Ep. 21 Talking with Jason Henderson

[00:00:12] Speaker A: You're listening to selling the dream. This isn't an interview, and we're not journalists, but each week we'll ask our guests to open up and share their secrets to business success. Let's have a conversation and have some fun. [00:00:25] Speaker B: Hey, everybody. Welcome to selling the dream, a podcast for entrepreneurs, salespeople, and anybody else that cares to listen here. We have a lot of fun. We talk about sales, we talk about being self employed. We talk about the fun, the challenges that come along with it. And hopefully you'll gain some wisdom from us or more importantly, the guests that we bring on. We have a fantastic, fantastic show for you today, a guest that we are super excited about and can't wait to bring them in. But before we get into our guests, I want to introduce my co host from another coast, Joe Iredell, coming to us from California. Of course, I'm on the east coast. Joe's on the west coast. What's happening, Joe? [00:01:10] Speaker C: Not much, man. Excited for another one of these podcasts, bro. Things are cooking out here. [00:01:19] Speaker B: Life is what's cooking. What's going on? [00:01:23] Speaker C: Staying busy. My businesses are popping nonprofit. We finally got our 501 C official designation, so we are all donations are tax deductible. So it's fantastic, man. It's great, man. We got our first event planned in the beginning of next month, so that's going to be awesome. We have a bunch of military spouses and families that are going to come and come to the gym, and we're going to teach some of the women some jiu jitsu and self defense. And then I have a financial expert to talk about family, you know, budgeting and finances and things like that. So it's going to be a. It's going to be a really great day, and it's all free for all the military families. [00:02:08] Speaker B: I was literally just thinking about that today, Joe, because I had a, one of the loan officers that I work with was just, we were just kind of chatting and going back and forth, and he had mentioned that it was a military spouse who, it was a vet who was trying to pre qualify for a loan. And one, they got into it and realized he had missed multiple payments over the last six months. And the reality is his wife pays the bills. And I think that that's something that's needed is the financial kind of support, especially if the vet is deployed. I don't know if the vet was deployed in this particular instance, but it does seem like from a role responsibility standpoint, you know, it would make sense for the wives and the people at home to know, to have better financial awareness. [00:03:03] Speaker C: I mean, it goes beyond that. And, you know, a lot of the guys that we train with are military right by Pendleton. So, you know, it's. It's everything. It's just a support for the. The spouse of the wives who are holding down the fort while our guys are out there fighting for us. [00:03:23] Speaker A: So. [00:03:24] Speaker B: Yo, tell me about AJ, man. We got some big news. Did he get the spot? [00:03:28] Speaker C: Ah, yeah. He's gonna be on national tv, so I can't give too many details yet because of whatever, but he'll be. You're gonna be seeing them on a big, big time spot coming up soon. So he's excited. [00:03:44] Speaker B: I'll have to get his autograph when we're in Cobb. [00:03:46] Speaker C: He's excited about it. It should be good. So he's a. He's a great. He's a great kid, man. And, you know, he's. [00:03:52] Speaker B: That's. That is awesome. [00:03:54] Speaker C: Dude's confidence. So more. More of that to come when I can actually say it. I don't know how this whole Hollywood business works, but I know that we have to be pretty tight lipped with stuff that's coming out. But I can confirm that he will be. You'll be seeing him in your living. [00:04:11] Speaker B: That's cool, man. What's he going to be talking about? [00:04:14] Speaker C: So he's mainly surfing. His accomplishments with his surfing, and then also his involvement in some of the non. Of some of the charity work that he's been doing and so forth. And then with this new. This new charity that we're doing, so he's. He's had a big hand in that as well. And so they just want to. He's just a cool kid, man. And they want to. They want to get us his stuff out there, so that's good, man. [00:04:42] Speaker B: That's cool. It sounds like you got a lot popping, brother. [00:04:45] Speaker C: It's. I'm blessed, man. You know? [00:04:51] Speaker B: Well, it actually, you know what? This. [00:04:52] Speaker A: I think this. [00:04:53] Speaker B: This conversation is going to dovetail pretty cool with our guest today. I want to introduce our guest. Our guest today is. Is Jason Henderson. Jason Henderson is a master chief special operator, Navy SeAL, former Navy SeaL, retired in 2020, having served 30 plus years in the US Navy, completing 16 combat deployments. He adapted battlefield tactics into de escalation of force techniques, utilizing critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and stress mitigation that will enhance the performance of law enforcement agencies worldwide. He's the CEO of Henderson Security Consulting, LLC. Earned his black belt and jiu jitsu and judo brazilian jiu jitsu and judo. I gotta tell you, I think this just basically your name tag says badass, Jason. That's what it sounds like to me. Welcome to the show. [00:05:45] Speaker A: Thanks. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I don't feel like that at 52 years old, but I had a pretty good run. [00:05:53] Speaker B: Very, very cool. So, Jason, tell me, I guess let's. Let's start with. Let's start with where you are now. You. You're. You own a company, four pillars, correct? Is the name of the company. Tell us a little bit about the company and what it is you do. [00:06:11] Speaker A: Yeah. So four pillars collective is my nonprofit, and it was. I created it during 2020, if you guys remember. It was COVID. It was all the riots, and the whole country was in mayhem. And so, you know, when I first retired, I wasn't sure what I was going to do. So I was kind of just hanging out of my house, you know, wandering around in a bathrobe, drinking pints of wine in the morning, and I couldn't go out. I couldn't do anything. You know, the gyms were locked up. You know, I was watching television. I just saw all this mayhem that was going on. I go, okay, I'm a person that tries to find solutions to problems. So I'm like, what are they all complaining about? Okay, they're complaining about police brutality. So, like, okay, well, I'll go do something about it. I know a little bit about hand to hand combat. So I created a nonprofit to train law enforcement in underfunded cities. There's no department that's defunded, but they're underfunded. And there's also a lack of willingness from police chiefs and stuff for them to get the type of training needed so that they have good. A good image and they use good de escalation to practice tactics and to practice. Even then, though, when I did it, I started going, traveling around, mainly Chicago and New York, and a lot of police chiefs were like, we don't want Navy SeALs coming here and weaponizing our law enforcement, which is exactly the opposite of what it was that I was teaching. I was teaching purely de escalation of force, but it's all about image. So I actually created a video series on BJJ fanatics, Bernardo Faria. And just to get the information out so that cops can get the information and security professionals can get the information, just get better at what it is that they do. [00:07:53] Speaker B: Wow, Joe, you were supposed to remind me you failed at the one thing I asked you to do. [00:07:59] Speaker C: I didn't want to break your flow, bro. So how's it good? [00:08:03] Speaker B: This guy he's chasing. I might need another co host. I'm just kidding. [00:08:09] Speaker A: Real quick, before we get further along. [00:08:11] Speaker B: We always play that two truce and a lie game. [00:08:13] Speaker A: Okay. All right. [00:08:13] Speaker B: So if you could give us two truths in a lie and by the time we're done, Joe's going to try and figure out which one's the lie. [00:08:20] Speaker A: Okay. So I have 2500 jumps and I've never had a cutaway, which means I've never had to go to my reserve parachute. I got blown up in combat by one of my fellow assaulters when he threw a grenade on the other side of a building and I ate it. And I once lost was in a hand to hand combat situation with a Taliban fighter and I broke my hand and a buddy had to come in and save me. Wow. [00:08:53] Speaker C: Oh my goodness gracious. [00:08:55] Speaker B: I don't care which one of these is a lie. Either way the two of these are true. That's amazing. That's amazing. [00:09:02] Speaker C: That's a tough one. [00:09:03] Speaker A: All right. [00:09:04] Speaker B: Hand to hand combat with a Taliban member. Wow. Okay. So do you mind if we go back and talk a little bit about the seals and your career there? Tell us a little bit about your background. What made you want to be a navy Seal? [00:09:23] Speaker A: I was a fluke. You know, most of the seals have read a book and have the posters on their wall and stuff like that. I was in Oregon. That's where I'm originally from. I was logging. I was a lumberjack. And the timber industry was put on hold in my area because of environmental terrorism, which is my first exposure to terrorism. And so as the company was kind of shutting down or undersizing, I was like, okay, I had already dropped out of college. I was kind of at a dead end. The military made sense. I went to all the recruiters. I didn't like what the army of marines had offered just from a personality standpoint. I'm not big on regimented rules and things like that. So I went to the air force and Navy and originally I wanted to become a cargo pilot because I thought I came from a small town in Oregon, 1800 people. I just wanted to get out of there. So I thought I'd become an airline pilot and travel around the world and meet hot chicks and eat great food. The Navy recruiter's like, you're in really good shape. You should think about the seal thing. You do the same thing but climb mountains. So I enlisted for four years and then got the hang of it. And 30 years later, I got out. [00:10:31] Speaker B: And I think Navy SeALs get more chicks than airline pilots. [00:10:35] Speaker A: That's true. That's absolutely. And we actually take their chicks. [00:10:39] Speaker B: I bet. I bet. So, in your time in the seals, this is probably such a cliched question, but I am curious. What was it you learned, you know, while you were in, not even in seal training, but your time in the seals, what was it that you learned that you've been able to parlay into the knowledge that's helping you run a successful nonprofit, which, for all intents and purposes, is still entrepreneurship at the end of the day. Right. You still still have to lead. You still have to create value. You have to, you know, create a vision and get people to follow you. So, you know, what were some of the things you learned over your military career that you've been able to kind of parlay to your entrepreneurial career? [00:11:18] Speaker A: You know, really bargaining or sales? This is what your podcast has a lot to do with. Everything is a sell. You know, I had to sell to my wife why I need to stay in the military or why I need to go overseas. I need to sell to my boss why we should do this type of a mission versus doing something else. I have to sell it all the way up to the president of the United States on why my unit should be picked first for us to go overseas. And then even when I get overseas, I have to negotiate with, you know, other government agencies and non NGo's, and I and, you know, Taliban people who have left the Taliban groups and are trying to fight with, join our force. And there's all, you know, from a tribe all the way up to the president. I have to negotiate with everybody. So that's the biggest one. You know, I went to a course at Wharton's for bargaining for advantage. I also went to a negotiation course at Harvard, and I learned quite a bit from there. But really, all I saw more than anything was the parallels between what I was doing in the military and what everybody else is doing on the outside. [00:12:20] Speaker B: Like reinforcing stuff that you already knew. [00:12:23] Speaker A: Same things, you know, do your due diligence and, you know, build rapport, and all those things need to happen first before I just go in for a quick sale. [00:12:37] Speaker C: So let me. Let me kind of, first, I have to tell you, I am a student of jiu jitsu. I love it, and it's changed my life. Talk to us a little bit about. I mean, obviously, you're at a pretty high level. Talk to us about some of the parallels of that with business and some of the things that you've extrapolated from your jiu jitsu career with how that paralyse. [00:13:07] Speaker A: Sure. I mean, how jiu jitsu? Well, for me, it's a direct result, because not only do I train law enforcement, but I also train families in self protection. You know, I train a lot of daughters. I have a couple daughters there. So just the physical aspect of it directly is correlated for me. But, you know, it's just, it's all the other things that go into it. You know, you have to get up when you don't want to. You have to go and do hard things. And no matter how beat up you are, you got to keep going to the grindstone and incrementally improve constantly, and not just trying to hurry up and go for the big win, but take your time and take your losses and innovate and develop from it and then continue moving your way up the chain. [00:13:50] Speaker C: So I find that a lot of people, a lot of businesses get stuck, and, you know, they either, and Ken, KJ and I talk about this a lot, and I get frustrated when I talk to people with great skill sets, great ideas, and just can't take that jump to start the business or to grow the business or things like that. I find that a lot. And this is, you know, maybe you can speak to this a little bit. I find that most people are conditioned to think in such a way that everything needs to be within a box. And the reason why they can't make that transition is because it doesn't fit with that, what they've been taught. What are some of the things that you've seen, or how are some of the things that you've been able to overcome and create thinking outside of the box? [00:14:53] Speaker A: Well, you know, if we're still in the parallels with jiu jitsu or any fighting sport, really, it's frightening. If you look at it from the outside, it looks daunting. And really, you just got to put a foot in the door and just go, well, let me just walk into it and let me take a look and let me see what it looks like, and let me go get on the mat. Let me put on a gi, maybe just sit for a couple classes. It's the same thing with business. I would rather go out and try five businesses and fail at four and learn everything from those four to get my fifth one right. And even with my daughter, she's twelve, but I'm already thinking ahead on different businesses and stuff that I can help her to create. By the time she's 18. So even whether she chooses to go to college or not, it doesn't matter to me. I'd rather she start three or four businesses during that time, fail at all of them, and then find where her niche is and then go with that and go in that direction. [00:15:43] Speaker B: That. [00:15:44] Speaker C: It's funny that you say that because I've been saying that for so long that I feel like there's such peer pressure and there's so much emphasis put on kids, societal pressure, go to college, do this, take on this debt, whatever. And I have, I have five kids and everyone, my oldest is 14, my youngest is two. And people ask me like, oh, that's going to be a lot of college. And I'm like, I don't even know if I want them. If they want to go to get the college experience, I'm gonna buy them a franchise on campus and let them run it for four years. And then, you know, if they run it into the ground, cool. If not, we got something. But do you find that, you know, kids these days are kind of misguided by the, you know, it starts when. [00:16:32] Speaker A: They'Re like three years old. Like people are coming on, what are you gonna be when you grow up? She's three man princess, astronaut. I don't like. She's gonna be 1020 things by the time she dies, you know? So let's not start pigeonholing kids into one thing or another. You know, my oldest daughter, we've already found two of her talents, and it was just by trying something different every week. Let's try soccer, eh? That didn't work. Ballet? No, it didn't work, you know, this or that. And finally it was, it ended up being a musician and a javelin thrower and she's a great fighter and I'm like, you know how lucky you are at twelve? Just find all these things that you're naturally gifted at. Now we can just do talent development at that point and hone it wherever she's passionate. But even if with all those things now at twelve, if she changes her mind, great, let's change it, let's evolve it, and whatever you want to become, let's help you succeed. [00:17:24] Speaker B: One of our guests was a, she was the dean of the College of Entrepreneurship at Drexel University in Philadelphia, and Joe had such a hard time with, with the whole concept of college of entrepreneurship because it's like those two worlds, I feel like barely did they ever cross. I was, look, I was into it because I'm like, wow, you know, because entrepreneurship is a little bit more art than science, and there's been trial and error, and failure is a big part of it and all these other things. And, like, how do you teach the technical skills when it comes to starting a business or a startup? And I was into the idea of it. Joe was like, I asked her straight up. [00:18:08] Speaker C: I said, how do you get accepted to the school? You fail every class, and then you pass one, and then that's it. Hey, there you go. Congrats. You're an entrepreneur. Congratulations. [00:18:18] Speaker A: You know what kind of drives me crazy? I'll sit and talk with a lot of leadership groups from various companies and give them, you know, how, leadership development courses and talent development stuff. And they all start with, well, I went to this school, or I went to that school. Like, dude, you were 20. Like, you're 50 now. Why are you talking about college gives a shit? That's the only thing you've got to open with this discussion is what college you went to. Like, who cares? [00:18:46] Speaker B: It was the. The collegiate industrial complex. [00:18:49] Speaker A: Yeah, it really is. [00:18:50] Speaker B: You know, they get you young, and they start. They start feeding you that. And I'm a college graduate. Like, I'm not. I'm not, you know, I'm not against it, but it isn't right for everybody. And I personally have all kinds of opinions about it that are for another conversation. But. But it is. It is cool that you. Here you are, you spend 30 years in the military. All the while, you had this entrepreneurial drive inside of you. [00:19:19] Speaker A: Were you. [00:19:19] Speaker B: Were you doing anything in your time in the military that was kind of feeding that or preparing you for when you. When you retired and started, you know, started these. These ventures? [00:19:31] Speaker A: Well, I was. I didn't have a, you know, I didn't have a side job or a side hustle when I was in, but my job essentially was that, you know, especially at the tier one level, you have to go into an area overseas. You have to create a firebase there, and just, there's not like a magic person that comes in there and builds a base for you. You know, you have to start very small. You have to kind of infiltrate the area, and you have to, you know, negotiate with some of the local populace to kind of get them on the team. And hopefully you have some commonalities, and then you have to, from there, figure out infrastructure and your budget and approvals and red tape, especially in the military. And, you know, all the government issues and all the agenda driven thing that each person wants a different part of what you're doing. And. Yeah. So coming out of the military and seeing it, I'm like, I've been here 100 times all over. Doesn't faze me at all. I can maintain the momentum, but one of the things that I really became good at is contingency planning. I always plan for what's the worst possible thing that's going to happen at any given moment, and how am I going to negotiate those challenges so that I'm constantly staying fluid and maintaining the momentum. No operation I ever went on went exactly as planned. We always had to pull some audibles throughout, but it's fine because that's the way we train. We used to train to failure, you know, so I. I expected it. If I was going to go into an area and build a firebase or, you know, build a militia or whatever it is I was trying to do, I was like, what's all the thousands of things that can happen based off of history and just based off, let's all use our imagination. And I would sit down once I came up with some concepts and go to the collective, and then everybody has. Brings in their challenges, and then we red cell it and figure out how. What's the best ways to work our way through this, should any of these things happen. And being that prepared and doing that due diligence, it saved me both on the inside of the government and the. [00:21:17] Speaker B: Outside, for our listeners and for me, too. Tell me, what. What is. What is the collective? What does Red sell it mean? [00:21:26] Speaker A: Sure, the collective is just a group of people. That's just my peers. Red selling is one of the things that we would do is, and they do it on the outside with companies. And I do do some audits for smaller family organizations, but I'll take a look at where they're at, and then how I would take over their company and how I would destroy their business, whether it's from within or from the outside. We did, for instance, we Red celled Apple a while ago, and we went into the. They said their security is good to go. We broke into their place, like a dozen times. Some of our guys went underneath and placed giant barrels underneath the cafeteria that sits like 10,000 people, and taped it off saying, do not touch. Yeah, so, wow. I don't want to say which company I already audited, but it's smart. It's smart for organizations to do that and test their vulnerabilities out so that they're prepared for when any challenges should happen. [00:22:25] Speaker C: So let me. It's actually strikes, not strikes, I don't know. But this can we would you agree that the average American is woefully unprepared for any kind of conflict? And it's very important for them to develop skill sets that, you know, to be prepared for these types of things. And then, you know, not to get political or anything, but our landscape right now is completely different than it was even ten years ago. And, you know, I know for myself and for my family, we talk about these things we have when we go out in public, situational awareness. And, you know, there's a lot of different stuff these days that I think that people really should, should hone these skills. And, you know, businesses, to your point, don't even realize how vulnerable they are. You know, is this something that you offer for individuals or businesses? And is that part of. [00:23:26] Speaker A: I do. I train families where I make the most of my money, and I've only done it word of mouth. It started off, actually in Silicon Valley. I started training some families out there, and then word spread. A lot of them fled to places like Nashville and South Carolina and another spot. So I'm spending a lot of time there these days, training families, preparing a lot of daughters that are getting ready to go off to college. Dads are coming to me saying, hey, she's academically prepared, but she has no situational awareness, so I prepare them for that. I have worked with real estate agents. They were like, hey, we keep going into homes that have a homeless person in there, a weirdo in there, a stalker in there, and, you know, we learn how to defend ourselves. And again, it goes down to that situational awareness and being alert to threats and being prepared from a contingency planning standpoint of how you're going to respond to those threats. And even how I train, I train physically on being a capable person. For my 50th birthday, I did a strength feat, for one, because I can't stop myself from deteriorating. That's eventually going to happen. But what I can do is get so far ahead of where I should be that I can stay capable for as long as possible, but there should never be a day in my life that I can't pick up my entire family and carry them 100 yards off the X at the same time. And, you know, the strength feat that I did was to carry 50 people off the x that were morbidly obese so that I could get them to safety. Because you never know when you're going to drive up on a massive crash or a building on fire, whatever it needs and somebody needs help and you don't want to become a casualty also, while you're trying to help your fellow man, you know, like you already mentioned, if you remember the last. I don't try to watch my language. If you remember the last election year, it was a bit of a shit show. And I foresee this year being even worse. FEMA's already come out and said, hey, plan for long. Extended blackouts, social unrest, active shooters. You know, if you have any period of time, you say more than a month of a blackout where people don't have food, water, any of the basic needs, they're all going to start turning on each other and go after their neighbors. One of my neighbors will say, well, I got a generator. Like, well, do you think that the rest of the neighborhood starving to death and looking at their children isn't going to look through the window and see you make a roast every night? You're going to be the first guy that we get rid of. So, yeah, being prepared for any possible contingency is a very smart thing to do. [00:25:57] Speaker B: Wow, that's kind of. That's kind of throwing me for a loop here, because I. Maybe. Maybe I'm not looking around enough. But you're saying that it's actually being discussed as a legitimate possibility that this unrest could be at the level you're saying it could be. [00:26:15] Speaker A: Well, yeah. And everybody's been warning about it. They've been warning about both EMP attacks. There's been some small attacks on power stations in California and other places that shut the town down. They see how long it takes for them to get them back up and repaired. So you learn from it, and you learn how to take it out. And we're already saying cyber is going to be the biggest threat. So I'm imagining either a large EMP or a large cyber attack on our infrastructure. They only need to take out nine power stations, and we're all out of power. And they don't expect the majority of the populace to last a year, should that happen. [00:26:48] Speaker B: Scary. [00:26:49] Speaker A: Not to be an alarmist, but if you're prepared, if you're at least thinking about it a little bit, like, what do I need? What is Maslow's law? What do I need to survive? It's smart. It's smart on any level. If a hurricane hits or if there's some kind of global disaster or we go to war, whatever happens, at least you'll be more prepared than your neighbors, which is really all you need to be. [00:27:09] Speaker C: Yeah, I feel like there's simple, you know, for people listening, and I try to preach this, but there's simple things that you can do in your life to be ready. And, you know, I carry. I now carry a blowout kit in my truck every time. So, you know, that's something that you don't know. Accidents, mass shooter, things like that. Like, you know, I feel like every person should prepare themselves to be an asset as opposed to a liability when these situations happen. And, you know, KJ, we talked about this just being in better physical shape, physical condition. You, if you're a father, if you're a husband and, you know, you owe it to your family to be. To be able to handle situations and protect and so forth. And, you know, hats off to KJ. I think it's. How long has it been since you quit drinking? It's been two some years for me. I train every day and, you know, I think KJ is on that 47 days. There you go, buddy. But that's it. You know, and these are the things that I think that are really important. And for me personally, this is taken so much of a different level into my business and into my relationships and so forth. And it started from, I live in southern California and people are literally pouring over the border and we are seeing them and it is scary. And you can sit, you can curl up in a ball, and you can say, uh oh, you know, what do we do? Or whatever, blame people or the one piece of mind that I have is like, well, I'm going to do something about this. And should the shit hit the fan, I'm at least going to be a little bit more prepared than if I did nothing. So that's really cool that you offer that, that kind of training, Jason. I think that a lot more people should be, you know, looking into it and reaching out and finding places to learn those skills. [00:29:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, it's especially me as a father, it's my responsibility to be capable. Well, I have younger children. You know, I'm 52, and I have a twelve year old and a three year old. There should never be a day in my life that I can't pick them up and get them out of harm's way ever. You know, so it's good for me because it gives me a lifelong goal. But I also just want to be a capable person for the citizenry, for my community, for my friends and family and everybody around me. You know, I want to do the most good that I possibly can. [00:29:40] Speaker B: Let me ask you a question, if you don't mind. I want to kind of get a little more in depth with your work. You help families. And one of the things you mentioned is your daughter, and you've helped other daughters who are preparing for college. What are some of the things, the saying you don't know? What you don't know, what are some of the things that these parents and kids who are getting ready to go to college, what are some of the things they don't know? What, what do you teach? But more importantly, like, what are you shocked? Like, over and over again, you're like, I can't believe I'm the one teaching you this. [00:30:14] Speaker A: Yeah. The biggest one is complacency. You know, families leave their doors unlocked. They come in and out of their home freely. There's. They don't take any precautions whatsoever. You know, that's your stats, your fortress. That's your safe place. So you need to make sure that place is locked down and that nobody can just freely walk into it. It happened right here in my neighborhood, and it was just a mentally handicapped kid or full grown adult, but just wandered into our neighbor's house, into the living room. Fortunately, the mother, whatever, ran in and pulled him out. But you just never know. And those type of being complacent and not locking your car door when you get into it and not locking your home, you know, people are constantly jumping in and out of vehicles, especially at gas stations. More and more people are getting attacked in parking lots and gas stations than ever before. Tends to be that crimes start in California, then once they hit social media, then they spread across the US. So you're seeing more and more of these attacks all across the US where people are jumping in and out of cars, not just carjacking, but also kidnapping people and robbing them, taking them to second locations. And now criminals have found that it's easier to follow you home and rob you at home than it is to rob you in a parking lot or in a store or in a social setting, because people like me are going to intervene. So they'll follow the person to their home, and then the person will walk up with a load of groceries and then walk inside, carry a couple of groceries to the front, to the kitchen with the door wide open. When they come back, there's a man standing in their foyer. You know, so you need to stop being so complacent and understand that there's a very real threat. It takes seconds out of your life just to be a little bit observant, have a little bit of situational awareness, but it goes a long way for your safety. [00:32:01] Speaker C: 100%. [00:32:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Joe, I have another question. Unless you have one. [00:32:07] Speaker A: You know, my daughter and I, when we go to target, we sit in the parking lot and we go, who are we kidnapped? Who's being complacent? It's always the people that are staring at their phones that are sinking back into the earth, completely unaware of anything else going on, opening their trunk, shoving their whole body in the trunk. They got their key fob on them. I just toss them in the trunk, shut the door, drive the car away, you know, and now I've got a few. I've got their address, I've got the keys, I've got everything I need. So just having a little bit of situational awareness, knowing that when you're in your car, lock your car, start your vehicle up, put it into reverse or forward to get you out of that situation. Now get on your phone. Now you can mess around. So at any given second, somebody starts pulling on your handles, you just release the brake and you're moving. [00:32:52] Speaker B: Also, I put your neighbor's address in as your home address. The GPS will still get you there, but they won't, they won't actually knock on your door neighbor. Question about staying fit, and this actually, my trainer, I mentioned that we had you as a guest coming up, and he's a jiu jitsu and Muay Thai enthusiast and student. And he had asked, one of the guys he trains is ex military. How has your training, how do you train differently now than you did when you were in the military? Or do you train differently now when you did in the military? When it comes to the exercises that you do and the style of exercise, the quantity of exercise, the magnitude of the exercise? Or do you still train like when you did when you were, when you were in the military? [00:33:43] Speaker A: Exactly the same. So I do three days of powerlifting, but on the third day, I finished with a lot of strongman stuff, picking up sandbags, moving things around. Now, this has been, I think, the key to my longevity. I fight two days a week, usually Tuesdays and Thursdays. The only time that I'll change it up, and I did it the same in the military, is if I'm specifically heading towards a competition. So if I'm specifically heading towards a jujitsu competition, then those two days a week will now become three days a week, and I'll change the powerlifting days to just two days a week, or I'll lift, do strongman stuff on Saturdays and stuff. But it's exactly the same. Barely changes just based off of what it is that I'm going to compete in. [00:34:27] Speaker B: What was your most memorable of the 16 combat deployments, what was your most memorable? [00:34:36] Speaker A: I mean, the first, probably because that was the scariest, because we didn't know what we were doing and the context. [00:34:43] Speaker B: What was the story behind? [00:34:44] Speaker A: It was the first. The first wave into Iraq. We were actually across the border, and we were just flying in, hitting all of Saddam's palaces while the bombing was going on. This was pre invasion, so while the aircraft was softening the targets, we were flying in and out and hitting targets. And even though we personally didn't get into a lot of shootouts on the targets we hit, we were getting shot to pieces every night flying around on those helos. And it's frightening. I don't mind being in a fight with them on the ground. You know, I can maneuver, and I have teams that I'm working with and stuff. But when you're just sitting in a coffin, flying through the air, getting shot at all the time, it's really frightening. I think that's when I started losing my hair, especially at night. [00:35:26] Speaker B: Right. [00:35:26] Speaker A: You can't see. Yeah, yeah. And we're the only ones there. And at the time, so all of Iraq was shooting at us at the same time. So, yeah, it was. It was memorable. We did a hostage rescue, which was the first one that was done since shoot World War Two, I think. Yeah. So we didn't know we were doing there. So that was all, you know, problem solving, critical thinking, and red selling the whole thing and, you know, coming to some solutions, all of us coming together as a roundtable for the solutions. And that became the template for all the hostage rescues after that. So my first deployment was the most, because it was the most, like, in your face, you're like, you're in it now. [00:36:05] Speaker B: You brought that term up again, red selling. And I remembered a previous conversation you had with a friend of ours, Jay Durant, who actually introduced us. So big shout out to Jay Durant, who is. He texted me today his list of books and podcasts that he's listening to. Did you get that text? [00:36:22] Speaker A: He said to me, I haven't had a chance to read through it, but. [00:36:24] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a very long text. [00:36:26] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. Yeah. [00:36:27] Speaker B: It's unbelievable. I read, what, six books this year? And I think I'm Superman. And then you look at that, you're like, this is just insane. But red selling isn't always, like, physical threats, right? Like, there are competitive threats to people's businesses, and you have to red sell, to use that term, your competition. Right? Like, talk to me about some of the things you've done with businesses outside of the physical threats and more, the competitive threats and areas where they need, they have blind spots that they're not seeing. How do you help them with that? [00:37:02] Speaker A: Well, it's just contingency planning. So, you know, the first one I usually hit them with in the recent past couple months is like, okay, what are you guys going to do this year during the pandemic? And, like, what do you mean? Like, when you think we're in election year again, you think there's not going to be another pandemic. We're already hearing rumors of it. You know, the border patrol is already preparing for it. People that work at the aircraft are already preparing for it. So, you know, TSA, they're saying, hey, get ready. There could be something coming. So what are you gonna do when you lose your logistics, when you're working from home? What did you learn from last time that you're gonna take on this time? So it's just little things like that that I'll bring up that everybody just all of a sudden is in a state of shock. Like, oh, well, that was four years ago. That'll never happen again. So it's again, complacency is what destroys everybody from a personal level and from an organizational level. So staying ahead of it, learning from the past, and then letting go of it, and then innovating towards the future. [00:38:02] Speaker C: What do you find is the other than complacency of businesses? What do you find is the, is the one or the main thing that holds people, businesses back from growing that. [00:38:16] Speaker A: You found lack of communication, mostly the telephone game, people sending an email and waiting for a response instead of following up. Or, like I said, if I don't get a response within a week or so, I go, I'll go to the place and I'll sit on their desk and get the response because I got to keep the big machine running. Everybody around me is depending on this thing happening. So just a complete lack of communication within every organization I'm seeing, and everybody's bullshitting each other, and you've got all these so many bosses that are in charge, and all of them are like, there's nothing wrong. They're talking to the head of the company, the CEO, and they're like, there's nothing going wrong. My department's great, but they're not. You have to be honest and say, here's all of our shortfalls. Here's what we're doing to fix those shortfalls, and here's what we're going to do in the future to ensure those things never happen again. You don't see that with a majority of organizations. Everybody's just kind of going through the motions and not learning from the past and not communicating ground truths of what's happening. You know, like the organization I was in, we're one of the only groups in the world that worked really well off of negative feedback. You know, we're a top tier unit. We're a tier one unit. So don't tell me what I'm doing good, tell me what I'm doing wrong and tell me how I can, so I can start figuring out and using critical thinking to innovate so that we can constantly keep improving because our competitors are doing it, our enemy is doing it. Everybody that's in the same line of work wants to take everything from us, take away my livelihood, take away my family, you know, my children's dinner. So I better stay ahead of it, and I better make sure we're all doing our due diligence and putting in the work. [00:39:54] Speaker B: So how do you. How do you keep your level of education up? I mean, you're taking courses at Wharton and Harvard. I mean, that's. That's impressive. Like, today, what do you do to stay. To stay sharp with, whether it be selling leadership, entrepreneurship? Like, do you read? Do you listen to podcasts? Where do you absorb your information from? [00:40:17] Speaker A: I read and listen to podcasts, like you said. But honestly, getting out and talking to people, I learn a lot more and sitting down and having honest conversations with them about what their challenges are. And if you go to the swap, what is your strengths and weaknesses and obstacles? Try and figure out all the different challenges that groups are having and what they've learned from it. You know, Jay, our friend, I hit him up after our podcast and said, hey, how did that go? What did I do wrong? How could we have done it better? And he goes, nobody ever asked me, you know, post podcasts out of how many hundreds that he's done, you know, how the thing is going. And it's ridiculous to me. Why wouldn't you be asking? Why wouldn't you be trying to improve and get better? You know. [00:40:59] Speaker B: That feedback is critical. And so, so many people shy away from that feedback. And one of the tenants here at Princeton mortgage is radical candor. And, you know, we are encouraged, especially to tell each other when we're messing up. And there has to be a baseline of love and respect, though, I think in order for people to absorb that information the right way and sometimes it's hard to. To give people feedback without that. A, if I don't trust you enough to take the feedback, I'm resistant to giving it, and b, if I don't trust you enough or think that you care enough, I don't. Sometimes it falls on deaf ear or it gets combative. [00:41:40] Speaker C: I think that. I think that you hit the nail on the head, and I think it's complacency. And I think people. I think that people don't have those conversations because they don't like to be uncomfortable. And the second you know, that you. I noticed, you know, personally, myself, like, when you start to kind of embrace that and say, I'm gonna go get it, and I don't care, and this is gonna suck, and I'm like, here we go. Whether it be physical or whether it be conversations that you have that are tough ones, I think the majority of people will curl up and say, nope. Well, we just rather say it's good than have a tough conversation. And that's where the communication breaks down in a lot of these companies, because no one wants to. To your point, KJ, like, nobody wants to be the dick, you know, they want to. Well, we have to have this relationship for me to give you positive feed or negative feedback so you receive it. Right. But that's on the person that doesn't want to give the feedback, because they don't want to be the bad guy. So I think that, you know, a good. To Jason's point, if you're complacent and you're not, you know, willing to be in that uncomfortable situation, then, yeah, you're just going to blow smoke all day, and no one's going to want to grow from it. [00:43:01] Speaker A: Well, you definitely want to have rapport with the people that you work with. You want to know them on, you know, in the military, they call it intrusive leadership, which is a horrible name for a leadership style. But at least in my organization, most the military is more authoritarian. But in our organization, it was intrusive. But all it means is that I was just doing my due diligence. I was talking to everybody. I was having private conversations. I was taking guys out to lunch. I was asking about their families and what challenges that they're going through in their personal life and things and what we can do to make them happier and make the organization work better. I wouldn't be accusatory when, let's say, if we assaulted a house during our hospice rescue training and one of the guys threw a round or something. I wouldn't be like, hey, who was. I want names. You know? Own it. Right now. I would just say, hey, look around. Got thrown here. Remember the reason that we're a professional organization? Because we're surgical, we're shooting, blah, blah. And almost every time when I would frame it like that, what? The guys would go, hey, that was me. They would own it. And then we'd all go, hey, thanks a lot for saying so, but what were you thinking when it happened? Well, I was pieing the corner or whatever, and I threw my shy clenched on it. Great. Okay, then what do we all learn from? Let's work on our breathing. Let's work on our emotional intelligence. Let's work on challenges, you know? So it was constantly growing. It was all about growth. It wasn't us pushing each other down. It's dumb. We want to lift each other up and raise everybody up. And the more self deprecating you are, you're more like, man, I'm messing this up. The more you take ownership of things, then as a collective, you guys all come together and you guys go, oh, this is what we all learned from it so that we all can get better. [00:44:34] Speaker B: And to use Jay's word, that's culture, right? [00:44:37] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:44:38] Speaker B: That's what you want to build. You want to build that culture where it's okay to be honest, it's okay to say you messed up. It's okay to give feedback. It's okay to get feedback. And so many organizations and even salespeople, even, you know, a lot of people like, oh, I sell. I sell what I want to sell. Right? Or my inventory is what I want to sell. No, your inventory should be what people want to buy. It doesn't matter what you want to sell. Right. [00:45:01] Speaker C: What people want to buy. [00:45:02] Speaker B: But if you're closed off to even the feedback from your customer base, then you're. That's a threat to your business, you know? So this is awesome, Jason, I hope that you enjoyed yourself. And the reason I do is because I would love for you to come back. I think this was. This was just cool topics. What's that? [00:45:26] Speaker C: It's like the tip of the iceberg. I feel like there's. This has been such a surface level conversation, but there's so much more that I think we'd love to learn from you and stories we'd like to hear and so forth. So, yeah, thank. [00:45:40] Speaker A: This has been great. I appreciate you guys. [00:45:41] Speaker B: Where do you live now? Where. What state? [00:45:44] Speaker A: I live in Charleston, South Carolina. [00:45:46] Speaker B: Charleston. Okay. So we have. We actually have some people down in Charleston, you know, one of my coworkers, Mark Gordon, who was actually on the show last week. [00:45:54] Speaker C: Right. [00:45:54] Speaker B: Joe was here last. Guys, Mark Gordon is in Charleston, South Carolina. So maybe you guys will cross pads at some point. [00:46:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm all about networking. If you want to link us up, I'm about it. [00:46:05] Speaker B: All right. Now comes the moment of truth. Literally. So 2500 jumps, no cutaways, blown up in combat and hand to hand combat with the Taliban fighter, Joe. Which one is which one? [00:46:22] Speaker C: The fact that he's like, he's kind of sick. Well, first of all, if you do 2500 jumps without a cutaway, I don't know if that's statistically possible. He keeps, he keeps looking to the right and that's like an obvious, like tip off. So I'm going to go with number one is the lie. [00:46:38] Speaker A: No, I never lost a fight to a Taliban. Come on, man. [00:46:43] Speaker B: Oh, wait, you said you lost a fight. [00:46:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:46:46] Speaker A: Oh, it's that I broke my hand fighting a Taliban guy and my buddy had to save me. The opposite actually happened. A buddy of mine broke his hand on a guy and I had to go finish him off. [00:46:55] Speaker C: Oh, shoot. Well, there we go. [00:46:58] Speaker A: And because you said you took a class on it, I knew that looking low and left was a tough. You gotta game the system, man. No, I know you. [00:47:06] Speaker C: I knew that that was like very deliberate that you were doing that and I thought that you were tipping your hand a little bit. [00:47:12] Speaker A: Yeah, man. [00:47:15] Speaker C: Wow, I missed it. Yeah. [00:47:20] Speaker B: If I had like computer graphics, I could put like a WWE belt on. You need a champ, Jason. Thank you very, very much. I hope, like I said, I hope you enjoyed your time. I hope to see you again. And I can't thank you enough for joining us today. [00:47:35] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks a lot, guys. Appreciate you having me. Thanks for listening to selling the dream. 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