how does it feel to do tim ferriss podcast joe rogan podcast and get
thousands of followers listening to your podcast
uh reading your book etc do you worry that some
of your fans place you on a pedestal and engage
in hero worship yeah so this is a question that i was actually not gonna
do because i was a little bit uncomfortable with it
and then i was like okay why are you uncomfortable with it it's not that big
of a deal it although i will say like it does make
me feel uncomfortable to think of people thinking of me in a
heroic way or whatever uh that does feel
strange to me uh as far as being on rogan and ferris and and sam
harris and doing some of these podcasts uh it's you know it was it was really
cool it's definitely uh
you know meeting people all the time as i travel and meeting people that have
read read our book and and have gotten a lot out of it you know and
that that feels very rewarding you know it feels very rewarding it feels great
when someone says hey you know i use this chapter or hey your book
i mean people are saying that okay your book changed my life and
i take that with a grain of salt but it feels it feels good it feels positive
you know it feels i like that you know i want to help
people and so that feels good but as far as
it's not it's like like my social media presence which i had zero before
and now i have it and it's it's not really that big of a deal
because it's just me i'm i'm i'm still
just me and there's no there's nothing um that's different
or has changed and when we talk about doing this podcast we don't talk about
how we should act or how i should act to get more people to
listen to it i'm only doing what i'm doing because
this is me yeah and i'm not going to be different
in order to achieve anything else i'm only going to be who i am
and that's why the thought of people putting me on a pedestal or whatever
that's
i know that i'm just a person and and i think that
it might be how
how i get presented you know by the media
how i get presented even on this podcast when i'm on this podcast
talking to you we're talking about specific subjects that
we are interested in and it's not you know i could see where
someone might think oh you know jack was just super
you know superhuman and and no i know i'm not
so if i come across like that it's only because you're seeing a sliver of me
that appears that way right you know i'm not saying i know i'm
not totally normal as well i mean i know i'm not a normal person i
know i'm a little bit to the to the edge of you know being a little
bit extreme yeah a little bit extreme ish in
some ways and i know a lot of that just has to do
with my habits as a person uh but the the fact of the matter is
that no matter what happens and no matter what i come across
and and no matter what people might perceive me as i don't perceive
myself as special
or as a hero for sure because and and one thing that will not
that will always stay with me is that
i've been in combat and i've been humbled by combat
and i think that i've been on the battlefield and i've been
confused and i've been out maneuvered and i've had my guys killed
and so i know what a real hero is
and it ain't me and that's always gonna keep me grounded
and i will never forget that yeah and you um as far as
being worried about people putting you on a pedestal like how you're saying
you just you be you you and that's all you're gonna do is be
you you're not trying to live up to anyone's expectation
that's that was never a goal of yours no so
if someone has an expectation since that's not
your goal how can you worry about it you're gonna continue to be you
and it is i think i don't know if it's irony but
the more you do that and just be just authentic or whatever it seems to
draw more people to you i guess but i don't know because i'm not acting
any other way than i acted a year ago or you know four years ago
i'm just you know what i do i train jiu jitsu i
work out i wake up early in the morning i try and get smarter i
uh try and do better yeah you know that's what i do yeah uh
so so yeah i'm just gonna you know i'm me
and i actually i'll tell you this is interesting
is that people that i interact with now i i enjoy it
and i get something out of it i'm taking away
they're giving me as much inspiration as i'm giving them yeah you know
there's one girl on the on the on twitter
and i don't want to say her name because i mean
it's uh i don't know how i don't i don't like to disrupt people's privacy i mean
she's on twitter but she's a uh clearly a little bit of
an older lady she's um she's
a cancer survivor i mean when i say older i mean she's in her
at least in her 60s and and she put a picture on the internet the other day on
twitter of her at the gym and she's got you know
like a kettlebell um a medicine ball and an oxygen tank
in the game because she's because she's in there working out
yeah and she's yeah i got to bring my oxygen tank because of
you know i don't know specifically why but
hey man if she can bring an oxygen tank to the gym and get after it
at you know age 65 or 70. you know that's inspiring and and i can
get up and get after it and do my piece just
you know just at least just as well as as she could and and so i think that
that's i think that's what's what's been
interesting about this is seeing other people that are fired up and
and you know that's that's another thing that kind of happened early on in this
journey for me i have not a bunch of friends
but one of my friends who's a seal when i was just about i think i had
recorded the tim ferriss podcast and i i knew it was going to be released
and i knew it was going to be heard by by people
and when when i did when i got back i i texted
my friend and i said hey uh i did this podcast and it's gonna be
released and i'm gonna be one of them and what i
meant by that was one of these guys that sold out for lack of a better word
and i'm out there you know oh i'm a navy seal and i'm the biggest baddest guy cuz
there's plenty of those guys out there and now i'm gonna be one of those guys
and so i said i said i'm gonna be one of them now
sorry and he wrote me back and he said
that's awesome and we got so many guys running around
saying all kinds of stuff you should be out
there representing you should be and he went on to say
something even more powerful and he said you know what
there's a lot of people in this world that need a role model
that need a dad i needed a dad i needed a father figure and that's what
you were for me and for you to go out there and be out
there in the world and be that role model for other people
it's awesome and you should do it and i love
the fact that you're doing it yeah and when he wrote that to me it
kind of changed my attitude yeah because i did look at the role models
that people look at and i said to myself and again
i think part of what might make me a good role model is that i don't think
i'm a good role model because i'm still trying to get better and i've done all
kinds of stupid stuff we need to have a dozen podcasts on the
stupid things i've done in my life and and talk about the mistakes i've
made growing up and all the just i mean i'm that's another thing
like when you when people see me on the podcast or
hear me on the podcast or they read the book
they're seeing the good part right they're seeing
i would hesitate to say but they're seeing the best part of me
they're seeing a mature person i'm not that mature but they're seeing they're
seeing the older the maturest that i've ever been which is right now
they're not seeing the idiot you know growing dummy that
i was and that many of us were when we were younger
yeah now i might i have had a little edge
a little bit of advantage maybe i was a little bit ahead in some cases
but man i didn't you know yeah and so that when i got that
text that was a series of texts from uh from
my brother that really gave me a different attitude on this whole thing
and it made me feel more
comfortable with the fact that i was selling out and that i was
now going to be out there in the public view
and and all this being said at some point i'm probably going to go
right back to the to the cave that i came from and i'm i'm i'm
i don't want um you know i don't have what patton had
which which is like this huge desire to be famous i have no problem not being
i was unrecognizable to the world for my whole life and the fact that i'm
a little bit recognizable now it doesn't make me feel great it doesn't
do anything for me i'm just just doing what i do it's not
my goal but there is there a goal to try and help some people out there
yes and i think hearing that from that buddy of mine made me solidify that goal
a little bit and again not to try and say
hey be like me no it's to say learn from what i learned from yeah i
did some dumb stuff i've been through some stuff that most
people don't have to go through so if you can take something away from
it awesome you know don't worship me by any stretch yeah but
let's work together and see if we can get better as a team
yeah and you're a good like some a lot of your messages and the
things that you say a lot of it is new and then a lot of
it's not new right so and so this is one point
where and some of this stuff people may have
heard before but someone like you who's done what
you've done and and think the way you think and do
what you do right now you're the perfect medium for that for
that information to get passed on to someone you know
like you know when you're a teenager or something your
dad tells you to do something your mom tries to do
like fuck that but then when you go and then you go to your friend's house and
then like he tells you to do the exact same thing you're like yeah
yeah you know you just it takes that same message
but from someone who you can for lack of a better way of putting it
someone you can accept it from and so all your messages are
perfectly in line with who you are so they're so like you're so eager to
accept them you know so like how you put you know
online you'll post a picture of your watch every morning
in your kind of the workout setting and stuff like that um
and your kind of your message um more or less is
get up every morning and get your work done get a workout in whatever and then
you're doing it and there's the proof right there
so if you're just some dude it's like yeah workout every day and you don't do
it then it's like yeah it's gonna be harder to accept so people will get
those messages and they'll they'll internalize them way
more readily from someone like you given the messages that you're you're
you're um you're sending that's one two the whole broadcasting yourself
thing um is is totally understandable for for someone like you and that that
it's good that you kind of got your kind of got turned on to the notion that
it's more you have really good messages and good
content that will improve people you know in their life whether it
be older people younger people girls guys everything and this
is especially like a podcast situation or even like certain online profiles and
stuff they're good ways to get that information out
that people need men like to improve themselves like
if you're in an in a in a neighborhood or an environment with a bunch of people
improving themselves that's going to be a good neighborhood
and if they have the means to improve themselves
then that's just a good service that you're putting out there and
and to reach as many people as you do you're essentially you're helping the
world with your message well okay i'm telling you
so i'm saying broadcasting yourself is a good thing yeah
it's it definitely was a hard thing to to
overcome the the uh the aversion yeah to broadcasting
yourself which is something that you know that i
talked about with tim ferriss and i talked about it with
joe rogan is this idea of people that are talking
yeah and you know you look at the extreme examples of social media you
know abusers abusers and worthlessness
yeah you know and and you just don't want to have anything to do with them
yeah and when you're when you're doing it regardless of how much you don't want
to have anything to do with them you have something to do with them
because you're doing it too and it's very difficult
for me not to feel like that now obviously i've gotten over it i mean
i've gotten over it to a point where i'm saying okay these are kind of
the acceptable parameters that i operate within
for my personality you know which is there's things that i haven't done and i
won't do on social media right you know because
i'm not there to promote me yeah um
but i'm there to only open a door of observation i would say
not to not to knock on people's door and enter
but just to open the door of observation and say
this is how i try to live and this is the steps that i take to try
and live that way observe and and if you want to enter my
house and hang out with me come on in as long
as you're like-minded and and you have the same sort of goals then
come on in and you know what you're gonna make me stronger yeah
you're going to bolster me up you're ice so many people now they're posting
pictures of their watches on my twitter when i wake up i'm looking at 50 to 100
watches every day yeah man and i'm going wow that's a lot
of people and and that is unity and that is leadership and it does
make me feel like oh okay cool there's other people in the world that
are up and getting after it yeah there's a guy
20. yes and there's a guy who's a teacher
posts good he's like he's a teacher he posted good on his
classroom door yeah on his classroom door
man and so now he's yeah i'm kind of pushing that those good messages to the
kids you know yeah so yeah i mean it's all i
think it's all positive social media it is easy to get to get that attitude
towards it because of all the people who abuse it quote unquote um but you know
like if you went i don't know like on the highway and and
all you saw was people speeding reckless driving it still doesn't change the fact
that you you still want to drive on the
highway because you have something to do you know
um your your pursuit is different but yeah there's going to be
everyone the other weird thing is i have no idea where this is going
you know and so like this podcast i didn't you know we just kind of did it
i went on with tim ferriss i just kind of did it
i started twitter i had no idea what that was going to be
yeah and so it's it's fun for me to be adventuring into things that i
don't know the outcome of yeah and this is one
of them and twitter is one of them the book was one of them and you know i
don't know what's around the corner next and i
don't know where this is going but i will stay with the principles that
i believe in to the best of my ability and i think
that's what makes it an interesting ride is where's that gonna go yeah we'll find
out