: She was a pharmac pharmaceutical tech in the army who

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Speaker 2: said this is annoying, and she created an app to

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Speaker 2: try to track all of the different prescriptions going out

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Speaker 2: back and forth. And then she wants to now put

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Speaker 2: that in the civilian life. And I was like, she

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Speaker 2: has created something that comes from like what you're saying,

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Speaker 2: from the military to the civilian light, you know, And

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Speaker 2: she went like a twenty five thousand dollars grant towards

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Speaker 2: her her app which can help whatever it is. If

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Speaker 2: it feeds her to keep continuing write and code, so

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Speaker 2: be it. But when veterans can have these beautiful See,

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Speaker 2: we're all the same. Everybody just goes and serves in

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Speaker 2: the military or serves their job, but everybody inside has

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Speaker 2: a beautiful thoughts that can just become maybe a successful

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Speaker 2: business if they just apply themselves, you know, in the

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Speaker 2: right lane.

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Speaker 3: And your examples like the quintessential example. Now that I'm

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Speaker 3: on the other side of the equation having exit ins

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Speaker 3: sold my business, I do a lot of investing, in

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Speaker 3: a lot of mentoring for new businesses and new startups,

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Speaker 3: a lot in the in the better in space and

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Speaker 3: in the military space. And one of the things that

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Speaker 3: I always say is, like you start with a pain point, right,

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Speaker 3: you find something that's annoying, that's a problem that maybe

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Speaker 3: technology can help solve or a new system can help solve.

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Speaker 3: But then the thing that I really do is I

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Speaker 3: encourage all my mentees and all the startups that I

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Speaker 3: advise to really think of this process as like the

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Speaker 3: scientific method, Like go back to what we learned in

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Speaker 3: elementary school about the scientific method. You identify a problem, right,

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Speaker 3: it's annoying to track all these prescriptions. You develop hypotheses

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Speaker 3: that if I create a good piece of technology that

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Speaker 3: coates all these prescriptions, it will make life easier, right,

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Speaker 3: And I'll be able to monetize that if I get

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Speaker 3: enough users on board. But then here's the key that

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Speaker 3: most entrepreneurs miss, because everybody's got a great idea until

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Speaker 3: you release it out into the wild, right, Right, Then

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Speaker 3: You've got to go out and rigorously test your data,

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Speaker 3: and you have to test for the You got to

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Speaker 3: ask the right questions because people often ask questions that

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Speaker 3: validate their own hypothesies. So you got to ask the

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Speaker 3: hard questions. And ultimately, the market's going to decide. And

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Speaker 3: at those early stages testing is really key because you haven't, like,

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Speaker 3: you know, codified everything and written it in stone. Right,

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Speaker 3: you can still pivot, you can still iterate, you can

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Speaker 3: still flex based on the data coming back in. And

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Speaker 3: then ultimately that's how you build your your your MVP.

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Speaker 3: You're going a viable product, and that's how you build

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Speaker 3: your company MVP.

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Speaker 2: There, viable product, MVP. I'm right, I'm taking no and

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Speaker 2: my listener take notes. Hey, yeah, okay, I said it

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Speaker 2: at the beginning, like you know knowledge, right, So I'm

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Speaker 2: just sitting here listening to what you're saying. Now, let's

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Speaker 2: say you're getting out of you're just transitioning out of

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Speaker 2: the military, and you're kind of idle right now, right,

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Speaker 2: there's not a job. You're like, do I go work

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Speaker 2: in a restaurant and just start to pick up some ins meat.

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Speaker 2: I just got out of the military, you know, Do

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Speaker 2: I put my GI bill into action and start going

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Speaker 2: to school? And so then I feel that that's kind

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Speaker 2: of when the entrepreneur spirit starts to really rear its

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Speaker 2: head up is when you have to hustle for yourself, right.

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Speaker 2: So I find that being out of a job unemployment

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Speaker 2: equals entrepreneur. You're like, oh, I am not finding something

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Speaker 2: that fits me. I've learned how to throw grenades and

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Speaker 2: tie nots, So who needs this job? Right? It's like, okay, well,

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Speaker 2: maybe you can create your own path that you can

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Speaker 2: use some of those abilities as an entrepreneur your own business.

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Speaker 2: So you start up a training company, or you go

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Speaker 2: and meet with you know, business to businesses to work

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Speaker 2: on you know, their management systems and team trainings, and

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Speaker 2: there's all these different things that I've talked to different

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Speaker 2: veterans who have gone on to do you know, or

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Speaker 2: you become the Ayahuasca Captain bro and you could take

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Speaker 2: a whole crew of guys to Chili every two weeks

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Speaker 2: because that's what you are passionate about to help with PTSD.

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Speaker 2: These entrepreneurs are out there. So what do you have

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Speaker 2: as advice for someone who's just listening to this saying

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Speaker 2: rad tell us just how to be successful? Cash? Where

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Speaker 2: do we put our money? Why should we put it here?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, well, I mean the thing that's interesting about

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Speaker 3: entrepreneurialism is that there is no direct path right right

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Speaker 3: really is incredibly hyper individualistick and again you know, the

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Speaker 3: caveat is it's not for everybody because it is hard.

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Speaker 3: Grinding it out in company is hard. You sort of

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Speaker 3: indicated you intimated what I think is actually like one

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Speaker 3: of the most important criteria for the early stage starting

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Speaker 3: of building any entity, which is you got to be hungry,

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Speaker 3: you got we got to have desire, and I think

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Speaker 3: you can get a long way, especially in the beginning

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Speaker 3: on on hustle and drive, which interestingly enough, are are

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Speaker 3: two of the characteristics that we select for in special operations.

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Speaker 3: You know, we're constantly looking for people who have that

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Speaker 3: you know, never quit, drive to execution kind of attitude

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Speaker 3: and uh, and that's what Buds selects for. And it's

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Speaker 3: also what the wilds of entrepreneurialism select for. And so

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Speaker 3: I guess. But to answer your question more directly, I

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Speaker 3: think what happens when you transition out of the military

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Speaker 3: is that you know, when I transition out, they hand

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Speaker 3: me this book in TAPS class, like from maybe blue

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Speaker 3: to corporate gray. The only idea that you can do

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Speaker 3: when you get out of uniform was go take some

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Speaker 3: corporate job somewhere. And you know, for a guy like

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Speaker 3: me who is like jumping out of airplanes and scuba

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Speaker 3: divan and doing swimmer walkout out of a submarine, the

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Speaker 3: idea that I was know like sit in a cubicle

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Speaker 3: and crunch numbers like it's just you know, I'm a

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Speaker 3: servic to that. It's not how I live my life,

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Speaker 3: and it doesn't work for me, and I think it

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Speaker 3: doesn't work for a lot of military people who are

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Speaker 3: attracted to the military in the first place. So the

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Speaker 3: first thing you know is you're going to go through

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Speaker 3: this crazy period of ideation. The best thing I got

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Speaker 3: out of TAPS class is like the first day they

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Speaker 3: tell you, like, listen, you're going to go home and

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Speaker 3: tell your wife to like just be patient with you

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Speaker 3: over the next month because you're gonna have eighteen thousand

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Speaker 3: crazy ideas. I'm going to go be a military technical

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Speaker 3: advisor on sets, you know, I'm start an ammunition company. Like,

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Speaker 3: You're gonna have all of these wild ideas. But that

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Speaker 3: is part of the process of ideation, right, You've got

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Speaker 3: to forage around in my like in a meeting, in

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Speaker 3: a corporate meeting or whatever. I often will start off

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Speaker 3: a meeting with a defined period of what I call

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Speaker 3: radical brainstorm What are the wildest ideas you can throw

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Speaker 3: out there? Put them on the whiteboard, and just think.

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Speaker 3: The key though to that kind of radical brainstorming is

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Speaker 3: that it has a truncated period of time. You don't

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Speaker 3: want to be spinning off in fantasy land in like

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Speaker 3: the Lulu land forever, right. You want to get out

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Speaker 3: some really good ideas and not censor yourself, right, not

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Speaker 3: self censor because you might stumble upon some gold there.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: Think of it like primordial soup. All these atoms are

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Speaker 3: flying around together and sometimes they smash into each other

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Speaker 3: and create genius. So that's important, But you have to

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Speaker 3: end that period of time, and you can only do

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Speaker 3: it for so long before you start to sort of

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Speaker 3: walk rounds onto target, onto an executable idea. That executable

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Speaker 3: idea could be to take a job, It could be

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Speaker 3: to start a company, it could be to do consulting,

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Speaker 3: could it could be anything. The other thing that I'll

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Speaker 3: say that that is an evolution in entrepreneur in the

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Speaker 3: thinking of entrepreneurialism, is that we have this idea in

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Speaker 3: our mind of like the loan entrepreneur coding in his parents' basement,

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Speaker 3: like creating these software companies. Mark Zuckerberg leaving Facebook and

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Speaker 3: going all in, and that is a model, But I

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Speaker 3: would say it's not the model and the way that

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Speaker 3: most companies are built in these days, most entrepreneurs. The

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Speaker 3: best example of this is Warby Parker if you're familiar

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Speaker 3: the eyeglass company. The guys who started Warby Parker were

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Speaker 3: at Wharton Business School. They came up with this plan

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Speaker 3: to start it to revolutionize and disrupt the eyeglass industry

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Speaker 3: with you know, cheaper ready made frames, but high concept

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Speaker 3: and high design. They take it to their well known

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Speaker 3: business school professor, this guy Adam Grant, who writes all

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Speaker 3: these great books on business and entrepreneurialism. They present the plan,

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Speaker 3: who loves everything about the plan, but he declines to

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Speaker 3: invest in his students because all of them were taking

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Speaker 3: jobs elsewhere McKinsey, you know, Goldman Sachs, Like they're all

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Speaker 3: going from Warton to take like, you know, relatively good

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Speaker 3: paying finance jobs, and then they were going to build

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Speaker 3: their company on the side. And what he said, Adam

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Speaker 3: Grant at the beginning, He's like, well, these guys are

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Speaker 3: obviously not dedicated to their company. I'm going to decline

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Speaker 3: to invest in. Fast forward to today, Warby Parker is

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Speaker 3: like a multi billion dollar company, Like it's one of

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Speaker 3: those stories that he tells at dinner parties that like, oh,

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Speaker 3: I could have been the first investor, right, Like we

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Speaker 3: all have those on the investing side. And what Adam

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Speaker 3: realized is that some of the best companies are built

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Speaker 3: by people who have nine to fives and then they

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Speaker 3: build their company five to nine. So especially those two

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Speaker 3: those two ideas are not in opposition to each other,

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Speaker 3: and even like you know, one of the current one

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Speaker 3: of the current companies I'm advising right now, this company

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Speaker 3: AMO based. The two young founders just graduated from University

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Speaker 3: of Alabama, right They have their day jobs, one in

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Speaker 3: commercial real estate, one in technology technology, and they're building

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Speaker 3: this company on their off hours. And that's okay, correct,

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Speaker 3: because one, it keeps you from taking money out of

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Speaker 3: the business in the early stages when it's mission critical,

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Speaker 3: that all your go towards the business. And it also

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Speaker 3: keeps you from you know, being like impoverished and making

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Speaker 3: decisions out of desperation. And you see that in early

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Speaker 3: stage companies. Some of those early decisions are really mission critical,

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Speaker 3: like oh, I'm going to take this investment even though

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Speaker 3: or I'm going to do this partnership even though it's

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Speaker 3: not quite right, but like i need money for groceries

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Speaker 3: or rent, so I'm going to take the fast, easy

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Speaker 3: solution as opposed to the thing that's going to benefit

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Speaker 3: the company long run. So back to your original question,

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Speaker 3: I know I've been like kind of all over the map.

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Speaker 3: Original question. There's lots of ways to attack this. One

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Speaker 3: way might be to get a job that has purpose

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Speaker 3: and that you care about and that pays the bills

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Speaker 3: with an eye towards entrepreneurialism. And people who can do

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Speaker 3: that tend to be pretty successful entrepreneurs because they have

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Speaker 3: this other ingredient, you know, this hustle and this drive

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Speaker 3: that we were talking about before.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's funny I hear you talking like about me.

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Speaker 2: Would you say just say it? You know, went through

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Speaker 2: a couple of jobs, you know, finally found a good

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Speaker 2: footing in a corporate America. But in the meantime, I

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Speaker 2: had started a business with my buddy, and he was

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Speaker 2: able to travel around and do his job but still

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Speaker 2: focus on the business. And I was able to leave

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Speaker 2: at three point thirty in the afternoon and then get

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Speaker 2: to the shop by four and then was there until

431
00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:21,359
Speaker 2: eight nine o'clock at night. And so maybe I'd stop

432
00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:23,159
Speaker 2: by between four and five thirty to say hi to

433
00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:24,600
Speaker 2: the family and say, hey, I'm off to the shop.

434
00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:26,240
Speaker 2: I gotta go take care of this. And my wife

435
00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:29,280
Speaker 2: was always like, Okay, Dad's off to work. But today,

436
00:22:29,320 --> 00:22:32,320
Speaker 2: now I've got multiple retail locations along the Wassatz Front

437
00:22:32,320 --> 00:22:35,320
Speaker 2: here in Utah. I have a very large wargame community.

438
00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:38,639
Speaker 2: We just had three hundred players this last Saturday at

439
00:22:38,640 --> 00:22:41,239
Speaker 2: a huge op huge that's three hundred people who all

440
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:43,239
Speaker 2: just drove out to the desert to come fight, all

441
00:22:43,280 --> 00:22:47,200
Speaker 2: based off of the thought of I believe that wargames

442
00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 2: have a niche that needed to be filled in two

443
00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:54,160
Speaker 2: thousand and three. Yeah, you see, And here we are

444
00:22:54,280 --> 00:22:56,200
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. So I've been at this for twenty

445
00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:59,879
Speaker 2: two years and I was able to pull from the

446
00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:03,359
Speaker 2: food for my family from corporate was the that was

447
00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:07,879
Speaker 2: my paycheck today. Now I'm self employed. I can actually

448
00:23:07,960 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 2: say that for like the last ten twelve years, I

449
00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:12,680
Speaker 2: have cut my own check to myself.

450
00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:14,680
Speaker 3: But it wouldn't have worked in two thousand and three

451
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:17,320
Speaker 3: if you were trying to support your family and start

452
00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:18,040
Speaker 3: this business.

453
00:23:18,520 --> 00:23:21,359
Speaker 2: No, no, no, it wouldn't. And that's what I'm driving

454
00:23:21,359 --> 00:23:23,080
Speaker 2: at is you're saying, hey, you know a lot of folks,

455
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:26,720
Speaker 2: like you know, the eyeglass professor. He's just like, are

456
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:29,159
Speaker 2: they working another job? Well, they're not serious enough. And

457
00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:31,479
Speaker 2: I was like, geez, I'm not going to say anything.

458
00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:33,440
Speaker 2: And then you start talking about nine to five, five

459
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:35,359
Speaker 2: to nine. I'm like, now I'm going to say something.

460
00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:40,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And in some ways it can be an

461
00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:43,560
Speaker 3: indicator that you're more successful because your time management skills

462
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:47,040
Speaker 3: have to be more on point, your dedication has to

463
00:23:47,080 --> 00:23:50,200
Speaker 3: be more on point, you know, And it's not easy,

464
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:53,400
Speaker 3: like you building this business on the side. My first

465
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:57,400
Speaker 3: real small business that I built was a fitness facility

466
00:23:57,520 --> 00:24:02,440
Speaker 3: with another seal opened it in twenty thirteen. It opened

467
00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:05,439
Speaker 3: on the very first day that I started as the

468
00:24:05,520 --> 00:24:10,200
Speaker 3: senior correspondent and producer at Vice HBO at this big

469
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 3: giant TV show. So I would literally go to the

470
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 3: gym and I would teach. We didn't even have instructors

471
00:24:15,119 --> 00:24:17,200
Speaker 3: back then. I would teach the six am, the seven am,

472
00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 3: the eight am. Then I would go to my job

473
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 3: at Vice and like work on global affairs, and then

474
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:24,920
Speaker 3: at noon at lunchtime, I would run over and teach

475
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:29,000
Speaker 3: the dude class. Yes, go back to my job Advice, right,

476
00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:31,159
Speaker 3: And my business partner was doing the same thing in

477
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:33,920
Speaker 3: the opposite but in the evenings, and like that's how

478
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:36,160
Speaker 3: I built my first business.

479
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:37,520
Speaker 2: And that's what I had to do as well with

480
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:40,480
Speaker 2: my business partner and my family. I mentioned that part

481
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:41,880
Speaker 2: was in the middle, I of like trying to come

482
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 2: home to have dinner around the table, touch base with

483
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 2: the kids, house school and then off to the shop,

484
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:49,040
Speaker 2: you know, and maybe dragging the wife and the kids

485
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:51,439
Speaker 2: with me, the families at the shop, you know. So

486
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:54,720
Speaker 2: it started as a small, little, six hundred square foot

487
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 2: facility and we've just grown into a ten thousand square

488
00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:00,359
Speaker 2: foot shoot house with a pro shop and another shop,

489
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:03,200
Speaker 2: and I'm looking for a third. But it's it's ridiculous

490
00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:05,440
Speaker 2: pricing in real estate out here in Salt Lake City.

491
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:07,480
Speaker 2: So it's like, how do I do this successfully?

492
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:11,080
Speaker 3: Awesome to hear. I cannot tell you, like how much

493
00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:14,000
Speaker 3: this like just warms my heart, for lack of a

494
00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:17,560
Speaker 3: better term, right, Like I just I love to hear

495
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:23,359
Speaker 3: about like veterans succeeding and building businesses and contributing back

496
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:26,960
Speaker 3: to our like you know, this incredible economic engine that

497
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:30,520
Speaker 3: helps keep America strong. It really and you did it

498
00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:33,200
Speaker 3: in a space that you know and that you're familiar with,

499
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:38,240
Speaker 3: which I think also mission critical. Right, Start with something you.

500
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:40,840
Speaker 2: Know, right, It was skateboards in the beginning. I had

501
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:43,480
Speaker 2: a skate shop when I was thirteen, and I started

502
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:45,919
Speaker 2: with skateboards and snowboards and had an arcade and I

503
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:47,800
Speaker 2: built that up till about nineteen and then I got broke.

504
00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 2: Into and everything got stolen and I didn't have insurance

505
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 2: and I learned a very valuable lesson with my dad

506
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:54,359
Speaker 2: at that time. He really made me feel like it

507
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:57,760
Speaker 2: was my shop. He really like said, this is your shop, Aaron,

508
00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:01,239
Speaker 2: You're running this place. You know, I'm just dad backing you.

509
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:03,880
Speaker 2: But he had a master's in business human resource management

510
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 2: and he was an s F guy, so little did

511
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:09,159
Speaker 2: I know, yeah that he was. You know, he was

512
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 2: watching me sell lemonade and grilled cheese out front.

513
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:15,359
Speaker 3: Yeah. Hey, actually that brings up another good thing that

514
00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:18,760
Speaker 3: I feel like I'd be neglectful if I didn't mention

515
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:20,560
Speaker 3: it and it you know, I'll just tell my own

516
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:22,639
Speaker 3: personal story, like when I got out of the service,

517
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 3: I didn't know what I was going to do either.

518
00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:27,119
Speaker 3: I was like fumbling around thinking I would be a

519
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 3: military technical advisor as well, you know, which ironically I

520
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 3: did end up becoming and doing that during my state

521
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:37,399
Speaker 3: in the Hollywood. But you know, it's it's uh, you know,

522
00:26:37,480 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 3: everybody says they're going to do it, very few actually

523
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:43,280
Speaker 3: do it. But one of the things that was extremely

524
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:46,160
Speaker 3: helpful to me, and that I think the easiest soft

525
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:48,560
Speaker 3: landing when you're transitioning out of the military, is I

526
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:51,159
Speaker 3: went to graduate school, or if you know, if you

527
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 3: didn't have an undergraduate degree, go to go to undergrad

528
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 3: use that gi bill, utilize those resources, because I think

529
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:02,720
Speaker 3: the main thing that graduate school does besides sort of

530
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:05,160
Speaker 3: buy you time to marinate in your thoughts and think

531
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 3: about it, is it really acclimates you to the civilian

532
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:10,640
Speaker 3: world in a way that we're kind of isolated from

533
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 3: when we're in the military. We're surrounded in the military,

534
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:15,919
Speaker 3: mostly with other people who are in the military, mostly

535
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 3: with our colleagues, sometimes on bases. People are living on base,

536
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:22,200
Speaker 3: and we don't You don't even know what you don't

537
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:25,920
Speaker 3: know in terms of understanding the civilian world. And while

538
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 3: you were in the military serving downrange right for five

539
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:33,640
Speaker 3: years or ten years or whatever, most of your peers,

540
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 3: your civilian peers, we're building these like really robust social

541
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:40,199
Speaker 3: networks through college and then through their first jobs, and

542
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 3: those are how they end up getting jobs and kind

543
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:46,119
Speaker 3: of stare stepping leveling up. Right, the military, you're not

544
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:48,280
Speaker 3: really doing that unless you stay in for your twenty

545
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 3: year career and your cedaddies and all that stuff. But

546
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:53,920
Speaker 3: you get out into the wild west of the civilian world,

547
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 3: and you don't have those same social networks. So the

548
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:58,719
Speaker 3: other thing that education does, and it's free for all

549
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:01,520
Speaker 3: of those of us who serve, is it helps you

550
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 3: like expand your social networks, which in in turn determined

551
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 3: helps determine your sort of trajectory and your as a

552
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:11,480
Speaker 3: myth when you get out of the military. You know,

553
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 3: the only clich is about you know, want to know

554
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 3: like what your like your net worth is your network

555
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 3: or whatever. Right, Well, in the military, your network is

556
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:23,639
Speaker 3: not that high because everybody's making the same salary and

557
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 3: they're all doing the same.

558
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:28,240
Speaker 2: Thing, right, And that's you. That's your social influence though,

559
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 2: and so that's the ladders that you're climbing. Is like, hey,

560
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:33,280
Speaker 2: six more months and hopefully Bill gets out of grade

561
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 2: and I could take his spot. You know, it's not

562
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:37,800
Speaker 2: like I can try to like you sert Bill's spot.

563
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 2: It's just like he's in grade and he's not screwing up,

564
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 2: so he gets to stay there. And the rate, you're

565
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 2: just making an extra hundred bucks every year that goes

566
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:48,719
Speaker 2: by on if you're in, if you're just a private

567
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 2: and you stayed a private for twenty years, you just

568
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 2: make like an extra every year. You just get a

569
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 2: little bit more and more and more.

570
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 3: You know, it's not the hardest thing for me. And look,

571
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 3: I'll give a plug. My friend Pete Haigs at the

572
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 3: Secretary of the Secretary of War.

573
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 2: Now, he is the sewer of secretary. He's the sewer

574
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 2: of destruction, sow bro.

575
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 3: He is. He is attempting to shift his culture a

576
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 3: little bit, but it's deeply, deeply ingrained at it. For

577
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 3: the pay structure and the incentive structure of the military

578
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 3: is designed not so that it's a meritocracy. Right. The

579
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 3: truth is, if I am the best O two of

580
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 3: all time, or if I am the worst you know,

581
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:35,959
Speaker 3: O two tenant JG of all time, I am going

582
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 3: to make three at the identical amount of time, no

583
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 3: matter what my rep says, no matter how good I am.

584
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:44,640
Speaker 3: I could be the most badass coal ever or the

585
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 3: worst ship bag seal ever, and I am going to

586
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:51,360
Speaker 3: get promoted on essentially the same schedule, right, and then

587
00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 3: my pay is commensurate with that rank. Obviously, So in

588
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 3: that very macro sense, the military is not really designed

589
00:29:59,880 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 3: to as a meritocracy. I will say there are efforts

590
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 3: underway within the new Department of War to shift that, right,

591
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 3: and so it's it's a broad general statement, but it

592
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 3: is vastly different than the civilian world. There are, of course,

593
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:18,239
Speaker 3: corporations that are bureaucratized and stuff that don't operate as

594
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 3: a meritocracy, but in general, in the civilian world, like

595
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 3: the cream of the crop rises to the top, and

596
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 3: your pay is commensurate.

597
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:30,520
Speaker 2: With that, right, And that's quoting Stipress Hill. Yeah, the

598
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 2: cream rises to the top or no house of pain. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

599
00:30:33,520 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 2: right to the top there too, right, Yeah, that's what's up.

600
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:40,840
Speaker 2: That's what's up. So with that said, talking about the

601
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 2: pay structure, I would hope that if your friends listening

602
00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:46,760
Speaker 2: to this episode for some reason, which he should be

603
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 2: focused on the real world, yeah, that you know, I

604
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 2: don't want any face Paul moments. You know what I'm saying. Oh,

605
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 2: you know, like you got an opportunity to give a

606
00:30:56,120 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 2: fifty percent increase to the military, but nobody struck that,

607
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:03,000
Speaker 2: you know, that nail into the wood like path you know,

608
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 2: or like you like these two ten percent increases for

609
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:10,800
Speaker 2: military personnel is just kind of like frivolous when you

610
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:13,320
Speaker 2: hear it being talked about like, oh, well, our military

611
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 2: needs a raise. Well, here's two percent, here's ten percent. Man,

612
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:18,880
Speaker 2: we just made like a big beautiful bill for like

613
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 2: a trillion dollars to go build a border wall. Take

614
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 2: a couple half of that, give it to the military personnelity.

615
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:32,600
Speaker 3: Just I hear you, man, it is well above my

616
00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 3: pay grade. And what I will tell you is that Pete,

617
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 3: I think this is true both in rhetoric and in action,

618
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:42,920
Speaker 3: is more focused on the war fighter themselves than any

619
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:46,959
Speaker 3: Secretary of Defense in that war. You know, in modern history.

620
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:50,480
Speaker 3: He is truly a guy's guy, and you can see

621
00:31:50,520 --> 00:31:55,160
Speaker 3: even in terms of his service, I think reflects that.

622
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 3: That being said, right, like budgets are set by Congress,

623
00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 3: pay increases are set by Congress. It's political animal and football.

624
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:05,280
Speaker 3: So what I encourage military folks to do is to

625
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:08,360
Speaker 3: maximize the opportunities that they have in front of them.

626
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 3: You know, for example, the the TSP or the old

627
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 3: retirement system is transformed to the TSP. Right, the TSP

628
00:32:18,560 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 3: is essentially glorified for a one K, but it has

629
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:26,920
Speaker 3: this like incredible five percent matching contribution. If you're not

630
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:30,640
Speaker 3: dedicating the five percent of your pay to go towards

631
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:33,360
Speaker 3: the TSP and towards your retirement system, you are just

632
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:36,520
Speaker 3: leaving money on the table. So we encourage every military

633
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:40,720
Speaker 3: member to maximize that first five percent of the TSP

634
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 3: because that is just free money. And then what's changed

635
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 3: in the military retirement system is those accounts are completely portable.

636
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 3: So when you get out of the service, that is

637
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:54,560
Speaker 3: a qualified retirement account, you can bring that over, you know,

638
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 3: to any private entity, and you can actually even manage

639
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:02,480
Speaker 3: that yourself, like the actual to get a portfolio that's

640
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 3: more appropriate for you. So that's a big change in

641
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 3: the military retirement system, right, is that you actually now

642
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 3: have agency over your retirement. So I encourage people like

643
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:16,280
Speaker 3: first to max it out and to really start to

644
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 3: learn about the process of investing. A lot of my

645
00:33:20,040 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 3: work has been focused on that. The company I built

646
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 3: was about getting military members involved in investing in public equities,

647
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 3: investing in the stock market. Because the truth is even

648
00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 3: now today from page of the World Street Journal, they

649
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 3: call it the two race car economies. Right, there's two

650
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:39,000
Speaker 3: different race cars. Those who don't and this was true

651
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 3: during COVID and it has been true throughout history. Is

652
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:48,120
Speaker 3: the gap the v graph between between incomes and between

653
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:50,960
Speaker 3: wealth in this country, the people who are invested in

654
00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 3: the equities market continue to grow and grow and increase

655
00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 3: their percentage wealth in the economy, and people are not

656
00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:01,520
Speaker 3: invested in the market tend to be on the losing

657
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 3: side of that equation. So that is like one of

658
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 3: the single most important things I can do is get

659
00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:10,800
Speaker 3: people at least to understand the process of first savings

660
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 3: and then investing.

661
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 2: That's like saying, if you have your own business and

662
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 2: you are self employed, and you do cut your own

663
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 2: paycheck and you're proud of yourself, you should look into

664
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,919
Speaker 2: having a rough ira through your business because you could

665
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 2: put I believe up to like seven thousand dollars through

666
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:27,759
Speaker 2: your business into it tax free, and then that goes

667
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 2: into the stock market to grow only tax once and

668
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 2: once it cashes it out, it doesn't. That's you know, now, Hey.

669
00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:39,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, And there's lots of ways to invest right right,

670
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 3: And there's no way I could teach you on a

671
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:43,880
Speaker 3: forty five minute podcast all the ways you can invest

672
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 3: in yourself like I did.

673
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:46,120
Speaker 2: Like I actually got.

674
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:49,400
Speaker 3: It because I went to Naval Academy. I wasn't I

675
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:51,840
Speaker 3: was under the old GI Bill, the Montgomery and I

676
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 3: already used it. I wasn't eligible for the new g

677
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 3: GI bill, so I had to pay for Harvard myself.

678
00:34:57,719 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 3: And that's okay because that was an investment in my

679
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 3: myself at that time. I would argue that investment paid

680
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:03,680
Speaker 3: very big diffidence.

681
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:05,440
Speaker 2: So like sixty thousand a year, Can I ask how

682
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 2: much is a semester at Harvard? Were you in state

683
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:09,160
Speaker 2: or out of state student?

684
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 3: In state? I paid my dues like this California surfer

685
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:16,000
Speaker 3: kid paid his dues walking across the snow in Cambridge.

686
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 2: Yes it was miserable, yes, yes, yes, right, so you

687
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:23,680
Speaker 2: were in state student, so that probably helped a big time.

688
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:26,360
Speaker 3: I'm sorry I was an out of state student. I

689
00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 3: don't even know that Harvard makes a distinction because it's private,

690
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:31,960
Speaker 3: whichween did in state nut of state Harvard. Anyways, like

691
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:34,880
Speaker 3: my two year education costs somewhere around quarter million dollars,

692
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:38,240
Speaker 3: I think, all being told, and that doesn't that doesn't

693
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:41,240
Speaker 3: sort of calculate the opportunity cost of that you're not working.

694
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 3: I was working because I was doing like reporting on

695
00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:47,880
Speaker 3: my vacations, like war corresponding. But in general, there's like

696
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:50,319
Speaker 3: a big loss because not only are you spending money

697
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:52,279
Speaker 3: you're not earning income, So you got to calculate all

698
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 3: of that in But that being said, I think I

699
00:35:56,960 --> 00:35:59,239
Speaker 3: guess if I have like one like club that I

700
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:01,680
Speaker 3: could beat all my fellow veterans over the head with

701
00:36:02,200 --> 00:36:05,719
Speaker 3: it's like it's time to turn on your financial awareness, right,

702
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:08,920
Speaker 3: and that that means investing, it means saving. It just

703
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 3: means like I didn't. I didn't read the Wall Street

704
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:14,719
Speaker 3: Journal until I was like forty years old. It just

705
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 3: wasn't in.

706
00:36:16,040 --> 00:36:17,760
Speaker 2: My likee boring.

707
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:24,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so boring, right, Well, I came. I came

708
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:28,719
Speaker 3: to my financial literacy and awareness and understanding much later

709
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 3: in life. And of course I wish that I think,

710
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:34,359
Speaker 3: just like you can do, my nine to five could

711
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:36,279
Speaker 3: have been the Seal teams. I think in my five

712
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:38,840
Speaker 3: to nine I could have been more focused on like

713
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 3: building financial well. And so you know, if somebody had

714
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:47,080
Speaker 3: said that to me as like a young steel lieutenant

715
00:36:47,440 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 3: like and prepared to go overseas like, I may or

716
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 3: may not have listened. But I will say that there

717
00:36:53,120 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 3: are seal entrepreneurs like my one of my partners, one

718
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:01,400
Speaker 3: of my business partners, he built his company, his swimwear

719
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:03,320
Speaker 3: company while he was in the seal team. So guys

720
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 3: do it, you know? So anyways, I think the very

721
00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:09,080
Speaker 3: first step, if you take nothing else away, is just

722
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 3: kind of open the aperture on your thinking and start

723
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:17,440
Speaker 3: to pay attention to how financial health and wealth can

724
00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:21,960
Speaker 3: can impact your life. And I would say it's as

725
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:27,359
Speaker 3: important as like bullets and you're gone body armor when

726
00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:31,719
Speaker 3: you go into combat, Like your financial health is your

727
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:36,479
Speaker 3: body armor in life. Something goes wrong, somebody gets hurt, right,

728
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:38,439
Speaker 3: you got money to pay for that. Shit Like money

729
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 3: doesn't solve all your problems. But believe me, like that

730
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:44,480
Speaker 3: help them to quote another song, more money, more problems. Yes, exactly,

731
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:47,200
Speaker 3: that is true. That is true. But what it does,

732
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:51,040
Speaker 3: the race is a baseline level of concern. If something

733
00:37:51,080 --> 00:37:53,600
Speaker 3: goes wrong in my life, I can write a check

734
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:55,719
Speaker 3: in much of it, I can write a check to

735
00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:58,520
Speaker 3: solve that problem. And that provides you security and body

736
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:02,360
Speaker 3: armor against all of the assault of life that everybody

737
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:05,759
Speaker 3: should have. I don't care whether you're Rob O'Neil right

738
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 3: or you know an E one scraping paint on a

739
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:10,840
Speaker 3: ship like that, It matters.

740
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 2: It does, and I'll tell you right now, especially getting

741
00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:16,239
Speaker 2: hit with these tariffs. As a business owner, you know,

742
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 2: we're in the full thralls of like tariffs, and and

743
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:22,480
Speaker 2: you know it's added an extra like five thousand dollars

744
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:26,080
Speaker 2: a month to me on my business, which I have

745
00:38:26,200 --> 00:38:30,279
Speaker 2: to then like, you know, pay Yeah, that's what I'm

746
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 2: trying to say, dude. And I got payroll, and I'm like, well,

747
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 2: that five thousand dollars was like payroll. But now all

748
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:39,960
Speaker 2: my guns that I sell, they're like an added let's say,

749
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:42,120
Speaker 2: twenty dollars per on my wall. So every gun on

750
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:44,960
Speaker 2: my wall at my shop's there's another twenty dollars added

751
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 2: to them for so I guess what I'm getting at

752
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:49,719
Speaker 2: is there's no benefit to the twenty dollars. It just

753
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 2: like it doesn't make the gun better, it didn't make

754
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 2: it worse. It doesn't give me any advertising capabilities. I

755
00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 2: don't get anything out of it except now I have

756
00:38:56,239 --> 00:38:59,160
Speaker 2: to charge the consumer this extra twenty dollars on top

757
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:01,400
Speaker 2: of the gun that was the same one eighty nine

758
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:04,319
Speaker 2: ninety nine. Now it's to twenty nine ninety nine ninety nine.

759
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:06,600
Speaker 2: And I'm like, and so what I haven't done is

760
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:09,880
Speaker 2: I haven't raised my prices. Right, I'm like, I feel

761
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:13,279
Speaker 2: really bad trying not to. I'm holding fast on the

762
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 2: majority of everything to not try to. It's hard. Like

763
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 2: you said, you got to just kind of like go

764
00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 2: with the blows that are dealt with you in business.

765
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:23,960
Speaker 3: And yeah, and like having a cushion to absorb events

766
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:28,719
Speaker 3: that you cannot control, like tariffs, which is that is important? Yes,

767
00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:31,319
Speaker 3: that's the body armor for your business I'm talking about.

768
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:33,840
Speaker 2: And that's what I wanted to reference exactly, is so

769
00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:36,800
Speaker 2: you know, I have built myself with my business partner

770
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:39,799
Speaker 2: with this body armor. But we're taking shots, bro.

771
00:39:41,120 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like look, even the best you know, level

772
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 3: four plates, they're designed to withstand.

773
00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:47,280
Speaker 2: Two or three shots.

774
00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:54,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, seven seven six seven, Yeah, I'm gonna start fracture.

775
00:39:57,040 --> 00:40:00,840
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, one hundred percent. And so we got to

776
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:02,479
Speaker 2: keep it together, kit, just got to keep it together,

777
00:40:02,560 --> 00:40:04,040
Speaker 2: keep it together. Got to keep it together. You know.

778
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:07,480
Speaker 2: That's how I look at it. And you know, I've

779
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:10,239
Speaker 2: really enjoyed the financial conversation with you, but you have

780
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:12,879
Speaker 2: so many things that go on. Dude. You did Maricopa

781
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 2: County lock Up, and I watched that show when I

782
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:18,880
Speaker 2: was reading who I'm talking to, I was like, really,

783
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:20,320
Speaker 2: lock Up Maricopa County.

784
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 3: Right, that was you right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

785
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 3: so that was that was actually for MSNBC. People don't realize, like,

786
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 3: you know, there's the news programming Monday through Friday, But

787
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 3: the truth is that series, that documentary series. It's a

788
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:37,879
Speaker 3: news focused documentary series. At best, prison porn, I guess.

789
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:42,279
Speaker 2: At worst, Yeah, it really was. Yeah, prison ASMR. I

790
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:44,040
Speaker 2: don't want to be there, but I'm.

791
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:47,759
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, that was a wildly popular show. It did

792
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 3: seventeen seasons. I came to that at sort of the

793
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:53,640
Speaker 3: peak of my media career when I was, you know,

794
00:40:53,640 --> 00:40:58,440
Speaker 3: both producing and doing correspondent work and I and I

795
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:02,120
Speaker 3: produced several seasons a lot up really difficult job, by

796
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 3: the way, going into that prison for twelve hours a

797
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:10,920
Speaker 3: day filming, listening to the stories, and it was it

798
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 3: gave me an incredible purview to this like part of

799
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 3: society that most people thankfully never never get to speak.

800
00:41:18,320 --> 00:41:21,000
Speaker 3: But you know, it was like it was sort of

801
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 3: an aside. You know, I specialized in the media world.

802
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:26,799
Speaker 3: I've I've done everything there is to do. I've like

803
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:29,720
Speaker 3: sold a film at Sundance, like that's a narrative film,

804
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:32,520
Speaker 3: you know, with a net Benning and Adam Driver. I've

805
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:36,000
Speaker 3: made like Emmy Award winning documentaries. I've even done like

806
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 3: stunt work, like I did the stunt work on Black Panther.

807
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:44,399
Speaker 3: I was I was an actor on the Jack Ryans here.

808
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 3: So I've done like the full spectrum of media.

809
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:52,040
Speaker 2: And you embedded into Bocal Harams. Yeah, when they took

810
00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:54,840
Speaker 2: the two hundred and ninety girls hostage and yeah embedded.

811
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a wild story. I can tell it now.

812
00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 3: I couldn't. I couldn't tell it at the But I basically,

813
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:04,880
Speaker 3: like knew a group of South African mercenaries. So I

814
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 3: had to like ed myself with these South African mercenaries

815
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:11,840
Speaker 3: and then like you know, like sneak the journalism in

816
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 3: on the side, but I went in under my leg

817
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:19,080
Speaker 3: seal merk credentials, not right journalism. I got to get

818
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 3: everybody comfortable with enough with me, you know, the boys

819
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:26,680
Speaker 3: comfortable enough with me too, boys film, uh and do it.

820
00:42:26,719 --> 00:42:29,959
Speaker 3: But yeah, so I've done all of that stuff. Lock

821
00:42:30,040 --> 00:42:33,160
Speaker 3: Up was awesome. Most of my stuff has been focused

822
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:35,879
Speaker 3: on Most of my media work has been focused on

823
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 3: like these issues in the world that I think are important,

824
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:41,440
Speaker 3: largely national security focused because that's sort of my domain

825
00:42:41,480 --> 00:42:45,359
Speaker 3: of expertise. But you know, I think in all of

826
00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:48,319
Speaker 3: my endeavors, like one of the three lines is that

827
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:50,759
Speaker 3: I took that foundation that I built in the Seal

828
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:57,720
Speaker 3: Teams of being flexible, adaptable, having drive, being mission focused

829
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 3: and execution focused, and the leadership that comes with leading

830
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 3: special operations teams on operations. I took all of those

831
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:08,880
Speaker 3: skills and then I applied them to my next endeavor,

832
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:12,400
Speaker 3: which was media, and then ultimately I applied them to

833
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:17,760
Speaker 3: finance and entrepreneurship and those like sort of immutable traits

834
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:22,080
Speaker 3: that were forged in the in the Seal Teams, those

835
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:25,279
Speaker 3: those really were my keys to success. And if my

836
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:30,000
Speaker 3: story is like at all inspirational to anybody, it's I

837
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:32,520
Speaker 3: think that that's what I would point to, right, Like,

838
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 3: that foundation and that base that you built from your

839
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:40,160
Speaker 3: military service can incredibly serve you as you go through

840
00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:41,760
Speaker 3: like the rest of the parts of your life.

841
00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:44,919
Speaker 2: No, I love it, No, I love it. No, You're great,

842
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 2: And I wish I just had like all day or

843
00:43:47,560 --> 00:43:50,360
Speaker 2: you just had your you know this, you're great. And again,

844
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:56,600
Speaker 2: you know, financial literacy is important to us, which is

845
00:43:56,600 --> 00:43:58,400
Speaker 2: why I said, when you look at the Wall Street Journal.

846
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:00,239
Speaker 2: Maybe there's like a bunch of numbers on the back

847
00:44:00,239 --> 00:44:02,440
Speaker 2: of like the stock market the page, you know, or

848
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:04,200
Speaker 2: in the newspaper. And I was always like, well, where's

849
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:06,800
Speaker 2: Beetle Bailey, you know, I want to read Beetle Bailey

850
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:09,400
Speaker 2: or like Blondie Back of the day, not to date myself,

851
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 2: but the cartoons on the back of the newspaper. It's like,

852
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 2: you know, and you you just don't look at the

853
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 2: stocks and stuff like that. You know.

854
00:44:16,640 --> 00:44:20,399
Speaker 3: It's like, and look, that shit can be complex, right, right,

855
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:24,719
Speaker 3: the Feds making their announcements and understanding like the Fed

856
00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:27,200
Speaker 3: funds rate and like you know, the new interest rate

857
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:29,239
Speaker 3: and how that affects the bombs market. It can be

858
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:33,880
Speaker 3: infinitely complex, but it can also be very basically simple.

859
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 3: Right at the end of the day. I always tell

860
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 3: people to start investing in what they know and look,

861
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:43,160
Speaker 3: I think self directed investing is a small portion of

862
00:44:43,200 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 3: your portfolio. Most self directed investors don't win, but self

863
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:49,279
Speaker 3: directed investing can be like an incredible teaching tool to

864
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 3: help you optimize and balance the rest of your financial

865
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 3: battle space. Right, and so just starting to invest with

866
00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:02,000
Speaker 3: that first stock or even like your first it starts

867
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 3: to imbue you with a series of habits.

868
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:04,759
Speaker 2: Right.

869
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:07,879
Speaker 3: It's like taking a little jog around the block every

870
00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:11,319
Speaker 3: day or taking that hot girl walk right starts to

871
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:15,319
Speaker 3: like set this flywheel of physical fitness going. The same

872
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 3: is true with buying a little bit of stuff. Right.

873
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:19,400
Speaker 3: And you know when I say the company I built,

874
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 3: military guys, they can invest with as little as a dollar.

875
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:25,880
Speaker 3: Everybody's got a dollar to invest. You could buy a

876
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:29,680
Speaker 3: piece of Starbucks or Apple right with a dollar. So

877
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:32,959
Speaker 3: rather than spending the five dollars on the wrap mok

878
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:36,839
Speaker 3: rap exactly, you know, buy the stock own the company. Man.

879
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:40,800
Speaker 2: Yes, I did that. With Roadblocks, my son plays Roadblocks.

880
00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:43,200
Speaker 2: He's like, Dad, I need Roebucks. And I'm like, what

881
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:44,560
Speaker 2: do you mean. He's like, well, I just need you

882
00:45:44,640 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 2: to buy me some roebucks. And so I go online,

883
00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:49,919
Speaker 2: I google Roadblocks, I start playing Roadblocks. I'm like, dude,

884
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:52,840
Speaker 2: I need roebucks myself. And I was like, wait, everybody's

885
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:55,560
Speaker 2: giving these guys like ten twenty thirty dollars a month

886
00:45:55,600 --> 00:45:57,799
Speaker 2: for these things. So I looked into them and they

887
00:45:57,800 --> 00:46:00,920
Speaker 2: were publicly traded. So I bought in on role roadblocks

888
00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 2: right right, right, So that was this was COVID. So

889
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:06,400
Speaker 2: I took COVID as a sign to start collecting my

890
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:10,560
Speaker 2: stock market Pokemon cards. So I was like, hmm, so

891
00:46:10,600 --> 00:46:14,279
Speaker 2: I bought Spotify. Now today I bought Spotify like one

892
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:17,240
Speaker 2: seventeen a share. It's seven hundred dollars a share.

893
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:20,160
Speaker 3: Today, exactly. You know what? You know what my greatest

894
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:24,319
Speaker 3: performing stock of all time? Huh is Palenteer? Right? And

895
00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:27,360
Speaker 3: why did and why did I buy Palenteer years and

896
00:46:27,440 --> 00:46:30,520
Speaker 3: years ago? Because I used it in the teams and

897
00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 3: I was like, these guys are incredible. So I bought

898
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:37,319
Speaker 3: what I knew. Oh, there's really nobody who's doing big

899
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:41,239
Speaker 3: data synthesis and like as integrated into the special operations

900
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:44,239
Speaker 3: community from a tech perspective as these guys. Right, So

901
00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:47,320
Speaker 3: I bought that I knew, Like I didn't even understand

902
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:48,960
Speaker 3: like price to earning ratios.

903
00:46:49,080 --> 00:46:50,880
Speaker 2: Right right, You're like, I just know I need that.

904
00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:54,520
Speaker 3: I used this exactly exactly. So that's how that actually

905
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 3: like started that process. And then, like anything else, you

906
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:00,720
Speaker 3: watered the lawn and you get sad yer and shabbier

907
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:05,440
Speaker 3: as time does. But there is just this giant gulf

908
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:10,080
Speaker 3: of America divide between those who invest and those who

909
00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 3: know just a time, which side is the Gulf of America.

910
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:22,600
Speaker 2: I'm laughing. I haven't heard that phrase at all, like

911
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 2: really used except for by like one guy. Okay, I

912
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:31,719
Speaker 2: have to drink my water that I see it all

913
00:47:31,760 --> 00:47:35,319
Speaker 2: over all over Gulf of America. Bro, My whole life

914
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:38,400
Speaker 2: just changed today, Bro as today years old when I

915
00:47:38,480 --> 00:47:41,440
Speaker 2: learned enterprise was enterprise, rent a car was enterprise, the

916
00:47:41,480 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 2: battleship or the carrier, and Gulf of America exists, I

917
00:47:45,200 --> 00:47:51,000
Speaker 2: forgot about that. Oh my goodness, gracious. Now listen, I

918
00:47:51,040 --> 00:47:54,920
Speaker 2: know you have something to go get to here just shortly,

919
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:57,839
Speaker 2: and I've really taken up your time, and you've you've

920
00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 2: given us some insight into your your mindset, which is

921
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:04,239
Speaker 2: what I want my listener to and my viewer to have.

922
00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:06,400
Speaker 2: And I also want them to know that this is

923
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:08,360
Speaker 2: really the first time you and I have ever talked

924
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:11,400
Speaker 2: or met, and we can have a conversation and not

925
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:14,319
Speaker 2: be at each other's throats, and you know, try to

926
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:16,520
Speaker 2: come to us. I want to see what you're saying,

927
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:18,120
Speaker 2: and maybe you want to see where I'm coming from,

928
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:21,279
Speaker 2: and giving the other person a chance to talk.

929
00:48:22,200 --> 00:48:25,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the other thing is like you know here

930
00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:27,319
Speaker 3: we are we you know, we have all this like

931
00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:32,040
Speaker 3: shared common thread, your dad serving the Special Operations communes, right,

932
00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:34,960
Speaker 3: And we talked a lot of we like talked about

933
00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:38,080
Speaker 3: military and we talked about patriotism. I think it's inherent

934
00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 3: in your dad's flag and you know, my little shadow

935
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:44,160
Speaker 3: boxes back here, Yes, that is a given. And like

936
00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:47,560
Speaker 3: what I say to transitioning military guys is that like

937
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:49,960
Speaker 3: that's what opens the door, right, But then you still

938
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:51,759
Speaker 3: got to walk through that door. And here, what did

939
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:54,400
Speaker 3: we really talk about? We really spent the preponderance of

940
00:48:54,440 --> 00:48:57,480
Speaker 3: our time talking about how to build your wealth or

941
00:48:57,520 --> 00:49:00,919
Speaker 3: how to think about building your wealth another So, even

942
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:03,640
Speaker 3: though the military is in the backdrop of everything we do,

943
00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 3: the forefront of our conversation was really about all of

944
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:09,920
Speaker 3: this civilian sector stuff and how to go forward and

945
00:49:10,040 --> 00:49:13,800
Speaker 3: correct the real castle for your family and yourself a

946
00:49:13,880 --> 00:49:14,520
Speaker 3: hundred percent.

947
00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:16,879
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't even dive into your combat action.

948
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:19,120
Speaker 2: And I know you have all that stuff, and I

949
00:49:19,160 --> 00:49:23,400
Speaker 2: really appreciate you, know, your service to our dation. I

950
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:24,800
Speaker 2: just want to let you know that. And you have

951
00:49:24,840 --> 00:49:26,400
Speaker 2: a great smile too. Bro. I just want you to

952
00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:27,120
Speaker 2: thank you.

953
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:30,640
Speaker 3: Thank you. It's been the best thing for me about

954
00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:33,640
Speaker 3: selling my company. So the company that I started with

955
00:49:33,680 --> 00:49:35,920
Speaker 3: the intel officer was called Guild that was the investing

956
00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 3: in Education plastform right acquired by Sebert Financial, which is

957
00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:44,040
Speaker 3: a publicly traded company started by Muriel Sebert, first woman

958
00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 3: on Wall Street. And the reason she bought my company,

959
00:49:47,719 --> 00:49:50,720
Speaker 3: other than the financials and the fundamentals, was she believed

960
00:49:50,719 --> 00:49:54,920
Speaker 3: in this mission to continuing to serve underserved populations and

961
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:59,000
Speaker 3: underserved communities. And I was able to convince the Seabert

962
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:02,080
Speaker 3: the company a Muriel unfortunately is no longer alive, but

963
00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:04,279
Speaker 3: I was able to convince that the new ownership and

964
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:08,680
Speaker 3: leadership of the company that this mission was resonant with

965
00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:12,000
Speaker 3: the original mission of the company to serve underserved populations.

966
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:17,360
Speaker 3: So so now now I've created this initiative called Valor,

967
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:20,799
Speaker 3: which is Sibert dot com slash Valor, and that's where

968
00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:24,000
Speaker 3: we're continuing this mission of helping invest in helping build

969
00:50:24,040 --> 00:50:28,400
Speaker 3: financial awareness for the military community. And I'm proud to

970
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:31,360
Speaker 3: have both sold my company yet to still be able

971
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:34,279
Speaker 3: to continue to do like all the things that I

972
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:35,040
Speaker 3: set out to do.

973
00:50:35,880 --> 00:50:38,520
Speaker 2: So I love that and just a touch based on

974
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:42,400
Speaker 2: Sibert dot com forward slash valor, would you say that,

975
00:50:42,560 --> 00:50:45,040
Speaker 2: you know, just go there and check it out and

976
00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:47,399
Speaker 2: see if it fits what you're thinking in your head

977
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 2: as the listener, like yeh Sibert, you know, these guys

978
00:50:50,120 --> 00:50:52,000
Speaker 2: are talking about they making money or they have a

979
00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:55,440
Speaker 2: living and they're self employed. Siebert dot com forard slash valor,

980
00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:56,480
Speaker 2: that's what they should be checking out.

981
00:50:56,640 --> 00:51:00,759
Speaker 3: That's our Valor initiative. And I vote even bigger than

982
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:05,200
Speaker 3: just military, also, like law enforcement, firefighters. Anybody can invest,

983
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:07,520
Speaker 3: but it's really focused on the military, the first responder,

984
00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:10,200
Speaker 3: the law enforcement community, anybody who's kind of warned, the

985
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:12,440
Speaker 3: cloth of the country. I feel like we're all of

986
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:16,640
Speaker 3: like similar mindset and attitude and have similar values, similar experiences,

987
00:51:17,480 --> 00:51:20,200
Speaker 3: and so there's a whole investing world out there that

988
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:23,960
Speaker 3: tried to kind of tailor for that community. The other

989
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:27,040
Speaker 3: thing that I've done that you know, I'm proud of

990
00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:30,439
Speaker 3: is as I launched a podcast called Tactical Wealth, where

991
00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:34,560
Speaker 3: I interview other successful entrepreneurs and hear their stories. Because

992
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:38,480
Speaker 3: every path is unique and there are as we started

993
00:51:38,520 --> 00:51:40,160
Speaker 3: at the beginning to you know, to put a button

994
00:51:40,239 --> 00:51:44,359
Speaker 3: on this thing, some extraordinary veteran entrepreneurs out there doing

995
00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:47,080
Speaker 3: the most interesting things. Some of it's in the national

996
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:50,480
Speaker 3: security in the defense tech space. But you know, I

997
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:53,560
Speaker 3: had a guy, a veteran on the other day who

998
00:51:53,640 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 3: is building a neuroscience company. I had another veteran who's

999
00:51:57,160 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 3: had a successful tech company, and so just all across

1000
00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:04,759
Speaker 3: the spectrum of interesting things that guys.

1001
00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:07,759
Speaker 2: Are doing, that's very commendable. So I applaud you on

1002
00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:10,799
Speaker 2: the conversation and your topics that you have on there.

1003
00:52:10,800 --> 00:52:13,480
Speaker 2: And you know, you've got all the experience from your

1004
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:16,359
Speaker 2: military career and growing up as a kid and being

1005
00:52:16,400 --> 00:52:18,880
Speaker 2: on Vice and doing all these shows that I'm sure

1006
00:52:19,080 --> 00:52:23,120
Speaker 2: you know, we should just say. Tactical Wealth is the

1007
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:28,120
Speaker 2: podcast that is hosted by Kaj Larsen, and we'll have

1008
00:52:28,160 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 2: that also linked up in the bottom of our you know,

1009
00:52:32,040 --> 00:52:33,880
Speaker 2: our description. So if you want to click on that,

1010
00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:35,840
Speaker 2: go ahead and click down below and just go straight

1011
00:52:35,840 --> 00:52:38,640
Speaker 2: over to his podcast. Follow it. It's probably on where

1012
00:52:38,640 --> 00:52:44,520
Speaker 2: every podcast is out there. You know, Spotify, who have

1013
00:52:44,560 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 2: thought I had no idea. I just said, hey, babe,

1014
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:52,320
Speaker 2: we have memberships to Spotify. They're making our money. Let's

1015
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:54,279
Speaker 2: get in on that. And so it was like maybe

1016
00:52:54,280 --> 00:52:57,640
Speaker 2: it was like seventy eight dollars at the time. And listen,

1017
00:52:57,719 --> 00:52:59,600
Speaker 2: I didn't buy like a million dollars real quick, not

1018
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:02,680
Speaker 2: just this up. I bought like two shares at a time.

1019
00:53:03,000 --> 00:53:06,920
Speaker 2: Because I'm still living on a budget. I'm fiscal responsible.

1020
00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:10,600
Speaker 2: You know, I have business and everything. But I've just

1021
00:53:10,640 --> 00:53:15,040
Speaker 2: been buying little bits of my portfolio. And that's what

1022
00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:17,360
Speaker 2: it is. I just spend like sixty bucks instead of

1023
00:53:17,360 --> 00:53:19,560
Speaker 2: going to get the frappuccino or going out to eat

1024
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:23,120
Speaker 2: at Texas Roadhouse, I'm just buying into Texas Roadhouse. And

1025
00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:25,440
Speaker 2: I still enjoy their food, but every time I eat there,

1026
00:53:25,520 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 2: I'm like, this is delicious. I know I'm going to

1027
00:53:28,200 --> 00:53:29,760
Speaker 2: get a piece of this somewhere on a dividend.

1028
00:53:30,200 --> 00:53:32,080
Speaker 3: Yeah. And by the way, you know what we call

1029
00:53:32,160 --> 00:53:35,919
Speaker 3: that in the biz, hu cost averaging. Right, you don't

1030
00:53:35,920 --> 00:53:37,960
Speaker 3: have to buy all of your chunk on one day

1031
00:53:37,960 --> 00:53:39,400
Speaker 3: because you don't know whether it's going to go up

1032
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:42,839
Speaker 3: or down the next thing, little small increments because it's

1033
00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:46,000
Speaker 3: very hard, there's another you know, cliche and investing very

1034
00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:49,000
Speaker 3: hard to time the market. What matters more is time

1035
00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:52,680
Speaker 3: in the market, and so dollar cost average little bit

1036
00:53:52,840 --> 00:53:56,680
Speaker 3: every day investment has been a tried and true strategy

1037
00:53:57,480 --> 00:53:58,280
Speaker 3: for people to build.

1038
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:00,319
Speaker 2: Well. Yeah, and I'm not looking to get rid of either.

1039
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:02,640
Speaker 2: I want the kids to have it, you see. I'm

1040
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:05,239
Speaker 2: trying to create something for the kids, like leave the

1041
00:54:05,239 --> 00:54:08,040
Speaker 2: house to them, you know, and establish a foundation for

1042
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:09,120
Speaker 2: the generation to come.

1043
00:54:09,520 --> 00:54:13,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, lisn't. I'm still I'm still in it. I'm

1044
00:54:13,320 --> 00:54:16,320
Speaker 3: still building businesses. I got a pitch meeting.

1045
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:18,680
Speaker 2: Yes, No, I know you're great and we could talk

1046
00:54:18,719 --> 00:54:20,560
Speaker 2: forever because we both do it for a living and

1047
00:54:20,920 --> 00:54:24,040
Speaker 2: you've been great. So please go check out Codge Larson anywhere.

1048
00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:28,680
Speaker 2: Google him. Tactical Wealth is his podcast on behalf of COJ,

1049
00:54:29,080 --> 00:54:31,960
Speaker 2: myself and Brandon Webb and all the guys out there

1050
00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:34,200
Speaker 2: that are pushing themselves to be the best ventrepreneurs they

1051
00:54:34,239 --> 00:54:36,279
Speaker 2: can be in this life. And you, my listener, who

1052
00:54:36,280 --> 00:54:38,759
Speaker 2: had asthma, who could never join you can still be

1053
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:41,800
Speaker 2: part of the entrepreneur life. Just get at it, Okay,

1054
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:43,600
Speaker 2: just get at it. Don't worry about it, just keep

1055
00:54:43,640 --> 00:54:46,360
Speaker 2: listening to us. Hit us up. I'm available on Instagram.

1056
00:54:46,440 --> 00:54:49,120
Speaker 2: If you've got any questions, reach out to me. Otherwise,

1057
00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:50,920
Speaker 2: go check out the book club, Go check out the

1058
00:54:50,920 --> 00:54:56,200
Speaker 2: merch Store and go check out Tactical Wealth by Coge Larson,

1059
00:54:56,280 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 2: which is his podcast. And this is rad saying peace.

1060
00:55:15,239 --> 00:55:17,640
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Self Red Lady