Finding Your Why and Changing the World with 20-Year U.S. Navy Veteran Ryan Charaba

Welcome to Make More Marbles. My name is Brad Hart and we're here to interview the game changers, the future makers, the co collaborators and creators who are here to collaborate with one another towards a better future for all of us. Enjoy the show. We've got a great guest coming up for you right now.

Good stuff. Yeah.

Welcome to make More marbles.

My name is Bradheart.

Today I am thrilled because I got a brother from another mother coming in from Hawaii.

What up, bro? Oh my God.

So excited.

What's going on, homie?

Ryan, welcome to the show. Ryan charaba is a 20 year veteran of submariner in the navy and our nation's Navy. Thank you for your service, Ryan. And he has a really interesting story around world travel, around leadership, around just understanding the very depth and core of what it is to be a man. So I'm really excited to get into it today with Ryan and share his story with the world because I just saw him give one of his first live appearances ever here in Encinitas, California. Got on a plane last minute and came and jammed it up with us and he brought down the house. So I'm super stoked to have you on the show. Ryan, welcome.

Cool, man. I'm stoked to be here. I appreciate it. Can you hear me okay? I feel like my earphones feel weird.

Everything, you are, you are good to go. Everything's great. Yeah. Why don't we start off with the beginning, right? Let's, let's get into it people who may not know you. Let's kind of get into that hero's journey and tell people what's up and where you come from and what you're all about.

Okay. All the way, way, way, way back. I was born in Eatonville, Washington. My parents were 18 years old. And immediately thereafter my parents were really poor, they didn't have any money. We started to move wherever my father could find work. He'd get work here, get a contract. My dad did drywall and, or tree planting. So he moved all over, we moved all over and contract would come up, there'd be no work, we'd have to move to another spot. So by the time I was 18 years old, I moved 36 times. And then I went to 13 different schools in the process of that and I'm, it's somewhere in there. I got sick of moving and I was like, I'm got to get out of here. I'm going to get out of the house as soon as I can. And so I joined the Navy and so they could move Me all over the world instead, too.

So nobody's going to tell me to go anywhere. I'm going to join the Navy.

And so I'd say this. I started to realize this pattern. Exactly what you just said. Nobody's gonna tell me to do anything. It's a joke I have with my wife. She'll be like, hey, can you go to this? Don't you tell me what to do. And so it's. It's like this. This hilarious joke that we have. And I realized I was probably 30. Probably started when I was 27. Really started to set in when I was, like, 34, 35. It's like, I don't want anybody to tell me what to do yet. I keep signing up for the same thing that has people telling me what to do. And then it, like, starts into this whole kind of, I don't know, second, third wave of awakening for me, which I consider the awakening portions of my life. And then finally, it was probably 17 years into my career, I had really. I had, like, I guess mental breakdown, as the word we call it, and slipped into, like, a really big depression and almost end up getting removed from service because of, you know, just being down and done and scraped together the last remnants of something. In the Navy, there's a department where they kind of send all the washouts, and they're generally younger sailors that wash out. And so then they slide me over there, and everybody's kind of like, what's this guy doing there? I was a chief in the Navy. I was an E7. I've been in the Navy for 17 years. It's very rare for that to happen. And so then you have this whole bucket full of sailors over there that are kind of like the outcasts, the rejects, the guys that have been in trouble. And so for the last two and a half, almost three years in the Navy, I kind of took these sailors and started asking questions like, why? How come. What happened to you? Like, what happened to you? How come you downfall? Because I kind of realized myself, like, kind of an awakening moment when I Jerry Maguire at work. And so instead of just telling all these guys that they suck and you're useless and the Navy's just throwing you away, they don't have anything. Get out of here. Kind of like figuring out why they ended up with the problems that they had and why they ended up kind of at the crossroads they were at and which way can we move so that your life is as successful as possible? And which was actually two parts. It was beneficial to The Navy because they want to process these guys smartly. And a lot of guys that they're stuck in a fear scarcity mode, and they're like, oh, I don't know. Like, this is my only paycheck. I'm getting kicked out. I'm getting kicked out of the thing that got me away from where I didn't want to be. Like, what am I going to do? And so kind of helping these guys find themselves and finding that they have a purpose and then they have. That they are talented and have skills. They were actually more motivated to go back, and sometimes they kind of found themselves more motivated to like, hey, I want to give this another try and actually stay in. Which was good for the sailors and the Navy together. So that was kind of a really fortunate thing for me. And then I kind of put together my coaching business while doing that. The last two and a half years, I'd hired a coach myself. And then, yeah, it just all kind of worked out really providentially and really, really grateful for that process and really grateful for my depression and anxiety and all those things that kind of led me down the rabbit hole of let's start opening books and actually paying attention to what's going on and putting together little details that kind of create these environments in which we find ourselves in.

And that's one of the reasons I love you, Ryan, is because just allow the story to end. I mean, you could have, like, you. I remember you told a story about wanting to jerk the wheel on the car because you just couldn't do another day.

Yeah.

Knew, like, just jerk this wheel and I'll flip over the embankment. You had it all mapped out like you were ready.

Mapped, mapped, Stuck with it.

And that ultimately changed the course of your life and everybody else's. Well, right. When we tend to focus on ourselves and our own pain, we can make up hell, right. We can generate manifest hell. But when we search for meaning outside of ourselves and we look to be of service to others, all of a sudden you're this chief, right? You're this E7, been in for 17 years. A lot of these younger guys are ready to wash out. You were able to catch them. And one of the things I like to tell people is that Ryan's the Y guy. We call him Ryan the Y guy. Right? Because he will get underneath and into whatever it is that's going on for you. And he's incredible at that. He's a little bit of a bully. China shop sometimes, but he's really good at getting to work.

Yeah.

Get anything past him. So as the why guy now, in this transition you're still making, right. It's not completely.

Oh, for sure.

You just got out of the Navy back in July, I want to say July, Yeah.

Five months and three days ago.

So what is that transition been like from being away from, you know, that consistency and that rigor and that standard that you're upheld to now being kind of out on your own? You have a young family. What's that been like for you?

I'm super glad. I think this is a question that I wanted to talk about the most. And so you spend 20 years doing anything, your ego can get very big. And you have been, what's it, 10 years to become a master at something. So I spent 20 years inside the Navy, 20 years becoming a master my craft, knowing exactly what I was talking about. Chief petty officers are very, very hell and high renowned to know the ins and outs of policy inside of the entire Navy for everything. They're the go to for that information. And so I got out of the Navy and ready to dive into my own business thinking, oh, this is going to be easy. I'm just going to freaking crush this. It's going to roll right over. And I think one of the things that I'm even more so grateful with, and I'm glad is true, is with every stone that I unturn and every question that I ask and get an answer for, there's two or three or four or five more questions, new things. And so it's really exciting to find out that there's so much more for me to learn. And even though I've had some success and I have some clients and things are working and the bills are still getting paid, I believe that I haven't even scratched the surface as far as that transition goes. And I think, just like you said, the transition is still in process. And I hope that that never, ever ends. Like, I hope it's a continual turning and evolving into something new. And I think it's just if I was. I thought about this conversation today since we talked last week about, like, what is exactly what I do. Like, yes, I'm the why person or the why guy, which I actually really dig. So it's really hard to pin down exactly what it is because it's only been five months since I've left. And so I have a couple projects that I'm working on yet. Really the biggest focus in this transition, aside from building the business and figuring out exactly what I want to do, is like, you're saying, my daughter's a year and a half old. My son moved in with us. It'll be two years, almost two years ago in March. And so just really growing that connection that 20 years of being gone over half the time really disrupts on a constant basis. So I let my family disrupt my business regularly, so, which has been really, really amazing to have time with my wife, Micare, who's a business owner as well, and my son, who's going to be 17 in March. He's either doing college with the Navy, he hasn't decided yet. And that's part of our goals meeting this year to make a decision for that. And Charlie, my daughter, she's 19 months and climbing rocks and doing crazy stuff and keeping me on my toes. So that's the. That's where we're at now. And we'll see where it takes us, you know, after this call, this afternoon, tomorrow, next year, etc.

And I just love that you're taking it one day at a time. I mean, here's what I know. After being an entrepreneur for 20 years, right? Since I was 12, having a similar level of maybe figuring it out that you have in the Navy, you feel like you're starting to get good at stuff. And it's in mentoring that I realized, wow, okay. I don't realize how much I actually know, right? I look back, wow, there's like, all these lessons that I had to go through and having jobs and failing and going broke and getting into debt, figuring it out and making a bunch of money and still not being happy and coming back to that and trying it different ways and partnerships that didn't work out. Just all this stuff that had I known in the beginning when I first went and knocked on the door saying, buddy, like, hey, can I borrow your mower to go mower a lawn? Because ours is busted, by the way. Like, give me 20 bucks to mow your lawn. That was the beginning. Had I known then how hard it was going to be and that I was going to be a diehard entrepreneur, I may not have started. So the entire point is to take it one day at a time and to keep saying there's another thread to pull on. I always say something on these podcasts about how you know every single question, every single, you know, why is that? Every little, you know, just kind of needling thing that comes into your purview about, hey, why you get to pull on this thread. And as you pull on more threads, you kind of unravel the sweater, right? To quote that wizard song. And when you rattle this, the naked truth is all that's left. That's really what all these interviews have been. And what I really love about where you're going is that you, you're so good at that. You have such a natural curiosity about people and situations and why is it like this that you know? And having come from such a painful why standpoint. And I already know the answer, but I really want to, I want to tell this story because I think it's really awesome.

Okay.

What happens in the Navy, Ryan, in your experience, when you ask, wow, man. And why is it so important.

The evolution? I want to start. We're going to talk about millennials and kind of go backwards and your generation. And I'm right on the cusp, like right behind you. I think we're five or six years apart. We're with. Information is such a. It's really available. We carry massive amounts of information on our phones and our pockets. There's nothing that we aren't able to access in a moment's notice. Just this morning I was googling the elevational changes in Montana and how that affects fungi, because I was on a hike this last weekend with this guy who's a botanist, and he did his summer frickin dissertation study on this thing. And I was like, I'm definitely gonna check it out. Of course somebody does that research and of course it's out there, right? That information exists. And so I found. And now back up 30 years, 40 years. So I was born in 1979 and I joined the Navy in 1997, which is like on the cusp end, where most of the guys that were in charge at that time in the Navy were all Cold War, were born and raised in the. As far as the Navy goes, in the Cold War, where they had a very, like, this is what we're doing. We're fighting Russia in Cuba. And like, there's no other questions. Like, we're doing this because Russia's gonna, you know, Wolverines like it's gonna Red Don us or some crap like that, you know. And so I joined the Navy in 97 when it was like the Gulf War was over. And like, there's some stuff going on. I didn't know anything about Russia or the Cold War. Like, I'd seen some Tom Clancy movies yet I was like, okay, I mean, I guess you're pretty hardcore about Russia. Like, these guys were hardcore. Like I was a sonar tech on submarines. We were just out there looking for Russia when, I mean, we were off the coast of Florida looking for Russia. And I'm like, Florida's right there. Like, this is really weird. And so asking questions like why? Like hey, why are we doing this? You just shut your mouth and use freaking do this. And so I know the story that Brad's talking about and I'll retell it here really quickly because I think it's hilarious. On submarines, you're required to learn every part of the ship, regardless of what your job is. Because if you're back aft on the rowing machine next to the hydraulic plant, because that's where it is in the refrigeration plant, if something, if there's a hydraulic rupture, it's your job to run over there and close the valve to isolate it just because you may be the guy that's closest to it. Or if a fire starts, there's a fire hose directly below you below the rowing machine. And there's also flooding actuators to close all the hole openings in the app portion of the ship there as well. It's just your job to know all these details and not to ask to know why they're there. It's such an intricate detail. To ever ask the question why is ridiculous. Well, of course, why don't you know this? You know. And so I remember taking this qualification card back to the mechanics to get checkouts on those exact systems near that rowing machine and in Maine Seawater bay. And this is where all they bring all the water into the ship from the ocean to cool the reactor plant. That's what it's for. Huge valves and these huge pumps that are like probably the size of your bed. Like I know your bed is behind you. Like place a massive pump like the size of a queen size bed. It's sitting there, except make it the same exact height. It's like a cube size queen size bed. Yeah, that's different.

Next to the.

Oh, that's right. You're in the different room. Yeah, that's cool. Anyways, so I'm back there and I remember they're like, hey, you need to know this. It's super important. And I'm like, I don't understand, like, why do I need to know this? I'm like, what? And so all these big mechanics, like jump me. They, they, you know, they rough me up a little bit and then they, they wrap me around this, this pump and they take me to it and you know, and then they sent a ransom note up forward to the sonar text. Remember this is like 1997 or something. Like maybe early 1998. So this is over, this is 20 years ago. And they sent this note upstairs, said hey, if you want your nub back of your non usable body. Because I was new, I wasn't qualified anything. I had very little use except to breathe the air and eat the food and then poop in the tanks. Right? Another joke we say. And then the rats note said hey, you can have your guy back if you bring us three Mountain Dews, Twix and two Snickers bars. Right? And of course I was like, oh yeah, they're gonna come save me because soda techs do not negotiate with terrorists. So they. So it's like probably 10, 15 minutes later. And then you know, these guys, these ridiculous freaking sonar guys, you know, sailors. Sailors are the most ridiculous people in the world. I love them to death, they're my life's blood and I care about them so much. But there's just this ridiculous motley crew of freaking people and they're coming back like give us our guy back, you know. And of course they're like don't worry, we're gonna save you. And I'm like yeah, but like this pipe. And so then there's like this battle royale. It looks like something off of frickin www.

Let me just set the scene here. So you're tied to the pipe, taped to it with your mouth duct taped.

Yeah.

Bust in, trying to save you. What happens?

And so it's like, it's like a ridiculous. It's like a cage match or like the Royal rumble from like back in the day with like Jake The Snake and Mr. Perfect and Hulk Hogan and Andre Giant and like there's 15 guys crammed. Except instead of this wide open ring, it's like this cramped tight space. For the passageways are like as wide as your desk and people are climbing down from ladders and kicking guys and frickin dudes are crawling out and like, you know, smashing guy into a pipe and stuff. And like people, it was kind of intense.

Double dragon.

Yeah, dude. It was like kind of intense how much we would actually beat each other up. Like it's not like, you know, like we really go for it. There were certain things you didn't, you didn't hit each other in the face and you generally would strike people wherever if it made a market would be covered up by your uniform. So you didn't get in trouble. Even though the command at the time didn't really care. It wasn't until after, after Y2K and stuff when they started to like really really hammer down. Like once YouTube started getting big and they started seeing guys like pinning people and doing hazing, started getting on phones, like that's when everything started to get shut down. But up to that point it was inside of a submarine and nobody ever knew about it. So asking why inside of the Navy often got you beat up. And they'd be like, well, you better look it up. Like, you know, you better go find a book and look it up. And if you didn't, like, I remember having like a qual notebook that I would carry around with me all times and like what we call an ssm, which is a submarine, something Manual, Ship service manual, Ship service manual which would have, you know, if it was about trim and drain, there's a specific manual for that. If it's about refrigeration, specific manual for that, hydraulics, etc. And if you weren't carrying this book around all the time with your call card on you. Ready? Ready. For anybody looking at a time like that was you were gonna get it handed to you. And so over the span, I remember it took me a year to qualify. And then when you qualify, the beating stop, like they pull you over to the other team, you know, it's like, like a frat like your plebe summer in midshipman or it's rushed when you're, you know, once you're over there, like you're in. And now the new guys like. And this just. And it became kind of this weird, this weird dysfunctional rite of passage as men that we kind of adopted because the rites of passage from old times, whether it was, you know, walking on hot coals or you know, eating the frickin heart of the first thing you killed, like in an Amazon tribe or something like that, like these rites of past is whether they were handled well or not, became this new thing in the Navy. And this whole thing and it was all kind of in under the guise of tradition, you know, and tradition can get very mottled as the, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years can go by. And another thing about the Navy as well is that back in the 1600s, in times of wooden ships, if a ship was short on sailors, they'd pull into port, they'd sweep through the bars at 2, 3 in the morning, grab the guys who were hemmed up and all drunk, throw them on the ship, get underway, and when they woke up, congratulations, you're in the Navy. You know, and so although that's not the same way we do it now, I believe energetically that has come across and I believe very much when I joined, I joined out of necessity because I didn't know what else to do. You know, we didn't have money for college. I didn't necessarily do very good in high school. And so it was just kind of like this, this band of rogues and vagabonds. Like, although at the same time making very, very amazing thing happens and accomplishing very, very amazing things. If you, I think one of the things you hear is like, the man finds himself. Like if you can give man a purpose, like he's gonna, he's gonna rise to the occasion. And if you aren't able to do that, just give him something to do, you know, and the Navy's very good at that. And I've freaking completely segued off the actual point of the story. I think.

That'S okay. Whatever's present.

Yeah, no, I think. And so it's just, I know the question was why? But then just so the Navy is very good at taking people who wonder why and giving them the answers that best serve the Navy and that kind of, I believe it's very fear based. And congratulations, shipmate, you found your answers. You know, this is as good as it's gonna be. And just to, you know. And so if a guy joins with no purpose and doesn't realize where he actually wants to do, any hopes and desires he may have are quickly covered up with mission, duty and service. And you know, 20 years later it goes by and those hopes and desires are growing into something really real and really great. And you know, he has this other identity kind of slapped on over the top of him. And it's, it could be a really challenging environment. And then if you take away sunshine, regular sleep schedule, regular sleep schedule, and you know, decent food, then your serotonin production is an all time low. And so you have 140 guys trapped inside of a 360 foot long steel tube that are generally grumpy and working on caffeine and candy bars and yeah, it's a challenging environment. And so the fact that we're all beating, beating each other up for fun to kind of spike that dopamine progression or the oxytocin and serotonin and endorphins like me and you talk about often, it's not a surprise. It's no surprise that you get bored enough. You're just literally walking in circles looking at gauges. If you're a mechanic or you're just sitting in front of the screen and watching sound like I was as a sonar tech, and then it just repeats. You go to sleep, you wake up, you do the same thing. You do some maintenance, maybe exercise, read a book, go to sleep, get up, do the same thing for, you know, days, weeks and months at a time. And it's. Yeah, it was definitely a challenge in the end, and I'm grateful for it now. And I realize so many reasons I'm very interested and it's challenging because I would love to infiltrate back in there somehow and kind of teach the Navy and abundance style leadership yet I think if you did, we would lose the reasons, at least propaganda wise, the reasons why we build Navy ships and the reasons why we're out there and blowing stuff up. And so I think it would be very counterintuitive as I believe a whole bunch of that war machine is political and profit margins and stuff. You're making three submarines a year and somebody's paying for that, somebody's reaping the benefits. And so it's a real challenge to see what would happen if that scarcity and fear based mindset was removed. And if the opposite was instilled, it'd be really interesting to see that happen. So I spend lots and lots of time thinking about that, specifically in my coaching and in my parenting style and in my style as a husband, thinking, how can I be more abundant? How can I be. How can I come more from an infinite space and doing my best to give my family the tools to not need to have a reason to go to war or blow things up or punch a guy in the neck because you're bored. And, you know, so it's, it's a really. It's like I remember these days often and think about them all the time. It's because it's too. I think it's too important not to.

Yeah. And that's kind of like the old world versus the new world. Right? You kind of.

Yeah, of course.

Short term versus, you know, the Cold War. Russia's the answer to everything we do. And now it's not Russia. What is it? Oh, it's terrorists now. Like what?

Now it's terrorists.

Yeah, right. That we're afraid of. So when you talk about this idea of scarcity driving everything. And by the way, I just want to be really clear that I do everything I possibly can to support veterans and I thank them consistently, routinely for their service. And, you know, I wanted to be a Navy SEAL when I was a kid. I've hung out with Navy SEALs, not cut out for that job, thankfully. I didn't get down that road, because I probably would have died very quickly or been very injured in the process of not becoming a Navy seal. However, you know, I really give a lot of credit. Like, these are the men and women who put their lives on the line so that we don't have to.

Right?

Because there are real threats in the world, but then again, are there real threats that warrant the way we approach them? Is there a better way? Right. I feel like that we're at this pivotal time in human history where it's like, finally, we're finally getting to a point where there really truly is enough to go around and we can create more than we actually need. And now the beliefs just haven't caught up yet. Logically, it's possible to have food, energy, water, and shelter for every single human being on the pot on the planet. It has been a little for like, maybe a decade or two. And we're just finally now catching up to, like, oh, wait, hold on. The future is here, but it's not evenly distributed. How do we get everybody else to recognize that this is actually a physical fact, like, we can actually do this, and then what do we do as a result? So I think it really does down to, you know, you can't change the world yourself, but you can change yourself and how you approach things and just, you know, if you're listening to this at home, just understanding that you don't have to do it the same way it's always been done. We talk about traditions, we talk about myths, we talk about stories. This is great documentary, actually. It's actually a series of them. There's six episodes so far on Netflix. It's called Myths and Monsters. And if you haven't checked it out, I really recommend it. I watched a couple episodes the other day where they literally talk about all the myths that have persisted throughout all human civilizations. You know, the Romans, the Greeks, the this that, the Vikings, the Norse gods, all this different stuff. And they all kind of rhyme, right? And they all kind of make sense. Oh, this is how we deal with death. This is how we deal with war. This is how we deal with family and love and upbringing and all this stuff that we have today. We have our myths and our stories, but if we're beholden to them, like, if you looked at a Viking myth, you might say, oh, that's ridiculous. But they really believed in that. And guess what? We really believe in something that might be ridiculous if we wait 100 years and look back at it. So just keeping that. That skeptical nature about our own Crap and our own beliefs and our own structures, like just knowing that we are machines that make up myths in order to survive, in order to thrive, in order to replicate. And it's just really a function of, hey, what's. Is this serving us? Like, we objectively take our emotions out of this and look at this. Is this serving us? Is it serving the world or not? And being able to say, hey, maybe there's something better that will. And keeping that, you know, that standard high enough to say, hey, what do we want to accept as our reality?

True. And I love that you brought up that, that we make up myths. And that's literally the one thing that separates us from every other species on the planet is that we have the ability to imagine. That's it. And I just, I think that's so amazing. And I was just thinking about what you were talking about, the scarcity thing. It's like, how come if deer don't have enough food, their population goes down? Because we are literally able to imagine ways out of it. And we continue to procreate. It's like, I'm gonna have a baby. Even though there's nothing to pay the bills. It's like, you know, because we can imagine all these different things and it's, you know, it's a very, very great, great gift that we have. And on the same time, it's good to realize that that's there so we can check ourselves on occasion, you know?

Right. And you notice how wealthier people tend to have less children.

Just.

It'S really strange to see and consider like I've, I've valued in my own life, you know, freedom and wealth. That's what I've been working on. And I don't have any kids. It was like really scary and made me grow a lot. To spend time with a five year old girl in the park because her dad was like, whatever, I'm just gonna do this thing.

Yeah, I'm doing.

And I'm like, all right, I'll play with this kid for a while. And it was actually really triggering for me to be around children. Imagine that. Like for me to play with a girl in a completely innocent public space, like, really triggering for me is I'm.

Like constantly waiting like the SWAT team.

To jump out of the bushes. What the hell is going on? I have to notice this shit myself all the time.

I think it's good. No, that's good stuff though. And I think I was just listening to this video. The ability to notice those triggers and notice that things are coming Up. Like, that's one of the most valuable things. As a person who's wanting to grow, that's one of the most valuable things you can realize. Like, realizing, like, there's something going on. I need to dig into this. I need to figure out what's going on. Like, that is a very, very good thing. That's not very practiced. I think in a general scheme, most people just let their triggers come. They project them externally instead of, like, looking inward. So I think that's awesome that you're able to notice that, you know, and then have these conversations about that is super, super huge.

Well, and it's funny because it shows up exactly the time in my life. I'm like, I kind of want to have kids in a couple of years. I should probably think more, right? You know, talking to women and, like, what are their values? Like, you know, do they want children? When do they watch? Like that instead of the other stuff that I don't need to talk about that I've been doing for years and years and years that, you know, may or may not be ready to shift, you know.

Yeah, for sure.

But it's just funny as a guy especially, you know, in this modern age where I think the expectation is put upon us to be and do and give and have all these different things. And in the process of living, quote, unquote, you never really make a life, Right. It's just you acting to whatever shows up next. And I think a lot of people get sucked into. That's really easy. There's a lot of patience along the way to just be like, you're gonna do this now, and this is how your life's gonna go. And you're. Now you're in debt, so you have to do it. And now you have children, so you have to do it, man.

I was in the car yesterday with McCair, and we were. We were driving through and there was a commercial for University of Hawaii, like, advertising, you know, it's the new semester or whatever. And they're like, one of the questions that the radio announcer was posing was like, how do you know if college is right for you? And they're like, hey, we interviewed all these current college students to get their opinion. And they're like, enrolling for college was the best decision I ever made. How do you know? I was sitting in the cars, like, perspective. Like, you're in college. Just your debts, your debt ceilings isn't raising.

But I'm having fun and partying.

I'm having fun. It's great. Like, yeah, okay. It's fun. How do you know it's the right thing? You never really know. And I think that's, I think that's a good thing and a bad thing contextually, depending on ways you want to look at it. You know, if you're having fun, great. You know, however, when somebody's like, was college the right choice? And you're like, stop and pause for a second before you just like, college was the greatest choice I ever made. You've been here a week. Like college just started. Like, calm down a second. Like, oh, I'm not really sure yet. I'm still figuring out like if people can slow down and just like that reaction thing, like they're just reacting to the question. Oh yeah, it's great. I'm having so much fun. Stop and slow down and think and picture where you are. You know what, I don't really have the data to answer that question. Let me go do some more research. Let me go dig in. Let me check in with these feelings that came up on the playground with this 5 year old girl yesterday and find out what that actually means. And I think in your case, like, oh, this is, this, these feelings with children is something that I didn't even realize. And then it's like, and then it kind of peels back. I remember my Karen and I got married. We were 35 and she was 36. And now we have, it's four years later, we have a daughter that we never planned to have. At least, I mean, in the beginning we're like, do you want kids? Nope. Do you want kids? Nope, we're good. Okay, sweet, you know, little secret handshake and we're moving on all happy. And then a couple years into it, it's like, huh, the kind of relationship that we had was one that's so open where we can communicate with each other and be completely vulnerable and real. And then because my previous relationships were never like that, where it didn't feel safe to be scared or to want to do these extracurricular stuff and have like this specific kind of life. So it's like, well, if I'm not able to share that, why am I going to want to a kid with this other person? And so then, you know, you enter into this. So it's, it's really interesting how it evolves. And man, that's like a whole other conversation. Kids, dude.

What for you, Ryan, like, what has been the thing that you would like to be? I think, you know, like, if you were to look back on your life, let's picture like, 85 or 90 and lived a great life.

Okay, awesome.

And now your kids are all grown up. Maybe they have kids of their own. You know, what do you. What would you want to look back and say that you accomplish and how do you feel? Like, what are some great questions, I guess, additionally, that you would have people ask in order to build their life?

Man, I just got, like, tingles just went through me because this is such an expansive list. I'm so in the moment when I really allow myself to be. I'm so grateful for the life that I've had already. But the one thing that comes up for me right now, and it could be because we're talking about children, is that when my daughter's 18 or 25 or whatever, like, the guy she brings home to, like, say, hey, dad, we're getting married. Like, I just. I want that guy to be, like, a really great guy. So one of the biggest drivers for me in my life now is to really, really, on a moment by moment basis, like, re choosing into being a great man and being whole and being able to feel and being able to process emotions and being able to care for my family on a really, really deep and personal level while also maintaining balance to care for my adventuresome spirit. At the same time, I believe in western culture, United States, and probably the whole world. We're training more, so we're training our children to be not adventurers. We're training them to be consumers and employees. And I'm doing everything now. And I know with my son, it's challenging because I was absent in his life for so long. So here, like, one of the things me and him just had, like, an evolving conversation last night of one we're constantly having, is just to really, really show them that being truly what they want to be is possible. And I think in the sense, too, I want to touch on this a little bit more deeper. I think there's a lot of stuff going on right now. It's like, you could do whatever you want, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, if you're 5 foot 6 and you're. And you're a white guy and you. And you're not gonna play in the NBA, like, it's just not true. But the misnomer and how we kind of say it, like, you could do anything you ever want, like, that's not necessarily 100% true in a specific context, however, waking up in the morning and deciding, I'm gonna go left versus right, like, that choice is really real. You know, if your boss is freaking hammering you in the face. You not required to take that. Like, that's a choice that you choose into moment by moment basis. So teaching my children, like, if I see my children, like, making empower choices in the moment, difficult choices, because there's always pros and cons on either side. And so looking back 85 years old, like to see my children making empower choices, making challenging choices to take on pain, to get reward, or ignoring pain because they're like, you know what? That's just not what I want. I'm going to go down this path. Yes. I'm going to miss out on this stuff. I'm going to commit to this path. And just like, being committed people, like, I will be, that will be super awesome for me. I would really be stoked about that. And the reason that's huge for me is because, you know, 35 of my almost 39 years now, I spent choosing what other people said was what I needed to do. You know, do good in high school, get a job, get married, have kids, procreate, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. How come? I don't know. Because that's what we've always done, right? So I didn't do it. Yeah, for sure. You know, And I think the receiving pain is how we grow, which is completely okay. And I do not think that there is a way to avoid that. I do not think that there's a way to avoid that. As humans, that's how we're wired. We grow via, we're learning. We're a learning species. And sometimes learning is painful and sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not. And just, yeah. Inspired and committed people is my biggest dream for my kids and probably my biggest dream in life at the moment. And all the while, while nurturing my childlike spirit as well. Keep that growing and blossoming is really. That's gonna be what's great for me.

Inspired and committed people can change the world.

Yeah, for sure.

In fact, that's the only thing that does change the world. Right. And they change themselves. They see the opportunity to come at this from a new angle and give it enough time, a little bit of momentum builds, and pretty soon there's, yeah. Falling into something great. And you get to foster that in people. Ryan, that's really exciting. So for anybody here listening at home, let's go practical and tactical for a minute because we can talk about the kind of overarching things and you're an entertaining storyteller. Certainly we could tell great stories all day, but I really want people to come away with something from this podcast and make sure that they come away thinking, I'm really glad I invested this time not just to learn one person's perspective from, you know, something that most people will never do, right? Spend 20 years in a metal tube with a bunch of testosterone. You're looking for Russians, right? And looking at sound. So what are some of the things that you, you know, the gifts that you bring that you wish that if you had a microphone that had the ear of everybody in the world, what would you whisper into it? What do you wish everybody knew?

Speaking. Let's, let's talk about the Navy first. One of the things that I definitely screwed up almost every day for 20 years is not listening to my leadership and giving myself the opportunity to be understanding where they're coming from. I mean, like, all the guys that were like, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, instead of being like, that's the dumbest thing ever, like, taking the opportunity to actually learn, like, what it was like for them instead of just wondering what's in it for me, I would have been a much, much better follower in turn, than I would have been able to lead better when I did, because once it was my turn, because that's the way the Navy works. You. You do turnover, and as you grow, you gain some followers, and as you grow even bigger, you're given followers and then from there. And so once it got to my turn, before my breakdown, if there was somebody that I didn't really care for, like, I fought them tooth and nail to the end because I believed I was starting a revolution. And so it was a very divisive tactic. Like, I had my guys that were like, you know, in a sense, what I would believe was forward thinking and more of a different way, yet at the same time, we didn't learn a way to work together. And I didn't help foster that at all. So if this is in your daily life, if it's Janice the teller at Walgreens, or Dave your boss, whom you hate, or whoever, do yourself and that person a favor by getting to know them on a personal level and finding out what makes them tick instead of just combating them for the sake of combat. So it's. And I think if we did that, if we started just like you're saying, if we started with ourselves and then did that in our homes, and then the people in our homes would go out and do that in their perspective spaces, and then me and you get together, and then me and you are doing that as a team and working Together. So really, really, really, regardless of how you feel about the other person, take the opportunity to get to know them personally and you're going to be able to work together so much better. Because when that person shows up, however they do, because of their experiences, because of their growth, because of where they were. And I know me and you have talked to each other about ourselves for hours and hours and weeks and months. And so when I show up and you're like, that's how Ryan shows up. And this is why. Because I understand his past and I'm able to openly discuss him with that because we have that friendship and that relationship together and we're able to do that. So the number one thing, practical and tactical. Pause your own stuff. Just, you know, you know, those triggers come up and just like kind of like the college question, like, and take the moment to really, okay, why am I upset? I'm not upset at the other person. I'm just upset. Why is that? How come this person is reacting like this? And if you, if you don't know, ask, you know, so ask questions. Always ask why. Continue to ask why no matter how much people beat you and thrash against it. And if they're not ready to tell you, be like, okay, cool, I'll go ask the next person and I'll come back to you later. You know, like kind of circling. And so I think at the lowest basis level, just approach everyone and everything from a place of I don't know and just be open to the things that you can learn. Because there is so much I love talking to Savannah and her hundred book goal. Savannah's a. Yeah, she did. I'm so impressed. The most impressive thing about Savannah and her goal completion. I asked her this. We had a call a few weeks ago. Savannah, what was the biggest thing you learned in the year? Reading 100 bucks. And when I asked the question, I kind of expected to be like, oh, I found out the dinosaurs, some random obscure fact. The answer she gave me was that the thing that I most learned was how much there is out there that I don't know. And I was like, oh my goodness, that's the most brilliant answer. It's so brilliant because we could start at one edge of the frickin the information sphere and just start eating our way across. It's going to produce way, way more than we could ever digest.

Yes.

Just, you know, and you can either be, you can be closed off to your own, your own single Euler vision way if you open yourself, you're going to get more of that and you're.

Two quotes, two quotes come to mind with, with regard to reacting versus responding. The Viktor Frankl quote. If you guys haven't read Man's Search for Meaning, I recommend. I was very grateful to have an opportunity to study. I had a professor who was a Sephardic Jew whose parents had emigrated from Ireland and he spent a lot of time in Spain and his course on Holocaust literature. I had to read a lot about the Holocaust and to be able to put yourself in the perspectives of both the victims and the perpetrators and to really see, you know, what the stories were, they're driving the myths that were driving them. In this Viktor Frankl book, Man's Search for Meaning, he talks about, you know, basically surviving Auschwitz. And one of the key takeaways in that book is there's, you know, in between stimulus and response, there's a space. And in that space is the ability to respond or to react. And that can be the difference between life and death. It could be the difference between friend or foe, it can be the difference between, you know. Another quote that I love is defense is the first act of war.

Right.

So if we can get better at communicating, if we can better just relating to each other and just understanding and putting ourselves in other people's perspectives, we can literally change the fabric of what.

It is to be alive.

Yeah, and that's so brilliant and so important. So that's, that's just something that I come back to often and just remind myself is like, I don't really know what's going on for this human being or the situation. So just to really sit in the landmark equation, right, Just like I don't know what, I don't know what I don't know makes up most of the universe. And in fact that's what the universe is mostly made up of, is stuff you don't know and that's beautiful and exciting and you'll never know it all. And it's a little bit like keeps in perspective, you know, the pale blue dot picture like Carl Sagan seeing the voyager go away and take a picture of this little tiny pale blue dot. All the politicians, all the, all the great heroes, all of the journeys, all of you, all your family, your countries, your everything, everything is on this pale blue dot that's ever happened for us. And just remembering we're so small but so powerful and that we can create that experience as we see fit, it's just a beautiful thing. And just to remind yourself of that and to picture that at 19, knowing that that took me 10 more years to figure that out.

Yeah. I have to remind myself every time I talk to her that she's only 19 years old. But I guess just to kind of touch on yours on what I guess would be the second thing is those triggers that come up, then that space between notice and responder reaction, is that we're not able to eliminate those triggers entirely. I don't believe so. At least we're not able to. They will always be there because it's part of how we were programmed. Just like a computer system, you do something specific on your computer, a reaction or response happens. However, the thing that we can do. I know you play the guitar, and you've been figured you've been doing that for several years. Or like shooting a basketball or learning play the violin or. Or learning to speed, read or retain better knowledge. Just like, with those. Just like the noticing of like, oh, there's the trigger up. There's the trigger up. If you practice noticing that trigger, you can make that space longer, you know, and the goal is to also, at the same time, reduce the duration of which your trigger lasts. So certain things happen in your trigger for 22 days, and you just shut down, you push people away, and you don't talk to them. And then, you know, if you can reduce that 22 hours, 22 minutes, 22 seconds, and then at the same time, elongate that space as well. And it may just be a few seconds, you know, but there's a lot that can process in a few seconds. So just practice that notice, practice and noticing. I like to ask people, like, what's your top three triggers? You know, mine is like, injustice, whiny people. And, I don't know, my son being loud behind closed doors, talking to his friends when he's playing video games, you know, and so. And this is a conversation my son and I had last night. Like, I'm walking by his door, like, perfect timing. I've been hearing him talking for like the last hour. And then I walk by the perfect time and hear some colorful language. And I open the door, I'm like, hey, man, haven't we talked about this? And so I'm practicing to not bust through the door yelling and screaming, using the exact same stuff he's. That I heard. You know, I know. I know where he learns it from. It's just like that Christmas story. He probably learned it from his father.

I learned it from watching you, dad.

Yeah, it's like, you know, acknowledging that, you know, we're passing these things on and really, really I love how two.

Years are, like, big world issues, like injustice. And that's like my son being loud.

My son being loud. And the reason I put that up there, the reason I say that about my. My son, is because at least once a day I say this thing to my Andrew, I'm right here. I don't need you to yell at me. But then I'll, like, come in the living room and talk to Micare and be so excited and animated, as, you know, I could be. And I'll be like, oh, man, I'm really yelling too, aren't I? So it's. The things that we're triggered by are often, I'd say nearly 100% of the time are the very, very same things that we do on some sort of molecular level that we would just wish we could get rid of.

And so whatever you're withholding from the world is.

Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Yes.

Oh, life is silly, isn't it?

Yeah, I love it.

That's why I love black and white animals. Not just because they're freaking adorable. It reminds me that they're walking in Yang.

Yeah. They're walking for shine, the shadow and the light. Good stuff for sure, dude.

I had somebody really smart point out to me the other day, Daniel Schmachtenberger, that they're not actually opposites.

Well, black and white.

Yeah. Well, that light and dark aren't opposite. It's just one is the absence of the other, and light grows darkness. It's not the opposing force.

It's just this is.

There's photons here. There's not photons here.

Yeah. Something exists or it doesn't.

Yeah, but we made up a story. I made up a story for years.

I'm living under the story.

Light and dark, totally opposite.

Even more so. Like the story was passed down for somebody else's story. And I believe in some certain extents from your parents, DNA melding together and passing through there, you like. I believe that there's a certain amount of trauma that's carried through that way as well as the things that were taught. And the good news is that once we notice that, we can change it.

What you're most brilliant at and what I kind of want to end on, I think is just, you know, if you were to need support in unpacking your triggers, unpacking your stories, unpacking your why, and getting to the point where you are completely committed and completely in flow as far as, like, you're inspired and you're taking action, you're committed to something. Ryan's your guy for that. I just truly believe that, like I've spent enough time with it to know, like he's committed to that purpose and this is a purpose in life. And you know, whether it's one on one or one to many, which he's brilliant at, that's going to be the next phase of his life for sure. And, and he's still transitioning into that. But I know that he's an incredible leader. I know he's an incredible father. I know he's an incredible husband. I know he's an incredible coach. So if you're struggling in any of those areas or you're just kind of stuck, like, I know I'm not the why guy. People come to me all the time. They're like, hey, Brad, I, you know, I don't feel good or whatever about this something. I'm like, action, action, action, action. I had to realize, I had to stop myself and be like, no, I'm not the fire guy. I don't light fires. I throw gasoline on fire. If somebody's like, I want to do this and that's another. And I'm committed, I'm like, cool, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, go. But if they're not sure, I would send them to a guy like Ryan because Ryan's the white guy, he'll find out.

Yeah, I appreciate that. And I remember having a conversation with you. Oh man, this was probably 8 months ago talking about a colleague of mine and he asked me a question and he said, have you gone deep enough with yourself? And I remember at the time, have you gone deep enough with yourself to actually hold space for other people? And I remember that question triggered me really badly. And we had barely talked since then. Me and him actually talked to us the other day. We're actually having coffee on Friday. I'm super excited about it. So really give yourself the opportunity to. And this isn't just you, specifically this to everybody listening at home. Really give yourself the opportunity to look inside and figure out your own why and really learn to be quiet with that and just let the stuff come up without pushing it back down as we're kind of trained to do in our Captain America style society. And the more you do that for yourself, the more you can really do that for other people at the same time. And just being present and it's something to. Because I love, love, love, love to love, love to be with other people. Yet if I let my triggers frickin fly up, I fly into combat mode and frickin, you know and that's. It doesn't really help anybody either. Brad. Me and Brad. I love you, brother. Big Internet hug.

Internet hug. So if people want to reach out and take this to the next level, Ryan, how do they do that? Where can they find you online? What are the places?

The best spot? Right now I'm transitioning websites in the moment from first wakeups.com to R. So you can look at either of those presently or in the future, although they're both under construction. So hit me up on Facebook, facebook.com ryantraba Send me a friend request. Shoot me a message. Send me an email. Ryanturaba. Com. Reach out to Brad. He can make a connection or.

And that's R Y, A, N, C H A R A B A.

Perfect. Yeah, man. Yep.

Ryan.

Yeah, I appreciate it.

Any parting words of wisdom for the audience?

Just every single person you pass on the street give a loving response to. You know, Tony Robbins. Me and Brad talk about this all the time. There's two types of communication in this world. And this has been like my 2017, like, goal to notice this and 2018 to acknowledge the same thing. There's two types of responses. There's cries for help and loving responses. So listen for the cries for help and give loving responses to every single person you pass. If it's a guy taking your valet money, if you're ordering food from Jack in the Box, if you're the waitress, your wife, your kids, like, really, really come from a place of love with everything you say, as much as you can, and when you screw up because you will give yourself that same kind of love. Because we're human and we make mistakes and just give yourself the opportunity to learn from that.

That's beautiful. Brian, thank you so much for being on the show. And on behalf of everybody at Make More Marbles, we love you. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to the Make More Marbles podcast. For more tips, hacks and strategies to create an amazing, abundant life in your health, wealth, and relationship, whatever that means to you, head on over to makemoremarbles.com check out our cool explainer video about what we're about, and join our community of entrepreneurial game changers. We want to help you level up your life in every possible way. And don't forget to subscribe to us on itunes, Stitcher or Google Play, wherever you're listening your podcast. And please do leave a review. Thank you so much and we'll see you on the next podcast.