Why Men Are Losing Their Edge — And How to Get It Back

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We're-- So we're in the middle of our seed round. We're looking for three. We have mil check in hand in bank already. All like- Oh, great ... twenty-five to hundred checks, and then we're looking for about a mil and a half. If you just start with the- Yeah.

Yeah. That's great. So, yep, so we got that first mil in with a lead, which is great. That, that basically puts everyone at ease. Already have a couple of the strategics in.

We're gonna collect those all at once. I'm doing the rounds on the funds. I'm trying to stay in this round inside the insurance industry because- Yeah ... insurance, particularly property casualty insurance, it's so nuanced, dude. There are certain things about the insurance industry, and particularly property casualty, that are just like it only happens this way in this space. And I've been CEO of fitness, fitness companies, I've been a CEO of tech companies.

Like, I've been in business for a while, done a lot of different-- a few different industries. But this space, which for some reason I keep coming back to over and over again, I've been technically in it for twenty years now, like, there are just certain aspects of the business that if you don't know how they work, you don't understand why you have to do certain things. Right. And I've raised money from people outside the industry before, and it tends to not work because they get very frustrated, and it's like, "Guys, we're not selling T-shirts," right? Like, this is-- You have fifty different states with fifty different regulations.

You have five thousand carriers. Every single carrier has a different process for how you work with them. Everyone pays differently. Everyone's product is different. You then have thirty-six thousand independent agencies spread out the country who all work in different ways, who all sell different things, who all have different iss- like, there isn't, like, a one-size-fit-all solution, so you have to build your products in a way that matches that particular unique characteristic as one example.

And so we're trying to stay in the industry, which limits our pool of investors, but I think we'll be able to get it done pretty quickly here. No, but it does matter who you raise money from. I do a lot in the VC space, just defense tech. Yeah. I'm in the middle of a five hundred million dollar raise right now.

Yeah, that's a little different than what we're doing. I'll send you a link over email to our latest press release. It's a bunch of guys from Tesla and Anduril doing advanced manufacturing. Dude, I love what Angel's doing. I had lunch last week with former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, if you remember him.

Yes. That was from the Bush, Obama era. He's the only Secretary of Defense who worked with both Republicans and Democrats. One of the most brilliant people. He said it is the most perilous time in American history since World War II.

I firmly believe that. People have no idea of that, but that's where we are today, and it's because of manufacturing. China's outproducing us ten to one. I had a conversation with a good buddy, been friend for twenty-five years. Super smart guy.

Anytime I'm raising for any company or whatever, when we get to the strategic part of it, there's a group of buddies I always just offer it to. Yeah. "Dude, throw in twenty thousand if you want. Just, you know- Right ... if I can make you some money, I'd love to do it," you know, whatever. So we're having-- we're talking last night on the phone, and we get done with that portion of the talk and we, s- you know, kinda swings over to, like, life and stuff.

And I'm very interested in, like, politics and what's happening in the world and very pro-America, very pro, you know, especially where we're kind of headed now versus where we were headed. And I just... Like, I find it intriguing. Like, I'm just interested in it, you know? And, and, and, and he was like, "I don't even..."

So I, I mentioned something that would be, like, base knowledge for you and me. I can't even remember- Yeah ... what topic I brought up, and he, like, had no idea. And I said, "Bud, what do you mean you don't know what I'm talking about?" And he's like, "Oh, I don't pay attention to any of that shit." And I'm like, "Dude, you have two kids, you have a wife, you own a business," right?

Like, how do you not at least have your periscope up a little on what's happening in the world, right? Yeah. He's like, "Oh, I find I'm happier if I just don't know." Mm-hmm. And that, it dawned on me in that moment, not that this isn't something I've thought about in the past, but, like, it really hit me hard, 'cause this-- He used to be...

Like, when we first got done playing baseball, we all moved to Washington, DC. I wasn't interested in politics at the time, although I wish I was 'cause I probably would've gotten involved. I just find politicians fascinating for how fucking nuts they are. This guy's a former press secretary for a senator, right? His first job out of college was as a press secretary for this...

He was a horrible liberal senator out of Minnesota who didn't even last. He lasted one term, and he was gone. But he-- I was like, "How do you not know?" And I think that mentality of people just, there's so much stuff going on in their life, and a lot of that is problems that they make themselves, that they then can't even handle thinking bigger, which is how we find ourselves in these fucking positions. I appreciate the entrepreneur mentality of like, "Hey, I'm just gonna put my head down and focus on my thing."

But it is-- that's a limiting mindset when you have a mindset like that because what your friend's doing, most people live their lives doing one of two things, either running from pain or running towards pleasure, right? When you're running towards purpose, that's when you're focused on like, "Man, what's the, what's the one thing that I can be a part of, that I can con-continually be a part of, bring more people into?" And that, that involves community, that involves country. I would say your friend may be very focused and might be very effective in the short term. But when you get what you want, when you get away from the pain, then you start to find emptiness, which is the most demotivating thing in the world.Yeah.

It's like you can only play so many rounds of golf and, and I love golf. I'm not one of those guys- Me too ... who hates golf. I love it. I find the discipline associated with the sport to be... That that's what captures me.

You know what I mean? I'm not there for the beers and the laughs, although those can be fun too, but those aren't even my favorite rounds, right? I like the focus that it takes to get through a round, navigate a course. I find it very intriguing. But you can only play so many rounds of golf, and it's like, what do you do now, right?

Yeah. Like, what's, what's the thing now? And I just say to myself like, "I hope it never happens, but if I gotta defend my people, I, I'm coming with max effort to defend whoever tries to fuck with my people." We- I stay physically fit. I have- We go for the overwhelming force of action.

Yes. Yeah If you shoot at me, I'll drop a bomb on you. Yeah. But it's, it's Edmund Burke. This is like the quote that sparked me into the military at a young age, and I would say it's relevant to your friend.

And- You've finally broken loose from work. Three friends, one tee time, and then the text. "Honey, there's water in the basement." Not exactly how you pictured your Saturday. That's when you call us, Cincinnati Insurance.

We always answer the call, because real protection means showing up, even when things are in the rough. Cincinnati Insurance. Let us make your bad day better. Find an agent at cinfin.com. Edmund Burke said, "Evil prevails when good men choose to do nothing."

Yeah. Dude, this might sound trite, but I think it's relevant. At some point in the early 2000s, we lost the social contract that if you say some stupid shit, I get to punch you in the face. When I was growing up in the '80s and the '90s, there was a social contract that if you're out on the wiffle ball field or the basketball court or recess at school, and you said some stupid shit, and you crossed a certain line with that individual, there was a consequence for that action, right? You write, you write a check, you're gonna have to cash it.

Right. At some point, that social contract got broken. I'm sure there are people smarter than me that know when it was, but it happened sometime between 2000 and 2010. And I firmly believe that that with a whole bunch of other, we'll call them unspoken social contracts that were created that have destroyed, like, particularly men's disposition for, for aggression and defense of what's theirs and what's right, right? Like s- somewhere in there, men started outsourcing that to, to faceless, nameless entities.

There's been a long run of outsourcing, and I'll tell you where it really started is in the '70s, which is the beginning of like, if you look at stock market growth. The '70s is where all the big pension funds, big index funds begin. And people, they don't invest. They, they just put their money in an index fund. They put it in the S&... in the S&P, and it'll just perform for me.

And that, what that created is the shareholder society, where you have people who have subjugated their capital, they've subjugated their values, they've... and now they've subjugated their parenting, they've subjugated their beliefs. "I don't wanna have to do the work. Somebody else will just do it for me." When you put your money into an index fund and just say, "Hey, you guys make me the money," you might get a good return, but you've also lost the ability to invest in moral things. Dude, d- and I think this applies to our current time with AI.

I was reading an article or an essay, I guess, that Paul Graham wrote, where I thought he was right on the button with this. And I don't agree with everything Paul Graham says, but I do think he's an incredibly intelligent guy. And he wrote this article, it was titled Rights and Right Not, right? That was the title. And I'll link it up in the show notes, guys, so you can go check it out if you're interested.

I just assume we started the podcast at this point, so we'll just keep rolling. Okay, sir. Um, there are going to be people who utilize AI to be better at what they do. Awesome. And there are gonna be people who outsource what they do to AI.

And he said neither is necessarily wrong, except for the fact that the individuals who completely outsource the skill to AI are going to lose the skill. And now all of a sudden you will reach a point where you can't write. You don't know how to articulate a thought. You don't know how to make a convincing argument or get someone- Right ... to buy something or know how to negotiate because you have outsourced that ability. Well, you and I can wrestle with AI and say, when it writes for you and say, "Hmm, I don't like that."

Mm-hmm. But if you don't have a basis to wrestle with it against, you just get whatever it gives you. And I think that goes to what you're saying about the shareholder stuff. People don't know how to analyze a stock or analyze a company or even how- It comes back to the economic principle of there's no free lunch. Yeah.

And at the end of the day, if you want something to be easier, there's a cost associated with that. AI is great, but you cannot outsource your function. One of the core skills that's gonna be around in 2030 is still the ability to problem solve and the ability to creative think. And if you just give everything away to AI, y- you're not going to be very valuable if all you can do is write prompts. Yeah.

And the other thing too is AI can't think non-linear. Maybe it will be someday, but essentially that's AGI, right? You can listen to Sam Altman, and then you listen to other people who, you know, where we are at, I'm sure we're closer than we think, but whatever. It doesn't matter. I don't know that for sure, right?

I know in our company, what we're building, you know, we're not open AI level tech, but we're pretty close for our deep vertical niche, you know? Uh, we're doing stuff, we're building all agentic models, which is fascinating tech, and it's really fun. But, like, I wrote this post on LinkedIn today, and, you know, basically the, the idea was this, that this whole concept of while AI can think linearly, and that's great, we as humans are the non-linear problem solvers, and we can't, we can't outsource that skill, right? A couple of the comments were like, "Well, humans, you know, just think lin-" And I'm like, "No, what, you're missing the point." AI can't think at a second level today, for the most part.

Humans that don't think at a second level are just simply lazy, right? Those are two completely different things, and because you don't wanna take the time to think deeper about a topic and go to a second or third level does not mean that you should outsource all of that ideation to a computer and just expect it to produce the right answer. Again, you're losing that skill, and that's what I keep trying to push, particularly to the insurance industry, 'cause I'll tell you, the industry that I work in, the insurance industry, is particularly susceptible to tools, AI drastically removing the need for humans in places where they have been necessary. And, you know, my pitch to them is always, whether I'm doing a keynote or whatever, "This is a massive opportunity, but we have to keep the humanness of your business or you will lose it, and then you are just like everyone else." Yeah, and I would also compare it to technological literacy.

Let's start with the beginning of literacy. Just because you knew how to read does not mean that you know how to comprehend. You do need to have the ability to read, but then you need to know how to be able to use what it is that you've read. That's the beginning of literacy. You and I grew up in an age of expanding technological literacy.

It wasn't hard for us. We were teenagers, we were in high school when cell phones are becoming a thing, and so it was kind of automatic to us. Where we could... This is the first time for you and I that we're looking at AI and saying, "Man, if I don't learn this stuff, I'm going to fall behind." So you have to have this mindset of, one, I, I wanna engage in what's new and I need to grow my technological or artificial intelligence literacy, but also there's a responsibility on my part not to just understand the tool, but to know how to use it well.

C- completely and utterly agree, and this is actually a point that I make in my keynotes too, particularly to insurance agents, 'cause they tend to be... And, and for those of you who aren't in insurance, you know, use this example as a microcosm. There might be some similarities to whatever industry you operate in. But the insurance industry in particular tends to be technological late majority or laggards, right? And they vote...

And because... You know, they- Right ... they base that on we're d- you know, risk-averse and... Which is all nonsense. It's just the nature of the industry and I don't wanna bore everyone with those problems. However, my point is I firmly believe that AI is the first piece of technology that has been brought to humanity, but certainly to our industry, where the early adopters who gain the expertise and the ability not just to use the tools but understand where the tools fit into their business, they will create so much distance between themselves and the laggards that the laggards are gonna struggle to catch up, right?

Because each new advancement in AI, those early adopters who've gone through the pain of figuring out what works, what doesn't, how to implement it, how to train your people, et cetera, they're just gonna get ex- exponentially better with each advancement, and you're not gonna be able to outpace them and catch back up. There's a real chance that it will marginalize a significant portion of that space, and it's hard to get that through people's heads. They're like, "Well, I gotta do this and I gotta do that, and I have all this busy work to do." And if you could pull back for a second and take a broader view, there's so much opportunity. And I struggle whether or not I wanna be in the convincing game, 'cause I kinda don't like that game.

But it feels like a message that needs to be shared, 'cause surprisingly- It- ... there are so few people sharing it It's hard to make people be hungry. Yeah. Even if someone's not hungry, you can cook them great food and they're still not interested. Yeah. But for those that are hungry, they'll go out and get it, and that's what it takes in the AI field.

That's what it takes in any field to stay at the front. We see the... You see the same thing in battlefield warfare, right? The stuff the guys were doing when I was in 10 years ago, it's way different now. The warfare has completely changed, and if you're not paying attention to the tactics at the very front, you fall behind so quickly if you wanna be at the edge.

That's for the people who are hungry. So if you're listening to this and you wanna be great, those are the people that I like to talk to, people who want the best, not just people who wanna be good. You do have to have that hunger to stay at the front, and it takes a lot of effort to do that. So Garrett, I wanna change directions a little bit here. So much of your work is coaching and teaching and training and helping people become the best.

You have... You operate at a very high level. You have some incredible people. You were explaining how one of your coaching clients, you helped them come up, now you're doing a podcast with them and they have all these incredible contracts and all this kind of stuff. I'm, I'm really interested how...

Like, what framed your belief structure, your mindset that you use to approach the business, right? You have military career. Faith is a big part of your life. What were the inspirations or what helped you frame? Like, when you look back, you're like, "These were the experiences, these were the ideas, or these were the people that really helped me frame my s- the set of filters I use to operate in life on a daily basis."

Yeah, let me tell a little bit of a story here. Please. So I'll, I'll Tarantino a little bit. I'll start in the middle or the end, and then I'll go back to the beginning. When I was towards the end of my SEAL career, I spent a lot of time with tadpole.

A colloquialism for Navy SEALs is frogmen, and so the, the guys who wanna be frogmen, we call them tadpoles. They're wannabes. We'll see if they become frogmen or not. I spent a lot of time with tadpoles, and I enjoyed mentoring those guys. I spent a ton of time with them.

Any free time I had, I poured into these guys, and eventually they would all ask me the same question, Ryan. They would all ask me, "Hey, do you think I'll make it?" Some people would ask me after a week. Some people would ask me after six months. And what I would say to all of them is, "If my opinion matters to you, you probably won't make it.

And in fact, all the time that we've spent together has actually had very little impact on whether or not you'll make it. I've just been trying to make you a better man. In the unlikely event that you make it to the SEAL program, I hope you'll show up as a stronger man. In the likely event that you quit or fail out of the program, you're gonna have to be a strong man to deal with that because it shatters your world when the dream that you had is ripped away from you." But in that lesson with mentoring these young guys, I discovered that every man and, and every woman's asking themself the same question, and that question is, "Am I who I think that I am?"

We all think something of ourself and we're looking for mirrors, we're looking for reflections that can tell us that I actually am that person. So let me answer your question by going back a little bit to the beginning of my story. I jumped into SEAL teams in a little bit of a non-standard way or into SEAL training in a non-standard way. I saw the Discovery Channel documentary, BUD/S Class 234 on YouTube, and two months later, I had a contract to go into the SEAL program. The first SEALs I ever met were my instructors.

That's not the standard story for a lot of people. Most students in, you know, the average age is twenty-four years old in the SEAL pipeline, guys who have been mentored by a SEAL for three, four years, spent lots of time preparing athletically. I always tell people I thought I was an athlete until I met one. I was a good athlete in high school, which means you're not very much of an athlete. If you're not a great, exceptional athlete in high school, you might be a good athlete.

So anyways, I made it to the-- started into the SEAL program with a lot of confidence. My recruiter, the guy who recruited me into the Navy, he said I was the most arrogant kid he'd ever talked to because I walked into his office, and I said, "I need you to write me a SEAL contract." And he said, "Well, you know, look, we gotta test you. We gotta do all these things." I said, "Okay, I'll take the test."

I'll fill out the paperwork. Then I came back, and he wanted me to do different programs. I said, "I'm not interested in any of that. Are you the one that's gonna help me, or do I need to go to another recruiter's office?" Like I had to convince him to write me the contract.

So then I get into the Navy, get my SEAL contract, and face nothing but discouragement. My roommate through the beginning of the SEAL program, this was his second time to SEAL training. He had quit earlier. He was the number one athlete in our class, and his dad was a Master Chief Navy SEAL, okay? So this guy, like how great, you would think that's great.

Like, man, this guy has a lot of experience, knows about this program. Well, he told me every single day, Ryan, he'd say, "Uncle Buck, you have no chance here." I was in the bottom third of our class athletically, was not great in that category, and he was number one, and his dad was a famous Navy SEAL. You'd think he would know all about the program. So fast-forward a little bit, we make it to San Diego, and as soon as we get to San Diego, this is where SEAL training happens.

The first day that we're there, I see this class that has finished Hell Week. Hell Week is one of the most difficult parts of SEAL training. You stay up for five days straight. It starts on a Sunday night. You go all the way until Friday.

You'll sleep for one hour Wednesday and for one hour Thursday. And in that time, you'll run over two hundred miles. The majority of that is with an inflatable boat on your head. I could go on and on about how brutal the training is. It's tough.

And I saw this class that had just finished, and they looked like they had been run over by a bus, and then the bus pulled over them and then backed over them again and then pulled over them. These guys could barely walk. They're on crutches. Guys are coughing up blood. I mean, it crushes you to go through this.

And when I saw that, I immediately got a picture of what I wanted. And I said to myself, "I'm gonna make it through this program, but I won't look like that when I finish." And I faced all kinds of discouragement. People telling me, "Hey, you don't belong here. Hey, you're not good enough."

We finally get to Hell Week, which is, you know, I'm fast-forwarding through a lot of the pieces here, but we finally get to Hell Week. I'm one of the youngest in the class. I'm one of two guys under twenty years old who makes it to this point and don't have very many friends at this point. The guys who had been my friends had all quit. I wasn't a top performer, so I wasn't well looked at.

Right before we're about to start Hell Week, my boat crew were sitting around talking to each other. They put you in this classroom where you wait for four hours, for five hours for Hell Week to begin, because I can tell you one of the lessons that you learn in the Navy is the hardest part of pain is the anticipation of the pain. They let you sit in there and brew before you go through the most difficult military training you'll ever go through. And so my boat crew were having a conversation. You know, the guys are asking each other, "Hey, do you think you'll make it?

Do you think you'll make it?" Well, my boat crew finally asks me, and they said, "You know, Uncle Buck, do you think you'll make it?" I said, "I don't think I'll make it. I know I'll make it. And on Saturday, when everyone's at med checks, when everyone's on crutches, I'm gonna go for a run on the beach by myself."

I created this picture for myself of where I wanted to be. And fast-forward to the end of Hell Week, I did that. Literally, you know, guys from my class went to the ICU after Hell Week. We started with nearly a hundred, finished with forty-four, and most guys were in brutal shape afterwards. On Saturday, I went for a run by myself on the beach.

I didn't even have any chafing, believe it or not. Most guys, the inside of their legs looks like hamburger meat from how chafed up they are. I didn't even chafe. And if you've ever been to Coronado, I ran down the beach, and I sat on the rocks right in front of the Del, and what I realized for myself was this is what I call my superpower, the superpower of perspective. I sat there and realized it didn't matter what other people had seen.

It didn't matter what other people had spoken. It matters what I had seen. This is one of my favorite stories in the Bible, Ryan. It's a very similar story. This is the story, if you know it, of when the Israelites have left Egypt, and they're about to go into the Promised Land.

And before they go into the Promised Land, God tells Moses to send in spies. So send in twelve spies. The twelve spies go. The twelve spies came back. Twelve spies, they all saw the same thing, but ten gave a different report than the two.

They saw the exact same thing, but ten of them said, "Man, this place is beautiful and wonderful, but there's no way that we could occupy this place. We don't have any weapons. We're not an army. These guys have weapons and fort-fortified walls and cities. There's no way that we could take this from them."

Two of the twelve said, "Surely, this is the land that God has for us." And again, this is the power of perspective, right? When you look at your life, when you look at the world, what do you see? And I'll tell you what informs perspective, and I'm circling back to answer your question, is beliefs, okay? Beliefs are the things that you know are true but cannot prove.

Right? And I mean prove in the scientific standpoint, verifiable, demonstrable, repeatable. That's what science, you know... Science has kind of lost its reputation in the last decade, but real science, the way that it was created, is supposed to be things that you can prove. Beliefs are things that you believe are true, but can't prove.

Ryan, I believe in God, and I can give you a lot of great evidence for who he is in my life, how he's changed me. I cannot scientifically prove the existence of God to you. I can just give you a lot of evidence. Let me give you two beliefs that I went into the SEAL program with that allowed me to do what I did there. From a young age, my dad would say this to me over and over, both my parents.

They would say, "Son, God has a plan for your life." They said it to me at five. They said it to me at 10. They said it to me at 15. Didn't really mean much to me, but I just kept hearing it over and over again.

And the second thing they would say to me is, "You can have anything you want in life if you're willing to pay the price for it." And again, that's... You have to believe that's true. Some people don't. Some people think that, whether it's God or the universe or whatever, that they're being withheld from, right?

I've chosen to believe and stake my life on if I'm willing to pay the price for something, if I believe in it, and if I'm willing to pursue it, that I can attain that thing. When you understand that you have purpose, right, whether you believe in God or not, when you understand that your life has a purpose, I do, and we know that you have potential, you can have anything you want as long as you're willing to pay the price for it. When you put purpose and potential together, I call that the infinite potential unlock. So that's what allowed me to go into this program. Whatever you do in life, whether it's the SEALs or start a big business or whatever, you're gonna have to take some risks, and there's just like the Israelites going into the promised land, you're gonna have to believe that you're gonna find success on the other end.

And so whatever your beliefs are, that's what's gonna come out in what you see. If you don't have the right perspective and the challenges that you're facing and the problems that you're facing, there's no way that you'll overcome. Let's say you weren't raised with someone who was giving you these lessons, and I completely agree, and I do this to my kids constantly. I had two great parents. We were very poor, lived in the middle of nowhere.

My parents were divorced. My dad was a mechanic on the railroad. My mom was a receptionist. We didn't have really anything, except I was blessed because I had love, right? So that was a really good kicker, right?

I had two parents that loved me and cared about me, but I didn't get lessons from them. They were just trying to get by doing the best they could. So what I try to do with my children is instill on them the lessons that I've had to learn over the course of my life, and many of them are very similar to what you're describing. My kids go to Catholic school and, and, and I'm reinforcing that to them. So I'm, I'm hoping that someday, you know, they'll sit on a podcast or wherever and be like, "Hey, my dad put some decent shit in my head when I was a kid, and it's working now," right?

I hope... You know, that's the hope. But, but my point is, or my question is, let's say that that, that wasn't your life, right? Your, your, your... You didn't have those lessons instilled, and you're sitting here, and you're struggling with this belief in yourself because maybe you haven't been able to prove it in any part of your life, or you, you've never seen that success that you hoped for, right?

How do you... How would you recommend, or how do you coach people on starting to transition that mindset from this hope-based mindset, "I hope I become this thing. I hope that I achieve this goal," to, "I see myself running on a Saturday on the beach by myself when everyone else is in the ICU, enjoying the success that I just achieved. I can see it. I believe it.

It's going to happen." Like, h- I know that's a big swing, but, like, what are some of the early steps that someone could do to start to crack and, and more from, ag- at least the way I'm describing it, from a, from a hope-based mindset to a belief-based mindset? Yeah. Let me... I'll, I'll answer your question in two ways.

I'll, I'll give some of my favorite scriptures with it, but then I'll also answer in a way that- Please ... people who, who maybe don't follow scripture would also understand. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, "God placed eternity in the human heart," and that's, you know, the reflection that there's something within all of us that's, that we, we realize we're more than just human, you know? I... One time I was hunting, Ryan. I was hunting a mountain lion, and I was tracking it, and then I'd been tracking it for a while.

I saw it. I was following it, and then I realized that I had done a circle. And it kind of came on me all at once, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I just slowly backed against a tree, and I sat there for probably 30 or 40 minutes expecting that mountain lion to be somewhere next to me. The mountain lion had circled on me. Yeah, I was gonna say, he started hunting you.

I never saw the mountain lion again. I eventually, after I sat there for 30 minutes and waited for the eyes to appear, I realized that he had scented me and then ran off. I say that to say mountain lion was way smarter than me that day, but no mountain lion or no animal has ever looked up at the stars and wondered, "Why am I here?" But what I know about every single person that's listened to this podcast has wondered, "Why am I here? What's my place?" and all this.

So there's a purpose within all of us. Scripture also says there's a way that seems right to a man, but in the end leads to death, and let me tell you what those two ways are. Most people spend their lives either running from pain or running towards pleasure. Most people spend their life running from pain or running towards pleasure, and both of those are finite loops. If you are running from pain, let's say pain is a grizzly bear, you're probably not going to outrun the grizzly bear just because they can run 30 miles an hour.

But we'll pretend that the grizzly bear is injured, and you somehow outrun him after he chased you for two or three miles through the forest. And if he does, by the time that you finally outrun him, you're going to be lost. You will fi-- You will pick up your head and say, "Where am I? How did I get here?" Because you didn't know where you were going.

You were running from something. That's how a lot of people live their lives. Or you're running towards pleasure, and the thing with pleasure, it's most people are familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If you read Abraham Maslow's papers, he talks about this. There's a part that I don't hear many people speak on.

Running towards pleasure, pleasure is on Maslow's hierarchy. He's got four base levels, which is, like, your survival needs. Hey, if you can't breathe, if you don't have any air, you'll fight really hard to get air and then some basic shelter and your basic needs. If you're starving to death, you'll fight really hard to get food until, you know, at some point, 500 cheeseburgers isn't that much better than 50 cheeseburgers, right? For all four of the first levels- This is your survival needs, this is relationship needs, even a sense of love and belonging.

You'll fight really hard for it until you get it, and then you don't want it so much anymore. If you're chasing after some level of pleasure or some level of dream that seems like a big deal to you, you'll fight really hard and, but the closer you get to it, the less hunger you'll have for it. But at the very top of Maslow's pyramid, uh, the top is what he calls self-actualization, what I call purpose. And again, he writes about this in his paper. He says that self-actualization is different than the lower four levels in such that the more you get of those, the less you desire of them.

He said the more you get of self-actualization and the more you get of purpose, the more you desire it. And the greatest life that you can live is a life of trying to understand your purpose, chasing after your purpose. And I'll tell you what, I like the way Charlie Kirk says it. He says, "There is a God and it's not you." And I would say similarly that you have a purpose and it's not about you.

People who don't believe in God, follow no religion, you can find plenty of great people who've said that they felt like their life meant more when they decided their life wasn't about them, when they decided to serve other people. And again, that's within all of us. And so what I can say is that you have a purpose and it's not about you, and your purpose is to serve something that's bigger than you. So again, even if you didn't grow up with parents like I had, you can find it in the world. There's evidence, I might not have scientific proof for you, but there is evidence that the life that I'm talking about living is the best type of life you can live.

So I just did a TED Talk back in February which addressed this topic from a certain angle, but was this idea that... It, actually the whole concept for the talk started out of Maslow's hierarchy. And the belief that I had... So completely agree with everything you just said, except I think there is this false stage between the fourth stage and the fifth stage, self-ac- actualization, in which we could potentially get corrupted, and it happens because of status, because of our desire for status, in a community- Right ... in our family, with an individual, et cetera. And what I mean by that is we believe that we need a purpose, yet the purpose we choose is a purpose that actually puts us in a status position that we desire.

Yeah. We don't actually desire the effort of the purpose. Yeah. Right? And we find ourselves down these paths, and we could even be successful to a certain extent, but ultimately, I, you know, this is where I see those, you know, y- you meet a millionaire or, you know, I haven't met too many billionaires, but, you know, you meet people that are very rich and, you know, there's many in our community, and some of them are happy as hell.

Good family, they like their life, they have work they do, they give to char- awesome. And then you'll meet someone else who has all the money, rips the Ferrari down Main Street of, of Saratoga, sits in the bo- you know, I live in, near Saratoga Race Course, so you know, sits in the prime box in the seats and watch, yet they're miserable all the time constantly. And it's like what's the difference between those two? And in my opinion, the defining characteristic is often that they lived a life based a, a purpose, they had a purpose based on status and not a purpose based on what you just described. And one, I'm interested in your take on that idea, that concept, and two, if you do agree, how do we sidestep that from your opinion?

How do we avoid that? How do we keep status as a driving force? H- how do we not allow our purpose to get corrupted by a desire or a belief that you need to have status? Because people are gonna tell you, like when I tell people that I wanna grow this podcast to be one of the top podcasts in the world, and I love bringing individuals like yourself, and if there's one idea someone takes, just one in our time together, that take, just tunes somebody up and gets them to even make a micro change in their life that sets them on a better direction, every bit of effort and time that I spend putting this thing together is worthwhile to me. That's why I love doing it, right?

People look at me and they're like, "You wanna be a podcaster?" I'm like, well- ... if... You know what I mean? Like, yeah. And so, but I don't give a shit, right?

Like I have this, this piece of wood, one of my audience members made this for me, the GNF, you know, give no fucks, right? We tend to be a little crass on the show. So but he made this for me, sent it to me in the mail. I was so happy. I have it right here behind me.

It's a good reminder. But it's this idea that like I just... I meet so many people that are like, "If only my wife supported me, I would do this," or, "If only I didn't have kids, I would do this," or you know, "H- my buddies give me a ton of shit for wanting to do this," and then they don't do it. And it's like that's such a barrier, such an anchor for people. And, and I'm sure there, just like you said, 19 years old, the whole way, people, "You're not big enough.

You're not strong enough. You're not performing well enough. You're too y-" I'm sure there's a million reasons, but you plowed through it. How did you avoid- So- ... letting that status impact you? You, you're already answering the question, and I'll pull out some of what you said, but first I wanna talk about why people quit, right?

You're referencing, you know, me going through SEAL training. Not just in going through the program, but also in working with students afterwards. There's, Stanford and Harvard both have had like long-running studies, like I think almost 20 years now, on them trying to figure out why do some people make it through this program. I think it's pretty simple. You interview students who quit, okay?

You interview my roommate who quit. All of them, you can summarize their answers down to this, you can summarize why they quit down to this. When you go and ask them, "Hey, why did, why did you give up?" 'Cause I can tell you, anyone who makes it to Hell Week, which is the fourth week of training, you're capable, physically you're capable of making it through the program. The next test is your resolve. It's a test of your character.

But physically, to have gotten that far, your body can do it. And so you go interview students who quit in Hell Week, and you can summarize their answers down to this. They'll say, "I just decided I don't wanna do this anymore. It's harder than I wanted it to be." Now you go talk to anybody who made it through the program and say, "You just completed the most difficult week in all of military training.

How did you do it?" They will tell you a story. They'll talk about somebody that's not them The one guy will say, "Well, the guy in my boat crew next to me." Another guy will start talking about his mom. Another guy will start talking about his grandpa.

But they will start talking to you about something that's not them. So it's really why. It's not... And, and I would say to answer your question on how some people get stuck, they don't actually get into the self-actualization category, is because they think that purpose is a what. Purpose is not a what.

Purpose is a why, right? And so it's not really what to, to make that a little more literal or literal or easier to understand, is a lot of people will take purpose and they'll make it a castle. My friend Charlie back here, it's just a few days past May 3rd. My friend Charlie died May 3rd, 2016. Died with a smile on his face, and that wasn't because his family received a $400,000 death benefit when he died.

It's 'cause he died for believing for what... He died fighting for what he believed in, right? And so I use this analogy to help organizations understand, how do I get people to fight like that for what we're fighting for? Because I've been around a group of people that will fight to the death, and they'll do it proudly. And so that's within people.

But when you... Really what great culture is, culture is not about fun, culture is not even about a sense of belonging. Great culture in organizations is that, is that people say that my effort is worth it. And when it's worth it to people, they'll fight to the death. And so it, again, the organizational analogy, a lot of what people think purpose is or, or even business is created as their purpose, is what I would call building a castle.

And what do castles do? Castles collect gold, and they protect the gold from the outside. And if you've ever been a part of an organization where there's a, a wrong culture or people won't really do any more than they're paid to do, it's 'cause they feel like the organization is collecting gold for the CEO or the business owner or whoever. Now, on the flip side of that, instead of building a castle, which if you have a castle-building culture, a castle-building organization, you can build a castle, but you will have to pay for every single brick in the wall. There's no free labor in building a castle.

But instead, if your organization or, like, your life purpose is instead of about building a castle, about me, my protection, my, my, my gold, instead it's about killing a dragon, right? Here's the thing about dragons. Nobody likes them. They terrorize the entire land. And so Ryan, if I start talking to you about this dragon that burned down my farm, you might say to me, "You know, that dragon burned down my sister's farm.

I'm coming with you." I don't even have to pay you to come with me. You believe in what we're fighting against. And so it's, it's killing a dragon versus building a castle. All really what this is about is instead of what you do, it's about why you're doing it.

I don't have to conscript labor to come get you to kill a dragon with me if that dragon has wronged you or your family. I would say that purpose is there's a dream inside each person, but when I first have these conversations with people, one of the things I ask them when they're asking me, "What's my purpose?" I say, "What makes you the most mad? What really pisses you off?" 'Cause that's... What's gonna piss you off is what some of those dragons have been in your life.

And the things that-- Just like I'm, I'm a weird dude. I'm-- For the people that spend a r- a lot of time around me, I always thank them for putting up with me, 'cause I have some strange eccentricities. There's things that bother me that don't bother most people, but I know what my dragons are. And so to answer your question on how to not, like, top out, it's really to know why you do what you do instead of just know what it is that you want. Do you think everybody intrinsically inside of them has that why purpose? 'Cause, you know, I've met people, I've talked to people, and, you know, you get to that second level, and they start...

And I- They do, but I'll tell you, here's the challenge, and this is where faith takes people down a journey. I don't know of any path that's a non-faith path that'll teach you about sacrifice, that'll teach you about surrender. Because in following God, essentially this is the story of Abraham and Isaac. God comes to Abraham and says, "Hey, I have this great dream for you." Abraham is just a dude in the desert, and God says, "Hey, I'm gonna make you the father of many nations.

I want you to leave where your family is. I want you to leave all these things that you know and go to this place. I'm gonna make you great." Awesome. Okay?

There's a 20-year period where Abraham's just, like, hanging out, waiting for God to do his part. Fast-forward that part. God finally gives him a son, gives him Isaac, and what does he ask him to do? He says, "Put it on the altar." Right?

Are you willing to give it up? And that was a test for Abraham that God wanted to know, do you love the gift giver more than the gift? And so again, it's not about, not just about what you do, it's about why you do it. God gave Abraham the dream, but then he tested him, and he said, "Do you love the dream more than you love me?" And so where people get stuck in their purpose as well is that they're unwilling to go through this surrender, this level of, "Hey, I'll, I'll give it all up."

I can tell you for me, this isn't necessarily other people's story, but for me, I said, "God, this is what I want, but if you don't want it, I don't want it either." And when you can make that level of surrender... 'Cause what I knew, Ryan, is that God has a plan for my life. I believe the plan is that I would become a SEAL, but maybe it's not. Maybe God's brought me here to teach me a lesson. I don't know, but I'm gonna give everything that I've got, and I'm gonna continue to believe that I'm supposed to be here until I'm not.

And so that's where people get stuck, when you start to hoard, when you start to say, "But no, this is mine." What if Abraham had said to God like, "No, Isaac is mine"? Then the covenant with Abraham would have ended there. And so that's where people get stuck in their purpose. They get stuck in following their dream, is they're not willing to do the surrender part.

It's an important part of our life, and if you get stuck on that, you won't be able to get to your highest level. Could you maybe expand upon that idea of surrender? It's control. The world feels so out of control. We- Man's way is control.

Man's way is certainty. God's way is faith. God's way is transformation. It's what we want so much is like, I want to know for sure. We are so transactional.

You know, I love it when Hollywood people, like, praise God, but I don't like... I can't remember a good Hollywood testimony that I liked because almost all of them will tell a story of, "I was in this difficult place, and I said, 'God, if you do this, I'll do that.'" God doesn't work that way. Yeah. You cannot deal with God.

You cannot transaction with God. He says, "I know who I am, and I'll show it to you. You're just gonna have to trust me. You're just gonna have to follow me." Where people come to this place of, for most people, Ryan, where most people come to a place of willingness to surrender is when they finally decide h- that, "Hey, maybe my way is not working so well."

Right? When your mom gets cancer, your wife gets cancer suddenly, or terrible things happen to you, or you believe so much for something and you're wondering, "Why did this happen?" That's where people start to surrender and they say, "You know what? I'm tired of trying to do it my way. Maybe I'm interested in your way."

One of the most challenging or difficult stories in the Bible is Job. God takes everything away from him, and it's a great story. Read it, learn about it. If you don't know, God ends up fulfilling everything that he took. He restores everything that he took from him, but God never tells him why.

Maybe you've read the story of Job but didn't catch that part. God never comes to Job and say, "Hey, I, I let Satan attack you because he was testing you. I knew you would pass, and I knew I would restore you." God never explained it to him. And so we're not always gonna get an explanation for why things happen to us in our life.

One of my scriptures that I live a lot of my life on, Ryan, is Romans 8:28. Says, "God uses all things for the good of those who love him." And a lot of people struggle with that scripture when bad things happen to them. Well, the way that I read scripture and interpret scripture is that it's absolutely true. And so if there's a disagreement between me and scripture, who's wrong?

It's me, right? So if God's saying that these things are good, is his definition of good wrong, or is my definition of good wrong? And that's where, again, we've gotta learn to surrender, to trust in him and say, "Hey, I'm gonna follow your plan instead of me trying to tell you what my plan is." Garrett, I could talk to you all day, man. I mean, I feel like we haven't even scratched the surface of the different shit that you do.

This has been incredible. I wanna be respectful of your time and of the audience's. Dude, you have a tremendous Instagram channel. I love the stuff you put out. You have coaching programs.

You have a lot of other work. If people wanna get deeper into your world, which I know they're gonna want to, where would you send them so they can start their journey with what you're creating? Yeah, I would say check us out on The Impossible Life podcast, where we talk about minds, we talk about leadership, talk about mindset, talk about faith all the time. Or check me out on Instagram. And either at The Impossible Life or on Instagram, you can find other links and places to connect with me further.

As always, I'll have those links, whether you're watching on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts, just scroll down. You'll be able to connect with Garrett. Highly, highly recommend that you do. Dude, I'd love to have you back sometime, 'cause literally we got to, like, one-tenth of the stuff- ... that I wanted to chat with you about. For sure.

But this was so incredible. And to me, I like to focus on mindset because as you've so articulately described in, in weaving both faith and the secular ideas together, if you don't... Tactics, strategy, all that kinda stuff that people get hung up on, if you're not a- approaching those with, I like to use the word filters, but mindset, framework, whatever, it doesn't matter. It's not gonna work, or if it does, it won't last. Or like you said, you'll get caught in these finite loops, and you'll never actually get to where you wanna go.

So when I can go deep on mindset with someone like yourself, I tend to be very selfish and take that. Plus, it's my podcast, so I can do whatever the fuck I want. Dude, appreciate the hell out of you. Would love to have you back someday. Thank you so much.

Absolutely. Honored to be here. In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Happy holidays. Want to give your host a gift?

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