From Jail to Navy SEAL: The Rituals That Forge Men Who Won’t Break | Taylor Cavanaugh

Two hours ago, Kyle arrived at the bar Hey, what's everyone drinking? 30 minutes ago, Kyle got his friends another round of drinks Cheers. Cheers. Five minutes ago, Kyle decided to drive home drunk. A minute ago, a law enforcement officer pulled up behind Kyle Sir, have you been drinking tonight?

A chain of events that began two hours ago is about to change Kyle's whole world. Drive sober or get pulled over. Paid for by NHTSA. Peace comes from being able to be present in the current moment. You can't be present unless you're proud of your presence because your insecurity, the guy who's walking into a restaurant, right, with his wife or whatever, and he's picking his shirt out of his fat rolls, is not present because he's thinking about how other people are perceiving him.

A confident man who's feels powerful, knows he looks good, or is proud of how he looks, is present. He's, when he's communicating with people, he's, he's not thinking about how they're, he's being perceived. It's a different energy, and w- really what we're talking about is frequency, the clarity of confidence. You say you need to unlearn years of incorrect programming. Absolutely.

I, I, I'm, I would love for you to start with how do you become aware that you have incorrect programming? Yeah. Results. Poor results. I'd say here's the, here's the best way to look at it.

Look around at your life. If it's not the way you want it, what, how you, what you, what you think you know is fucking not right. Definitely how you're executing it. It's results. Is your life the way you want it to be?

If it's not, then you gotta unlearn some shit and learn some new shit because- Okay ... it's not there. Dude, so I love that you said that. Um, my next question is, is, 'cause this, this is something I struggle with, right? Mm-hmm. So when I'm coaching entrepreneurs or whatever, which is a lot of what I do, um, I, I call, like, my system Reality OS, right?

Yeah. Reality operating system. I like that. Like operate with the fucking game that's in front of you, not- Yeah ... what you think should happen or what you hope happens if the moon is in the sign of the Aquarius. Like, it's laid out in front of you, right?

Yeah. Like, you have to play this game. Yeah. And, and I really like that you said that results are how you become aware. Yeah.

Why do you think so many people are able to or, like, they, they're not getting the results they want, right? It's smacking them clear in the face. They're either overweight or they got a shitty relationship with their spouse or their kids- Yeah ... or they're not in a career they want, whatever. Yeah. Yet they'll continue plowing down the same road over and over and over again.

Why do we allow that to happen? Why doesn't it hit everybody where they go- Yeah ... "Shit, this isn't what I want. I need to try something different"? Honesty hurts.

Honesty hurts. Nobody wants to admit that their life is fucked up and what they're doing is wrong. Nobody wants to be wrong in their heart, especially in how they think they understand the world. It's about as deep a cut as you could possibly get, and so I, it's the authenticity. It's that, it's that s- first of all, self-awareness takes an, a level of intelligence that is required, right?

I always, I always relate intelligence to awareness, self-awareness, environmental awareness. I don't consider somebody very intelligent if they don't have either one of those. Right? You might be able to read a book and remember some shit, but I don't really count that as intelligent, right? So that self-awareness piece, it, to be self-aware, you have to be honest, and that takes a level of internal work and some pain and some usually external frictions that you're aware of to really kind of force yourself internal to ask yourself these questions.

And you, you, you bring up a good point of why people keep plowing down the same road. Also, change is difficult 'cause you have to actually start rewiring your brain and your muscle patterns and your pathways, your thought pathways and your action pathways. It's a lot of things to unravel. It's quite often when you're getting up, how you're eating, how you communicate, how you interpret the world and move through it, self-talk. So many things are involved in making major change.

And so, and it'll just keep going because we're biologically wired to stay with what we know. It's beyond the horizon, beyond the mountains, who knows what's over there, right? Saber-tooth tigers and whatever else. It's at least safe in this cave. We might not have any food and water, but what, well, this might be better than the unknown and the fear of uncertainty, right?

Which is I don't know what's over there. And so I, that's why I think people just stay rooted in their bad habits. There's, there's two other aspects that I wanna put past you and see where you, where you land on these as well, 'cause I agree with everything you said. I think there's two additional pieces. One is ego.

Yeah, yeah. Right? Like, the idea that I'm smart, I went to college, you know, whatever- Yeah ... and that I could possibly be making the wrong decisions. I think that- Yeah ... holds a lot of people back. And then the last one I think is a lot of what we're seeing with, like, some of this post-modern liberal ideology that peop- like, you know, that a man- Yeah ... can be a woman, that a woman...

Like- Yeah ... we, we, we, reality s- you know, if you spend a minute in reality, you know that some of these statements aren't true, right? Yeah. And that's a more of a political one, but this goes for everything. Yeah, I get it. Yet, yet- And I agree ... yet we f- we, we convince ourselves that maybe it's we feel the need to be good or that we don't wanna stand out or we're worried about- Yeah ... being different, and that kind of- Yeah ... holds us back as well in these patterns, right?

Like, if everybody else had got a dad bod, then it's- Yeah ... okay for me to have a dad bod 'cause everybody's got a dad bod. Yeah. That makes it all right, right? Like- Yeah ... where do you fall on those two?Dude, the idea of somebody thinks that they're right because they're being good is a d- is a very slippery slope. It's where socialism and communism ends up.

Yeah, yeah. But it's the root of it, really. It's in this guise of, of righteousness, which is fucking dangerous because it clouds people's judgment massively. "Well, I'm right because what I want is, is, is, is good." Fucking yeah, dude, but can we pay for that?

Right? It's like, it's very s- like in the pr- in the, in the pragmatic view, right? I think pragmatism is massively important because pragmatism, once again, requires a, a stripping away of ego and biasness, and a biased view. You have to see things for what they are. I saw a great quote today.

I, I... There's a... Phil Stitz, I think is his name. He wrote a book called Lessons For Living. And, and I was kind of reading through this book today for a piece of it.

And he says, he's talking about being judgmental and it having, being wrapped in ego. He goes, "A realist isn't judgmental." And I, and I, and I thought about this term, and what, how he was saying it was that, because if you're judgmental, it's that you're judging how you think reality should be, right? You're not accepting reality on reality's terms, so you're judging it by how you think it should be versus just how it is. Bro, a- and I love that.

I go, you can just sit back and see things as they are, not as they should be. It, it gives you a level of clarity that you can't have any other way. So it really takes from how... That's exactly right, Ryan, wrapped up in ego. Yeah.

How, how I think the world should be. Fucking, that's pretty fucking egotistical. Yeah. I, I f- I really like that idea around judgment. It- it's funny, the other day I was walking into, um, or going to a meeting, um, with a colleague.

And he said, uh, "Hey, don't, don't be a dick in the meeting." Yeah. And I was like, I was like- ... "First of all, I didn't know that that's how we were classifying me." Yeah.

I go, "Second of all- Yeah ... what exactly do you mean?" And he's like, "Well, not everybody likes to hear things exactly as they are." And I kind of tilted my head at him for a second, and I understood what he meant. You know, I wasn't- Yeah. And, and- Yeah ... it wasn't appropriate to push it at that time, you know?

I, I- Yeah ... got what he meant, you know what I mean? Like- Mm-hmm. Yeah ... dial it down a little where necessary. Okay, got it. But I, I, I kind of went at, went, went to him afterwards and, and we were, I said, "You know, man," the meeting went fine or whatever, and I'm like, "Hey, I, I, I want you to talk to me a little bit about what you said before we went in."

And he goes, "Well, you know, it's not that I don't think you're a dick or whatever." He's like, "But," he's like, "You tend to kinda just call things on their, you know, as, as they are." Yeah. "And not everybody likes that." And I, and I s- he goes, "A lot of people," he goes, "Some people can feel judged by that."

Yeah. And it was a really interesting comment, because, like, I've, I have found myself, like, saying to people, like, "Here's what I see. I, I'm not judging that this is what you decided to do." Yeah. "But this is what's happening because of what you did," right?

Yeah. And it hit me that, like, a lot of people don't view the world that way. Like- Yeah ... it's judge, judge, judge, judge here- Yeah ... judge there. And their comments come out of judgments where if you try to live just with what it is, it's like, "He's got a backwards hat on. He's got tattoos."

Yeah. "He's got a plant next..." Like, I'm not judging- Yeah ... that you chose to wear the hat- Yeah ... or have a plant behind you. It's just- Yeah ... fucking what's happening. It is.

You know what I mean? Like, it, it... That piece of our society, I feel like is something that the last 20 years or so has, we've lost so much of that. I feel like when I was growing up, my dad could just be like, "That swing you just took sucked." And I'd be like- Yeah.

Yeah ... "Yeah. Yeah, it did." You know what I mean? Yeah.

"Well, see, that wasn't my best." Yeah. Yeah. I'm, yeah, that sucked. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't do my best on that one.

Now, you say that to a kid, he's gonna have a full emotional breakdown, and his mom's gonna jump the fence and shove a Xanax in his face- Yeah ... because he can't handle hearing that what he did was wrong. Yeah. And that to me feels like so many of the problems. Like, I look at the work you do and, and researching a- everything that you're into, like, like, it's almost as if pe- if everyone just kinda lived in reality, they wouldn't even need guys like us. Like we, we would, would, we wouldn't have jobs because- Yeah ... people would just...

But there's, like, needs to be someone out there who can see it and tell it. So when you, when you have people coming to you and they're struggling to connect, how do you, how do you get them back to, to getting these two levels of, of awareness that you brought up, which I really love? Yeah. Self-awareness and environmental awareness. Yeah.

How do you begin teaching that to people? So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna add a little, a little lever of, le- layer of texture to what you said, because I think it was important, is in that understanding of reality, we also have to understand how other people interpret our information. And so I always say, "Right, we can say it ju- uh, because it's true, but is it the most artistic and diplomatic way?" Because really, the, what's the point of communication? To get done what we're trying to get done, to convey the message.

If it's clouded by how they feel some type of way, whether it be wrong or right, right? And I, and you and I both l- lie on the same point of that, is people need to get thicker skin, which I'm gonna hit on in a minute, is now they're shutting down and they're not listening to the actual message, right? So there's, like that, there's that nice balance, there's that artistry in the communication which I think's important, and that's s- that's part of this environmental awareness, right? Being self-aware enough to know we ca- we can come across crass and be environmentally aware enough to know how these people might interpret the information. So it's like there's this even balance.

Now, going into what you were speaking about specifically, yeah, there's really two, two roots of psychosis when, what things we're dealing with now, the anxiety, the depressions and all. It's pain avoidance and comfort seeking. Pain avoidance, right? People don't wanna hear honesty. They don't wanna hear truth.

They also in their daily lives seek, s- seek to find pleasure in immediate gratification in all these things, and all these things turn us into fucking cupcakes. They turn kids into cupcakes. Dude, we, when we... I'm not sure, I'm probably a little bit older than you, but we probably come from a similar... Dude, we're outside- The holidays are here, and that means it's the most wonderful time of the year to save with Rakuten.

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I'm riding bikes, building ramps, crashing, right? Like, that's what they were doing. Have you looked around a lot of neighborhoods? Have you been driving around? You don't see any kids outside, man.

You don't see kids outside. They're not playing outside. I don't see kids building ramps and shit. They're inside watching screens, and I know this is hit on a lot, but also how the parents are communicating. I'm not saying you gotta beat your kids, but you can be harsh on your kids.

I think it's needed, right? And they're not outside hurting themselves, crashing, all these things, and so when they grow up- Now you, you spoke to them too aggressively, right? Now they can't hear these, the, the, the message in just the very clear, so now there's all this, this padding corporately which we see, HR departments, how many people are getting called in 'cause they said a bad joke. It's inefficient in massive capacities. Inefficiencies everywhere, and it really boils down to people are not striving to do the hard thing, not getting up early, not, not working out, not, not eating correctly, whether it doesn't... they don't like 'cause how it tastes, right?

It's like small things like that which really over a lifetime turn somebody into a Michelin Man cupcake or somebody sub- you know, some s- uh, somebody of substantial constitution. To me, this is something I've really struggled with. So I'm probably older than you think. I'm 44. Man, you look good, great, man.

What you doing is working. At least I figured a couple things out. Uh, no- Yeah ... and it's probably all the same shit that, that you do. The difference is I didn't go through war. That's one part.

Yeah. Um, so, uh, there's, that's a big part of it. Uh, I almost did. I got recruited by the Navy and decided to play baseball instead of join the Navy, which that decision we could toss up. But, um, uh, all that being said, I, I...

One of the things that I really struggle with is, like... So, so I came from tiny little town, 900 people in the middle of nowhere. At 12 years old, I vividly remember, like, walking around my town going like, "I have to get the fuck out of here. Like, this can't be-" Yeah ... my life," right? Like, every male role model in my life is either an alcoholic or, you know, into drugs or s- Yeah ... you know, just life's going nowhere, and I'm looking around going, you know, for whatever reason, blessed by God, whatever you wanna call it, um, I had this thought, "I gotta get out of here."

So that was like my- Yeah ... life goal to get out. But in getting out, they did do a lot of, like, hard shit. I had to eat shit in different scenarios. I had to- Yeah ... you know, get my fucking dick knocked in the dirt multiple times, whether it was- Yeah ... sports or- Yeah ... you know, trying to, you know, coming from a tiny town and going to a big school, all these different things. Okay.

Yeah. No, no, like, family backing. I didn't come from money. My parents weren't getting me a job. You know, everything- Yeah.

Okay. So now you come up against people and, and, and now I'm, I'm in a corporate environment, uh, say, 15, 20 years ago- Yeah ... and I'm like this head down gri- what do you need to do? B- And you're coming up against these other people that are like... And, and they look at me and I get labeled as intense. I get labeled- Yeah ... as all these different things.

Okay. And I have never been able to calibrate why do you not wanna be intense? Like I get that, I get that- Yeah, yeah ... there's a certain level of intensity that isn't always- Yeah ... appropriate. I'm not saying like- Yeah ... you know, but I'm saying, like, that driven- Right ... w- desire to get better. Yeah.

How, how do you, h- how does someone... 'Cause a lot of the people that listen to this show are like me and you, dude. Like, they- Yeah ... they don't, people don't continue listening to this show if they're just kinda like limping by- Yeah ... or they don't wanna get better. Yeah. How does someone who has that mentality, how do they integrate into our world when we are surrounded by so many people who just simply don't understand the desire to constantly get better? This is a question I get a lot, and I'm very interested in your take on it.

Yeah. Like, how do I be me, my, not, not me specifically, but th- this individual who's ambitious, intense, driven, committed, maybe a little crass, maybe a little swinging conservative in my views, probably believe- Yeah ... in some form of religion, God, Christian, whatever. Yeah. How do I integrate with this, like, secular kinda like DoorDash society and- Yeah ... naturally integrate and do well and not piss every fucking person around us off? Yeah, I would say accurately navigate, don't integrate.

Because integration, integration is, is, is becoming, becoming part of. I have zero interest in becoming part of this, uh, and like people that just don't think like we do. It's, uh, because there's a nature and a nurture piece, right? You have the nature paired with the nurture as far as environmental. Right?

Well, you know, you, you were put in a situation, you had to become, you also potentially had a God seed of ambition planted in you. Yeah, so don't ever, don't let anybody dull your shine, right? And I get the kind of the chills because society is, "Hey man, fit in. Just don't br- don't, don't, don't burn too bright." Right?

"Don't, don't, don't make somebody else feel some type of way 'cause you're willing to do, get there earlier and work harder and be more intense. Nah, bring it down a little bit. Bring it down to their level so we c- everybody can play at the same level." Nah, man, it's a gift. It's an absolute gift from God.

And so it's, it's... But we have to accurately navigate, right? We can't p- ruffle too many feathers, right? There's, there's a str- there's a strategy to it. And so it's like be smart enough to accurately do it, and say, but d- don't ever seek to integrate.

I'm sure there's parts of times in my life where I thought that that was probably the thing to do, and then it, I realized that that, that's not what set me apart, though. Quite the opposite, right? It's the fact that I different that made the, that allowed, gave me the edge, gives us the edge- Yeah ... and people listening. The edge is the intensity. You can't, they say this in the SEAL teams, bro, you can't teach aggression.

Can't teach it. You're born with it or you don't have it. And, but you can train it. You need somebody aggressive and then hone it. You don't wanna have to mush somebody.

That can't be taught. And so I'd rather be that aggressive and an- that intensity and then reign it in and, and hone it so it's a, like a laser beam rather than, you know, "Oh, well, I guess I'll just kinda dull it a little bit and, and work like Fred next to me that, you know, well, le- does his nine to five, punches out and s- you know, splits his pitcher." Like no, not doing that. Yeah. I, I, one of the biggest awakenings for me was, uh, the first time I ever had an executive position maybe 12, 13 years ago, and I had some team members who were ambitious, aggressive, hard-charging, and then I had team members who were just show up.

They, they, they hit their numbers- Get it ... they did their job. Yeah. But once their jo- once their job was done, light switch went off, they were, you know, kind of in coast mode. And it was, uh, it was, it, it, I was talking to a mentor about it and, you know, I'm like, "I don't understand. I wanna raise these people up," ba, ba, ba.

And he goes, "Dude, not everybody wants that." Like- Yeah ... there's, there's a lot of people out there that they punch the clock so they can live after, right? Yeah. And that's what they want. Yeah.

Or, or they just simply don't ever want to experience hard. Like I, I always thought, like, maybe people didn't understand that they were capable, or, you know. Yeah. And, and, and he was really clear to me that, like, he's like, "There are some people," and I, and I, unfortunately, I think our society is telling more and more people this mentality is okay, that I think there are some people that just simply do not desire hard. Yeah.

They look at us being fit. They look at us talking about ambition, growing companies- Yeah ... you know, making real change, and they're just like, "Yeah, I don't want any of that." Yeah. Not interested. I just wanna...

And, and that was, like, a really hard thing for me to wrap my head around. Yeah. And I think it is for a lot of people where they're like, "I don't under-," like, I'm trying to pull you along. Why don't you wanna come? Like, I don't, I don't get it.

And it's a really hard thing for leaders, I think. And, and, and to your point, I think especially from a leadership perspective, there's this idea of, like, you know, you want, you know, everybody needs to be treated equal in an organization- Yeah ... right? Yeah. And, and when I'm coaching a leader, uh, or a founder, whatever, I, I tell, I think that's completely wrong. Yeah.

I think we ha- I think there should be cater bands inside your company, A, B, C players, right? Yeah. And they don't all get the same, uh, uh, benefits, shmoogies. Yeah. They don't all get the same treatment, you know?

Yeah. Like a high performer, if you try to, if you try to manage a high performer like you manage your B or C players, that high performer's gonna leave. Yeah. Like, they, they don't want any part of that. They, they want- 100% ... a little special treatment.

Yeah. It's, it's very interesting. So, okay. I actually now wanna pivot back and, and go into your story a little bit 'cause you have a fucking- Yeah ... awesome, uh, just crazy story. So maybe, you know- Thanks, man ... obviously, uh, uh, uh, I'm not a very good podcast host 'cause usually you start at the beginning, but I don't like doing that.

I like this flow way better, actually. Yeah. I'd like to- Yeah, I like it ... I'd like to go back now and give people a little bit of the bones of where you developed your menta- Dude, by the way, this, this q- quote, "Accurately navigate, don't integrate" is fucking brilliant. Like- Thanks, man ...

I, I want, I wanna, I wanna give people the, the, the bedrock of where you came out of this mentality- Yeah ... and, and what kind of sculpted you into, into this person who lives the life that you live today. Yeah, man. I appreciate that. That's... Well, I appreciate you for kinda painting the scene for that 'cause I, I hadn't really thought about that, you know, quite, the, the difference.

There is absolutely a difference of integration and actually, but us being able to, to, to, to move through this place in a professional way and successfully, more importantly. Right? So yeah, man, the 30,000 foot overview, yeah, decent childhood, sports, had some trouble in my youth. Uh, it was difficult to get into the military just from legal, legal perspective and some tattoos and things. But had to go to jail after college, uh, to kinda clean up some stuff and, but I got into the Navy, went through SEAL training, was at SEAL Team Seven, sniper, JTAC, advent laden specialist, which was, like, low profile, uh, low visibility operations.

Deployed to Iraq, Yemen. Had some legal troubles in the SE- SEAL teams that ended up kinda culminating after about seven years I was there. Had to go back to jail, do some time. I got kicked out for performance-enhancing drugs, technically, right? Uh, uh, that, that's what I got kicked out for.

Zero tolerance from the Navy perspective. The SEAL teams tried to protect me, but once Big Navy JAG wants your ass, you're toast, man. And, uh- Got out into the civilian world free and clear, right? I took a general discharge and started in residential real estate development. We did, we had a lot of successful year, you know, 19 million in gross sales and was learning, drinking from a fire hose.

Did a lot, did a, had an opportunity when cannabis became legal, we started a cannabis distribution company. So doing all those pieces. But during that time, I really built a lot of bad habits. I had no governor on now, and I really hadn't addressed the self-worth issue, right? And that's really, I was doing these things, Band-Aids.

C- CEO, fucking Navy SEAL, like all these things put a Band-Aid on me. But I was taking Adderall every day, Xanax, alcohol, weed. Still performing. That's how I could lie to myself, right? I got the house by the beach and the, the girlfriend.

I'm like, "Nobody can tell me shit," right? Ego, 1,000%. And I lacked self-awareness on a massive scale. I wasn't seeing it from, from, from the perspective of speed wobbles, right? You know, the relationship starts to get choppy.

You know, you're, you're missing meetings now that you weren't missing. It's like, and I stacked on a OP8 and a fentanyl habit at the end here, right? So I'm doing all these things daily, and, uh, but still performing, raising capital, pitching decks for millions of dollars, doing all these things, working in a high-rise for a venture capitalist. But it all came crashing down, uh, as, as it does when you try to juggle this many balls of fire. And I find myself in, in Hawaii, homeless in my truck, waiting for that call, you know, the next, the next opportunity that always kinda came, and it didn't come.

And so I'm there, look in my bank account, got six bucks, have a sawed-off shotgun next to me. And this was about two years and some change till the time I had gotten out of the Na- the Navy to this point. So a lot happened pretty quickly, and I realized I was just purposeless. I had no, no money now, no title, no nothing. I was completely isolated, like Native, just like in the jungle, thinking about, you know, killing myself.

And, um, and luckily, God spoke to me, had a moment of clarity, which was like, "Hey, is that the legacy you're gonna leave?" I thought about my mom, my sister. All these decisions, all this reality is your fault. That finally could, I finally got honest, and I go, "Oh, all this, it's not anybody else. It's all these decisions were mine that brought me to this reality."

And that was actually very freeing. So I was like, "All right, well, I'm not gonna do that by my own hand. But if I'm gonna, you know, if I'm gonna die anyway, then I'm at least do it in an honorable way with my boots on." And I had known about the Foreign Legion for s- some years now, and I decided I was gonna pick my pen back up and write an amazing story. I'd never heard of a Navy SEAL going in the French Foreign Legion.

And so eight days later, pretty much, or a week and some change, I was in France knocking on the door and spent about a half decade in the French Foreign Legion, deployed to South America, d- doing stuff with NATO on the Russian border and internal domestic missions of France. And, and, uh, yeah, and then got out. And that was about, I've only been home for about 18 months. I got back to the United States about 18 months ago. But, uh, that was really k- the path of about 11 and a half, 12 years through that process in the military, and, um, of the path of a lot of lessons learned the hard way.

It's really, it was in the Foreign Legion that I really started to develop my, uh, the importance of da- of, of ownership, frequency management, right? That, that I really started to understand the power of daily habits and, and, um, and clear morality and choices, right? And decisions, I should say. And that's, that's really what I, I walk with today. You said something, you said, "When it's all your fault, it's freeing."

Yeah. Can you, can you break that down a little more for us? Yeah. It, I felt this weight lift off me when I realized that all the th- everything w- that had happened was because of all these small decisions I made. All these small decisions, the money I spent, the this, the that, whether I've had been wronged in business or right, it doesn't, didn't matter.

I went into business with the person, it's my fault. So I was like, look, and, you know, somebody steals from you in your business, you hired 'em, right? And so it, and, and so by that point, we re-empowered because anything external of us, we're giving power away to. Whether it be, "Oh, my ex-wife did this, and so now that's why I'm in this situation." You married her, man, right?

And so it's like, so pick better next time. It's, it's small things that we just go, oh, if it's all my fault, then I have all the power to fix it. That was really, that was really, 'cause it's what's more important is how we fix it. How do we correct the ship? So when I went, oh, I'm gonna grab control of my life, it's nobody else's fault, so therefore it's all my fault, it's all my responsibility to fix it.

Then I just moved forward with that and, and a lot of things started to clear up. It also simplifies everything. And if it's all, you're not worried about what anybody, what other inputs are. And it also just makes you a lot more aware of who you engage with, 'cause if it's your fault, then be careful. I think that that is some of the best advice that you, we can give anybody at any age.

Uh, it, dude, it's funny, you're, you're talking, and remove the military part and a lot, and I haven't been to jail yet. Um- Yeah. Yeah ... no, there, there's, there's a lot of similarities in the- Yeah ... struggle to the, to the all your fault. Mine was- Yeah ... more like, um, my inability to prop- to accurately navigate, uh- Yeah ... through, through, uh, corporate scenarios got me fired from three consecutive jobs. Um- Yeah.

You, yeah, you like to shake the tree, man. Yeah. Executive position, fired. Executive position, fired. Executive position, fired.

Yeah. Three times in a row, and I'm going, "What the fuck?" Uh, egotistical, you know- Yeah ... CEOs, and it's- Yeah ... this, and they don't understand me. And I had a similar clarity moment, uh, that I can only say came to me through, through, through God be- or- Yeah ... divine inspiration because- Yeah ... similar thing.

I was like, I chose to take that job I've chose to work for three insecure CEOs. Yeah. I chose, you know, to be in these positions and- Yeah ... and, and it's amazing, and I, I'm just, I'm, I'm just doubling into your point. It, it, it, it's 100% accurate that when you... It sucks, 'cause now you're looking in the mirror going, "I'm the one that did this to me."

Yeah. "I'm the one that put me in this position." But to your point, man, when you can embrace that, all of a sudden you're like, "Yeah, but I also now can do whatever I wa- like, I get to choose- Yeah, whatever you want ... what I wanna do." Yeah. "Who do I wanna be?

Do I wanna be... You know, what kind of dad do I wanna be? What kind of- Mm-hmm ... partner/spouse do I wanna be? What, you know, who, what kind of leader do I wanna be? What, you know, what kind of change do I want?"

And you can actually control those. It's hard as shit. Yeah. It's way harder than just blaming people, right? That's the easy path.

Yeah. That easy path, yeah. But you, but you also, this is the other thing that I find really interesting, and I- I'm interested in how you, how you, how you deal with this. So I had somebody one time tell me, actually it was my ex-wife, uh, specifically. She said, "You..."

She's like, "Why don't you just level out a little bit?" is what she said, right? Yeah. She's like, "You ride- That's an interesting way to say that ... every high and every low- Yeah ... and you ride them." And I was like, "Yeah, I do." And she said, "Well, yeah, wouldn't your life be easier if you- Yeah ... just played more in the middle?"

And I was like, "I think she's right. It would be easier." Except you don't get to experience the high highs- Yeah ... if you're not also willing to experience the low lows, right? Like- 100% ... if you play it even, it's not like you get to play it even and you just get the highs. That's- Yeah ... that's not the way that it works.

Yeah. Yep. It's like the amplitude of your high, you have to under- you know, you gotta be willing to accept that that's an equal amplitude that you could go low. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, you know, how do you ride those waves so when you're, now you're in a great place, right? Yeah. You have a much better framework. Yeah. You're teaching other people how to live, uh, a good, you know, successful life.

You're training people- Yeah ... through your programs and stuff that you have. H- how do you manage now as a, as a healthier individual emotionally- Yeah ... and mentally, um, when you have that great day and then comes the bad day? D- Yeah. How do you keep yourself... Okay, here's the question: How do you keep yourself from falling back into the old patterns that got you- Yeah ... in trouble today?

Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good question. So now the stakes are raised, right? I, I'm engaged, I have a baby, we got, you know, purchased a beautiful house, you know?

And it's, uh... So now the stakes are raised, right? We have the, you know, great business day, then we have the bad one, and now, now I'm starting to find, but nothing changed. I still keep the exact same morning process as I did in the French Foreign Legion barracks room making $1,500 a month in the cold-ass, you know, barracks in France as I do now in my house on the golf course, the gated community, in the master bath at 3:30 in the morning. It's right, 4:00 in the morning, every day.

Don't miss a day. Doesn't matter if it's a day off, it's a day on, it's a bad day, it's a good day, every fucking day I do it, because it's like my root. It, it's a little prayer, little gratitude, little movement, little centering yourself, little visualization. 20 minutes, right? Nothing crazy.

Not some two-hour biohacking bullshit, just something simple. That's what keeps me grounded as far as keeping the momentum and the framework, right, of I don't care. I'm not changing what I do if it's a bad day or a good day. Also, in business, if I have a really bomb-ass day or a really shat and bet, nothing changes in my day. I do nothing different.

It's all the same. I don't, I don't adjust, I don't change. I've been doing that for almost two years now, and it's worked great because I don't adjust for the market. I don't ju- no, I'm just... I, I know what works and I know what I think in my heart is clear, so that helps me.

And habits too. Biases, right? It, it, it's letting myself feel the low. That was something that I fucked up before and I really fumbled, is I did not let... That's that pain avoidance, right?

I get the chills when I think about it. I was in emotionally in a bad place before, and so I started taking opiates. It wasn't like 'cause I got in a car accident. I liked how they made me feel. And so they kinda numbed it and they, and it was kinda like an antidepressant.

I, so I, I was taking 'em and I, and I felt better, and it's 'cause I didn't wanna feel the pain, the emotional pain of having lost the SEAL teams or lost the girlfriend or whatever it was. Now I just, I don't reach for the drink. I don't reach for this. My daily habits are good and clear, and I'm like, "Look, if it's a bad day, I'm gonna feel it. I'm not gonna die.

I'll be all right." But at least what, uh, it's the pain that teaches you something. The good days you don't learn shit. We all know we don't learn shit from the wins. That's the truth.

Maybe what, what to do a little bit, but really we learn from the losses. So we gotta, if we don't feel those losses, all those lessons go away. Yeah. All the lessons go away. And so, and also here's the other piece that I, uh, that I, and I'll kinda turn it over to you on this one, is the celebration, the celebratory self-sabotage is what I would...

Uh, when I was feeling good, "Oh, let's ride it out and do this or that," and kinda, and I would self-sabotage on the highs. So now I'm not feeling the lows. I'm sabotaging on the highs, so it's... Now I'm, I'm fucking myself from both angles. And so I was like, "Look, I'm not gonna celebrate massively on the highs and I'm not gonna try to drown myself in the lows.

I'm just gonna s- feel both, what do they feel like, and just try not, and maintain my battle rhythm nice in the middle." Dude, we click on so many levels on these things. Um, so I, I get a lotta guys that reach out to me, um, uh, that are, that are going through divorce, 'cause I, I got divorced three years ago. Oh, yeah. Um, and you know, I had a lot of people go, "Geez, you, you seemingly navigated that really well."

Yeah. Okay. And, and, and blessed in so much as, uh, my ex-wife and I we- weren't necessarily meant to be together. We're very different- Yeah ... people, but we also don't hate each other. So- Yeah, reasonable.

Yeah ... thank, thank, thank God for that, right? Yeah. 'Cause there are situations that are far worse. Yeah. That being said, this idea- Of experiencing the low, of allowing yourself to go down that path and- Yeah ... feel that pain, I think is so foreign, uh, to so many people, and also not talked about enough. Like, I absolutely- Yeah ... love that you brought that up.

Like, I got chills- Yeah ... when you said that 'cause I was like- Yeah ... one of my biggest pieces of advice that I give to people who contact me for whatever reason about some shitty thing is- Yeah ... always like, like let it... If you, if you don't let it pass through you- Yeah ... it doesn't go away. Yeah. You're just, you're just, you're like putting it on pause. It's like you're saving pain, and that pain- Yeah.

Whoa, good- ... just stacks and stacks and stacks ... I got the chills when you said that. That's a- Yeah ... well, perfect ... right? And then all of a sudden you're not just getting divorce pain, you're getting lost my job pain, divorce pain, um- Yeah ... you know, out of shape pain. Whatever pains you have, they all just come crashing in if you don't.

But if you let them go through you, and you experience it in the moment and forever and ever, you know, one, it, it, you get past it so much quicker, right? Yeah. You, you go from it being months or years of your life to maybe days or even hours. Yeah. And two, it doesn't stack.

Yeah. You don't have this like ticking time bomb of pain waiting to dump on you, which- Yeah ... you know, is when you go down the path, you start picking up the- Yeah ... drugs or whatever your, whatever your vice of choice is. And- Yeah ... man, nobody talks about that. Like, I never- Yeah ... hear anybody talk about that topic, and I'm so glad you brought that up. And, and, and for those, for you guys listening, like this can even be little things, like, like, uh, a key employee leaves or- Yeah ... uh, a customer that you've had for years decides they're gonna go with somebody else and that hurt.

Like even those- Yeah ... things that aren't necessarily like life-changing- Yeah ... like if you just block it, it- Yeah ... again, it stacks and stacks, and then you, you go home and you spout off at your kids for no reason, and you don't even understand why you're yelling at them, and it's because- Yeah ... you didn't allow yourself that pain. It- Yeah ... you're going to experience it eventually. And man, I love that you brought that up, dude. Nobody, nobody talks about that. Nobody.

Dude, the, the man's getting paid. The man's getting paid. Dude, if you delay pain, consider it a loan deferred and you're gonna pay for it with interest. Yeah. It's coming back, man.

So you better start paying that interest down, that, paying that principal down. Just pay it off. Let it, feel it. Let it sit with it. It's okay to s- sit with something.

Quite literally, sit with it. Yeah. I, I agree. I, I, uh... So my, uh, my morning routine involves, like I like to, um, I like to ingest ideas and write, so those are my two big things in the morning.

I like that. I tend to be an afternoon exerciser for whatever reason. Yeah, yeah. It's the way my bio works, but- I'm similar. Yeah ... yeah, in the m- in the mornings I tend to be more like, I do like to cold plunge.

I do like to do that- Yeah ... like as a biohack thing. Mostly- You're a better man, you're a better man than I. Dude, I, I do it because I hate it so much. Like- Yeah ... cr- people are like, "I can't believe you cold plunge." It's, it's right there.

Um- Yeah ... I'm like, "I do it because I hate it, because every morning I stare at that tank and I'm, and I don't wanna get in. Every morning." Yeah. I've been doing it for years.

Yeah, I like that. Every morning I still don't wanna get in. Okay. Uh, b- past that. So lot of guys, uh, listen to the show, and I know a lot of 'em get stuck on where to start this journey.

They wanna get better. Yeah. Maybe they're doing a few things good. They s- they want- Yeah ... but they know they, they know they have more inside them. Yeah.

But they're not sure where to start. I get that question a lot. Where do I start? Yeah. So- Yeah ... someone comes to you, they, they, they honestly, honestly- Yeah ... want to get better, but they don't know where to start.

What, how do you... You know, again, this is generalized, so- Yeah, yeah, I get it ... take whatever you want. But how do you get them going? How do you get them started down the path? First thing I do is I ask them their schedule.

What's your schedule? And immediately almost 99% of people I go, "Get up earlier. A lot earlier." Not like, you know, let 'em get up at 6:00 or 5:00. No, get up at 3:30.

Set it early. Why? 'Cause it sucks. It sucks. A- a- and there's no magic there, but there is. The samurai call 3:30 in the morning hour of the tiger, right?

A man is most aligned with his purpose at 3:30 in the morning. It's a very powerful time. Also, they call it God's hours in the morning. There's less friction in the air. 3:00 to 4:00, 5:00, 6:00 in the morning, there's very powerful, there's an energy in the air at that time, and also I think you can receive very clear downloads.

Also, for the simple fact that most of the time most people in your house aren't up yet. Men need time to sit and think. You're not strategizing when you're driving in the car, and there's some- there's honking and, and you're, you're end of the day. It's just too much shit going on. Sitting with your thoughts.

I always tell 'em no phone, no email, no news. Be deliberate about not, not being reactive in the morning. A deliberate morning process. Not watching the news drinking your coffee, but sitting with thought, some gratitude, some prayer, whatever. Stoke philosophy, something to bump the frequency up.

A little movement, a little visualization. I always say start there because then that gets you momentum. Say they already already doing something like that, right? Say they already doing something like that. Then I immediately move into the body, the fitness, 'cause these are the easy buttons.

How are you eating? Almost always somebody's diet can be tightened up. I have them start tracking their macronutrients, right? Whether, why? They go, "I hate tracking macros."

Good. That's, then you should fucking do it. Did you know that driving under the influence of marijuana is illegal? That's right. Driving high could get you a DUI.

And if you're wondering if law enforcement can tell when you're driving high, well, everyone else in your life can. Your friends can. Your coworkers can tell. Even your parents can tell. So what makes you think law enforcement can't tell?

Well, they can. If you feel different, you drive different. Drive high, get a DUI. Paid for by NHTSA Right? Because it sucks, and it's easy once you start doing it.

We get 'em a little bit tighter, slight caloric deficit, up earlier. Now they're starting to grab hold and being very deliberate about their day, and the momentum just picks up from there to the goal setting, to the, to the other pieces, the more, the more important ones, the relationships and all that, those pieces. How you... So in, in, not in a vain way- But I've found that how you feel when you look at yourself in the mirror plays such a, such a s- physically how you look- Yeah ... plays such- Oh, yeah ... a huge role in not just men, women as well, but I think particularly- Yeah ... for how men engage with the world, right? Yeah. 'Cause when you, like, wake up and you can see, like, a little cut on your arm- Yeah ... maybe, maybe you got a little V cut, maybe a- Yeah, you feel good ... maybe abs, an abs popping through.

Yeah. And you're like, "Oh," like, "shit," like- Yeah ... "I'm, I'm in my 40s and I, I look, you know, I look all right. Like, I'm doing o-" Yeah. Like, you want- Yeah ... more, right?

And now you're like- Yeah ... "Oh, if I can look good, wait, now my wife, you know, sh- now she wants to have sex with me. I don't gotta-" Yeah ... hunt her down and hope I get 15 minutes on a random Thursday." Yeah. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Like, she's actually kinda... And people respond to me differently. They wanna- Yeah ... they wanna be around me more, right? Like- Yeah ... it's...

But we, why, why do you think so many people avoid the physical side? Like, they, everybody wants to go to, to, to some meditational thing or- Yeah ... the secret book that gives you all the answers to- Yeah. And it's like, if you're, if you feel like a slob, and, and that can be- Yeah ... relative to however you look, if you feel like a slob, it doesn't matter how many meditative retreats you go on- Yeah ... you're still gonna look at yourself in the mirror and feel bad. So why do you think it is we struggle to, to focus on our physicality? And beyond, like, macros and stuff, how do you get guys motivated into, like, what are some easy wins guys can do to start to sculpt their body maybe if they're not a big gym guy?

Yeah. Man, that's a really important point. So what do they teach you at all these meditation retreats, right? Being present. Be present.

And I do think a lot of peace comes from being able to be present in the current moment. You can't be present unless you're proud of your presence, because your insecurity. The guy who's walking into a restaurant, right, with his wife or whatever, and he's picking his shirt out of his fat rolls, is not present because he's thinking about how other people are perceiving him. A confident man who's p- feels powerful, knows he looks good, or is proud of how he looks, is present. He's looking at, he's, when he's communicating with people, he's, he's not thinking about how they're, he's being perceived.

It's a different energy, and w- really what we're talking about is frequency, the clarity of confidence, the clarity of feeling good in your skin, man. Also, re- in a, in a religious way, people will dive into religion, but completely in gluttony. How does that make sense? Show up at the pearly gates with a bag of trash ha- hanging from your front, dude. You're like, "Hey, I'm here."

No, man, you missed the mark, right? You're missing a major piece to tap into a God frequency. It, why do you think they talk about fasting so much in all these religions? Caloric deficit is massively important, right? So you're not in this caloric surplus all the time.

So I digress as far as that. It's massively important. And why people don't do it, it is fucking uncomfortable. It's hard. And it also, it's ego.

Ego wants results fast. It needs results fast so it's fed. Real change takes a long time. For someone to totally recomposition their body if they're way out of shape, could take years. So you have to be okay with the incremental micro win, and that's, that's a lot of what I teach people, is staying in the game and being o- and understanding what a micro win is, right?

And the, and, and being, and understanding that it's the path, it's the journey, and not the destination. Quite that, that old adage, it's so very true. It's like feeling good about I do these things 'cause it makes me feel good, not because of the results it gets me. And then w- if you fall in love with the result of with the path, next thing you know, you got abs. What do you know, right?

And that guy's gonna win every time. So how do I get people to kind of get change? It's a massage thing. First, I, I figure out what they're eating, and I don't like cha- I don't like telling them what to eat, which is why macronutrients are very helpful because if you... F- I could, I could tell anybody, "Eat, eat this broccoli and this chicken and fucking do this for the rest of your life," and you're, "Yeah," but who's gonna do that?

It's no, understanding what the answers to the test so you know how to bend them. That's why macros are important. When you understand, oh man, no wonder you're not getting gains, this has a ton of fat in it, right? It just, are you always gonna measure your food and shit? Fuck no.

But you can do a lot in a few months or six months or a year, and know how to intuitively eat for the rest of your life. Mm-hmm. And so that's a massively important part. And you don't need to go to the gym. A lot of guys I work with don't go to the gym.

I get them walking, move it. I go movement minded is it. A lot, I have, I work with guys who hate the gym. I go, "Good, don't go to the gym. Do some light calisthenics in your house."

You do some light calisthenics and move 10,000 steps a day, or get your walks in with your family or incorporate your family in doing stuff outside, and you eat well, you're gonna be in good shape. You do that for long enough. You don't need to be a bodybuilder. Qui- most of the guys who have n- I work with don't have the desire for that. They just wanna look better and feel better.

And so I go, "All right. Well, let's start doing that. Let's start moving more and eating less." For the, for, for, for the most part, that's the start. Guys, uh, if you're in a place, pause right now.

I want you to go back to this idea, uh, that Taylor just shared, which I think it, it just encapsulates so much of everything you've said and so much we've talked about today. You can't be present if you're not happy with your presence. Yeah. Think about it, like that, that, that is such an idea. I mean, that is so freaking powerful.

Yeah. 'Cause I, I, we are, this idea of being present is a superpower. Yeah. I think a lot of people, a lot of people don't focus on it, but- Yeah ... those who do oftentimes struggle to be present, right? That, that's the next thing you hear. Yeah.

Be like, "I know I need to be present, but I struggle with it." And it's like, because exactly what you just said, dude, there's, you're not... You might be trying to be present, but at the same time you're going, "Can she tell that I got a roll down here?" Yeah. Uh, does he...

You know, my hairline's receding and I'm, uh- Yeah ... I'm un- I haven't dealt with that yet, or whatever. Yeah. You know, I'm, you know, whatever your issue is, right? If you're unhappier or, geez, you got some, some skeletons in your closet, you're cheating- Yeah ... on your spouse or some shit.

Well saidThat shit fucking eats on you, and you- Yep ... I- dude, that is such a powerful quote, it is unbelievable. Yeah. Like, I love that so much. It, that is, it, it, it, it really defines why we can't get into the present moment, why we can't be there, why your wife is trying to ch- your partner, whoever, your kid is, is trying to share their day with you, and you're thinking about 17 other things.

Instead of- Yeah ... just being in that moment for 15 minutes to let them barf their day on you because- Yeah ... all they want you to do is understand what's going on in their world, 'cause that's connection and relationship, and you can't be there. And it's like- Yeah ... that's a, that's a you issue, not your schedule. It's not, it's- Yep ... you aren't happy with you. Man, dude, that's some powerful shit. That is- You hit a point- ... really powerful to me ... on moral clarity, Ryan, I, I really wanna touch on because we were talking about the physical body, but the presence in moral clarity.

Man, I'm getting a lot of chills on our conversation because that's really, it's, it's... Man, w- were you looking at weird porn all night and so you're standing there and now your energy's, your frequency's off and now you're not a little present? Or you've been, you know, cheating and so you got the texts going and now you're thinking, "Oh, where's my phone?" And right, it's the mi- all those are, all those is your, your misalignments. The m- it's the authentic voice of God telling you, "Hey, man, these are the things w- that, that are, are..."

They don't need to be stressed about, just address them and fix them. That's it. When you listen to that authentic voice of God and you click these things in, you simplify and you streamline, which is a lot of what I, what I beat the drum about, is simplify and streamline, what you do, how you move, what you eat, how you think. Those things, when you click those into place, the level of clarity and inner peace and being present in the moment, that's when it hits, when you're aligned. Dude, you ever have this day understanding where you've been, and I've been similar places, different but similar, where you're like, "I'm smoking pot to land the ship.

I'm, you know, taking- Yeah ... Adderall in the morning to get myself going. I'm, you know, whatever, you know, maybe watching porn to feel better for a few minutes," or whatever your, whatever. You're like, "Instead of optimizing my life to feel good all the time with good things- Yeah ... I'm optimizing these shitty things to fill the gaps in the places that I'm not optimized," right?

And you're like, I remember- Damn, that's what, that's a good point ... dude, that fucking clicked for me one day where I was like- Yeah ... 'cause I, I got into this bad habit for a while when I was going through some things where, dude, I was on the scene, it was Adderall in the morning to get me going. Yeah. And it was pot at the end of the night to like- Me too ... to, to land- Yeah ... the ship. Yeah. That's how I justified it- Yeah ... to land the ship.

Yeah. That's what I would tell- Yeah, you fly it and- Right? You bring it- Then I'm like... And one day I was, like, sitting there, and, and this is crazy. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm high on a, as a kite, sitting on the couch by myself, you know, sitting there going, "What the fuck am I doing?"

Like, instead of just- Yeah ... going to bed, getting up and working out, I'll feel amazing in the morning- Yeah ... I'm gonna be up watching some stupid TV high and then take- Yeah ... Adderall in the morning to try to get myself to the place where I can function at my high. Like, what the fuck am I doing? Like, it literally- Yeah ... hit me one day where I was like, w- you are optimizing the wrong things.

Like, if you just optimize for the good things, you would feel good all the time. Yeah. That... I, and it was like, it hit me and it made so much sense, and I was like, "Oh my God," like, "why did it take me 42 years to figure- Yeah ... this out?" Yeah.

It's crazy, like, that we... Y- if you just did the things you, you know, these simple things, and they don't have to be hard, right? Like, the first thing I did when I was, when I was pulling my... I kinda, in 2017 I had a health scare, and that's what really started me on my, uh, uh, my personal improvement journey, right? I was an athlete, got to about 25, was as fit as can be.

It, pl- playing some baseball after college, good job. And then from 25 to say, however old I was in 2017, 36, 37- Yeah ... I, I just kinda let myself go. Yeah. And I, I had kids and I was married and I had a job.

Made all the excuses, right? Yeah, yeah. And I was, and then I had this health scare 'cause I had let myself go physically to the point where, like, I literally passed out at a conference I was supposed to be speaking at. Damn. Yes.

So, so I was like, "That will never happen again," and I went on this journey. It was great. Got myself fit, dropped 20 pounds. Yeah. Felt like a million, felt like an absolute stud, performing- Yeah ... at my highest level.

Then I had a, those couple bad situations where I got fired a few times, right? Yeah. Now all of a sudden I go back into woe is me. What's- Yeah ... why is God doing this to me? Why is it- Yeah, yeah ... all this stuff.

And I went back down into the cycle. And the first thing I did to pull myself out was I bought a weighted vest and I just started going for walks. Bro, genius. That's all I did. Smart.

I just started going- Yeah ... for walks with a weighted vest. And like- Yeah ... it's a simple... It could be something else for someone else, but just- Yeah ... picking that one singular thing and saying- Yeah ... "Every morning, regardless of how I feel, I'm going for an hour-long weighted vest walk, and I'm just gonna go do this." And- Yeah ... then that turned into, oh, I can come home and do a few pushups.

Yeah. And then, oh, I can do a few pushups and do some other cali- k- stuff. Yeah. Oh wait, I can read before I go for my walk- Yeah ... then go for my walk, then go... And, like, but what I didn't do, and I think this is the problem, and you've, you've mentioned this a few times, and it's a big part of your work, is this: what I didn't do that I did the first time was I didn't put a timetable on it.

Mm-hmm. I didn't say, like, "By this date I have to be here"- Yeah ... so then when you miss, you feel that pressure of, oh shit, I missed, I'm fucked, I'm off my thing. Yeah, yeah. It was just in- that incremental improvement. So, um, like, you know, I, I kinda asked this a little bit, but I'm, but maybe more as advice to those listening, like, when you step off that path for a second, right, how do you advise your people getting back on?

Is it like a don't miss twice kind of thing? Is it a, is it a grace? Like, what is your... You're really good at, at the, at framing these thoughts. So like- Yeah ... how do you frame getting back on the path when you step off before you start going back to your old habits?

Yeah. I say, I say, "Dude- You're-- Don't let predictable things surprise you. My, my, my buddy at Team Six, he's a team lead on Team Six, he says that to his guys before they go on ops that are gonna suck. He's like, "It's gonna be cold. We're going in the mountains.

It's gonna suck. I don't wanna hear complaining. So don't let predictable things surprise you." And I really like that, and he says, uh, w- how I frame it for guys who we're working with, I go, "Guess what? You're gonna fail."

Just plug it in here. You're gonna fail. You're gonna fail once. You'll probably fail twice, probably fail more than that. I don't give a shit.

It's understanding that you are going to fail. None of this is perfect. I'm not perfect. It's not gonna be perfect. The situation's not.

You're gonna fail days. So just go, "Well, you know, yep, I fucked that one up. All right, let me get right back on it. Let me, let me fix this." Yeah, that was a bad meal.

Don't make it a bad weekend. Yeah, it was a bad weekend. Don't make it a bad Monday, right? And then every time, you just get back on the horse. It's not about never falling off.

Get back on the horse. Reset yourself. Keep doing it again and again and again, and let-- and then next thing you know, right, we're not gonna stay 100% consistent. We're not robots, man. It's like, uh, and I think setting is don't set the framework for perfect.

I actually just got off a, a Zoom with a client. He has the problem with the all or nothing. I'm either doing it 100%, or I'm, I'm n- I'm on the couch doing it. And so there's like this, uh, understanding of our own psychology. Dude, this isn't a program.

This is what you do now for the rest of your life. You're a mindful motherfucker who gets back on the horse. That's it. That's all you are. You're just, you're just more mindful about your-- the way you eat and the way you move forever now.

Welcome to the club. So don't, don't expect there's no pro- what is there? No program for the rest of your life. It's just what you do, and when you start to be- make these things into who you are and not just the, the, the little tasks you're doing, it becomes a lot easier 'cause you recognize, yeah, you might've had a bad meal. All right.

Yeah. Listen to and become self-aware enough to understand if you're feeling a little guilt or, okay, well fix it, right? Then, then it, then listen to that internal dialogue where it's guiding you. Your conscience is your guideline. Apply-- Listen to your conscience.

If it's saying, "Hey, dude, we should probably tighten up the food a little bit. You're getting a little loose," tighten it up then. Doesn't need to be perfect. Just start moving in the direction. Like you said, it's a, the weighted vest and this because where you l- where, where you end up walking to and where you end up traveling to is gonna be so much more honed in and perfect when you just kinda start getting some momentum.

It's the momentum, and, and don't let yourself stop. That's the one piece that they say in SEAL training, uh, don't quit. Just don't quit. If, if it's a f- you can't get the full workout in, I don't care, dude. Go walk.

Dude, do 10 pushups. St- that's at least you check, you're like, "Yeah, I didn't do it perfect," but, but at least that keeps you in the game. Don't ever, don't ever go on the sideline and opt out and hang your cleats up. Nah, dude. What is that?

That's no way to live, and that's also where all the anxiety's gonna come from. So don't-- Just do yourself a favor. Just stay in the game. Bro, I love your mentality. I, I could talk to you for another three hours.

I think it's fucking fantastic. Yeah, dude. We got a lot of good synergy, man. We should get us some synergy on something in the future, bro. Yeah, I'm down.

I'd love to have you on. We got, we got a podcast we launched out-- down in Florida, dude, uh, with me and my f- former, uh, teammate and stuff. So dude, I'd love to have you on and talk about some of these things, man. Dude, I'm down. I'm down.

So, so I know there are people listening who wanna get deeper into your world. Yeah. Where do they go to do that? Where-- How do they connect deeper with you? So anybody can get me on my website, taylorcavanaugh.com.

That contact form goes right to me. I don't outsource anything, AI, right? That goes right to my personal email. I do that by design 'cause I like to see who's coming in and, and their stories. And then also my Instagram, tcavofficial, where I do, you know, workout videos, and you can see my daily flow.

I record my morning process every day. And so th- so they know I'm up with roll call and my YouTube, Taylor Cavanaugh, where I dive into some deeper principles, keynotes, gym sessions with different characters around the United States and, and just, uh, some of the deeper principles from... And it's my story from-- You'll see my first video in the Foreign Legion barracks room all the way up till, till now, recording on the balcony in the house, you know, with the baby. And so it's been quite the journey, and, and I look forward to, to communicating with people, listening to their story, and figuring out how we get some s- some men or women momentum. Dude, I appreciate the hell out of you.

I'm so glad you're out there, and, uh, love this conversation. Thank you so much. Yeah, likewise, man. I appreciate everybody listening, and Ryan, dude, you're the man, bro. Look forward to speaking again.

Peace. Appreciate you, bud. Let's go. Yeah. Make it look, make it look, make it look easy.

Hey, stand up. Thank you for listening to The Ryan Hanley Show. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts. Game ain't a thing for me. I never switched up, no changing me.

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