One of the fears I have.
And I don't know whether you resonate with this is that I think a lot of
American men,
men in the developed world don't have any bonds that are
comparable to the bonds that you're talking about.
In other words,
their closest friend is untested in any real way.
What is it that I guess I think about the few
people I've gone through life and death situations with,
and I feel a very special,
strong bond to them that was catalyzed by the peril that
we went through together.
And I watched how they performed.
But it wasn't in a military situation.
It was just sort of,
you know,
you're like you're out on a remote hike and people perform and they come through
and you,
you,
you take that knowledge for the rest of your life.
That that's somebody I can depend upon.
Is there any substitute for putting your life at risk when it comes
to deepening bonds,
between people,
particularly men
going through hard things together as what brings people together?
And for sure,
the harder things that you go through,
the tighter the Bond's going to be.
So if you take the military,
for example,
to start with the military,
well,
the first thing you do is you put them through boot camp.
Like we talked about,
well,
that's hard and you go and you form bonds with people that other people that
went through bootcamp,
we all kind of have that common bond.
Then you go to airborne school,
where are you going to jump out of airplanes?
And that's a little bit of a death defying thing.
And you're going to be the airborne crews are going to be a little bit tighter.
You go to special operations training and all of a sudden you've done something
that's harder than that.
And,
and,
and now the bonds are a little bit tighter.
Now you take that unit and you put them into combat zone and their bonds are
going to be even tighter.
Now you take that combat zone and you make it super intense.
Those bonds are going to be even tighter.
So there's no doubt about it now in the business world,
what that looks like.
And especially,
I mean,
I retired in 2010.
So the companies that we worked with,
a lot of them that the companies that we work with were many of them survivors
of the economic crash.
And believe me,
they talked about that.
Like that was their battle zone.
That's where they formed these really tight bonds.
And they weren't going anywhere now.
They were tight.
So whether you can replace it,
I don't really think so.
I think the harder strife you go through with someone,
the tighter,
the bond is going to be,
and maybe over time,
you form a strong bond.
You know,
if I had to rely on you for something and you came through for me,
and then you did it again and again,
and then I did it for you and we stuck together.
I mean,
over time you can definitely form really,
really strong bonds with people.
But I think the harder something is the stronger the bonds.
If it doesn't fracture,
if it doesn't break you,
right.
Well then you have the guy you'll never speak to again,
because where were you when I needed you exactly.
Right.
my concern though,
I mean,
let me just open up about the fact,
that least favorite phrase in the English language at the moment is I've got
your back.
And the reason is because I think it migrated from the military into civilian
life where civilians have no idea what it means.
They think that it's like,
it's a good thing to say.
It's like,
I really care about you.
And I don't want anything bad to happen,
but it has nothing to do with I've actually got your back.
Yeah.
Do you find that there is this kind of military envy and bleed
where people talk as if they're in these situations and it actually
just doesn't match in any way.
I dunno if it's envy or if it's just slang terms that expand over time,
mean there's slang terms that we use all the time,
farming sports and the military provide a lot of language.
Right.
So I think,
I don't think that when someone says I got your back,
you know,
you and I are,
are,
you know,
Hey,
can you,
I'm going to go to McDonald's.
Right.
You know,
I got your back.
You need anything.
Let me grab you some chicken nuggets over here.
I don't think that my intent in saying that wouldn't be like,
Hey brother,
I got your back with the chicken nuggets deep.
You know,
I think it's just a slag thing that people are throwing around.
I think it comes up in a situation in which like,
you know,
the boss is going to come and ask a bunch of questions and one guy says,
don't worry,
I got your back.
And he immediately folds because he did not even think about
what he was saying.
And I think in part,
one of the fears I have,
and I don't know whether you resonate with this is that I think a lot of
American men,
men in the developed world don't have any bonds that are
comparable to the bonds that you're talking about.
In other words,
their closest friend is untested in any real way.
Yeah.
That's,
that's not good.
That's not good.
Good.
You definitely want to have some friends that,
you know,
when you call them,
they will answer.
And when you make a request,
they will deliver and you don't need a big group of friends like that,
but it's nice to have a few.
And one of the things that I'm curious about is that I'm seeing kids not be
allowed to work out their own problems.
And that they're taught,
if anything goes wrong,
immediately go find an authority figure.
And as a result,
I worry that these kids are never going to have those strong bonds because you
have to get into trouble and out of trouble repeatedly with the same people.
Do you think there's anything to that?
Yeah,
definitely.
He formed good bonds doing hard things.
And also would you get in trouble?
Can you let us bring you to,
is there anything that you got in trouble for that you can discuss from like
before you entered the military?
I mean,
you know,
just every other knucklehead thing that every other boy was doing when they're
13,
14,
15 years old,
such as whether it was the,
you know,
blowing up fireworks,
driving like maniacs,
just every stupid thing fighting,
you know,
big,
giant street fights,
just dumb stuff then.
Yeah.
I did it all.
Like an idiot,
like a,
like a 14 year old boy,
like a 15 year old boy.
Did you enjoy street fighting?
Yeah.
Okay.
Can you,
so that's a good example of violence with probably very little point,
but the pleasure of fighting,
you know,
I think it was PJ O'Rourke,
who pointed me to it's one of his writings that he said that
we used to discuss the drunk delight of battle battle before we decided that war
was generally a bad thing,
a DOL,
I think
people like competition.
Right.
And you know,
there's no more heightened form of competition
number one,
whereas I'm trying to kill you.
Then you take,
take a step down from that and where are you at?
You're Oh,
we're going to fight each other.
We're not going to kill each other.
Hopefully,
maybe,
but you know,
so,
so people like to fight many people like to fight.
It's the,
it's a very good challenge.
And,
you know,
especially when you're,
when you're young,
when you're 14,
15,
16,
1822,
we're going to fight you.
There's these people up in,
where are they up in Oregon with their they're fighting each other
protesting wearing masks,
all these guys up in Oregon
beating people up and whatnot.
And everyone's all surprised.
And I'd say,
yeah,
they're there guys beating people up.
Yeah.
That's that's normal.
That's what,
that's what guys do.
Oh,
they're but they're wearing masks and stuff.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's what they're doing right now in the fifties,
they didn't write in the,
well,
you know,
it's just,
it's just a different,
what the,
what are they trying to do?
They're trying to fight other people that they're there.
They're tribal,
you know,
and,
and DNA,
their DNA,
their combative DNA is leaking out.
They don't know how to control it.
Cause they're young and they're going to go beat people up.
So is fighting an important part,
like physical fighting and important part of human development.
I think.
So.
I'll tell you what I think.
And,
and again,
this is,
I don't,
I don't want to sit here and talk,
like I'm making some sort of assertion for mankind and I think you might've just
framed the question as if for trying to trick you.
Right.
Which for human development,
I don't know.
But let me tell you from my experience,
because I don't like to talk in broad,
you know,
statements for all of humanity as you would like me to do right now.
I,
for me,
yeah,
there was,
there was three things that really helped me.
I'm going to give a speech at my friend's wedding.
Yeah.
He was getting married and he was a guy that I had trained jujitsu with a lot.
He's a guy who went to combat with,
and in now I was at his wedding,
he was getting married and I was giving the speech.
And what I said was there was three things in my life that sort of
made me feel secure as a man.
Okay.
And the first one was learning how to fight.
So like learning jujitsu and knowing that,
Hey,
if I get into a fight with someone,
I can handle myself.
That was number one.
Number two was going into combat.
Because when you go into combat,
you,
you want to know that you're going to perform your duties and you're not going
to cower and you're going to be brave and you're gonna do your job.
So went to combat.
I was good with it.
I liked it.
It was fine.
And then the last one was,
I got married and had kids.
And all of a sudden now I've got people that depend on me and I've got people
that are higher priority than me ever than I will ever be.
And so those three things were very important to me,
feeling secure.
And,
and,
you know,
I always say when I was young and stupid and didn't know how to fight,
I used to fight all the time.
And then once I learned how to fight,
I didn't fight anymore.
Cause I didn't have anything to prove anymore.
You know,
I,
I'm not trying to prove that I'm tough for the new ones outside the seven 11.
It's like,
Hey,
if you want to find out who's tougher,
come to go to the gym and we'll,
we'll,
we'll get on the mat and see who's two would win,
but let's not do it in the street.
Blake like dummies.
So those three things I think are helpful for people to do.
They were helpful for me.
I know that they were helpful,
you know,
as a young insecure kid,
which that's what,
that's,
what kids are,
they're insecure with,
who they are,
you know that no one's walking around at age 15 thinking,
you know,
I'm the man.
And when they project that,
which I certainly tried to project,
what they're really projecting is I'm pretty insecure about what's going on
right now.
Okay,
cool.
How are you gonna get over that,
man?
You know,
learn how to fight,
learn what that feels like.
Take responsibility for,
you know,
when you have a wife and kids,
you have a responsibility,
a big one.
So those are things that I think move you in the right direction.