﻿I Joined The Marines Because I Was Weak [0:00:00]
Hey, guys. Great to see you, I hope you’re doing well.
And, today’s video, I’m going to get a little bit off topic on style,
because one of the most common questions I get here at RMRS is, “Antonio, why did you join
the United States Marine Corps?” and, “Would you recommend that a young person today join
the Marine Corps or join the military services?” Now, I don’t know your situation and I do believe
every man has a responsibility to weigh the pros and cons and make
a big decision like this on his own. But, what I can do is share with you my
story and what was going through my mind when I was a teenager whenever I was 20 years old
and signed my name onto the dotted line to join the United States Marine Corps.
And, by the way, my number one reason for joining is probably not what you expect. What am I talking
about? Find out, gents, in today’s video. [Music]
So, what was my number one reason for joining the United States Marine Corps? Yes,
there was some great things about serving your country. My father, my brother, my cousins, they
had all served in the military. My older brother was a marine. He had been in the Gulf War.
There was some great opportunities to challenge myself to be able to fly jets. That was the
contract I signed. But, the real reason I joined the United States Marine Corps is I was
tired of being bullied. I was tired of getting pushed around. I was tired of feeling weak.
So, growing up, I was super skinny, a small guy and I remember just in elementary school running
from kids on the playground, I always got bullied on. I got picked on by my friends. I remember,
I got a nice new Dodger jacket from my dad and I wore this, you know, I left it there on my ta – on
my chair whenever I went to go get some more food and I came back and my friends had stuffed
all these food, mashed potatoes and stuff right into the pockets. Everyone thought it was funny.
I was just basically the butt of jokes because I didn’t fight back. Throughout high school,
throughout middle school, I was just pushed around and I didn’t like it.
I felt weak. I felt helpless. Now, I wanted to get rid of that feeling.
Now, I went to college and it was great because I got to make all new friends, but one thing popped
up again and again is I didn’t know how to fight. Most of my friends are wrestlers. And whenever
these guys would drink a few beers, they love to wrestle and I would just get my ass handed to me
every single time we did that. So, I realized, you know what? I’ve got to learn
how to defend myself. I’ve got to learn how to fight. I’ve got to learn how to hold my own,
otherwise this is going to go on for the rest of my life.
Now, everything I’ve talked about up to this point has been physical. But, mentally, I felt I was
weak as well. In fact, I got weaker in college. In high school, I was a voracious reader. I mean,
literally I was just always reading. I was a distance runner, an 800-mile,
2-mile runner. So, if anyone has run those events, you know that that is about dealing with pain.
But, what happened in college is all of a sudden, I started making a lot of friends with people that
were big socializers a.k.a. we spent a lot of time at the bars, ended up stopped dropped out track.
And, what I found is that mentally I wasn’t applying myself. I didn’t study really at
all in college. I simply got by because I was a relatively smart person, but my GPA suffered at
2.9 when I graduated. And I started realizing, you know what? I am slipping here, not only, you know,
I used to consider myself really strong mentally, but I’m losing that. Physically, I’m no specimen.
So, gosh, I need to get things turned around. So, yeah, I joined the United States Marine Corps
because I felt like a weakling. My confidence was shot. In fact, I remember I was 20 years old,
I was walking across campus. I just dropped an organic Chem class because I was going to fail it
and it’s my own fault. I wasn’t studying, I wasn’t applying myself. I just felt lost.
And I see this guy walking right us, he was a marine. It was a staff
sergeant. I started talking with this guy and that confidence, the way that he was dressed,
everything hit what I wanted to achieve. And he said, “You know what? They got this
OCS Program. You should look into it.” And that’s exactly what I did and all of a sudden,
I’m driving out to Des Moines and I’m signing up. I got a flight contract. And what I love is that
Marine Corps it was – if anyone knows anything about the services, the coast guard, you guys,
you know, do your thing protect the coast. The air force, you know, they’re flying those nice jets.
In the navy, they go on those nice cruises. The army, yeah, that’s the military organization. The
Marine Corps, they’re a freaking religion. They’re a bunch of fanatics. I knew that these guys were
going to be some of the craziest ones, that they were going push the envelope. They intentionally
seek out pain and suffering. So, I’m like, this is exactly what I’m looking for.
I got this flight contract, which is pretty much, you know, a golden ticket to get me
through OCS and everything and that’s – I signed up for the Marine Corps.
So, you’re probably wondering, “Antonio, did joining the Marine Corps fix your confidence
issues? When you left the Marine Corps, did all of a sudden you no longer feel like a weakling?”
The quick answer is yes. But, the way the Marine Corps transformed me and what
it did for me was a bit unexpected, because I thought it was going to be the physical aspect,
the physical training that was really going to transform me. Instead, it was something else.
And let me be clear, the physical stuff was not easy. Anyone that’s ever been on a 25-mile force
march with 70lbs of gear plus your weapons and ammo, yeah, you know what I’m talking about.
[0:05:01] But, the physical
stuff was just an aspect of it. To me, it was the values, the core values that we had to live by
as marines and especially Marine Corps officers that transformed me, that gave me confidence.
Now, gents, if you agree that the marines have the best looking uniforms, yeah,
do me a favor, smash that like button. So, the first core value is honor. And if
you talk to most people most men about honor nowadays, you’re going to find that many people
feel it’s antiquated, that it’s out of style, that it’s something that is of bygone era.
That’s really too bad because to me this is your code. A man of honor doesn’t lie,
he doesn’t cheat, he doesn’t steal. He holds himself to the highest levels of integrity.
Now, I’ll be bullshitting you if I were to say that I’m perfect and that I always
lived up to those ideals. But, here’s the thing. When you have a code, you always
strive to live up to it. Yes, you’re going to fall down, you’re going to make mistakes,
but when you’ve got that integrity, when you have that self-respect, you respect others
and you find that you really separate yourself from the crowd when all of a sudden you’ve got
that sense of honor, that code of conduct. Next up, we’ve got courage. And this one
seems obvious, right? Anyone joining the military, you expect them to have
physical courage. We’ve read about it and we’ve seen it in the movies and you know
having seen this in person, it’s awe-inspiring. Whenever, you know, there’s a guy out there and
he’s wounded and somebody just selfishly goes out there and he’s being shot at
and pulls them to safety. Amazing. But, that’s not the only type of courage.
And, in fact, it’s a very – you rarely ever see anything like that, maybe once in your career.
Most people what they’re talking about here and I thought what was the most interesting
is learning about mental and moral courage. So, mental courage, this is you standing up
and saying what’s right whenever everyone around you is going one direction. The moral
courage whenever you, you know, no one’s looking. You could cut corners on that job. You know,
fixing that helicopter, what – whatever it is. And if something were to go wrong, there’s probably no
way they could trace it back to you. Yet, you’ve got to have that moral courage to do what’s right,
because you know that, hey, it doesn’t matter, I know that we’re going to have to stay over the
weekend to do these repairs properly, because it could possibly put somebody’s life at risk.
That’s the moral, that’s the mental, and that’s the physical courage.
And understanding the difference and understanding that all three are necessary if you’re going to
live up to the ideals of the Marine Corps and I think a lot of the other services as well
was something that I really took to heart and has had, you know, a lasting effect on me.
Next up, let’s talk about commitment. We didn’t really use the word commitment, we just said
no [bleeping sound] excuses. The Marine Corps, a little bit rougher at times, but point being,
if you are in charge of something, if you take ownership, if you see there’s a problem
with something and there’s nobody around to fix it, guess what? You are jumping on and taking
ownership, because there were lives at stake. This applies to a lot of things I think in just
the world in general. And I see this again and again in companies in businesses, where
people say, that’s not my problem, that’s not my issue. And I get it lives aren’t at stake here.
But, you know what? The life of your company is. The fact that it’s on a, you know,
that no one is dealing with this customer service issue and this person is about to
ask for a refund. I’m always blown away that more companies don’t actually have deeper commitment
of their people. They don’t have the sense of ownership that you’ve got to have if you’re
going to see a project through to completion. To be committed to something is to give your all,
is to realize that, yes, sometimes you’ll be able to get by with just what needs to be done. Other
times, you’ve got to commit to putting in more hours, to putting in more time to giving a bit
more to be able to see it through the end. All right, gents. So, really quick, before I
get in this next point, I want to share with you a quick story. So, I’m at a gun range the other day
and it was the smell of the gun powder just took me back to training on the range in the Marine
Corps. We just spent a lot of time firing our 9ml. And it just relaxes me being there at the range
focused on, you know, nothing at work, nothing with my family, just me putting steel on target.
Now, here’s the thing is that smell is such a powerful – it’s one of our most powerful senses,
yet most of us don’t even think about it because we don’t see it.
Guys, I’m coming out with a project over at Mission Fragrances, the science of
smell to help you become a better man. So, what are the fragrances we’re coming
out with? Honor, Courage, Commitment. The core values of the United States
Marine Corps and United States Navy. Now, most fragrances sold out there are sold on
sex appeal. Nothing wrong with that, I love sex, but there’s so much more to life especially if
you’re a man with aspirations. Wouldn’t it be amazing if you can wear a fragrance that
would help you get into the zone and be more focused when you’re training for a triathlon?
Wouldn’t it be awesome if you’re dealing with anxiety that you could spray on a fragrance
that would help you to overcome that to give you courage? That’s exactly what we’re doing at
Mission Fragrances. The idea here is that you can condition yourself to feel a certain way
with these fragrances. [0:09:59]
I started doing all these research and just kept finding all these data all these information
about how smell influences how you feel about yourself, how you feel about other people,
it affects your mood. It affects just your brain. I mean, all these data is out there.
All right, gents. So, if this sounds interesting at all, down in the description of today’s video
there’s a special link. Use it to go over to Mission Fragrances and enter your email address.
When you do this, it’s going to make sure that you get the best deal whenever we launched.
Seriously, if you don’t sign up for this email list, you’re going to see me launch this thing,
but you’re not going to get the best deal. There’s also some limited edition gifts we’re going to
be giving to the guys that initially sign up. I’m also emailing the guys back and forth asking
their advice, getting information, so that I can make sure I develop this perfect for you
guys out there that want to smell your best, you want to leverage the science of scent.
Now, this next point is not really a value, but it is a skill and one of the Marine Corps just is
really good at developing and that is leadership. Now, leadership as defined by General Lejeune is,
“The sum of those qualities of intellect, human understanding, and moral character
that enable a person to inspire and control a group of people successfully.”
In a nutshell, leadership is the ability to inspire others to greatness. You look at any of
the great leaders out there. Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, Elon Musk even. I mean,
modern day entrepreneur that’s inspiring people to think about colonizing other planets. I mean,
seriously, guys, that is leadership and they have done it in different ways.
What we learned in the United States Marine Corps was about leading
from the front. And the point about this is that people want to be inspired. They want
somebody that’s going to first put themselves out there and not just tell people what to do.
Now, I served in the United States Marine Corps for five years. And you may be asking,
“Well, Antonio, if you say all these great things about it, why didn’t you stay in?” Because it’s
not for everybody and I know for me, that there were certain things I didn’t like.
One, I didn’t like how I had no control over – you have a little bit of control,
but really not much over what you do and where you go. I dropped out of the flight program,
blew out my sinuses, so I guess I was, you know, NPQd, which is not physically qualified anymore.
But, they made me an adjutant. I went to an infantry battalion, which was actually really
awesome. But, I really wasn’t enjoy – I didn’t want to be a paper pusher, so I left. Also,
I started dating a girl over in Ukraine, who is now my wife. We’ve been together for 20 years.
And I realized looking around I remember a chief warrant officer I was on deployment with,
he just watched tapes and tapes of his kids and that was how he pretty much said, “Oh,
yeah, I haven’t really made it for her birthday.” He wasn’t there for any of
his four children being born. And I knew that really the military wasn’t conducive to the
type of family lifestyle that I wanted to have. That being said, I want to share with you a quick
quote from Ronald Reagan, “Some people spent an entire lifetime wondering if they made a
difference. The marines don’t have that problem.” Now, seriously, gents if you enjoyed today’s
video, let me know down in the comments and leave what is your core value.
And, guys, we’re going to go down there and choose a couple of you guys to send out our challenge
coins to. And, by the way, anyone the writes me a letter pretty much gets a challenge coin. Yes,
the PO Box is down in the description of our videos, in addition that
link over to Mission Fragrances. But, yes, these beautiful challenge
coins I love sending them to you guys to inspire you to become better man.
Now, gents, if you enjoyed today’s video, I think you’re going to like this one as well,
how I got fired and lost my job. I talk about, yes, one of the most depressing times in my life,
what it did to me, and how actually it was a great thing and led to, yeah,
well, I’m not going to ruin the video for you. Go find out the story right here this video. I
will link to it down in the description. [0:13:32] End of audio