[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Organization in our society that integrated under President Truman. And in fact, when I was in the military, and I'm sure you've done this too, sometimes I found myself forgetting the race.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of my soldier or the person I was dealing with. Cause after a while we're all out of drab. You know, and, and so, uh, that was the beauty part of, of the military. You know, it was a meritocracy. It wasn't equal outcome. It was equal opportunity. And so I'm, I, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every day I say that. I say it every chance I get. I said it today at the restaurant when we had breakfast. I say it when I'm, when I'm talking to somebody online that I've, there's been a problem with something. And, but I always say every day, you know, it's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A person on the other line who's always hearing people complaining and, you know, swearing at them or whatever, it just blows their mind when I say it. I said, hey, I know, you know, you're not the problem. You know, you're just trying to deal with the problem. Uh, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause literally guys, I'm not kidding, I've said this thousands of times over the last decade, and I've not had one person tell me, you know, I don't want to hear that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's the other way, it's, I mean, I see smiles on people's faces, or I see surprise, you know, and then smiles. And that's, it gives me a good feeling. It's like serving. When, when you serve others, you know, it's,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can see that they benefit from it. So, and then also, hopefully, they will serve others. Because somebody's gone out of their way to serve them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it's a distinct honor and privilege. Thank you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is Jocko Podcast number 389 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] An American-led coalition orchestrated by President George H.W. Bush had given Saddam Hussein an ultimatum.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He didn't. And on January 16th, 16th, the world witnessed what the grading greatest fighting force ever created could do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The invasion went in two phases. First, an air war where the combined might of American and allied militaries reigned thousands of tons of ordinance on the Iraqi army. Weeks later, the coalition smashed through Iraq's barricades and military in a two-pronged ground attack.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To the right American led forces surged Iraq into Iraq near the Kuwait border. Meanwhile, another contingent launched a left hook across the Iraqi desert.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My unit joined that assault at the last minute. We had been attached to a French tank division charged with protecting the left flank.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We crossed the border into Iraq early on the morning of February 25th. Our Humvees cutting through the desert with close air support in the distance. When the sun came up, carnage met my eyes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remember vividly the skeletons of enemy tanks, trucks, and artillery that had been hit by precision guided missiles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The bombing campaign, so precise and watched on TVs around the world, was unprecedented in human history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pushing farther in, we encountered some resistance from retreating Iraqi Republican Guard forces, but the majority shed their uniforms and blended into the populace or surrendered by the thousands.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My unit was assigned the missions of clearing minefields and destroying Iraqi munitions and military equipment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A platoon from 27th Engineer Battalion also from Fort Bragg was attached to my company.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Soon after crossing into Iraq, it was assigned the mission of clearing munitions from airfields after coalition bombing had rendered them inoperable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sadly, when clearing cluster munitions, the bombs went off, killing seven, including their platoon leader, First Lieutenant Terry Plunk, whom I'd gotten to know well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a tragic and very personal reminder of the costs of war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As you can tell from that excerpt right there, he fought in the first gulf war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's been the CEO of companies, including Bridgewater Associates. He served in the second Bush administration as the undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs and also as undersecretary of commerce for industry and security.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, yeaah, starting off with the, with the gulf war, definitely we'll get into some of that and what that build up was like. That was when I had just joined the navy. I was, I joined the navy in 1990, so I missed


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I missed the first golf war. We'll get into that, but uhm, before we get into the golf war,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's talk about, you know, how you grew up and what happened and kind of start at the beginning and, you know, the book is filled with all kinds of cool little anecdotes and stories.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You start off in the book, you say this, I was born in Washington, Pennsylvania, shoot a few short miles from that evening's rally. This is when you were running for political office in Westmoreland County.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And was raised in a small industrial town named Bloomsburg. 50 miles south of Scranton. And everybody knows where Scranton is now because of the office.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Bloomsburg was the sort of place where on the Monday after Thanksgiving the schools would shut down and we would head out of the hills for the first day of deer hunting season. While we lived in town, my family owned a small farm and I grew up working in the summers trimming Christmas trees and baling hay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the weekends I bust tables at the local Maggi, is that right? McGee. McGee. Yeah. McGee Hotel on Main Street.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I did well enough in school, but I wasn't a great student. I found a home competing on football fields and wrestling mats across northeastern Pennsylvania.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About where you're from, uh, tell us about your parents. What was going on?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was there any military background in your family?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you were growing up, so you were into sports, you said your grades were okay, were you not that into school?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can kinda catch up on football though, right? It's a little harder to catch up on wrestling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this is Coach Lin we're talking about. Coach Tom Lin. From the book. And again, you get the book. I'm gonna read some small excerpts from the book. The book's got all kinds of details in there. But you had, you had one experience with Coach Lin where he kinda chewed you out that definitely seemed to have left a mark. Oh man, he took,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, one of my friends, uh, is, lives in Pennsylvania and he was telling me about the NFL players from Pennsylvania.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you're wrestling since 6th grade. So you must have been a good wrestler. How are you doing? Are you making it to state? Are you winning state? Where are you at?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So going back to application to West Point, your


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your dad says just apply. He's thinking I'm going to save some money. Yeaah. He's thinking it's the honorable place to be. Anybody that's been to West Point, I've been to West Point and it's like just an outstanding, you get, you get fired up just being there and seeing the cadets walking around and it's a beautiful campus.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is going to the book here. It says, on a balmy day in early July 1983, my parents dropped me off at West Point's Meachie Stadium. Am I saying that right? Mikey Stadium. Mikey Stadium.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A short briefing to parents and their soon to be cadets ended abruptly with parents exit to the right and new cadets exit to the left. My military career had begun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By the end of the day, after hours of vaccinations, uniform fittings, a buzz cut and parade practice, the West Point class of 1987 marched across the parade field with the reviewing stands chock full of teary-eyed parents looking down on their transformed and in some cases teary-eyed new cadets.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The rising seniors or first classmen firsties ran the show. They bombarded us with information and barked orders as they heard us around West Point's historic grounds. There's no gentle orientation day at West Point or the 60 day beast barracks that follows.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They intentionally shock the system with a time-tested process that takes this cohort of wide-eyed teenagers and begins to break them down to be remolded as leaders and officers. It was all perfectly orchestrated, a test for the older cadets who are responsible, as well as the new plebes in their charge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'd realize only years later when it was our turn to welcome the new class, just how much work went into preparation for this century old tradition. So there's your welcome aboard. How ready for you? Were you for that mentally?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're only doing what you're told to do, and it is a, it is a serious shock to the system.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How long did it take? How long did it take for you to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did you, did you know you weren't going to play football when you went


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, so what are you going to college for? Like what are you, what are you learning? What's your degree gonna be?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What do you think formulated in your brain? What lessons did you, did you really grab onto from a leadership perspective?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so as you get this knee injury and as you realize you don't want to be an engineer, do you decide, hey, I want to be an infantry officer?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Backpack's bigger. Well the engine, what's crazy about the engineers is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, during the recent wars, those guys are the guys that were out clearing mines, clearing roadside bombs. And so that's another thing, you think you're going to be out there building bridges, and you're not out there building bridges too, but a huge percentage of the job that the engineers have done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like in the Battle of Ramadi, the engineers, yeaah, they went out and built the combat outposts in downtown Ramadi under fire. But then on top of that, in order to get to those combat outposts, they had to clear all those roads. The engineers were just, were just awesome. They did an awesome job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so, so, it takes you 6 months to heal up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you're, you go take those classes at Columbia, you maybe get a glimpse of some other things that you might like to do in the future. Did you ever think about doing special forces? Cause this guy was OSS, which is sort of- I did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, the officer infantry course for Marine Corps infantry officers had, I think it was 12 days of leave, got on a plane,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the plane took him to Vietnam, got on a helicopter, got on a jeep, got on a patrol,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Out there in the middle of the jungle, somebody pointed at a ridge and said, like, hey, your platoon's up on that ridge. Go take over. He walked up there and said, like, hey, I'm here to relieve the officer, and they're like, oh, we don't have an officer. You know, the sergeant's been running it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, staff sergeant over here has been running it, so you're in charge now sir. And then that night they got into a huge troops in contact and he was calling for fire and I was, I said to him, did you feel like you were prepared? And he said I was fully prepared. So this was in I think 1968, 1969, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The level of training that, you know, can you imagine at the height of the Vietnam War, how well the, the lessons were learned were coming back and the,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The officers that were just in Vietnam were now teaching you, but now you're going through in 19, what year is it? 1988? 1988, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So 1988, we hit, we, I mean there just hasn't been a lot of combat going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did you have any challenges in Ranger School? Was there anything that was particularly hard for you? Not really. What about what you used to cut and weight from wrestling? Did you cut a lot of weight in college? I lost.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As one of my buddies, who's one of the toughest guys ever, uh, my friend Tony, who is, uh, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Seal with me and then he was one of the platoon chiefs when I was in, when I was a tasking commander. And he's absolutely petrified of heights. Like absolutely petrified.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he was on a training exercise in Hong Kong, I think I want to say Hong Kong, and they had to do a rappel, like a, like, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 50 story or a 30 story repel out of a building face first jump off the edge and he said he was so absolutely terrified and he's and then he said, but I would rather have died.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's a great school because you, you get put in all the different positions. Sometimes you're the patrol leader, sometimes you're a machine gunner.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What did you, what did you, what characteristics do you think made a good leader going through ranger school?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a cool system that they have called peering, peer, peer, peer evals and you can hear someone out. They, they didn't, when I went through seal training, we didn't have that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We got rid of a couple guys that were just bad, but we didn't do it through any official system. It was, I think, you know, the class leader. We all talked to the class leader and the class leader eventually talked to the instructors and they got rid of some guys, but that's a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Good. Right. We can get rid of them. What's the, what was the attrition rate? Do you remember what the attrition rate was like?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you get done with ranger school now and then your first job is at the 82nd? Yep, platoon leader at the 82nd. Platoon, so are you in charge of an engineering platoon? Yep. At the 82nd? Yep. And, and, and there's no war going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No. At this time, this is 19, what, 1987, 1988, something like that? No, this is uh, 88. So 1988, it's just preparing for the war, World War III with the Soviets. Basically, that's what you're doing, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, the peacetime military can be an interesting thing because it's really easy for the peacetime military to get focused on things that aren't about warfighting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you can start focusing on other things, whether it's literally shining your boots, which sometimes people get really into shining boots and starching uniforms or whether it's just, I mean, I guess today's day and age, you can list all kinds of things at the military.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Might be focused on that have very little to do with warfighting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Airborne divisions are freaking outstanding. I worked with both of them. I worked somewhat with the 82nd and I worked a lot with the 101st and they're just freaking outstanding. They're total professionals all the time in everything that they do. So I can imagine that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even when the rest of the military is getting distracted that the airborne units are still staying focused and making things happen as they should be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you're, you're in a, in this platoon commander and then the first gulf war starts to spin up. Were you now a company commander at this point or? I was an XO. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're getting re-look, we, we look back, or at least I do, and I think most people do, they look back at the first golf war, kinda shrug your shoulders, like, oh 72 hours, blah, blah, blah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they're saying there's going to be, I forget what they're saying. There's going to be 40,000 casualties in the first 48 hours. Yeah. And I'm thinking I was now I'm in the Navy. I'm waiting to class up and single training and I'm thinking, oh yeah, this is like, we're going to fight. This is a big one. Long war. This is going to be world war, you know, like world war two for us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did you guys, as you guys were preparing, what was your mindset?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something along the lines of after that first gulf war, like, oh we've gotten over our Vietnam.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That, that, you could say that that victory, that expedient victory didn't bode well for us in terms of the way we looked at war to follow on wars.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Less true because they were like, well, you know, so easy last time. This is like, oh, you know, you, you got into a fight with this guy. So we'll just go. We don't, we don't really need to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, did you give a like, hey, not all of us are gonna make it, hey, be ready for casualties, you know, I always think back, like, in my life, I've given those talks to my guys about, we're killing the enemy, we're gonna take out, like, those are intense things to, that you're doing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so before we get to the weird part of, hey, you just roll in there and they kind of roll over. So you're, you're in that mode.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And are you seeing, so are you seeing like the highway of death, which was in, you must have seen some of the remnants of the highway of death, the vehicles that made it far enough north into Iraq, you're seeing that kind of destruction.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As your troops are going, as you're telling your troops you're getting ready to go in, you're giving them, hey, that speech.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's the looks on the faces of the guys as you're rolling in?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Going into Iraq. So look, we knew that we weren't gonna stay there. We weren't planning to stay there. We weren't pushing a bag, dad. We weren't, we weren't gonna stay there. Was your end state to get in, hold this long enough, Kuwait's now secure, and then you were gonna leave? Was it something along those lines?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 20 days in, whatever it is, you get the assignment. Okay, you're leaving now. We're leaving now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what's happening. Yeah. And you guys must have been like high fives. We're all good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get back to America wha- while you're in, while you're in, and wha- while you're wrapping up, are you already thinking like, hey I think I might get out of the army?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you were writing these essays. Yep. And as you're writing these essays. Right. You realize. That's interesting. I was taught when people ask me about how to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Detach emotionally to make decisions properly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I always say one of the best things you can do is write, is write down because it physically detaches you from your thoughts and now you're looking at them on a piece of paper. So that's exactly what happened to you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a mindset, you know, people that, people that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If only I would have stayed in. I could have been retired. I could have had that pension. There's, there's definitely people that do 20 years and at about the four year mark they think, well only 16 more years and I'll have that pension.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A nation on the cusp of modernity, 8 months and about 20 flights later, my adventure ended at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, where my brother was stationed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you did end up getting into grad school, you ended up going to Princeton.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then, this is, so this is like now 1996 that you graduate, that you get hired at McKenzie. Yep. And when you go and you're work, like, uh, when you get this job at McKenzie, what do they have you doing? Were you doing typical analyst stuff? What do they have you doing?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's what ends up happening. You spend three years there and then you ju- you join up with a company called, called Free Markets. Free Markets, yea. And it sounds like your timing was good. 1999.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What do you think was your key to doing well, making things happen, getting selected for promotion, getting selected to lead this bigger organization and getting selected as CEO? What do you think was your key component?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you said they had 16 million dollars in revenue?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then what year do you end up selling, uhm, selling free markets?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did you stay on once the deal got closed? Did you stay on?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then how, how was, how was that welcome to the, welcome to the beltway and all that stuff? I mean, you, you know, you've been looking at the government from the outside. I mean, I guess you did some, uh, some speech writing and whatnot, but you know, now you're in the mix.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So did you pick that up when you were in China? When you were traveling through China? Did you start to see, how did you pick that up?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and uh, the obvious things that back in the day, in that time period, it was like, oh is it really obvious that they were stealing our...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like literally like our Disney movies were being whatever put on DVDs and sold and the music was being stolen. So all those, but the, the much more important thing is the actual technology and that they are, that they continue to try and get from us so that they can utilize for their own, for their own purposes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Americans think, like, you could really give Americans the benefit of the doubt and say, oh, they think in a four year cycle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're probably thinking a two year cycle. A lot of us are thinking in a 24 hour news cycle, maybe a 40 hour news cycle. And the Chinese are thinking in a 100, 200 year strategic cycle. That's what they're thinking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You see this. You see this. The people you're working alongside see this. You start putting these, some of these restrictions in place. Thankfully you were able to convince other people, in this case President Bush, that these were the right moves. And, and really once someone shines a light on it, it's very clear that these are the right moves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's very clear that these attempts to, you know, formulate relationships with China


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's just like an abusive codependent relationship that you end up in. This isn't going to be helpful. You're inviting people to the party thinking like, hey, if we have them over and have a couple beers with them, they'll probably end up being cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and we'll get into some of that. It's interesting though to hear the seeds of your thought pattern on this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You eventually go from, from that position to being, do I have this right? The, George Bush's personal negotiator and representative to the G8.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you have like the Japanese cow export expert? Do you have the whatever? So you got experts for everybody and they're pooling this information. They're briefing you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was right. It wasn't his first rodeo. He did just fine. I noticed, uh, there's, there's videos of Bush when he's running for governor in Texas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he'd get up there during those debates and he was like just good to go, very relaxed, very calm, articulate, and then it seemed the longer he was pres- well, when he got pre- when he became president, it seemed like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I've seen him speak in other events now that now he's not president and it's back to that kind of same way. So it seems like a lot of his reputation came from the way he presented himself when he was president.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So then wha-wha-what, after that you become undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs? Am I getting these? Yea. Right? You-you-you had a lot of-you were moving or couldn't-couldn't keep a job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What does it look like from the inside as everything's falling apart?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's a call that would be nice if more people had it because I noticed a lot of this during the pandemic. People wouldn't change their minds based on new information. Right. They were just sticking with whatever information they had. Yeah, we're just, hey, we're gonna do this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, okay, we did it, now it's not working too well, we're gonna keep doing it. And you'd be thinking, hey, maybe make some adjustments, it's okay to say, hey, I was wrong, I misjudged this, I didn't think it was gonna go this way, here's a new course that we're gonna take. You don't see a lot of that from the government. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What are some of the moves that you had to make that you didn't, that you look back and say, well I wish we wouldn't have done that or could have done that differently?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when you, when you, I always picture these situations happening and it's


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're reinforcing my, my assessment, is that there's a few people in a room that are trying to figure out what to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and the decisions that they make, how much power like did Polson have to make these decisions? Like, when he's, or, or with this Silicon Valley bank, the people, how many people are making that call?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I talk to clients when they talk about interviewing people and I say, well you could give them the Willy Wonka.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And people are like, what's the Willy Wonka? And if you remember in the movie, the original Willy Wonka movie, what happens at the end is Willy Wonka has the kid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he goes off on him, and he says, you stole from me, you violated this thing, and he's yelling at him, this is ridiculous, good day sir. And the kid's sad, Charlie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the Kids set, cause he had stolen that, that, uh, everlasting...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whatever, the everlasting candy, he had stolen one. And so Willy Wonka yells at him and screams at him, but not about that, about something else. And now the kid's gonna leave and before he leaves he gives him that thing, and it was all just a test.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, cause if he's treating you bad and you're like, you know, maybe he's looking for you. Can you hand stand the combat? Can you, you know, who knows? But, uh, that's an intro. I've done that before. We're like, Oh, let's see what this person's really like. I'll tell you what, the seal team is definitely like that. You're going to push people hard to see what they're like. And now you go, okay, the person seems pretty cool. I know a hack worth like wouldn't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you're not CEO. This is, you got fired from co-CEO, your new job is biz dev or president. And you're, and yeaah, I remember in the book you're saying you had the most miles of anyone at


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 2016, 2016, 2017, so you become now the co-CEO and then the CEO of Bridgewater. What are you doing on a daily basis when you're in that job?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How much of your job is tracking like what's going on from a financial perspective in the world so that you can at least understand the decisions that are being made with all this money?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do they have it stratified where you have tactical operators, operational operators, and then strategic operators? Is there something like that going on? Cause I could see...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where, you know, the, the person that's looking at oil future, he thinks he really has a good slice of what's going on and he's pushing for certain types of investments and then meanwhile, somebody looking at a more strategic picture is like, oh, solar's taking over whatever the case may be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what, from a leadership perspective, what did you take, well let's just go through the co-CEO, fired CEO, what were your big leadership takeaways from those three things?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, no, this is definitely, uh, I mean, we just did, did back to back podcasts. One of them was, you don't need to have an opinion about everything. Right. And, my growing up in the SEAL teams, recognizing that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just about every question has more than one answer. And as soon as you're in that state of mind, it's like, look, I don't care if we use your idea or my idea or which one makes the most sense, that's what we're gonna go with, which one makes the most sense. And you know what? The one that you're totally passionate about,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're totally passionate about it, we can roll with it because it's not going to be that big of a deal, you know, compared to Echo's idea that he's totally passionate about, but we're just not going to do dumb things. Right. But yea, so open mind, listening, not going in with a preconceived notion of what you think is correct, that's one lesson.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wrote a book called Leadership Strategy and Tactics and I talk about the iterative decision making process. I talk about the fact that while I was in the military I was known as being very decisive, but I kinda cheated all the time because all I would do is look at big problems and make really small decisions really quickly and then adjust my decision based on the feedback loop that I would get.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How did you, I could only imagine the shot to your ego when you get demoted from CEO. What was that process like of saying heart?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Meanwhile, while you're doing, am I right, did I capture this right in the book, that you became a member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee with General Mattis?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At what point did you decide, so you continue at Bridgewater, you continue with that job as CEO, at what point did you decide you're gonna run for the Senate seat in Pennsylvania, which you did? Yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as you're doing that, so you end up in the, this race is the Republican, for the Republican seat, and you end up running against, uh, uh, that guy, Mehmet Oz, who's a guy from, from, uh, I think he's on Fox News, I believe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Make this effort, and like you said, you're going to go up against someone with 100% name recognition, and then you don't have any name recognition other than the fact that, like you said, Pepper. Right. Uh, and then Trump kind of, Trump ends up coming on board and, and supporting Oz. Uh, and,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you, did you guys know at this time you would be running against this guy Fetterman?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you, you know, and you go into the, you go into some really interesting details and interesting is a word. It's just, it's a little bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's hard to read, you know, when you read, you start reading about all that's going on, the political situation and just what you're up against and like how these elections are taking place. It's worth reading the book just so you better understand that because I think it gives people a better perspective when these elections are happening of what's going on and what they actually mean. Uh, you're going through that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, and then Oz wins, uhm, and then Oz loses to Federman.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that was very strange to watch unfold. And again, it sort of shows you as a just normal American citizen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was shocking to me, it was shocking to me, uhm, to see that happen. And then Trump weighing in for Oz, how did that, does that make people


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, uh, Trump being such a divisive figure, does that make people come out stronger against the person that Trump supports?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What do you think of this guy? Cause I don't really know him. Echo Charles, give me the assessment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And while you, so as you're going through this whole thing, that's when you decide that, that's when you decide and you start writing this book.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, so, so this book, and again, look, I've read a couple excerpts from the book and get the book for the, for the stories, but then really essentially what you said, this book isn't, you use the stories anecdotally to support what you're talking about or to give some background, but essentially this book is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What are we supposed to do? What should we be doing right now?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's talk through some of that stuff. Uhm, you know, first of all, let's talk about the fact that is American in decline? You said yes, you agree. Why are we in decline? What's happening?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I was a family guy, and I had a family, I had three kids, well we'll just make it me, I'm four kids, and I have, what, how much debt do we have? 31 trillion. 31 trillion? What's that, if you put that into household terms, how far into debt is my family, and I make, let's say I make 50 grand a year? I think


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For my family to be 30 trillion dollars in debt, how much debt is, is my family and I make 50 grand a year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if I say, hey, my mortgage, you know, I got a $200,000 mortgage, so that doesn't sound that bad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's on a credit card, and the interest rate is high, and it's starting to get to a point where my monthly paycheck no longer covers the interest rate, just the interest rate on the money that I owe. That's perfect metaphor. That's where we're at. That's where we're at.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cultivating our nation's talent, which is a reform of education, a focus on education. Technology, which you've mentioned somewhat already, uh, you, you, you have a quote in the book, from The Economist, and it says, the world's most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most kids could at least go out and spend four or five years doing a trade, doing something that doesn't take any college whatsoever. And cool, if you want to go to college, good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a classic example. Luckily you were in the army and you ended up with a job in the army. You figured out your path. But a lot of kids are trying to make a decision of what they want to do for the rest of their life when they're 18 years old. They don't know what they want to do. They need to go out there and get a job, get a trade, get a technical skill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And perhaps that leads to a great life and you can get further education on down the line. So we got.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The choice of schools, which again seems so obvious, and if you've been a parent, I've got four kids, like you've got four kids, you can look at the schools and you can figure out what's going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Imagine being in a situation where your kid, you don't want your kid to go to that school, and you're not allowed to do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, you can see the same thing here. We got friends that are border patrol. It's crazy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know it's, it's, it's actually insane. Right. It's actually insane what's going on. I mean when you talk to the guys that are on the ground


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Supposed to be protecting the border, their border patrol. They have waves of people coming over. When they come over, and they get, then they get, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Obtained by the Border Patrol. Border Patrol takes him to a hotel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Six months in the future. And then says good luck. See ya. That's what happens. I think they get $1700 or $1300 or something like that. All of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then they never see him again, obviously. That's what's happening. It's happening every single day. It's madness. It's crazy to think about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then just broadly speaking, China, like, I mean, I think first of all, people don't recognize, there's plenty of people that don't recognize what's happening with China. You already went into what China's doing, what they've been doing and what they're trying to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's really obvious to anybody that pays attention to this kind of thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what's, what are we, what are we doing broadly speaking for China?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm doing my best over here, we're making, we're making clothing in America, not in China. We got factories in Maine, we got factories in North Carolina, we're gonna build more factories, but that's just one industry and clearly all industries, and that's a very basic industry. Now listen, it is an important industry, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The rest of manufacturing needs to be moved back here clearly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, that is the premise of the book. Uhm, I kind of want to wrap up here, just reading, uh, uh, to close out the book here. You say, we are at a pivotal moment in our nation's history, in our nation's story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Behind us we see a grand legacy of victory and failure, ingenuity and war, decline and renewal, all of which have brought us to this point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ahead of us lies a great unchartered territory. It is up to us to choose the path and it is up to our leaders to guide the way, uniting us once again around the creed of liberty and opportunity that binds our national fabric.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Americans are a resilient bunch. They know how to take a punch. And no matter how many times they get knocked down, they always get back up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Though times may be tough, they believe in America. They believe we can do better. They believe we can revive our nation and achieve America's promise.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their faith is the rally point I return to when my own fails and it fills me with an unerring confidence that we can and must meet the moment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you're on Twitter at Dave McCormick PA. Yup. Uhm, with Instagram, Dave McCormick PA. You're davemccormickpa.com as well. That's right. So I don't know if you decide you're going to take another crack at it. Uhm, that's where people can find you. Echo Charles. Yes sir. You got any questions?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We got, we got plenty of merch, that's for sure. Uh, appreciate you coming on, appreciate you joining us and sharing your lessons learned and obviously thanks for your service, uhm, leading troops in combat and protecting and preserving our great nation and thanks for coming on and sharing the battle plan to renew America.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And with that, David McCormick has left the building. Echo Charles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe the country's in rough shape. You know, we talked to Mike Glover. You know, we gotta be ready on that perspective. Gotta be prepared.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One thing you can do is, you know, when you wanna help out the country, when you wanna help out the world,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you want to make things better, start with yourself. You know what I'm saying? Start with yourself. Get your own world in order. That's a good place to start and it will help the rest of the world as well. So, you know, read, study, exercise.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do some jiu-jitsu. This is my recommendation. Okay. Maybe get yourself some, some workout of the day. Sure. Hell yea. You know what I'm saying? The wad. So there you go. When you do that kind of stuff, you're gonna need


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright so there you go JockoFuel.com get yourself some joint warfare. Get yourself some super krill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just get yourself some Jocko Fuel. You can get it at JockoFuel.com. You can get it at the Vitamin Shop. You can get it at WahWah. Go that bottom right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're getting the squeeze at wah-wah. That's okay. We're at GNC.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For a lot of money. Yeah. Cause they're just, they're big empires. I get it. They see a rebel threat and they're like we gotta eliminate this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, there you go. So, there you go. Uh, you can get it there. Vitamin Shop, GNC, Military Commissaries, Hannaford's, Dash Stores, and Maryland Wake Fern Shopper, HEB? You know where in HEB going strong? You know where in Meyer?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Up in the midwest, or Harris Teeter. I saw someone tweeted, uh, where we, I went to Harris tweeter, out of stock. Always bums me out. It kind of bums me out, but also makes me fired up, because that means a bunch of people in there are getting it. Get more, we'll send more. Sorry if it's not in stock. Lifetime fitness, shields, just went into shields.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's growing. Jiu Jitsu gyms, CrossFit gyms, people that are getting after it in one of those two ways, they want access to the good stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Junko Fuel. If you, if you own one of those gyms, if you own a Jujitsu Academy,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or you want a CrossFit gym, you can email, or any kind of gym, or any kind of jujitsu academy. You don't need to be a victory. You can be any.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My youngest daughter went through like a knit phase. Bro, knitting is something I can't do. I don't have the attention span. It's a tedious job. Knitting. You've seen them two sticks and they're knitting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you've got that, you want that wholesale account, go to JFsales at JockoFuel.com. Get yourself some of that. Thank you for the support. Jocko Fuel. Growing. Taking over. You know why?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You make a good product that's clean and people are down for the cause. Who here is like, oh I really like to go to the store and get some poison for my body. No one's saying that. Look, they might want the, the, the upside. They might want the upside. They don't want the downside. But if there's not that option, they just get what they get. You don't have to do that anymore. People are down. So, let's keep getting after it. JockoFuel.com. Well that's what we got.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You didn't think it was a patriotic move to buy a pair of jeans. Yeaah. You didn't think, you didn't think you were supporting national security to buy a pair of jeans. Or to buy an American, you weren't like, oh I'm gonna help America with its national security today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm gonna go buy a jujitsu gi from origin USA. You didn't think that. You didn't think the t-shirt was like, oh, now I'm really gonna help out the United States of America and our national security and my children and my grandchildren. It's true. I cut you off. Go ahead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, it's not happening anymore. We're going the cycle in the other direction there. OriginUSA.com. Get your hunt gear. Get your, have you seen the RT, have you gotten RTX gear?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's been a long time coming. This is probably one of the first things I talk to Pete about. You know, we need a quick dry wicking, anti-fungal, like all those things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] T-shirt. Now. It took longer. Why? Because supply chains were jacked up. Because of what you just said.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they're not jacked up anymore, we got you covered. We got the shorts, we got the tops.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is made in America, but it's from Jaco's store. That way you get, maybe you might like those designs better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You might, hey man, you might, maybe like the origin designs, it's cool, you can go there. It is cool. But you can also go to Jocko's store and get a, a, more of a Jocko design.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By the way, you're supporting national security in this nation. It's true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's hard to skip a workout when you're wearing a discipline equals freedom t-shirt. Very hard. Or rash guard. Very hard. Can be challenging. Very challenging. I don't recommend it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jockounderground.com, go subscribe to that so you can get the additional podcast that we do, which is called Jocko Underground. And we talk about subjects that are adjacent to, yet not the same as this podcast. They're a little bit more focused on


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Life. A little bit more focused on pragmatic information to utilize immediately without filter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Definitely what it is. And answering questions, which is life advice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So there you go, jockonerground.com. Hey look, it costs $8.18 a month. Uhm, that's how we own that platform and we can never be denied our freedom on that platform because it's ours. If you can't afford it, that's okay. Email assistance at jockonerground.com. That's what we're doing it for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We got a YouTube thing. Subscribe to that. Subscribe to Origin USA YouTube. See what's going on at Origin USA. Check out the Jocko Fuel YouTube where they're putting longer pieces of content together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For you. About what's going on there. Flip side canvas. Check out Dakota Meyer. Stuff to hang on your wall. You're gonna want that stuff on your wall. Books. Of course we got Superpower in Peril by Dave McCormick. You heard some excerpts from it today. Check that out and then of course I wrote a bunch of books too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wrote a bunch of books, go check those, especially the kids book to be honest with you. You know, like, you, you can impact a child


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know that because I've gotten thousands of messages, emails, letters about that impact. So if you know any kids, go right now to warriorkid.com and just order all the books for these kids that you know and you'll help them all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We also have Echelon Front, which is a leadership consultancy where we solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com for that. We have live events. We also have an online training academy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At ExtremeOwnership.com where we help leaders from all walks of life in every level of leadership and we help them solve their problems. There's courses you can take, there's live sessions that you can join, that's what we're doing. ExtremeOwnership.com


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Beside a river that he just did a seven minute cold bath in. Now he's reheating his body on a fire that he started with a stick. That's what's happening right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So check out heroesandhorses.org Once again, if you want to connect with Dave McCormick,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Twitter, Instagram, he's at Dave McCormick PA. And he's also on the web, DaveMcCormickPA.com. I don't know if he's running again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know. Kinda sounded like he was leaning. He's a guy that's patriotic. He's a guy that wants to help America. He doesn't have to run. I mean, he's obviously in a position in his life where he can kinda do what he wants. But he loves the country. So, that's the type of person that's stepping up. So, check him out. And then of course, on the interwebs. Echo and I are also there. Echo's at Echo Charles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Beyond that, uh, once again, thanks to Dave McCormick for joining us. Thanks for sharing your lessons learned. Thanks for your service to our great nation. And also thanks to all military personnel out there right now who are on the front lines as we speak.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Keeping evil at bay. We thank you all for standing the watch. And to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, and all first responders, thank you for keeping evil at bay here at home. And to everyone else out there, to everyone else out there,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you can read about it. And you can watch it on the news. There's a lot of bad things happening in the world. And you can focus on how bad it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can decide to make it better. And listen, maybe you can't change the whole world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe you can't change the whole world, but I guarantee you can change your world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can get smarter, you can get stronger, you can get faster, healthier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can help your friends. You can help your family. You can help your neighbors across the street.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can repair that fence. You can replace the light in the garage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can make your world better. And when you do that, you make the whole world better. So, don't complain anymore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It depends on like in Nigeria, you know, for example, like Adeleke in Nigeria, they say Adeleke, but in America it's Adeleke. So Yoruba, Yoruba, and then here's some people that say Yoruba. Okay. This depends. I'll tell you what, if I'm close, can we just go with it? I'm good. I'm good, brother.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, yes, so my grandfather, I don't, I never knew the story of my great grandfather, but my grandfather, he was the first born son to his father, and so he inherited the title of chief, Adeleke, so Ade means crown in Yoruba, and leke means is supreme.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's why we're talking offline about people trying to get that, uh, uh, uh, uh, dot com because it's, it's, it's not just a name, a name, but it's more of like almost like a slang for like elite of elite almost in Europe and in Nigeria.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, you know, Kana's house here in the U.S. will say, uh, something like, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, the crown is supreme, so the elite of the elite. So, uh, my grandfather was that and, and then, you know, he had a lot of wives because of that and then obviously there was some wealth that came along with that. Now also, there is what's called the Oluoyu.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I know I'm pronouncing it wrong, so forgive me my Nigerian brothers and sisters who are listening. But the Oluolu is considered to be the king, the king of the Yorubas. And so all of the, the Adileke's and the other royal titles


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My grandfather just started kind of grooming him from there to prepare him to take over the family, so to speak. But unfortunately, when my father was about eight or nine years old, my grandfather died. And, uh, and when he died,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He still retained the title and he still retains some uh, uh, some of the, the, the finances.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For some reason, I have to ask my older brother, because he can probably explain this better, but all the wives dispersed to different parts of Nigeria. But even though he came down to the south, he was still recognized as chief.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, happened to come alongside her and he's looking at the same piece of art and uh, he said something to her kinda like hitting on her and she was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He started trying to mack on her some more. My dad, as you read, he was a savant, but he also was a man of many tongues. He spoke Faluni, which is another Yoruba tongue. He spoke Igbo, he spoke Yoruba, he spoke French.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's right off the coast of Lagos, Ikoi, Lagos, so kinda like how we have San Diego, and then you have Coronado, so Lagos is like the big, big city, like coastal city, and then within Lagos is Ikoi. And so there was this lagoon that was off of the, off of the coast of, it was actually, it was a swamp.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was more than a, it was less than a lagoon. It was like a swamp. And, uh, and that's, uh, you know, that's what he asked for, essentially backing up a bit. Uhm, there was a military coup in the 70s. Right before the military coup, my dad bought a massive plot of land called Marico.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And essentially what he was trying to do was he wanted to, uhm, build a, like an African Wall Street.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're talking oil in abundance. We're talking natural gas. We're talking gold. We're talking cocoa. You name it. There's so many minerals in Nigeria. As a matter of fact, uhm, there are politicians in Nigeria who are signing deals with the Chinese government.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because of how rich in resources Nigeria is, my dad said, hey, we need to organize this a little bit more because there's a lot of corrupt, there's always been historically a lot of corruption in Nigeria. And my dad felt as though if we can organize our business sector a lot better, then we can be a beacon


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That for the world, like people from all around the world can come and do business and we can generate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our economy, a better economy in Africa and we can create so many more jobs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was, there's no, there was and there's still no reason why Nigeria shouldn't be like Saudi Arabia or America because of how rich they are in resources and my dad recognized that and that's what he wanted to do with America where you have a lot of Nigerians, uhm, who


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Want to get into power, you know, and gain wealth for self. My dad wanted to get in power and gain wealth so that he can make Nigeria a better place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it was Abbas, uh, Abbasanjo, um, who led that. I might be wrong. He ended up dying of a, of a overdose on, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On Viagra and some other crazy stuff, drugs, a few years later he's having a crazy sex orgy and died, but he, uh, he carried out the military coup and Maracle was taken from my dad. And my dad bought it for 8 million pounds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you know, just for inflation and, and, I mean, that's, that's a lot, and pounds is, you know, a lot more than dollars. So, uhm, he bought it and it was just gone, just like that. And that's, you know, that's the difference between,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, Nigeria and other countries and America, you know, we could buy property, we could buy a business, we have rights, ownerships, and we're gonna have it, but in Nigeria, you could buy something, spend millions of dollars, and then one day somebody could come along and say, well,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, we're not gonna give you a miracle back. That's not happening. So what is it that you want? And they, and my dad said, give me the swamp.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So many Nigerians were commenting on that. The consistent comment that I got was one, it was a few. One was, we didn't know that you were...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That you were chief's son. We saw you in plain and we saw the name Adelaide, Remi Adelaide, but we didn't know put two and together that you were chief John Eddie Bayo's son. So I had that comment a lot. And then the other comment that I got was the current president lied.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because the current president said that he discovered, uhm, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Banana, it's now known as Banana Island, but it was Lagoon City. And, and, and he lied. So many people like, a lot of people saying, we knew he was lying, because we all knew the history behind your father, so we knew he was lying. And that guy was the senator, the current president of Nigeria was the senator.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He felt like it was gonna be successful. That was what I mean. So, I mean, he would put so much money into it that my mom, being an American, would wisely tell him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like just put some money in the U.S. Just put 2 million dollars, 2 million dollars in the U.S. That way if something happens, like we have a cushion to fall back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To this vision and he was so loyal to the people of Nigeria because he was like, if I could just get here, if I could just cross that line, everything will be all right and everything will fall into place and he told my mom once, once we start


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Lagos state government after they conveniently waited until all the work was done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean for years, this is not something that happened overnight, for years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the engineers were flying in, the equipment was being moved in, the foreshore was being dredged. It was a problem. I mean, it was six interlinks. It was six, uhm, best way to explain it, plots of land that were created individually and then linked together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That doesn't happen overnight. And so the, the Lego state government.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you know, the federal government, I'm sure they were involved as well. They conveniently waited until everything was done. They saw that people were actually walking on the land and things were being built on the island. It was like, okay, it works. Now let's go get it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because they tried to say that, uh, use some type of measurement and say the distance from the, from the, uh, from Ikoi's shore to the foreshore is like some mathematical equation. The answer to that came out to be it's within the, uh, the Ikoi, so it belongs to the Lego state government. And, uh, yeah, it was, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And my dad didn't see it coming and that's the thing, you know, and I say that that's my downfall sometimes now, you know, when I look back on, on mistakes that I've made and, uh, is, my dad was so driven.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That he couldn't see what was going on on his peripherals. He was so focused and driven to get the job done that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It wasn't like out of something malice. It was like, I'm just so focused to get the job done that I couldn't see what was going on out here and how it was having a negative effect on the people around me. And that's what was, that's what my dad was dealing with. And I know that I inherited that from my dad is that, you know, the drive is good. It's important to be driven.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yet they can be. Yeah, and so is that, you know, you brought up a great point because when I got out of the military in 2016,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, I went into the film and TV business and other businesses as well under the pretense that everybody has the same level of integrity as the people that I work with in the military. And, uh, and I would get so upset when I was proven wrong because it was just like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But wait, like, you're supposed to show up on time. You're supposed to keep your word.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 2020 or 2021 in Nigeria, it was like a big movement where people were protesting. I think the SARS was like a specialized police force that was taking advantage and shaking people down, which, you know, corruption is something that's normal when police come and shake you down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The protesters went into the courthouse, the same courthouse where my dad's case has been in for like the last 40 years. And they go into the records room and they burn down the records room. But the only files that are destroyed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are the case files for Lagoon City.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you know, there's a lot, and before that, they offered my brother 8 million dollars for our family, and he turned it down, because he was like, no dude, like, my dad spent 8 million pounds on- Yeah. On- In the 70s. In the 70s. So, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was just, it was a lot of going on and my dad started getting threats. I mean, I didn't catalog it all in a book, but my dad started getting threats. My mom started having crazy stuff happen to her, like the horse bit her, our horse bit her and then...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something else happened where she almost got run over, uh, by somebody that, you know, she was getting ready to cross the street and like a car just pulls up and just speeds past her and she jumps back in the street. So there were a lot, there were a lot of things that were happening. My dad was getting more and more threats even before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Flew to Germany to go, you know, do some type of business. Flew from Germany to New York, saw us for a beat, and then flew from New York back to Nigeria.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He gets to, uhm, he gets back to, uh, Nigeria. My mom was pressing him, you gotta take your medicine, you gotta take your medicine. He's like, alright, I'll take it. Takes the medicine. Ultimately, the autopsy report showed that the medicine is ultimately what killed him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and that's essentially what happened. And then from there, uhm, he was, he couldn't fight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, he, cause he was fighting them and he was no longer there to fight them and nobody else was. So, okay, the titles now belong to us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A little bit, I remember my dad, more so than, I remember events around my dad, like I remember, you know, playing with him in our, in our, in our big living quarters, living room area, I remember riding in


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Frederick, who would drive us. My dad would play, uh, Fulu, Fulu Kuti, who was like a famous, uh, Nigerian singer. He was against the government at the time and singing. So I remember, I remember those little things. I remember our private school that we went to and I, I recall, this is one of my first memories. Um, I got into a fight with a kid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because kids will make fun of me because my mom was American.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it was a knuckle dragon fist fight, you know, two small kids. And my dad came and my mom came to the school and, uh, my mom was just, she was upset at me. You know, she was like, why are you doing that? And my dad was just like, I'm proud of my son. My son, thank you. My mom's looking at me like, what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it's so interesting because as a father now with four kids, certain things come to me, certain memories.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are triggered from my past when I do certain things with my kids or I say like certain events happen or even I find myself and this is the craziest thing. If one of my, especially my oldest son, my oldest son does something that he's, he's just nine year old. He's not supposed to do like something out of the norm. I will go into a pigeon accent and sounding like my dad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jump, jump through me, but yeaah, it was, uh, it was a good life, uhm, but I'm, I'm grateful for the way things turned out, cause I wanna be who I am without that horrible transition.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a co-op, so it's like, yea, it was definitely better than right outside the gates, but it was a co-op and middle class to, you know, about middle class area and it was the only


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fordham Hill actually was a predominantly white area in the sixth, I mean the Bronx in and of itself, like in the before white flight, I think took place like around the fifties or sixties or something like that, was a predominantly Irish, Italian, you know, white area. And Fordham Hill was that as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That and the crack epidemic and all those things brought everything went downhill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was like my mini buds, brother. We would play kick the door and run. We would play man hunt, you know, where we split up in teams and then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you find members of the other team, you beat them up or rough them up. Uhm, I remember the older kids in the park, they got chalk and they drew like a squared boxing ring and they would bet on


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On us younger kids, you know, who was gonna win and we would slapbox. So we would have these sla- and you couldn't back out of it. It was just like, nope, you're going in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had fights with Dante, but then we would be friends like the next day. I had me and Elijah every summer, we had like a-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those memories are so funny. We went to Fordham Hill yesterday. I was in New York yesterday and saw one of the guards or Captain Robinson. He...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He, he was a main guard while we were there and then he went to go work at Yankee Stadium and he came back recently and he, we saw each other, he's like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To the students and, and I couldn't get in because I have to cut through, go through so much red tape to get in, but it's bad, man. It's, it's, it's disheartening to see that not only has it not changed for the good, it's changed for the worst.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Grew up next door, so walk outside the Fordham Hill gates. Devo Park is right there. You have to walk through the park to get to any part of Fordham Hill. And I remember being a kid and you see crack heads.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Strong out. You see people selling drugs. Right there in front of you. I'm playing basketball in the basketball court.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People are selling, it's just normal. Hey, look the other way. Drug dealer looks your way if you're playing and you're looking at them. You better turn your head really, really quick. You know, I remember


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Going into the corner stores, you know, I was showing Brad the corner stores when we were there yesterday and seeing the mafia guys come in with the big collars slicked back here and collecting their tax coming in and the, and the store owner gives him an envelope with a bunch of cash and then he walked. So that, that was the environment then. Uh, and uh, to think like as a kid, I remember walking to school and,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I must have been about, I was in middle school at this time, so I must have, no, I was just about to go to middle school, so I had to be about 10 or 11, maybe 12. And seeing grown men beating up kids.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's, that was one thing that happened to me. I ended up getting beat to a pulp once on a, on a basketball court for having a disagreement or talking junk to a kid my age. And then that kid went and got his uncle who had just got released from prison and got his brother. His uncle was about 35 years old. The brother was like 19. I was eight at the time I got slammed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I remember being so scared walking to school because I would always say, this one I'm gonna get jumped. Because the initiations at the time too was, you know, in order to get into the gang.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You gotta beat up an innocent person. As a matter of fact, there was this big thing that was going on, going around. It was all over the news. In order to get into the game, they had to give somebody a buck fifty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It cost $1.50 to ride the train. And so what the gang, what the blood gangs would do is they would get on the train and the new, the new member would have to go up to somebody that the senior member picked out and innocent person didn't do anything, pull out a blade and slash their face. And that was called a buck 50. So my mom would always tell me if you get on the train,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get off the train, walk to the next car, but don't, don't play around because you don't want to get your face sliced. And you'd see people walking down Fordham Road, the street I grew up on, with big scars on it, and girls. Not just men, women as well. You know, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, it was rough, but it was, it really helped me learn the importance of being attentive and looking around and being and reading people and not taking


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People for face value, like really looking at the situation, trying to dive into what's this person's intent, you know, cause if not, you're gonna end up dead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think they're shooting, they're shooting bad boys, four now. Oh damn, yeaah. Well, before the right, before the strike, the act of strike they were, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even as a kid? Yea, well it was because he had two movies that came out. Bad Boys was my favorite movie of all time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, even to this day, and I remember as a young kid, it really hit me hard because as I mentioned in the book, that was the first time I saw two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I studied that movie to know him. I remember, as a matter of fact, right after it came out, I bought the bootleg version of it. And it was a guy holding a camcorder. And I remember watching it and rewinding it and watching it. I went to my Uncle Mike's house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Introduction to not just the, uh, what's on the screen, but behind the screen. You know, because I wanted to know everything about this movie. And then, so Michael Bay's name.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, uhm, for me, especially being...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Being that I studied the movie religiously and then two years later, The Rock came out. So when I saw


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Michael Bay, director of Bad Boys, new movie, Rock. I was like, oh Rock, I'm gonna go see this. So that's kinda how the name popped in my head.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I, you know, to this day, that's something that I, I, I,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're making money and my friend saying, you the man, you this and you that. And so that's, that was the substratum of why I did what I did. I'm not justifying it in any way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the reality was, I changed it from, it was actually a hundred page report. For the book, I cut it down to fifty because I was like, yea people are not going to believe me if I put it in one hundred. So let me put it down to fifty. But the reality was, it was one hundred.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was driven. I, I wanna grab, I don't wanna, I didn't wanna get left back. The worst thing that could happen to you, at least for me at the time, the worst thing that could happen when everybody would call you stupid and do the opposite of affirm you, is if you ever got left back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I didn't want to get let back and I didn't want to drop out. And I didn't want to have anything to do with school anymore. So that's what drove me. And yea, Mr. Wolf, I'll never forget, he said write a paper on why English is important. And I figured it out, man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, my mom, Brad knows this. We were in my mom's house yesterday. She brought out a whole folder of, of papers that I've, uh, that I had been, that she would make me write. She would make me write from the time I was a small kid and the date of the night. I didn't see that paper. I think I had to turn it in though. I think I turned it into the, uh, the teacher. I don't think I got that one back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This guy who worked there essentially showed me how to activate phones on lines of credit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On other people's lines of credit. People who weren't, who weren't trying to get the phone. So essentially, depending on a person's credit,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can activate up to three cell phone lines. And then...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You had, you want to receive your bill until the 30 day mark and then you had.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 30 days from there, which was a 60 day mark to pay your bill. And if the bill wasn't paid by the 90 day mark.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, think about it now, but who'd talk for 30 minutes, especially when cell phones became a thing, nobody talked for 30 minutes, everybody was going 50 minutes, 60.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three, four hours and then, you know, the cell phone companies were making crazy money because I think it was like five cents a minute or something ridiculous like that after you exceeded your 30 minutes. And so,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yeaah, I partnered up with a guy who I went to high school with and he had a girlfriend that worked in a hospice clinic and so he, his girlfriend would get me


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sheet of paper, and there's like five or six people's names on it. And be named, their name, and these are people who are about to die, expire. So, their name, date of birth, social security, and address.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I would plug that in, I would call up, use my license, call up the company and say, hey I have...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ricardo Regalado, you know, just throwing out a random name, and here's the social, here's this, and then they would run, the person on the line would run the credit, be like, oh, he qualifies for three phones, perfect. I'll take all three, and then I would, I would receive the phones from the company as well, so I would have the box, and I would,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I started out selling to random people, but then I, for the most part, the majority of my clients were drug dealers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because it was like, it looked like a tic tac and it was really small and guys liked it because it was cool. And then there were the Motorola two-way pagers. They came in like silver and black. And Jay-Z and all these artists made them super popular because they went to music videos. And so I would sell those for about 500 a pop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I was. So I was always smart about it. I was always smart about, okay, if I'm gonna sell...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For every three phones that I sold illegally, like I needed to sell at least like seven, eight or nine phones. That way I was covering my bases, so if somebody ever came and investigated me, I could say hey, like this was a legit customer, here's the ID, cause they would


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would also get like a driver's license, you know, uh, a photo of the driver's license to prove that, hey, yeah, this person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's their signature, I don't know what's going on, and here are all my other legit clients, and I got scammed, you know? Uhm, and, and, and so I was really, really smart about not going overboard until I met Devin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's telling you like, hey, I'm gonna kill you if you don't give me my freaking money. But see, it was all his fault because when he approached me initially and said, hey, I wanna buy bulk, I said no.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was like, that's not the way this works. If I, if you, if I do bulk, then I'm going to, it's going to mess up my ratio. And there were guys that were getting caught.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe not in my company, other companies. There was one guy in my company, they were getting caught prosecuting sent to federal prison. It's a federal crime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nope, I told him no, and then he just kept on pressin', kept on pressin'. Come on man, it'll be fine, just try one time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm, I'm scared. As a matter of fact, when he, when he threatened me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wasn't even thinking about him. I didn't even see him. You know what I mean? I saw... Federal prison. Federal prison.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and, and, you know, uhm, Rod is actually still in prison to this day. Uhm, who I used to hustle with and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, strong arm robbery, you know, drugs, all that, I mean, he got, and the crazy thing is, after I got into the teams,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I met Rod, you know, he got clean for a little bit. I met him, he got clean for a little bit, he was a bus driver.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then he fell back into it. He would call me up and talk about how he was struggling. I'd be like, yo, don't do it, don't fall back. And then finally he was like, I can't. And he fell back into a strong arm robbery in Pennsylvania. He did his time there. As soon as he got released from prison in Pennsylvania, he had charges in Jersey. So he got thrown right, right back into prison in Jersey. So he's still in prison in Jersey right now to this day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, and I wrote a letter, uh, had my mom help me write in my letter because in my stupid mind, I felt, oh, if I write a letter and quit, uh, and explain that the reason why I'm quitting is because there's just too much craziness going on. If they ever discover that it was me, they can't prosecute me because I quit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, yeaah. As a matter of fact, that event with Def Jam was January 2002. Everything that happened with Devon happened in November, December 2001. Uhm, I watched the Twin Towers come down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As a matter of fact, I went, uhm, my mom woke me up on September 11th at like 9am and told me what was going on. There was a girl I was dating at the time. She lived, uh, like two, two, three buildings down. She called me up and told me to come to her, uh, come meet her at her apartment. Went to her apartment. We went up on the roof.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, she was trying to call her cousin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because a cousin worked at Windows of the World, and uh, wasn't getting through, and then we both watched the towers come down from like the 18th floor, 17th floor of the building, so the 18th, uh, the roof of the building.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yeaah, that was, that was crazy, man. Sirens back and forth all day, all night long. It was horrific, man. But it brought the city together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was the one thing that I remember everybody, regardless of race, regardless of what neighborhood, you know, just, it was like New York just came together in a way that I had never seen before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it was, uh, it was absolutely horrific. It didn't, I remember watching when I was on the roof watching the Twin Towers getting ready to come down. A part of me was like, man, I want to go do something. Like I want to, I want to go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was, that was uh, reckless driving.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was doing like something like 120 and like a 65 or 70 something stupid and I didn't stop at first because I knew the cops were behind me, I knew the sirens but I tried to play it off like they weren't j- I eventually pulled, it wasn't like a high speed chase and when they pulled me over they were like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I, you know, I, even with the whole, you know, the thing that happened with the resisting arrest and disobeying a lawful order, like that happened, I got arrested, went to jail, I never went to court. I was just like, oh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, it was easy. It was ridiculously easy. Uhm, I was motivated to be AJ squared away because of the decision that Tiana made. I didn't want to, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Prove her decision wrong because there was a reason why the military didn't want me in with my record, uh, but my warrants and my background, which, you know, in retrospect I understand. And I, and I knew that Tiana took a risk and I knew that if I


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Screwed up, or if I talked back, or if I was rude, or if I didn't pay attention to detail, then I would just be proving.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Proving, you know, the system, right? You know? And so, uh, so bootcamp was easy for me. It, uh, you know, I just did what I was told. But every single day I was in bootcamp though, even, even when I got to the teams, I was petrified because I always had that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thing hanging over me, that, that, the stuff that I did with the cell phones hanging over me, it's gonna come back, it's gonna bite me in the butt, so every, I remember being in bootcamping when my name would get called, even if it was something as simple as, hey, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My heart just, I go back in, but that followed me. And that's one thing I learned, you know, when you do, when you do wrong, it, it, it sticks with you. It follows you, man. And, and, and for a long time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you couldn't swim. And I was skinny. How much did you weigh? I was like 145 maybe? 150? I was skinny. I would wear baggy clothes and you know, present like I was large and in charge but I was always skinny.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Somebody made a joke. The coach is standing there. Somebody made a joke. All of us laughed. The coach's eyes for some reason landed on me. And he said, you think that was, you think that's funny?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was like, yeah, it's funny not being aware that he was upset. And he said, alright, you kicked off the team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was like, what? And he's like, you kicked off the team, get out of here. You still think that's funny? And I never played basketball ever again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All the stuff I did in Fordham Hill, you know, running around with the guys, playing two hand touch football, you know, kicking the door and running. Uhm, there was a, I remember in high school, I can't remember if it was my sophomore or junior year, but we had like a weight lifting class and I did that and I remember, you know, getting, you know, putting on muscle quick. That's something that I've never had an issue when I start working out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, I'll put on muscle quick and I lose it fast if I don't maintain it. And then, yeaah, other than that, yeaah, I didn't have like a set fitness regimen or anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Make it up. I just see, alright, I watch the documentary and I see, alright, these dudes are just constantly moving. They're just going from the pull-up bar, the push-ups to the surf zone and back, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two, twenty-three, two thousand and three, like, five pull-ups. Then, you know, the next week when I did that workout, I had to at least hit six pull-ups and I just gradually just started creating circuits around that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A building together or pieces of a car together. It's just like, I just, I see the problem and my mind just start trying to figure out how to work through that problem. That's how it, how it worked out with fitness and trying to get in proper shape.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was like a beautiful world man that I had never been in and then also the caliber of guys that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ray Bobby Air was in my class. Brian Joe roll into our class. It was like all of these really, really good dudes and guys who would go on to be legends, you know, in our community. And so just to be a kid from the hood, like, here, there were times when I was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I should be here for some reason and, but it was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was happy. Everyday I was just, I was just happy to be there. How old are you now? At this point? When you showed up? See that's two th- I might have been 21.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I should've, I was 21 for sure, cause I turned 20 in bootcamp, went through to January, I started in January of 2004, so I woulda, yea I was 21. Okay. Yea, I woulda, I turned 22 in uhm, that upcoming August of 2004.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I didn't know that, I thought that when I took the screening test, I thought that I just had to learn how to do the 500 to get in. I didn't know that I actually had to swim with fins and buds. I saw it in, I saw it in the buds 2, 3, 4, but I didn't know that it was like timed. I thought, oh, you just get in. Cause I saw the base swim and uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When the guy hits that famous bass whim scene. Oh, de-typing out a little bit. Yeah, it's just completion, completion. I always thought completion. And, uh, uh, yeah man, that's, that was my, that was also my crick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Say, hey dude, are we gonna have to bring a tape player and DVD on this boat with us on the safety boat? Cause two hours, cause the passing time was 85 minutes and I'm out there for two hours and they were intentionally making me finish it cause they were like, nah, we're gonna let him suffer until he quits.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It ain't even been the third night cause we did the elephant run.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You wanna quit, or you wanna go back, you wanna go back in?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Go back in. Go back. But, and they didn't know in their defense, they didn't know I was sick. Oh, that's right. They didn't know that. You covered up the fact that you had Scythe. Yea, I started with Scythe. I was spittin' up blood. And so, um, you know, none of the instructors knew. Cause I, cause for me it was like, dude, I don't wanna freakin'.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was he a freaking character? No, he was so humble, he got on me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One time because, you know how it is, you get, well, I'm sure you don't cause you're way better man than that could ever be, but, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I got my chest popped out a little bit more because of the fact that I made it through the first phase the first time, got to Hell Week. Uhm, and then here I am this kid from the Bronx. So my head just got big and I remember just walking around and I remember Mark Lee, we were in front of uhm, our barracks 602 lined up in our boat crew.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I looked over after talking to the master chief, the master chief of first phase, won't mention his last name. And, uh, you know, cause he, yeah, master chief was joking with me about something. And so I had my chest, ah, the instructor is joking with me being buddy, buddy. So I walked back over, my chest is out and I look out the corner of my eye and Mark Lee is just looking at me. And I look over and I'm like, what are you looking at man? And he's like, you need to be humble. Damn. Yeah. And I, and I remember it bothered me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it wasn't until like we got close to the hell week that I really understood what he was saying. And we became really, really cool. But he checked me because he saw where my head was going. And he, and he said, Hey, if you keep this up, he was pretty much saying, if you keep this up, they're going to kick you out. Don't, don't let their kindness fool you, you know, just because you had a run. So I'll never forget that. I'll never forget him checking me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, uhm, I will never forget after I got, he made it through Hell Week and I got back, he came up to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so Mikey came up to me, he's like, put his hand on my shoulder, he's like, dude, I don't understand bro, like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's alright, you'll get back in and keep your head in the game. And I'll never forget that comfort that he gave me. Cause I was crushed when I came back from the hospital so all of them with their brown shirts on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they're like, yeah, two's in this, you know, the yell that we do after we get a call out. And he came up to me and comforted me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'll never forget that. He said something to me before we went into Hell Week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remember for a long time, but I can't remember now. It was, it was, he was such a humble dude. He was man. He was like a humble, good, good dude, man. You know what I mean? That was the one thing I remember about Mikey. And even when we were in Bow Crew and everything, when we were in like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Insert torture to run with boats on their heads or whatever the case may be workman was in our boat crew as well. You know, he would just always be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Positive. It was almost like he was the leader of the crew, and very selfless, you know, and obviously we know what happened, but that's what I remember, but I'll never forget him coming up to me after I got released from the hospital. And that gave me that conversation that he had with me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gave me that spark to keep going. Cause you know, I never, the idea of quitting never really crossed my mind, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was down hard, you know, seeing my brothers moving on and, and yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm running off the beach, Hell Week just secured, Master Chief Hoffman, God rest his soul, Commander Zinke.