[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He reaches out to Jobs cause he, he knows there's been bad blood. Iger's been the number two guy at Disney for nine years. Reaches out to Jobs and on some congratulatory thing and Jobs immediately shoots back at him. How long were you Michael's number two? Cause he, he's blaming Michael Eisner. How long were you the number two guy? Well, this was always going down. Not willing to accept any compliment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, Iger says, let's talk about this. Jobs says, come on down. Yeaah, you want to talk to me? Come into my backyard. Go to the Apple campus. I think you're ready to set up, uh, Jobs wants to work off a whiteboard. Pros and cons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Offers the pen to Eiger. Says you go first.


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[Assistant] Iger knows how much bad blood there is here. He is not anxious to say a word. And this is in his book. So he says, no Steve, go ahead.


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[Assistant] Steve gets up, Jobs starts writing all the reasons why not to do it. All the barriers. He effectively does this approach on himself. And writes some nasty stuff about Disney.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like just short of out and out profanity, insulting, your culture sucks, you guys suck, everything about you is horrible, your children, you know, I mean, he, everything. He's laying all this stuff out there. And he, and he kind of gets done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he looks to, uh, hand the pen back to, uh, Iger, who's, who's not just crestfallen, cause he just think, feels like he's gotten the, the stuffing kicked out of him. And he says, well, I guess there are a lot of negatives there. And Jobs looked back at him and says, you know, sometimes the positive outweigh the negative.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because he deactivated all the barriers. They got all the barriers out. They got them out into the open air. They cleared their head by first discussing and just calling them out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, Bob Iger does not offer a bit of explanation for any of this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, Higer Nevis says, but that wasn't true, or but, oh yeaah, you know, nothing. He doesn't say a word. He just lets all the negatives get out there. And when he, when he lets Jobs run the full course of the reasons for not doing it, then Jobs is left with the positives.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is in fact the way humans make decisions. You will reconcile in your head, how do you live with the negatives, deal with them, deactivate them, before you decide to do something. If you can reconcile all those negatives,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As soon as you do, your brain then goes to the positive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then the positive picks up this tremendous amount of velocity having been unshackled from the negatives. We do it all the time. We do it constantly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think I first came across this idea. Jim Camp wrote a book in 2002 called Start With No. And I remember seeing that on a bookshelf and like doing a double take on like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Start with no. I thought we were supposed to get the yes, but yes was a magic word. And he had discovered inadvertently that if you just told people it was okay to say no.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That they were more likely to agree. He's right up front, he called it the right to veto, and he'd say, you know, I just want you to know before we get into this, you can say no at any time. Say no to me any time, and uh, and I'll go away. And he made more deals.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, accidentally, one of my hostage negotiators in, uh, Pittsburgh tells me, she says, you know, cause I'm making everybody read this book.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pittsburgh, because her boss was jealous of how much the police department loved her.


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[Assistant] So she finds out she's gonna get removed, which is gonna hurt the officer's relationship with the police department. But this guy doesn't care, cause he's jealous.


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[Assistant] This guy relaxes, he leans back in his chair, you know, he steeples with his hands, like that's what people do when they feel really good about themselves. And, uh, he goes, no. She says, what do you want me to do?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he says, well, you know, stop letting this stuff interfere with your investigations. Now go back to work. So he calls her in to fire her from the team. She walks out, no problem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I'm like, there's something here. And then I start thinking about other conversations I've had, uh, Lieutenant on the police department, that I thought gotten, gotten his guys way a lot, cause he was,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Overmanaged him. I remember him saying to me once, you know, a lieutenant's job is to say no. And I thought,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No it's not. You know, a lieutenant's a leader. A leader's job is to encourage people, not to say no. So why is he saying this? It makes him feel good to say no. It makes him feel safe. It makes him feel protected.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we start experimenting with, instead of letting people say no, what happens if you actually get them to say no?


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[Assistant] Like how does that change feelings the way they react? And it makes such a massive difference, like instantaneous, like if it's important, I don't say do you disagree, I say do you disagree. I don't say is this a good idea, is this a ridiculous idea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't say, you know, what, I'm never going for yes, I'm always going for no. And, you know, if I can, cause I know I'm all over the place here. I'm on a plane from, uh, JFK to LA.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Black businessman sitting next to me. He's kind of loud. Uh, he's got a, he's got a big colorful sweater on, but I just, you know, not, not, not crazy out there, but I just think, you know, interesting, interesting cat, clearly a businessman. He's got people on his team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause people that are sitting, you know, back in economy are walking by and you know, hey boss, how you doing? And finally, but I hear him on the phone and he's just trying to force people to say yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get him to say no. Change your questions. You drive me crazy. I can't take it anymore. I'm hearing you shove this down people's throats. Switch from yes to no. And I go, and again, instead of do you agree, do you disagree? Instead of would you do this, are you against doing this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I give him a quick rundown of how to make the switch, and he's a smart dude. Picks it right up. Really fast. So he gets back on the phone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm like, wow. Okay. You know, your hair's a little shorter right now. Didn't recognize you right off the bat, but uh, I do recognize that name.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, it's nuts. It's, it's, of the, of the, you know, the different skills are counterintuitive to their own degree.


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[Assistant] The extremely strong degree that getting somebody to say yes makes them uncomfortable, concerned, worried about what kind of traps they're walking into, where's the hook, what have I forgotten.


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[Assistant] Complete different 180 degree turn on getting them to say no. Like the comfort level from saying no.


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[Assistant] And then the ability to think things through immediately. Like if I were to say to you, disagree, do you disagree? You go,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nah, I don't disagree, but here are the following problems. And you'd lay them right out. One, two, three, four, five. Right off the top of your head. Have no problem. If I'd have said, do you agree?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you don't want to say, yes, I agree, but here are the following problems. You won't do it the second way. Cause...


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[Assistant] And so then anything that you lay out after that feels like you're digging yourself in deeper. But having said no, you don't feel hooked.


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[Assistant] And the next four or five things after the yes or no are what's critical. It's never, never right there. It's never at the point of decision. It's really here are the problems or here's what you gotta accomplish. And you gotta get past that. And you get past it freely when people say no.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because they feel safe and protected. They feel no sense of obligation. They don't feel like they're digging themselves in with each thing they say after that.


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[Assistant] And if you look for it, you see it everywhere. And one of the great examples that I like to use is people that are devoted to Donald Trump.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And my son pointed this out. I mean, if that isn't the proof of the that's right moment, somewhere in a speech or in the presidential debate, when he articulated something, when you bought in completely, you looked at the screen and you pointed at it and you said, that's right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's not just Trump, it's any charismatic leader anywhere. When the charismatic leader is articulated as something that you believe is totally true. And it totally gets you. Nobody ever says you're right. They always say that's right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that statement is when you were totally bought in on what was just said. And our co-author, Tal, was the one that pulled out the description of it being a subtle epiphany. Tal contributed brilliantly to the book. I mean, he brought a lot to the table besides just being a writer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so then, uhm, as I was getting more into neuroscience, I look up neuroscience, the neuroscience of epiphany. What neurochemicals do you get hit with?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To Donald Trump or any other leader, you're bonded to Obama, you're bonded to whoever has uttered the things that you believe to be completely true. It's a one-way bond and there's a feeling of a bond. And then,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again, back to the Huberman's Podcast. You know, for me, just being bonded is enough.


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[Assistant] On another one of his podcasts, he points out, oxytocin inclines people to tell the truth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then he points out on yet another podcast, serotonin, the feeling of satisfaction, which means you're not as demanding.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if I can get a thatch right out of you, you're gonna bond to me, you're gonna tell me the truth, and you're gonna make fewer demands. What else do I want?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, yeaah, and if I can, a couple of tangents, because that was also when I was working with McRaven. Oh, okay. Not Admiral, but Captain McRaven. And he was phenomenal, and he chaired, he created the hostage working group, the National Security Council,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His leadership, you know, what a great guy to work with. I can remember in particular when we were working that case and the one that followed on. Like there was some stuff that the US government was very nervous about. And you needed a guy


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, who stood up properly for everybody and for the right thing if you will. And I can remember being at one meeting in particular


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[Assistant] Captain McCraven, McCraven, I don't mean to be disrespectful, I'm sure it sounds disrespectful to just call him McCraven. But McCraven stands up and he says, you know what, I'm not gonna stop talking about this until somebody tells me to sit down and shut up and they're gonna have to tell me twice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I remember thinking, that's the guy I want.


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[Assistant] Talking to the White House. That's the guy that I want talking to the Department of State.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we're in the midst of that shilling case and the last thing that we need when we're in a forward operating base


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is any sort of, uhm, insecurity, indecision from Washington DC. And when you're out there on the front lines, having a guy like Captain Bill McRaven, Admiral Bill McRaven,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, and they haven't quite got it yet. But they're waiting, they're laying in wait, and if they're giving you your right, uhm, you got problems.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tal came up with that. Uhm, the original title was Killer Deals. We started working with Tal. Brandon and I, my son Brandon, uhm, uncredited co-author of the book.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Tulsa's right, so we're gonna, we'll start with killer deals and at some point in time the proper title of the book will occur to me and I'll tell you what it is. Now you're free to disagree, but I can tell you, when I get deeply into this enough,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About halfway through the whole writing process was when he said titles never split the difference. He says that's the essence of what you guys are talking about. If you completely understand it and understand why, he says that's what the title is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, it's not, and there's also a very specific, um, uh, sort of rationale behind the offers. Each offer has to be effectively half as much as the previous increase. You gotta, you gotta always have diminishing increases. The other side is going to feel like they're beating you into a position. They're going to be very gratifying for them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not rush at all until it's looming. Like, and people lose track of that it's the process.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And deadlines are really just designed to kick the process into gear. But human beings, being what they are, if you give somebody a deadline of Friday, don't expect to get into any kind of conversation before Thursday. She's not gonna ask.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot. And the amount of time, like it's rare that in a negotiation that has any sort of contentiousness to it at all, the word will always come up.


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[Assistant] I mean, it's a great manipulative device and people often say it out of defensiveness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But for the same, for the same ends. You know, get the other side to change your mind. Providing no evidence whatsoever as to why they should.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that's uh, you see it. And usually it's, it's when the tables have gotten turned on somebody in an unexpected way. That's when they'll drop the word. What does that look like?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they got the buyer to increase the offer above market.


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[Assistant] By simply saying, we just want what's fair. Now the person that used this phrase had gotten the tables turned on them by a drop in a market. So it wasn't even the buyer's fault. The buyer didn't do anything. The buyer's following the market.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this person out of simple defensiveness having had the tables turned on them.


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[Assistant] They felt that it was an unfair series of circumstances. Now, is that the buyer's fault?


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[Assistant] Buyers are spying in a real estate market that is dictated by the dynamics of the market.


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[Assistant] And that was the first time it really jumped out at me. And then I started looking for it across the board. Because the person that told the story got the buyer to raise the price.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I remember thinking like that, wait, wait, wait, as an innocent bystander here, that, you know, that's not fair. There's no fairness there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I thought if a good person can do this and change, completely change the dynamics in a relationship, in a negotiation, how often does it come up? And then you start looking for it, and you see it over, and it is so effective,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The manipulators have seen the good people use it and change the dynamics that they've gotten really good at using it to cover up manipulative behaviors.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, very much, as a general rule, I'm gonna want the other side to show the number first, cause it's information. It's gonna, it's gonna tell me, it's gonna tell me data, it's gonna tell me mindset, where you're coming from, it's gonna tell me a lot. None of which am I getting if I go first. So as a general rule, we don't go first.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Again, a general rule. At some point in time, to keep from going round and round and round, I'm gonna throw a number out. Now I'm gonna characterize it before I throw it out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, if, eh, I'm gonna say this is a lot.


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[Assistant] When we quote prices for our coaching, first of all, our coaching is more expensive. If you can find negotiation coaching anywhere, which is very hard to find, we're going to charge you more than anybody else does. So I'm going to say that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm gonna charge you more than anybody else does. Somebody wants to bring me in for a talk. I'm gonna be so expensive, we're gonna quote you a heart-stopping price.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you get, that causes you to reflect on your value.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It causes you, uh, to run the numbers. One of two things, you're gonna ask me what the number is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you're going to say, ehm, well you said it was expensive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, if I gotta throw a number, I like to refer to it as I never throw the number out naked.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I, and if otherwise I want to know where you're coming from, I also want to give you a price that you want. Cause price is a term.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're not going to over deliver, you're going to feel like you undervalued yourself and you're going to do the same amount of work if I pay you too much. I found that out the hard way. If I go too low, you're going to do a lousy job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what I need, what I really want besides just throwing a number first, I wanna know what number do you think a good number is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That you're gonna work really hard for and feel like you earned your money and not change that you just undervalued yourself in the past and now all of a sudden I'm worth this much more money which means you're not gonna put in extra effort.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 99 cents for a song. Back when Napster, and you could get all your music for free. Like Jobs and Apple, like let's put a number on this, that seems so small, and it's not, it's not a round number. And suddenly, people were paying for music again. 99 cents.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In Camp's book, 2002, he called them interrogatives. They were reporters' questions. In the FBI, we called them just open-ended. You know the list, what, who, when, where, how, and why. And I noticed that he leaned heavily on one in particular, which was, what's the biggest challenge you face?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not in, and realize that at the time uhm, first of all it's a what question, what's differential, people like to be asked what to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Secondly now, we now know the black swan method, what is principally designed to uncover problems.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's the biggest challenge you face? What gets in the way? I'm coaching some dentists recently. People are balking at how much their dental work's gonna cost. The question is, what happens if you do nothing? You know, it's a what question, it's deferential.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so then we began to look harder at the questions. I thought that was the only overlap between business and hostage negotiation at the time. Then in the Burnham case in the Philippines, uhm, it goes bad. Train wreck all the way around.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Somebody got proof of life on our hostages in the midst of that case. And I just remember it blew my mind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause a hostage was overheard on a phone. And I had never gotten a hostage on a phone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So between how does somebody get a hostage on a phone and who the heck is getting proof of life on our hostages? Like there was more than one buyer. Like I didn't know what to do with this. So the case, case is an ongoing 13 month long train wreck. A lot of people died, including two out of three of the total Americans that were taken.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Listen to a drug dealer kidnapping in Pittsburgh a few months afterwards. Drug dealer on drug dealer. One drug dealer's got the other drug dealer's girlfriend hostage. Who do you go when somebody important to you has been kidnapped? Even if you're a drug dealer, you go to the FBI.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So our hostage negotiator is writing around listening to the drug dealer talk to the other drug dealer. And just on his own, he goes, Hey dog, how do I know she's okay?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the change in the tone of voice, the kidnapper drug dealer went from thinking he was in charge to being, having lost all control of the negotiation and not knowing it at the time. And it was just a how question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So then we changed all of our negotiation kidnapping strategy to how and what questions. Just hammering them with how and what questions. Cause you wanna, you wanna test some, test it out in the kidnapping.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And finally, I'm coaching on another kidnapping in the Philippines, coaching a brother. His brother's been grabbed by a serial killer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lone kidnapper. Only time in my entire, uhm, experience with one kidnapper. They're always operating gangs. And the guy was a, we found out after the fact because we, we caught him. He was a, he had multiple kidnappings and it killed at least, well,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Didn't have the evidence that he killed a hostage in another case. Just a ransom was paid and the hostage never appeared. So there's only one conclusion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're coaching, coaching a brother, again, a good guy who would learn, pick up fast, how and what questions, how and what questions, how and what questions. And at one point in time, uh, the kidnapper wants a daily per diem to keep the hostage alive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which we, we gotta fight over that because it's a way to test financial resources. Not to keep the hostage alive. Test the family's resources. So on his own, the brother says,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When we run out of money paying the daily amount, what's gonna happen?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there's a silence and this serial killer on the other end of the phone says, it'll be alright.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like I had no idea that it was a lone guy, I thought we were just talking to the boss.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Didn't know he was a killer. There was another case where he chopped a victim's ear off, sent the ear and video of him chopping the ear off to the victim's company. They got paid. I knew about that. I'd been told for a variety of reasons. I'd heard about that. I didn't know it was this guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's dynamic where you'd have said we had no leverage, if you thought in terms of leverage. But you got influence. How do you get influence? Through deference. And that's when we really began to dial in collectively, principally, my son Brandon and I, another guy, Derek Gaunt, very involved in the development of our thinking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we really narrowed it down to how and what is a way to really get the upper hand in a negotiation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're not Persian. You'd know how to say that if you were Persian. I don't know how to say it either.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Depending upon the person, there's underlying currents.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it could be for different reasons. The short answer is yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A little bit of what you mentioned earlier, like if you're really interested in what the other person is saying and then you worry about evaluating after the fact, you don't have to worry about the look on your face. As a matter of fact, if you're really interested, the more interested you look, the more they're gonna talk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if you can separate the two things out from evaluating, judging what somebody said to just being, making sure you fully understand that facial expressions are not a problem. The people that have a problem with them, you know, your guy's face is turning red, making all, that's a characteristic principally


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of the assertive negotiator who can't wait to disagree and is holding it in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The highly analytical type, you know, the people that seem completely emotionally detached, when they think you're not looking, they reveal everything and, and like, eh, their facial expressions, their, their body language. I mean, they almost sometimes they look like they're twitching.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so if you know who's highly analytical, if you're faced with a team of people,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do not talk to the analytical guy or gal, but keep an eye on him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fair amount. And there's probably about three schools of thought out there. Uhm, the great


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well the bad ones are just brute force, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make you uncomfortable physically or emotionally and I'm gonna try to force something out of you. And that's, that's just, that just doesn't work. It's counter, it's counterproductive. If you, if you only care about what works, then you won't be harsh. Cause it doesn't work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which, uh, there are a fair amount of interrogators out there that like it. And they, they want to get you into a very short term mindset and get you to say things that you know to be against your interests. The problem is if you're getting somebody into a short term mindset, they're going to come a point in time when they regret saying it to you. And you're going to lose their cooperation. Everything's going to fall apart. So it has a shelf life. Now the rapport based people, those are the magic, magic, magicians.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That make cases nobody else can make, or make deals no one else can make, and the other side still wants to talk to them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like when I left surveillance in New York and went inside to investigate, what we were talking earlier became an inside, you know, uh, open investigator. I was surrounded by guys.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I got no idea how that guy got that cooperation. One agent in particular, his name was Larry Wack.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How he got people to cooperate because he was, he was, he developed rapport, relationships with people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even if he had a hammer, the rapport and the relationship, you know, the belief that we will always be able to talk to one another.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As opposed to me tricking you into a short-term mindset, which at some point in time you're gonna feel betrayed. Like the rapport-based approach to deal-making interrogation wins every time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The accommodator is this weird animal that neither the analysts nor the asserters can really figure out. But the accommodator is really, is a very hope-based person and very focused on that the moment is pleasant. And then if the moment is pleasant and we hope hard enough, then everything will be fine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now when we wrote, when we wrote the book, we said the accommodator was focused principally on the relationship. Having a positive relationship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's pretty close to true. Like they want the relationship to be positive, but, you know, we worked with people that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Would see a train coming at us, uh, rhetorically, uh, figuratively, not literally. There's a problem coming at us. This person was on a team and we had a training and all the books that were supposed to be there were gone. This guy knew about it for days. The last minute tells us none of the manuals were here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause he'd been, and we're like, you know the train is getting ready to hit us, we've been here for three days, you haven't said a word for three days. That's not relationship focus cause I'm standing on a railroad track and you see a train coming my way and you're not warning me. So you know this relationship is coming to a close. And then we realize in hindsight, and we see it constantly,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so the accommodators I think are the source of why in the business world people often say hope is not a strategy. Because the accommodator will go with hope alone. And it'll work out, hope alone is probably good somewhere between 20 and 45% of the time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe that, maybe that's being generous. Maybe 20% of the time. And they're gonna remember the 20% and ignore the 80% when the world turned into a disaster.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the commenters are really, are very positive people, they're very upbeat, and they're very hope-focused. Which is, in and of itself, it's not a strategy, it's a necessary element, you gotta be hopeful it's gonna work out. What it is, is inadequate. Now simultaneously, people love dealing with somebody like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we'll see on a regular basis, the accommodators will make more deals overall than anybody else will.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But they'd be mostly really sloppy deals that are nowhere near as profitable for either side as they should have been because they simply hoped that things would fall into place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just honest, I'm just being honest with you. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm saving you a lot of trouble, cause I want you to be honest with me, so I'm gonna be honest with you. That was stupid. That's a dumb idea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's never gonna work. You didn't think this thing, you know, the assertive, anybody that describes themselves as simply open and honest. And it's always a punch in the face. It's always


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just that approach. Like you, the other side's gotta know where you're coming from. You do have to be honest. But it's how you deliver it. And the asserters are the, typically the worst at making you, I had my partner once tell me,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dealing with you is like getting hit in the face with a brick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, the assertive, I mean, you gotta tell the other side where you're coming from, otherwise you're making them guess. And you don't make good deals based on guesswork.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't have to run them all, run any, run some. Any accommodator, like, so many people look at the accommodators and say, that person's making tons of deals, what are they doing? It's in their demeanor, it's in their approach.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're gonna bargain, it's the most effective bargaining model out there. Nothing beats it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, the idea of first, uhm, Tyler's book in 2007 of Black Swan got me thinking about it. I like his stuff. I mean, he's a highly in-depth thinker. Uhm, he's got a writing tone that is not for everybody.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But really in depth and, and so I saw that I, I, the idea like the impact of the highly improbable, well that's what we did all the time in negotiation. It's a combination of two things. We're gonna change ourselves in subtle little ways that the other side is never gonna see.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we're going to gain the upper hand. We're going to steer it, we're going to steer the negotiation and to the best possible outcome.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That doesn't mean that everything's going to a positive outcome, but you gotta recognize what the best possible outcome is. So it's a great metaphor for making tiny little subtle changes in your negotiation approach the other side is never gonna see. Where you're gonna make all the difference. It's completely invisible. And then while you're in the middle of it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's always stuff, great stuff will fall out of the sky if you let it. The other side is going to say something that works for you. They're going to talk to, they're going to be softer in a position than you realize. There's going to be pressures on them that you don't understand. Something is always, always there. And in many cases,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The other side doesn't imagine it, and to draw a real fine point on this that a lot of people miss, it's the reason why reading body language to detect deception is almost a waste of time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because for you to deceive me, you gotta know it's important. To have it tell. You have to be consciously covering it up. But a significant amount of the time, you don't even know it's important.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if I'm just looking for towels and not getting you talking, the stuff that you didn't know was important is never going to come out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, so what if, so what if you're lying? Number one, that doesn't tell me what the truth is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if we're only focused on what you're hiding, rambling conversation, what might that look like?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A woman who's getting, uhm, funding for a film she's doing in Los Angeles a couple years ago is trying to get $300,000 out of an investor. Very focused on this film being shot in LA. Very focused on this amount of money. Very focused on what they're trying, the point they're trying to make in a film. But she's mirroring and labeling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And out of the blue it comes out that the financier owns a castle in France. Which would be a great setting for the next film. Something she never would have brought up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, female martial artists beating up bad guys. Like, how is she gonna say, oh by the way, you don't have, I'm working on another film, we wanna, it's a medieval film, you don't happen to have a castle in France, do you? Like, that is never gonna come up, ever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But she's talking and she's labeling and marrying and the next thing you know this, this, this thing comes out that the other person has no idea makes any difference.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Changes the structuring of the whole deal. Now instead of talking about one film, they're talking about multiple films. Completely changes the complexion of the finances that are needed on the first. If she can go back out, she's already got partial packaging on a second film. Like it changes everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there's no way that she would have known to ask it, and the person on the other side was, well, instead of 300 grand, what about my castle? Cause that's not gonna do any good for a film in LA. Just little things like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, right, kept him from getting killed, got him out a day early.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so that was, you know, short in a timeline. Because he was really at the end of his rope.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're still not 100% sure that there are bombs there. And so if he'd have made a particular move, uh, towards where the possibility he had his jeep and a flatbed, they said, we don't know there are explosives in the jeep and a flatbed. If he goes there, we got to take him out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we're talking to him and this comes up and he's agreed to come out 72 hours. We want to cut, try to cut 24 off of it. And one of the female negotiators, Winnie Miller says, you know, tell him tomorrow's the dawn of the third day, which is 48 hours and I'll come out. That's what he says.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he had talked so much about the military and his 82nd airborne experience, somebody else listening heard the underlying strong Christian beliefs in there. His religion, if you will. Everybody's got a religion. Everybody, everybody has got a religion, just depend upon what it is and how broadly you define it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we're coaching and training negotiations. All the companies out there that you can get training from, very few of them will coach you. Which sort of shocks me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like how do you, how do you, how do you not believe in your stuff enough where you, you'll, you'll coach? I mean literally, the real definition of a coach is somebody, you go into the game, but the coach is right there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Prepping you, you come out of the game, you could talk, like how do you teach this stuff and not be willing to coach it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so we coach across the board. It's a much bigger aspect of the business than I ever thought it would be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We gotta just finish the documentary film called Tactical Empathy. Uhm, looking, premiered at Beverly Hills about 10 days ago. Taking our time on a distribution deal, see what happens with that. Outlining a lot of stuff that we talked about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Got a book, uh, for real estate agents. The Fulfi agent coming out. Uhm, Steve Schull, the guy that did the book with me. Interesting cat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know Steve for well over a year before I find out he played in the NFL.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not only that, Steve was a Super Bowl captain. Bang.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He didn't just play in the NFL. He didn't just play on a team that went to the Super Bowl. He was a captain of the team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But understands the value of coaching. Because he played for Don Shula. He played for some real coaches.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, he shares a coaching philosophy that, you know, the stuff that we coach you on, if you do what we ask you to do, it's gonna work. So the full free agent's coming out in about two months, and then, uh, my son Brandon and I and another colleague are working on a follow-up to Never Split the Difference, should be out in about a year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, those are good. On the website, blacks1ltd.com, we got a lot of free stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To get your skill level up. Like wherever you are, we can meet you where you are. Another thing we put out that is free.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Concise, actionable. Not 10 articles where you're trying to decide what to do next. Like one article roughly 700 words, complete, actionable, concise stuff. The newsletter's free. You sign up for it on the website, you get it emailed to you on Tuesday mornings, wherever you're in the world you


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Take the free stuff. You can get a long way with the book and the free stuff alone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, pretty much. Masterclasses out there, you know, you and I would talk another, Masterclass is good. It's also, it's insane how cheap that is, as far as cost. Like, the Masterclass might be the best deal on earth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And my negotiation course and a whole bunch of other cool stuff's on there. Iger's got a course and Sorkin's got a course. Like if whatever you want to learn, you're going to find it on MasterClass.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anything that's a manipulation, or where you're not being genuine and honest, and if you're good cop, bad cop, you're probably, one of you's play acting. And it's, as a long term strategy, like you might get short term what you need,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you're always gonna find, always gonna find that you need long term cooperation and to engage in something that's guaranteed to cause it to go bad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is not just, from a mercenary standpoint, you don't do stuff you know is gonna hurt you in the long run.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Constantly, like, and, and the fix is the opposite. Like if, if you know, if you know you're 20 minutes away, tell him 20.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that is so common, like, and my girlfriend is an accommodator, a wonderful human being, brilliant entrepreneur, like so many things about her that are just brilliant. She's, and she's also, she's gorgeous.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm talking to her on the phone the other day, she said, you know, she's nice enough, she's in the middle of a Zoom call, she takes a call anyway. She says, hey, she says, I'm in the middle of a business call, I'll call you back in 15 minutes. I go, okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then that night I called her and I said that was the longest 15 minutes I ever heard. Like I didn't, I knew when somebody gives me a vague amount of time, and it's not just her, anybody, I go on about my day. Because you're trying to be nice. You know, you're trying really hard to keep the other person from being in a bad place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And time after time after time after time, the lights are not all in line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the data that you get overwhelmingly says that's going to go bad. And there, almost everybody still does it. That was one of my favorite stories from McCraven's book, Sea Stories. And you might have been one of those guys out there, they're running some op in the Caribbean, and the helicopters are late pecking them up, and they are not


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, outfitted for the water temperature. The water's warm, but it still ain't 98.6. And a chopper's, when are the choppers gonna show?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the choppers, uh, 15 minutes. And they were there for three hours. They wait, you know, and that's, that's, that's not a military op, that's human beings trying to be nice to other human beings. And I, you know, it just doesn't work out. So the flip side is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I'll tell you, you know, the airlines do this. Like when was the last time, when was the last, no, but the opposite, now they caught on. Cause their biggest criticism was whether or not their planes are late.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I fly all the time. Plane lands, and I, and they go like, well our gate's not open yet, so we gotta wait another 20 minutes before we get at the gate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the first couple of times that happened, I remember, and I said out loud in the airport, was it a surprise that we showed up?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The airline knew all along when they were going to get there. But to fool you, they told you they were going to be there at 3 o'clock. You made your plans around 3 o'clock. They land at 2.30, which is a half an hour early. You think the airline's great and you're mad at the airport.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Delighted at how thoroughly you understand how this applies to leadership and everything else. I mean, you've seen the parallels right away. You know, I've listened to your other podcast where you talk about like, you know, I left high school, I'm not an educated dude, but you're a learner.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, having flight experience mostly helps, but it's, I saw kids struggle a lot because they didn't want to learn a new way of doing it. So, a few guys that had flight time, uh, didn't get through the program, particularly because they were unwilling to adapt to a new way of doing it. Sounds like you didn't have that problem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm, you know, we're three and a half hours into this almost and I'm just, just captivated here in the stories. And I, I routinely get to say this because I get to sit off over here off to the side when, when Chaco does these podcasts and I just get to watch people have these conversations, but the aviation conversations are, are


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unique, and they're special to me because I can picture a lot of the things you're talking about. I can picture the way you're describing them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know you because I got to see what you did. I was old enough and we were modern enough that what you did in that airplane in 1986 and I can vividly remember the three loops you did over Mojave when you landed and getting, I can picture that as a teenager.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Already captivated by airplanes. So to get to sit here with you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Knowing who you are, not from books, but from actually seeing it happen live and in person, this is just an absolute remarkable day for me. So I can't thank you enough for letting me be part of this. This has been, this has been awesome. I am, I'm honored to have met one of my heroes today. This is good stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pretty quick, yeaah. Yeaah, yeaah. Boston, Mass is where I, where I claim home. I guess more accurately though is, is I'm a nomad of Massachusetts. You know, I moved


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every 12 to 18 months as a kid. All the way up until eventually I got to college.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, a lot of it was, was financially related, you know, my, both my parents, they had me and my youngest sister, real young, so struggling as young parents and trying to just grind it out with also my father.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Trying to pursue his passion in life. Trying to figure out what that is and go after it while he's got, you know, two young kids he needs to feed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, my sister's two years younger than me. So, you know, they'd do what they had to do, and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I love them and respect them for it, but that part of the story, that movement,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is deeply rooted in a lot of what we're gonna get into here today. Like those experiences, particularly me struggling socially, struggling to make friends and keep friends and being the new kid in school every year. In today's world, what's known as bullying, you know, back then wasn't as looked at as it is today. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My, my resiliency started from the time that I, you know, was five years old and went to kindergarten.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nah, you're just you, bro. You're just you. I definitely struggle with it more so than you did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, eventually I became conditioned to it though.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which, you know, took a few years. Then it became normal for me. I wasn't...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wasn't as, as understanding of it as the way you just put it, but I just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My mind was conditioned to deal with the pain and discomfort and embarrassment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the effect was, was less and less and less over time. Early on, you know, coming home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it was tough, but I look back now, of course, extremely grateful for that because a lot of people, you know, they asked a lot of the questions. How'd you do this? How'd you do that? I don't typically just dive straight into, into that portion of the story, but if I extract this thing all the way down, that's deeply seated in that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'd say the most clearest memory comes back was a kid who was maybe two years older than me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he, you know, he would beat on me just about every day, and one day, got dropped off the bus, uh, he gave me an exceptionally good beating on this particular day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would hide it from my parents. I wouldn't let them know how often I was getting like, beat on. Cause I, even as a young person, I felt bad for them. Because they're struggling and they're grinding it out. I didn't want to add to their stress. Like, we're getting kicked out of this house. We're moving to another house. Like, they're working their balls off. I could see that as a young person. So I would hide it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One particular day, there was no, there was no hiding it, right? So I was like busted up pretty good. Walked in and, uh, you know, my father got home from work a little later and the kid lived just down the street from us. So he grabbed me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And like, drug me down the street and I'm begging them like, no, no, no, let's not do this. You're gonna make it worse. Let's not do this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was in, I don't know, third grade, so I was probably, I don't know, seven or eight-ish. I'm like, Dad, no. He's like, no, no, no. We're doing this. You know, knocks on the door. And this kid, you know, his parents weren't all that put together. You know, father answers the door.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hippie looking dude, but like big, hairy, hairy big mustache, you know, uh, shirtless, answers the door, and he and my father had some words where,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It almost went physical between the two of them, right on this dude's doorstep, you know. And the kid I was dealing with is behind his father, and he's now, he's yelling at me about how I'm gonna get it worse. And I'm like, this is not working out for anybody.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He made that connection. I don't know if that was a pre-planned segue with Yosam, but that's, I mean that's perfect. Because I didn't have a specific dude in mind that I was targeting a decade down the road. It was really everybody I was targeting. But the grind began then in order to, you know, build up the confidence that I wanted and needed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, wrestled high school, uh, for my first three years up until my senior year, which is when football became the only sport that I would play. Our head coach, head football coach was also the athletic director of the program. So I started getting looked at to play football my junior year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By college scouts, so come senior yeaah. He's like, no no no, all you're doing here in the weight room, it's football. You can run with the track team to help you with your speed and conditioning, but you are football 24-7.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you were down for the cause on that, right? Absolutely. Yeaah. That became my primary sport earlier than high school. And then I saw it as a way to go to college because I was not an academic by any stretch. You weren't talking about doing the bare minimum just to be able to stay eligible to play sports. That was me, man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that was my only route to college. Uh, so I, I was cool with that adjustment. When did you grow? I was a peanut.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most of my life growing up, I was a massive baby. I was born, I was 12 pounds 9 ounces. As a baby.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I said, I set the record at the hospital, which has since closed, so I own that forever. My mother's, you know, she's a hippie and she wanted to have this natural birth process and the doctor's like, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. We have to go in and remove this human from you because he will split you in half.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's the route I took and I was massive as a baby and then I became really, really small. Like I wrestled at 123, you know, my freshman year. So little. I was maybe 5'5", 5'6". Little guy. Damn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It wasn't till, I think it was between my sophomore and junior year of high school that I hit this massive growth spurt. And I shot up like six inches over a summer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But between that time and then the time I graduated those two years was when I shot up, you know, like over a foot over the course of two years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I went to school early, so everyone in my class was a year ahead of me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I started college, for example, at 17 years old, was my freshman year of college. So I was already like a year behind everybody in terms of my maturity and my puberty development. So even my buddies, once I had them,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their voices are dropping, they're getting hair in new places, and I'm still this little squeaky mouse, right? You know, trying to lift my eight pound dumbbell set so I can stay, you know, one of the, one of the cool kids.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I was real late to the game with all that stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't get huge, like body mass wise until I was in college. So by the time I graduated my senior year, you know, I was a strong safety, but I got so tall.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That the scouts started looking at me for linebacker in college. They're like, you're eventually gonna fill out that frame.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We just need to maintain your speed and stack on some muscle mass to go along with your now new height that you have. So I was recruited to play linebacker.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then the muscle mass really came around, you know, sophomore year of college. I spent my first year in that summer just with the strength coaches and the nutritionists all within the program that we had at the school.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Learnin' how to eat, learnin' how to train, and that's when I really filled out my frame. So my sophomore year of college, you know, I was eventually around like 225, 230.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nah, it wasn't. It was more dialed in. I had a regimented meal plan that I would just show up to the cafeteria and just give them my name and then they would give me the food. But it wasn't just like pizza and like hot pockets and shit. It was like real food. It was just a lot of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Potatoes. Potatoes, yeaah. Yeaah, a lot of potatoes. But that was really where I began learning about nutrition. And then I was seeing the effects as it pertained to me on the field. And that was where I really fell in love with training and fitness and, you know, continuing that through today. That was the foundation of that knowledge, was at that point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was good, you know, I played a D2 at UMass, and uh, a UMass goal. And, you know, my first freshman year, you know, didn't, didn't get really any playing time, but I was still kind of growing and developing. So after my year I started to play a little bit, and then junior year I was starting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I say junior year because that's the way we normally break it down, but for me it was like more like my sophomore year 2.0, you know, because I wasn't in line with


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I took a, I took a pretty nasty injury to my back and that ended my season a little early.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, sophomore year or my second year of school was 9-11.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The tipping point for me was that. I started looking at it in high school.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Around my freshman sophomore year. In no direction. I skipped school one day. I went downtown Boston and met with a Marine Corps recruiter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said, I think I want to be a Marine. And he's like, perfect. Finish high school and come back and we got you, we got you bro. I'm like, great. So I had like kind of an idea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I hated school, I liked athletics, but I was tiny, there was no future in that for me. I wanted to, again, I wanted to be respected, I wanted to be feared in a lot of ways, because I lived my life in fear most of the time. And the Marine Corps was the route to give me what I needed. He's like, cool, graduate, high school, come back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I don't, I don't remember any, any exchange of information. The only thing that detracted me from going that route was, was football, was athletics. So went to college, you know, kind of plan B.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then sophomore year was, yeaah, that was 9-11 and then at that point I struggled to stay in school because I was really angry and I wanted to be part of the response to that. I struggled to stay in school, listened to some, you know, family and friends and mentors and decided to stay in and grind out the rest of my degree and then look at options to come.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I graduated in 2007. Oh, no kidding. So yea, you know, normally if you go to college for seven years, they call you doctor. Me, it's just Nick still. So, you know, a lot of different academic probations and having to redo semesters, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It made it easy for me to be eligible for football because it's played in the fall.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So all I needed to do was maintain, I think it was nine credits, like three classes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And just not fail any of them. If I could, I could fail all the rest of my classes after the season was over and I didn't care. And that was the route I took, immature.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't, I didn't care, you know. I look back now and I'm like, man, what if I just applied myself and now I enjoy reading and learning and studying but back then I didn't care. So yea, 2007 was when I finally received my degree and then,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The war was still going on, now Iraq is kicked off as well, so Afghanistan and Iraq are both surging as prime for someone to go in and get some. And I'm like, yup, here we go. So, maybe it was a week after I graduated college. I went downtown Boston, and in the same building, they had three branches. They had the Navy, the Marines, and the Army in three separate offices.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I went into the Navy office first, and I said I want to be a SEAL. You know, I knew I wanted to be in special operations. I want to be right at the front of the fight. And the SEALs comes to mind really fast. Today, as then, of being the ultimate badass warrior. So I walk in and say I want to be a SEAL.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said, perfect, uh, let's get you enlisted in the Navy, and then you can request to go to Bud's and go that route. And I said, okay, thank you, and I left.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I went and talked to the army, I got a different answer. They said, we have this program called the Special Forces Recruit Contract Option, known as the 18X-Ray, which I'm sure you're familiar with, gets you


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Straight into the army special forces. You bypass the conventional army, assuming you make it all the way through.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, no, and I mean if he had, chances are things would look a little different right now, cause I would have taken it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause that was my goal. I was like, I want to be a SEAL, boom. If he had said, hey man, we got this option right here, we'll get you into buds within the first six months, whatever, some kind of guarantee, I probably would have signed it right there and then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it kicked off, you know, originally back in the day, and then, uh, and then it went away for a while and they turned it back on in 2002, you know, post 9-11. When the ODA was getting requested to do a whole bunch of stuff, they're like, we need to, we need to get more quality candidates, let's start this program back up again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Grids were not Stella. It was offered to me, it was brought up to me by my recruiter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the x-ray, 18 x-ray contracts, not an option for offices. So Ed immediately wiped that off the table for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also, my interpretation of what offices do back then was a little off. There's some truth to it, but in my mind then, officers strictly sat behind a desk and enlisted guys were the actual guys that worked. And I wanted to be a worker. I wanted to get my hands dirty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In soft, that's obviously not the case. Uhm, but because the x-ray option didn't exist for O's, that automatically made it a non-option for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, 24, a lot of life experience, uh, graduated college, and I called him up, you know, cause I had done my homework. I didn't sign the x-ray contract right there, I went home, I said thank you, I didn't know what Green Berets did, I'd seen, you know, Rambo and John Wayne, but I didn't know what an SFODA does, what a Green Beret really does, so I did some homework.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think I'd signed the contract yet, but I called my father. And I said, hey dad, I'm gonna, this is what I'm gonna do. And he's like, no you're not. And I'm like, listen dude, I love ya.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, you know, as a new father now, my kids are also, are also young. I can put myself in his shoes, right? He sees the news, he sees what's going on, he knows where I'm trying to go, and he's just scared for me, which is fine, but they were both totally against it to begin with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, but I'd rather you not do that, but like you need to be who you need to be kind of thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was annoying. More than anything else. I mean, I was physically in a, in phenomenal shape. So physically it was, it was relatively easy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, so because I finished playing football around 2004-2005.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Playing ball, I would usually start the season around 250 and I'd end up usually around like 240 by the end of the season. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was done playing ball, still had more college left and I just wanted to see how big and strong I could get. I didn't need to be quite as athletic as I needed to be as a football player. So I got more into strong manned and power lifting type stuff. I was doing a little bit of boxing, a little bit of light wrestling, but it was mostly just like, let's get big and strong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which worked for me because what I was doing professionally was VIP security and nightclub security. So, you know, all my bosses liked, you know, a big yoked up dude in a suit at the front door. So, you know, it helped me with my, what I was doing for work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I enjoyed the training. So by the time I decided to, by the time I graduated college, decided I was going to enlist, I was close to 300 pounds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, I was doing like 12,000 calories a day. I mean, it was just crazy. So there's no way I was in a condition to go to basic training.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah. It was hot. It's work. Yeaah. I really disliked it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I'm like choking down, you know, chicken breasts and dry potatoes with a gallon of water. You know, my strength coach is like, hey, this is what it's gonna take. You know, if you want an 800 pound deadlift, this is what you gotta do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I decide to enlist and you know, I'm, I'm huge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah. At that point man, you know, I was so comfortable with losing fights, although it had been a couple years since that had happened. At that point, I'm the biggest guy in the room. I've been boxing since I was a kid, wrestling, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some different martial arts, like I was well equipped.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, JJ2 didn't come on until, until uh, I got into SF. Okay. Actually.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wasn't the most mature bouncer until I got a little older. You know, some of the places I worked, some of the people I worked for, their methodology was let's make, let's punish this person so that they don't think or no one else thinks to act a fool in my place again. Which I enjoyed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I look back with, you know, some regret hurting some people. I probably didn't need to be hurt that way. But, I mean, that's just the nature of the business I was in, the way I went about doing it. So, big boy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I decide that the military is definitely gonna happen. Okay. And by the time that I signed the contract and then my report date was like four months or so after that point was when I started my training program. It was about a 16 week program I did. Where'd you get that program? Did you create it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was working with a strength coach, same coach I work with today, actually one of them. I've been working with him now, you know, close to 15 years. He's, so he put it together for me. And obviously it was a wild shift from flipping tires and moving Atlas stones.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To, you know, running, rucking, dynamic, crossfit style circuit training. So I sliced myself down over about 16 weeks from, you know, 295 to about 245. About 50 pounds or so came off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bootcamp? Of basic training. Yea, you're just a savage. I'm a 24 year old, 6 foot 5, 240 pound, DICED dude.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm surrounded by a lot of, you know, 17, 18 year old children who have never left their house before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you get your ass smoked, right, of course, for the first several hours when you get there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After maybe 4 or 5 hours of just doing push ups and flutter kicks and sit ups, I'm like pumped up. My muscles are like full. And then they do their tattoo inspection. So they strip you down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Into your underwear. And they just go person to person to person. And I don't think they're really searching for tattoos. I think they just want to see like your physique. And like expose you and just make you feel uncomfortable. So all three drill sergeants are like surrounding you when you're standing there in your underwear. And they're just like looking you up and down and just like getting into your head.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, the tattoos I have on me, this is Latin for strength and honor. I didn't have a lot of these other tats on me at the time. So these stuck out. And they look at me and they're like, what's your deal? And I'm like, I don't know how to answer this question. You know? Like, why are you here? And I thought they were messing with me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In retrospect, I talked to these guys like years later. They're like, we thought you were like an actual like government project. That was going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, you were created in a lab or something, like they didn't know what my deal was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then they look up at the wall and it's engraved in the wall above the whiteboard. It says strength and honor. So now their wheels are really spinning. Like I'm some kind of an implant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I didn't pick up on all this at the time. Eventually our head drill instructor, later on that evening, came over to me and he's like, no really man. Like, did someone send you here? I'm like, I can't, I don't know what's happening right now dude. I'm trying to play the game, but I don't know what game we're playing right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, it was more, it was more, uh, I say it was more annoying and frustrating because I was babysitting kids and I was put in charge of my platoon on day one. Like, you're the guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're all gonna leave for the night. You're gonna make sure that everyone that's in their beds right now are gonna stay in their beds. So I was literally chasing kids like down the stairwell that were trying to just leave for bedding. I don't know where they thought they were gonna go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I'm like dragging kids back to their beds, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well for us, as an 18X rate, you do the infantry program, which is called one station unit training. So they go basic and AIT back to back without any break.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, no, it wasn't fun at all. I was just like staring at the clock, like get me out of here. You know, like the runs, like the workouts, they weren't all that like stimulating and difficult. I was trying to play the game. I did play the game. You know, I wasn't like a rebel. I was like Roger that. I was a good soldier. I was just like, I want to get to the real work, which I know is at Fort Bragg. So like get me out of here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, go, when you finish basic, or AIT, and then you go straight down the street to A1 school.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nah, I was, I, I, I lost, you know, 20, 25 pounds in basic training. Just cause I didn't get, I wasn't getting the calories I needed. You're, they were starving you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I was in, I would say I was in worse shape for selection specifically than I would have been if I had just gone straight to that without going to basic training.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but it was okay, cause you know, by the time I got to Sop-C and, or got to brag to stat Sop-C, then I could eat like normal again, and I put some mask back on, so get back into more anaerobic stuff with some resistance to be ready for Sop-C, so I was, I was good to go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it definitely was. I mean, the way Sobsie was back then, I think it was five or six weeks, and you would stay at Fort Bragg, and then you'd go down to Fort Campbell on Monday, and you would train and be in Sobsie Monday through Friday, and then you would come back to Bragg for the weekend. And you would just do that for six weeks. And it was just a lot of PT.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The land nav, like not tying some SF history stuff, but it was mostly physical to get you ready for selection.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well at the end of the first week, so it's Friday. One week, week one is done and now I'm feeling like I'm playing the game with like, with like the big boys. I got SF guys that are now my cadrates and my first time being introduced to them. I'm surrounded by a bunch of x-rays. I'm like okay, now I feel like I'm in the game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That first week ends, and our lead instructor comes down, he says, alright, check it out. The upcoming selection class has some open slots. So we're gonna send volunteers, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or we're gonna just force those that are in the top 10% performance wise to go. And it starts on Monday.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I raised my hand immediately, I'm like, yep, uhm, I'm good, I'm ready to go. Like, let's go. My confidence was really high. So, it gave me a weekend to just get my stuff ready, my equipment, make sure I had everything I needed, which I did, because I was part of SOPSY. So my SOPSY experience was five days, and then I was in an SFAS to fall in one day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Selection when I went through was 14 days long. Now it's back to 20 or so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, it was 2021 for a long time, and then mine was the second class after they condensed it down into 14.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't tell you why they did that, but you would think that that meant they removed like five or six days worth of stuff, but they didn't. They just rammed it into a shorter window. So there was no like white space in between stuff. Everything was just, it was much more intense because you still had to check all these blocks, but just in a week less of time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, they, you know, I have some buddies that are selection cadre now and some that have been and now are back to the unit. Uh, you know, they make it as objective as I think they can, but it's open to subjectivity because there are human beings that are evaluating you and when, if you're looking at purely


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How fast did you run two miles? That's, that's objective. How many pushups can you do? Pull ups? Whatever. But when you're evaluating people for leadership and their ability to work in a team dynamic, that gets subjective pretty quick. So it is a roll of the dice to a degree because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You may just have a bad, may have a bad day or bad week. You're a solid leader, you're a solid performer, you just didn't perform when you needed to and that's what the cadre had to go off of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yeaah, you didn't make this round, but come back and try again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah, a few. A few of my buddies that were actually in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, basic with me, that made it all the way to Sobsie that came with me with that first chunk, because there were like ten of us that left Sobsie early.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think maybe five of us got selected that first class. And the other five I would have said, no, no, these guys are...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These guys are gonna be good to go. I was mostly looking at their physical performance, like their rock times and their pull ups and they're like, these were physical studs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But for whatever reason, they just didn't, didn't display what they needed to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No. It's, uh, the Cadraider and Selection are like robots.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not, they're not in your face. They're not screaming and yelling. Eh, there's a couple times that they're screaming and yelling. Log and rifle PT are two iterations where they are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In your face and screaming and trying to crack you physically and emotionally mentally. But the rest, they're like sidewalks. It's very just, this is your task. This is your condition. This is your standard. Do you have any questions? Execute. That's it. And if you, if you don't make it, they're like, okay, go with it. There's nothing. They're not trying to, they're not trying to get you to quit. And they're also not data.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think what I struggled most with was the team dynamic aspect. Although I grew up playing team sports, you know, you get put in these scenarios where you have a mission to execute as a small group.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As an aggressive, younger person, as Felida made a decision on how we're going to execute something and I didn't agree with it. I made that note. I'm like, no, that's not going to work. Like I wanted to win.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And these tasks that they're given to us, they're essentially impossible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, within the standards that are given to you, there's no way it's happening, right? They know that. It's not about can you get from A to B in the allotted time. It's about how do you work together as a unit? How do you lead? How do you communicate? How do you problem solve? How do you deal with stress? That's what they're looking at. And I wanted to win.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Homeboy came back with some, like, crazy, ridiculous strategy that I knew wouldn't work. I let him know that. I'm like, no, no, no. That's not gonna work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And now this dude's in like a tough spot. He's like dealing with someone who's like bigger than him and angrier than him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's trying to, you know, do his job as a leader. And of course he's being evaluated. The ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-cajera standing right there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I could have done a better job of being a supportive member of the team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I didn't have the same leadership philosophy and methodology and tools that I have now, so I struggled with that, cause even in the moments I could tell, like I'm not handling this very well, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wanna win, man, and it's just, it, it, it superseded my ability to stay, you know, calm and tactful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, they did. So if you get selected, you sit down with a cadre after and they go through your entire, your entire packet with all your scores and all their inputs. So that was the number one thing that was told to me was you need to learn how to be more supportive of a leader.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was humble enough to, to accept it. I didn't have the same mentality towards leadership then as I do now, where


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now I look at leadership as very much a skill, like it's something that you can learn, but you have to deliberately train on it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I still looked at leadership as, as a talent, as something that you either had or didn't have, and that was it. So I just took it like, Roger that, Sergeant, I appreciate it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, like, this is who I am. And I don't have the leadership, like, skill ingrained in me genetically. I just don't have it. So I'm gonna have to get better other ways to kind of make up the difference.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now I look, you know, my mentality towards it is wildly different.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get selected, go into Q course, uh, and back then, it's different today, but back then, you know, you go through these different phases, phase one, two, three, four.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In between those, you would just be waiting at Fort Bragg for there to be enough students that they could lump together to start the next phase. So a lot of white space in between. You know, phase one, you go down to Camp McCall, you're there for three weeks, seven weeks, whatever, come back to Bragg and reset. Well, sometimes those breaks could be a month or three months, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What do you do during those breaks, just working out? PT, formations, uhm, they do like some LPD stuff with some of the tax that were back there at BRAG, the guys that were like in charge of us, keeping accountability, so we do some like leadership type classes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you were mostly just hanging out, waiting, trying to stay out of trouble. And that's where actually a lot of guys, that's the reason why they're not green berets today, is because of that downtime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because they just couldn't stay focused for that amount of time. Because it took me, just the Q course alone, about 18 months. Oh, no kidding. To get through it. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We have instructors, so you're in a classroom with like six, seven other guys, uh, eight hours a day just learning Russian.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it was even worse because we still didn't maintain our jump status during the Q course. So we did a jump like the week before I started language school and I broke my tailbone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I broke my coccyx. I came down, I landed on the, on the, uh, on the runway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you know. Especially with equipment. I mean, forget about it. It's just a freaking disaster. Even at 1300 feet, you know. It's like, by the time I shoot open, I check my stuff, I drop, I'm dropping my equipment pretty much immediately and I'm smashing into the earth. Yeah. With a vapor trail behind me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, so I came down, I had some wind, I couldn't steer, couldn't avoid it, runway, this is happening, boom, broke my tailbone, thought I, thought I paralyzed, I thought I was paralyzed. That's freaking horrible, yea. It was scary as hell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe, I'm like, okay, uh, this is the rest of my life. Fortunately, it was just a broken tailbone, which is a, is a, not a convenient injury, you know? Nah, it never happens.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's no grit, you can't cast it, you know, so you just have to stay off of it and let it kind of heal the best it can. But I'm immediately going into language school where I'm going to be spending eight hours a day in a classroom. So my first...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I dunno, three, four months of language school, I was either on a knee or standing. Because I couldn't sit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, eventually I was coming to class with one of those donuts, you know, those inflatable things. That's how I was doing, so I mean, also, not an academic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm trying to learn a new language, which I'm convinced is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the same area of the artistic side of people's brains. Like if you can play music or if you can paint, that's the art form of learning a language. My wife's a great example. She's both. Like she's a musician, she's a phenomenal artist. She can pick up foreign languages like that. For me,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nah dude, it was, it was brutal. It was just forced reps. Like that's how you do it. So I mean...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What I would say would be like a, like a, mhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Between a beginner and a novice level. To have a working knowledge I think is the way they kind of describe it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was great. Yea, the Bravo course was awesome. You know, just learning weapons and a little bit into tactics. But, uh, you're just playing with guns all day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I picked my, I picked my MOS and my language, which determines your group. Everyone that gets selected, or at least back then, picked those two things, requested MOS and requested language.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they would give, I think it was the top like 15% or 20% of the performers would get what they asked for and then the rest would get whatever they needed to get.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I requested Bravo and I wanted Russian because I wanted to stay at that third group.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On weapons and maintenance and troubleshooting, but you're also the primary tactician on the team or the primary tactical advisor to the team sergeant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is that, that's your support function on a team. So you're putting together ranges, you're executing training. Well, every SF guy, every soft guy, thinks that he is a perfect tactician and a perfect marksman.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those are much easier for those guys to teach their teammates because they don't have the pride associated with not knowing medicine. I don't have the pride associated with not knowing how to use this, this radio. If you walk up to a guy and say you don't know how to use your rifle, that, they don't take that very well. So you have to have an aggressive, dominant,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] ...personality to be able to break through that barrier that your teammates have to be able to do your job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They don't like that. You know? They don't like that. Like you can't shoot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you don't understand tactics. You tell that to a green beret, or a seal, or a ranger, that it's not gonna go well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Robin Sage was good. I mean, aside from the infill, which is, it's just, I mean, horrible. We didn't jump, thank God. My buddy, he's a good buddy of mine today. He was on one of the teams that had a jump in. Because you're, everyone on that, on that team is carrying about 120 pounds in their ruck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To, you know, sustain off of, to conduct unconventional warfare in a denied area. That's what Robin Sage is. The teams that have to jump in, man, nah, nah, nah, dude.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then you're actually operating with other MOS's, which is the first time that you get to see that, because it's the last thing you do and they bring, so now you can see what medics do, you can see what the 18 child leads do, you can see what the commo guys can do, you see the alphas, you see the team leaders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Up until you go to MOS, everyone's just a candidate. Then you learn your job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then you come together to execute your job with the other team, with the other MOS's. So I remember just,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When we were on infill, I started cramping up. And I needed to take a short halt, because I needed to stretch, because otherwise I was going to go down. And one of my teammates yelled the word medic. Which was the first time I had heard that, like in real life. You know, you hear it in the movies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To see those different jobs and how they employ themselves within a team dynamic. So it was actually a lot of fun once you got past, you know, getting to your, your site.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It usually takes, you know, like two to three days. Oh damn. To get in. Yeaah. I mean, every route's different. It's usually trains, planes and automobiles and a lot of walking. So, you know, horse trailer from here to here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You get there, you walk, you know, 12 miles through the wood line, link up over here, jump on a boat, move down this river, you know, it's like a full on...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In fill is if you're going into actual denied area. That's what they try to replicate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's kind of funny, man. You spend all this time thinking about becoming one and you want to earn this little green hat more than anything. It's on the top of this mountain. It means everything to you. You want to put it all on the line. And then you get it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, we don't usually wear our uniform all that often, anyway. But when we do, obviously it goes on. So, I think that's part of the reason why most guys, the one that they had originally, is the one that they keep throughout their career. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, so at this point I know I'm going to third group, which is at Bragg, which is the one I wanted to go to, because third group owned Afghanistan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For the, for the groups, for the SF groups, that's all third group did. The other groups would filter in and support, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their group owned Afghanistan. That's where I wanted to go. That's why I chose that language. That's where I ended up going. So, from my parents' perspective, of course they were proud of the work, uh, and happy for me for being successful, but also petrified because they knew what was coming.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. That's a long pipeline. Now it's much more streamlined, so the current Q course, they've cut that white space in between, so they give guys maybe it's a week or two or so off, and it's a much faster turnover rate. Got it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, I mean, I showed up, never having been like a real unit before, other than as a student.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you don't get a whole lot of guidance. It's like, report the third group on this day. It's like over there somewhere. I'm like, okay. So you find it, right? And then I walk into like group headquarters building and there's like some E5 work in the CQ desk. And I'm like, hi, I'm here to report to first battalion. He's like, okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the funny story is I'm walking around the battalion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Trying to get all these little boxes checked off, right? Check in with S1, which is your admin section. Check in with S2, your intel section. Like, get yourself administratively within the unit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've never heard of S4. I don't even know what it is. Like what's, okay, it's over here. I find it. What do I need from you guys? So I'm meandering around pretty lost.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Clearly I was lost because a dude comes up to me in PT's and he's like, you need help finding something?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm like, yeah man, I'm looking for this like S6 thing. He's like, yeah, it's over there. And as soon as I start talking, he's like, you from Boston? I'm like, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's like, I'm from Boston. I'm like, oh, no kidding. So we start talking about the socks, and the pats, and you know, where you're from, which neighborhood, whatever, we're just like bullshitting, and he's like, come over here, let me show you something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Following this guy, I have no idea who it is. He brings me into an office.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's got Red Sox pictures on the walls, all this memorabilia. We're just, we're chopping it up. And I realize...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he walks in the office and he's an old school SF guy, man. Old school, like big mustache, big chest, right, walks in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm like, yes, yeaah, that is me. And he's like, okay, well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Basically, uh, don't ever talk to the boss like that again and like get out of here and like go find your company.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I ended up getting, uh, MACP, which is the Army Combatives Program, CERT, uh, 1 and 2, during basic training, that they offered to just, like, guys that were proficient with, uhm, combat sports. So I showed up to the unit, uhm, that, wi- with that. And then, uh, or during the QQOS.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then actually, when I was in Robin Sage, um, Alan Shibaro, who's a, uh, jiu-jitsu black belt, former third group SF guy. He was a cadre for a different field team out in Robin Sage. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He came over one night randomly and was like, hey, uh, you know, I heard you're into like combatives and stuff like that. You know, come check out my gym once you get out of here and you graduate and whatnot. That was my intro into, into jiu-jitsu.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I've been training with him a little bit before I actually showed up on day one. I just think maybe we're kind of just travel kind of quick, you know, or whatever, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was on my first team probably, probably a week or two after that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because the timing was interesting. My entire company was forward in Afghanistan, but they only had about a month left before they were coming back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every team except for one of them was forward. And there was a team that was, uh,