Lessons from a U.S. Navy SEAL - Conversations with Don Mann

Greetings everybody, welcome to the Wednesday, March 2nd, 2016 episode of Free Webinar Wednesdays. This is Eric Cook and I'm a digital strategist over at WSI Internet Marketing where we work with businesses and organizations on helping them better understand and leverage the power of the internet as a strategic business tool. You can learn more about me and WSI and all the cool stuff that we get to do over at www.poweredbywsi.com. With me again this week, and we are back after taking a couple weeks off, is my good friend and Free Webinar Wednesday partner and co-founder, Mr. Jeff Simpkins. Jeff, say hello to everybody out there in Free Webinar Wednesday world. Greetings everybody, this is Jeff Simpkins and I am with Community Bank Consulting, Inc.

You can learn more about me and the services that we offer at www.communitybankconsulting.com.

Awesome. So today's session is one that I am super excited about because it has a little bit of just, I'll say, just pure military badass associated with it because it involves a Navy SEAL. It involves a very close personal friend of mine who's been on Free Webinar Wednesdays before, Kathy Roach Wallace.

Hi.

Her and her daughter participated in some events that Don actually put on, which is how I come to know of Don. And it's got a little sprinkling of social media because I kind of rolled the dice and I reached out to Don actually through LinkedIn and said, hey, if there's any chance that you'd ever be interested in being our guest on this little webinar show that my buddy Jeff and I put on, I'd love to have you on just to talk about anything that you want to talk about. And, uh, and he jumped right back and said, absolutely. And he's got a cool, uh, endeavor coming up later this year that we're going to talk about amongst other things. Um, so it's got a lot of really interesting components that, that brought this show together. Um, so I'm, I'm really excited to get things going, but before we do, just a couple of housekeeping things. Uh, I want to remind everybody that, uh, Free Webinar Wednesdays is recorded and made available at freewebinarwednesdays.com. So after today's session, We'll post that up, and if you'd like to share it with a friend or a family member or coworker or colleague, whatever, point them back to Free Webinar Wednesdays and they can go ahead and watch the recording and maybe even subscribe and join us down the road. And we like Free Webinar Wednesdays to be interactive, and so in your control panel, which is likely floating on the right-hand side of your screen, you'll see a chat or maybe a questions area. If you've got something that you'd like to ask Don as we're going through the presentation, and I suspect you'll get a lot of questions, feel free to go ahead and type it into the chat function, and we'll go ahead and we'll ask those when there is a break in the action. And then lastly, just as a courtesy to those of you that might be dialing in on the telephone, as a maybe reminder to some but a notification to others if this is your first time with us, The default number that's provided as part of the GoToMeeting session actually is a number that directs you up to Canada. So if you're calling on a cell phone or you're calling from the office and you don't happen to have international calling plans and you're dialing from the United States, there is an international number beneath the phone number that you can click on, and that'll give you a list of numbers all over the world, and you can pick United States and dial in there, and that way you're not going to get surprised with a hefty long-distance charge. We certainly Don't want free Webinar Wednesdays to cost anybody anything. So with that, it is my great pleasure. I'm gonna start working the magic here of GoToMeeting. We had— I was joking with Jeff just briefly— some minor little technical challenges when we were getting started, and Don got it all figured out and dropped off and was calling us back. And I said, you know, this is probably the one guest that I'm not gonna tease or make fun of for not being able to figure out how to use GoToMeeting because he's a Navy SEAL and I'm sure he could probably track me down and make my life really uncomfortable. So, so we're not going to do that. We're excited to have you with us, Don, and you should now have a message on your screen that says show my screen, and then we can see your PowerPoint, and then we'll officially go ahead and get rolling. You see that?

Yes, I do, Eric. Can I just hit it? My presentation is up.

Beautiful. All right, we see a nice sunny background, and now we see your presentation. If you want to go ahead and throw it into presentation mode, we are good to go. Without further ado, I welcome Don Mann to this week's Free Webinar Wednesdays. Take it away, Don.

Hey, thank you, Eric. It's nice talking with you. I appreciate you inviting me on your show, and nice to talk with you too, Jeff. Thank you, Don. Would you like me to go through this right now, this presentation?

Yeah, let's go ahead. You know, I've got a bunch of questions that are rolling around in my head. I have a secret Passion for Navy SEALs. I have a friend of mine that actually serves as a, as a mom for the Naval Academy, um, over in Annapolis, and she's told me some SEAL stories. So I am like a kid at Christmas morning here, just waiting to hear some, some cool stuff. And, uh, we've chatted a couple of times on the phone, but, uh, this will be the first time I've actually heard a formal presentation. I, I know it's going to be good and inspirational and interested in hearing about your upcoming event with Mount Everest and All sorts of other stuff. So let's go ahead and roll right into it.

Okay, Eric, and right at the top I'm going to put show, and it should be clicking right now. Showing paused main screen.

Nope, you want to go ahead and click on the play button and then just go ahead and click through your slides.

Got it. There we go. Okay, well, again, Eric and Jeff, thanks for having me. This slide presentation, my presentation is basically something I put together a few years back, and I modify it for different audiences. And it's just, I've taken some lessons out of the life I've lived, and some of it was from SEAL training, some of it was SEAL missions, some of it was going on to work with the CIA afterwards, and as Eric very well knows, a lot of it has to do with sports, the long-distance sports, the sports that sometimes it's hard for anybody to really relate to what we're talking about when we talk about long-distance sports. My screen just went black. I'm sorry about that.

Gotta love technical difficulties. Sometimes Citrix doesn't play very nice with us, so we'll kind of get through it. Meanwhile, I'm going to go ahead and just double-check. I know that your team was in process of trying to send me an emergency backup version of your presentation, so we'll see whether or not that's actually happened yet.

I'll be happy to go on without the screen.

Yeah, why don't we go ahead and we'll just go on. We've got your, your, your kind of the Reaching Beyond Boundaries title slide up there. Let's— and I suspect there's probably an intro slide that says a little bit about yourself, you know, what got you interested in becoming a SEAL, you know, what, what drove you to that. I've read the book by Marcus Luttrell, The Lone Survivor, and You know, in that book, he kind of claims he was a little bit of a hellion growing up and liked to cause trouble and raise ruckus. And the whole concept of Navy SEALs and kind of getting paid to be able to do that against bad guys was one of the things that attracted him to, to the, to the world of SEALs. I don't know if you have a similar story or if you come from a military family or just a really patriotic guy, but maybe start with some of that and then we can kind of roll in. Sure.

We'll see where it goes. Okay, and the presentation is back up too. So Marcus— yep, Marcus has a similar background. And, uh, you know, it's funny, when you go to a SEAL team, you'll see guys who came, they were maybe rodeo cowboys like Chris Kyle, uh, Texans like Marcus or Chris. Um, they might be very, very religious people who spend a lot of time praying and going to church. And you'll never hear a swear out of their mouths. They're just very, very, very good religious, spiritual people. And some are athletes, and some come from the biker world, you know, the radical motorcycle world. But one thing SEALs all have in common, they all get together regardless of their backgrounds, and they're able to push themselves incredibly hard and to focus on a common goal. regardless of the walk of life they come from. This talk I'm going to give right now is basically based on some experiences I've had through sports, SEALs, agency, and I would like to begin with stating that my experiences, they pale compared to so many others in the SEAL communities, the special operations communities and in the community of big, long races, the 500-milers and the 600-milers. I broke my life pretty much down into goals. It sounds simple, but it worked, and I was able to accomplish most everything I set out to do by doing this. And I would pick out some very, very difficult, challenging goal that didn't seem possible to reach. And that would be what I would consider my macro goal. And then I organized a bunch of micro goals to reach that macro goal. For instance, my first marathon, that was a macro goal, and I did a bunch of 5Ks and 10Ks and half marathons, which were micro goals to reach certain times and certain distances and certain mileage— mileages before I hit that macro goal. Well, the professional athletic macro goals, and the accomplishments that I'm most proud of is becoming a SEAL. That was very— I am very, very proud of my background. And then going on to SEAL Team 6. You have to spend a number of years at the other SEAL teams, and you have to meet a lot of criteria before you can even ask to be selected for SEAL Team 6. So that was a macro goal. And I always wanted to retire from the SEALs and then go on to work with the agency. Once the Ironmans came about and triathlons got very popular, I was one of the first of the Ironmen. I'm at the age, so when that sport first started, I was right there and I was able to do some of the first Ironmans in Hawaii. Then the sports got longer and longer and longer with the race galois and the Primal Quest, and those were the 10-day, 500 to 600-mile adventure races. Those were pretty much the Mapper goals I'm most proud of. As a SEAL, I wanted to serve all over the world, so I did serve on the West Coast, which is SEAL Team 1. They cover the western part of the world. I served on the East Coast, SEAL Team 2. But then when I got selected for SEAL Team 6, I got to serve worldwide At a Tier 1 unit, and that was the most rewarding part of my military career. I also got into writing, and my English teachers would be rolling over in their graves if they ever heard me say that, because school was never anything I was very interested in. I really focused on outdoor activities, and being indoors, I felt like I had chains on, and I didn't take school seriously. Including English or writing. So I thought I would start writing for the Navy Times, just some training articles and how to stay fit. And that was a goal, a macro goal, and I brought that macro goal down to a micro goal. And I thought maybe my new macro goal might be to write a book. And now I'm on book number 12 just by using this system of micro goals and macro goals. As a runner, as a runner, I ran my first marathon. It was Boston Marathon. I did that as a non-runner, and all I wanted to do was finish and not stop putting one leg in front of the other, and not bring the walk down to— I'm sorry, not bring the run down to a walk. I just promised myself that if I just put one leg in front of the other, even though I'm not a runner, I should be able to finish a marathon. And it worked.

Yeah.

The time wasn't very fast. It was 3 hours and 44 minutes, But to run a marathon as a non-runner, I mean, a complete non-runner, I never ran in high school or anywhere. I just decided to do this because I wanted to get in shape as a motocross racer. So I went on and did— I figured since I ran a marathon, maybe I should do another one the next month to try to get my times down. And the next 3 years or so, I did 30 marathons. A lot of those were ultras and was able to knock an hour just about an hour off my marathon time, just using this micro-macro goal-setting things. I've done the same thing in road cycling. I did the same thing in mountain bike racing, pretty much probably like Chaffee has done the same thing. And then, um, and adventuring and triathlons and paddle racing, kayak racing, surf ski racing. And, um, I think the last big surf ski event I did was, uh, We paddled all the way across the country from border to border in Chile to the Pacific Ocean through the Andes. And it's a 5-day paddle and it's just snowing and hailing and raining the whole time. We never saw another person. Then we paddled from Key Largo to Key West, another 5 or 6-day paddle. And then for rowing, I went after the world record for my age group. So This has just been a theme of my life for all the sports I've competed in, setting a huge, huge goal, which was my macro goal, and a lot of micro goals to get ready for that macro goal. And I started realizing this process of organizing goals, it doesn't only have to work in sports. I mean, it started working in other aspects of my life too. And some people could care less about sports or the military, but I think what I'm going to be talking about today, I hope that doctors can relate to it, accountants, you know, if you want to be a better father or better mother. It's just a mindset and it's a philosophy. It's the same philosophy and mindset we use in the SEAL teams when we try to train young guys to be SEALs. And in the teams, we call it a combat mindset. I don't typically call it combat mindset unless I'm talking to the military. When the Ironman started out, I heard that there was this race in Hawaii where you get to swim 2.4 miles and then you ride a bike 112 and then you run 26.2. And I was so excited about that race, I called the race director out there, Valerie Silk. She owned the race and she said, yeah, yeah, we had this race. Only a few people have done it. About 15 people have done it, but you can come out here and you can stay at my house if you want to. It was just fun being part of the initial startup of this new sport called triathlons. That took over my life. I just loved the triathlons. I just raced all the time, and I was hoping to have over 1,000 races before I retired from racing, but I had over 1,000 races done in the '80s, and I'm still racing. I actually set that goal, that macro goal, too low. But as Kathy has gone on and done doubles and triples, um, you know, my favorite was the Ironman, and then I just went on, and one day I thought, if I could do an Ironman in half a day, why can't I do 2 Ironmans in a full day? And I just had that macro goal of an Ironman for a year, and I did the marathons and the swimming and bike events coming up to that. But then once I was able to accomplish that Ironman in less than half a day, I thought, Let's bring the Ironman down to a micro-goal and make the new macro-goal 2 Ironmans in one day. And it really works. It worked out fine. I'm still doing that. Now I'm 58 years old, and I'll still set high goals. I have one I'm working toward right now for the end of this month. I'm going to mention it in a few minutes. But this micro and macro goal setting has helped me in every aspect of my own life. And I personally believe that the real tragedy for most people is not that they set their goals too high and they don't reach them. I think most people set their goals low, too low, and they do reach them. In the SEAL Teams and in these long adventure sports, in my life, I simply feel that we have self-perceived limitations. We don't— nobody else puts these limitations on us. We set them ourselves. So why not look at those and just blow through them somehow and make that limitation, bring it back down, bring it down to the micro-goal level, get over it, and look at something harder and more challenging?

Don, just a quick check here. We're still seeing The title slide. I don't know if you've moved on, but I think maybe the GoToMeeting screen sharing is paused. You might need to click on the triangle to hit play again or to show your screen. So I just wanted to check on that if you have moved forward on any slides, make sure that we're seeing updates. There we go, perfect. Now we can see your slides. And the other thing that— yeah, the other thing that I want to mention there, and Kathy has talked about this a couple of times with regards to goal setting, and the concept of failure is not a bad thing because, like you had said, if you set your goal too low and you achieve it, you might be limiting yourself but have a false sense of success. And a lot of people may be afraid, whether it's in business or it's in endurance or sports, Yeah. that if they set their goal too high, they might fail. But Kathy shared that that provides a great opportunity to really understand things at a deeper level. Do you have a similar— I mean, I'm sure you rattled off a bunch of really awesome things, but my suspicion is you probably have failed a couple of times where you didn't achieve what you set yourself out to do. And Do you take that away as an even bigger lesson in the process?

I couldn't agree more with Kathy. And if somebody hasn't failed at accomplishing something big, I just don't think they've set the goals high enough. If you go and pass everything that you've tried to do and it's good, I got it done, I got it done, I got it done, that's not even a challenge. I would see that as a miserable failure. I read a lot about Reinhold Messner, who in my opinion is the greatest athlete, and he's one of my favorite philosophers too. And he's known as the greatest mountaineer of all time, but also he's known as the greatest mountaineer in the world and probably the greatest mountaineer the world will ever, ever know because of all his accomplishments. And a little analogy going to the climbing world, there are many climbs where he's failed the first time, went back, failed the second time, went back, failed the third time, went back. And during all those failures, he learned so many things he had to learn about that particular climb, where he'd go back on a multiple attempt, or multiple, maybe the 3rd or 4th or 5th time, and he would, he would beat it. He would conquer the mountain. And, um, and, and so a guy like that, who's, who's known as the best in his field probably ever on this planet, that's how he thinks as well, is that if he just went and climbed the mountain, that and didn't have a problem and succeeded the first time, he wouldn't see that as a challenge. And I believe that's what Kathy believes, and that's absolutely what I believe as well.

Great, good. Well, now that we can see your awesome slides with the great pictures, I think we are finally good to go. So, um, those are some great shots, and looks like a painful foot there in the top left, if I'm not mistaken.

Yep. Well, um, So, so as an athlete, as an adventure athlete like Kathy, you know, you do get to compete with some of the toughest athletes in the world and people from all over the world and all types of walks of lives. But the one thing they do have in common is that they like pushing themselves, and, um, and that couldn't be more true. I've, I'm not a loud, boisterous, or pound-your-chest type of guy. And I often got very intimidated by those type of people. I would get off to the starting line of a big event or a big climb or the SEAL training or something huge, and I would look around me and I would see all these people who just looked more the part. They looked fitter and they looked stronger, and their bios and their resumes were more impressive. And that used to intimidate me. A great deal. So much, so many times I'd start up at a race and start up on the line and I'd want to go home because I got so intimidated. And it took a while for me to figure out how to get past that and then to go up against these same people, not only to compete against them but to beat them. And I think my first, very first lesson I had was a motorcycle racer. And that's all I did in sports. I raced motocross, which is racing on a dirt track. And I raced every weekend, and I worked on my motorcycle every week, all week long, and I talked and ate and thought about racing, and that's all I ever did. And I didn't work out or anything. And I had a very close friend who was a professional motocross racer, and I was a novice. So he was at the top and I was at the bottom. He asked me one day, we were both teenagers, he said, Don, you want to go riding together? We went riding and I couldn't even stay near him, he was so much faster. He said to me, if you want to go pro, if you want to go pro, you better start working out. I said, what do you mean working out? He said, yep, you better start running. If you want, you can run with me. I run 3 times a week. He lived in North Haven, Connecticut. He had a 10-mile route. He did that lap, a 1-mile lap, 10 times. And I said, Dave, I'll do that with you, without a clue what running was about. And Dave and I, we looked the same, same height, same weight, same body configuration. We're just 2 little skinny teenagers. And if you just looked at the 2 of us, you really couldn't tell a whole lot of difference between us. But when we started running, the differences were apparent. We ran the first mile, and I thought, That was hard. And then the second mile, I was thinking, boy, that was even harder than that first mile. I don't care for this. And then the third mile, I quit. I quit and I sat down on the lawn and I watched Dave run mile 4, 5, all the way up to mile 10. And it dawned on me during those last 7 miles that David ran why there was a big difference between us and why he was a professional and I was only a novice. is because he knew how to push himself. And at that point in my life, I didn't know how to push myself. I wanted to become a champion. He was a champion. He was professional. But that lesson was one of the best lessons I ever had in my life, and it's lasted me a lifetime. We both dreamt of great success. The difference was He worked really hard at it. He pushed himself way beyond his comfort zone. I liked it. I loved the idea of becoming a professional, but I wasn't willing to make myself uncomfortable. That was one of the greatest lessons of my life. David Keller went on to become a New England champion, a professional, and I remained novice because it wasn't because of my body or my physique or anything. It was because my mindset was so weak. So David is the one who said, Don, you should start running races. Why don't you start running races? That'll get you motivated to train more, and then you can, you know, race motocross, but just start running so you get fit for motocross. I said, wouldn't they have running races? I can't believe anybody would have anything as simple as a running race. He said, yep, there's one coming up in a couple months called Boston Marathon in April, and it's 26.2 miles. And I couldn't believe anybody could run 26.2 miles. I did a little bit of research and found out there's a lot of old people who do it, a lot of people with heart ailments and prosthetic legs and heart ailments and cancer. I was thinking, look at all these people who have all these challenges, physical challenges, and then they go off and they can run 26.2 miles. Why can't I do that? That's what inspired me to just go out there as a non-runner and put one leg in front of the other because I knew it was going to hurt, but I wanted it to hurt. It was the first real goal that I achieved. That worked out well. Then I got to meet Dave Scott before his first Ironman. Dave Scott, of course, is one of the most famous Ironman legends in the world. Before he did his first one, I was on my second one at that time, I asked him— we knew he was going to do really well because of his times, his swim times especially. I said, David, how do you stay in such good shape? He said, well, Don, the sports medicine doctors tell me I'm wrong, but I just work out every day. Some days, if I can't get much done, I'll do at least a half hour. So boom, the light bulb went on in my head. I was thinking, okay, I'm going to do that this year. Then I did it the following year. But then I was able to keep that up for 22 years. For over 22 years, under 23 years, but over 22 years, I didn't take a day off. It helped me so much as a lifelong athlete, and it wasn't difficult to just— before the 24-hour period's up, I have to do a workout. If I can't do anything, at least I'll do something for a half hour, and it worked. Now, finally, my life is taking form, and I know how to get things done. I'm learning how to go after the big goals and getting them done. When Hawaii, the triathlon came about, the Navy— I was in the Navy as a young guy in the Navy way before I was a SEAL. I asked them if they would send me out to Hawaii and they did. Just a handful of people had done the race. I brought my Motobecan bicycle. It cost over $100. I was all excited about this bicycle. We flew out to Hawaii, and I took the bicycle out of the box in the bathroom, the cardboard box. I was walking through the airport, and then I started getting nervous. And then I saw a really fit-looking, blonde-haired guy who just very much to me looked very intimidating. He was muscular and tanned. He had a beautiful Bianchi tri bike next to him, a bike set for triathlons. And, uh, He looked at me like, you're doing this race? I can't believe you're in this race. I was a white, pasty kid from Rhode Island, and back then the Ironman was in the winter, and so I was, you know, I hadn't seen a sunny day in many months. So just the feeling I got by him looking at me made me worried.

Uh-huh.

The next morning we had to sign up, register our bikes, and register for the race. And my knees were shaking, my lip was quivering, and I was holding my bike, my Motobecan, with my right hand. I was looking over to the left, and I couldn't believe the waves, how big they were. And this was when the race was in Oahu. The race was both actually Oahu— that was the last year for Oahu— and then the first year on the Big Island. And I was looking over at the waves, I was thinking, my God, they're crashing over the seawall. And I was thinking, you know, I trained in the pool to get ready for this. But I've never swam in the ocean, any waves like that. I can't believe we're going to swim in that for 2.4 miles. I was really starting to get worried. The guys in front of me, one of them was that blond-haired guy, and he had a lot of friends. They were very loud, boisterous, saying about all the big races they've done and how excited they are that the water is really big because they're big rough water swimmers. I really wanted to go home. Then the blond-haired guy who I saw in the airport looked behind him, and he looked at me and he said, you're in this race? I said, yep. And he said, what is that? That's my Motobecan. So the Motobecan— and he laughed and all his friends laughed— because what's the Motobecan? What's on it? And I told him. He said, you know, my pedals, these titanium pedals on this Bianchi, cost way more than your bicycle does. You're really going to do this race? And I swear, Eric, I just wanted to go home. And I was looking at his— looking at his bike, I was looking at him and his friends, I was looking at me, and I was thinking, what am I doing? And I was really scared out of my— that was the most scared at that point I was in my life. And we went out to the start line the next day, and I managed to get out of the water about halfway. And then, but something in my mind had changed. It clicked. A switch went off, and that switch was, hey, bring on the pain. This is going to hurt, but I have 274 people in front of me, and I'm not here to enjoy this. I'm here to beat those 274 people. So I put my head down and I charged as hard as I could on that bike and passed 25 people. Now I got 250 to go, 225 to go. 175 to go, and I was just beating all these riders in front of me. And then I saw the guy with the green Bianchi ahead of me, and what he said to me was still echoing in my head because he looked back at me and said, so that's a motorbike. And he laughed, and all his friends said, hey, leave the kid alone. But he laughed, and I kept picturing that, him saying that to me. And now I'm catching up to him. And I see him in front of me and I'm thinking, I'm going to beat this guy, I'm going to beat him. And then when I passed him, I looked back and I said, so that's a Bianchi, huh? And it was a big boost of confidence I had because I was able to say that to him. And then I was thinking, okay, now I can't let him pass me. I'm getting a little mouthy here. I can't let him pass me. Now we're in 150th place, 125th place, 100th place. And I was watching the helicopter come down following one of the riders in front of me. The rider the helicopter was following was Gordon Haller, who was the Ironman champion. He had won the Ironman with a time of 11:44. He was the first Ironman. I had a picture of him in my room doing the Nautilus leg extension. I used to idolize this guy. How does a person do an Ironman and then win and do it in under 12 hours? So I had my timing and my training figured, so 11:44 was what I had to try to break, 11:44. And it was Gordon Haller who was on my mind 18 hours a day. But now on my bike, I'm coming up and I see that Gordon Haller is in front of me. I couldn't believe it. And I got ready to pass him without drafting. And as I was passing, I looked at him and with respect, I nodded and I said, have a great race, champ. I couldn't believe that now, that guy who intimidated me so much, now he's way behind me, but I just passed the previous champ. Then I was going as hard as I could. Now I'm 75th or so, got in the marathon. Halfway through the marathon, there's 13 miles to go. I'm in about 50th place. I knew I still wanted to go past 49 other people. Or so, and then the crowd was getting louder and louder, and they said, watch out, the champ's a runner, he's going to get you. And he was chasing me down. And now we're in 40th place, and we've got less than a mile to go, and I saw him on my right side of my peripheral vision, and he was pushing really hard. I couldn't run any faster at all, and he passed me right at the finish line. He's the only person who passed me in the race. And then we both ran in the water and he hugged me and he said, thanks so much for pushing me. And in my view, when the champion of the world's toughest race back then, when he hugged me and thanked me for pushing him, I mean, that really did a lot for my confidence. But more so, it taught me how to think. It taught me how to think that don't get intimidated by these other people. If you reach down further, if you push harder, if you're more willing to accept the pain than these other people, you're going to beat them. That there, I mean, that was a long time ago and I think of that all the time. Gordon Haller went on, he's in the Ironman Hall of Fame for winning the first Ironman, but just to be back there and have that experience, it shaped my life. And I'll never forget it. And I took that lesson and I started thinking, you know, an Ironman, that was my macro goal. And I broke his time of 11:44. I did 11:41. I was so excited. I started thinking, you know, if I could do one Ironman in half a day, why don't I make the Ironman a micro goal and make the double Ironman a 2 Ironmans? Kathy's so familiar with, the doubles and triples. Why don't I make that a macro goal, trying to do 2 Ironmans in one day? So I did that. My new macro goal was a double Ironman, and that's 4.8-mile swim, 224-mile bike ride, and a 52.4-mile run. Everything went fine in the water. 224-mile bike ride went well. First marathon went well. And then about mile 32, I started dry heaving. Started seeing the white stars. I felt like I was choking up a pork chop sideways out of my throat. It was very, very painful, and I passed out. I passed out, and I woke up, and I had the bile on my chin. I looked around, I saw runners and riders, and I was wondering why I was sleeping outside. It dawned on me, I'm in the middle of this race, and I got up and finished. The reason I love that that happened to me Is because it proved to me that all those times before that at Double Ironman, all the times I thought things were too hard or too difficult or too painful, I was wrong. Because if something is too hard or too painful or too challenging, my body would have told me and it would— I would have passed out and I would have got my break. And that's exactly what happened. I passed out, I got my break, I woke up and I was able to finish the race. So it just proved to me all those other times when I quit early without pushing myself to complete exhaustion that I quit too early. So, as I mentioned at the beginning of this talk, my accomplishments as an athlete and as a SEAL, they pale in comparison to so many other athletes and so many other people in the special operations community. A double Ironman to me is a pretty big deal, um, but there are people, Kathy being one, who's done numerous doubles. There are people who've done 3 Ironmans in a row. There are people who've done 5. There are people who've done the deca, which is 10 Ironmans in a row. One time they had a double deca, 20 Ironmans in a row. And then last year in Italy, They had 30 Ironmans, which is basically an Ironman a day, 30 days in a row, which means that individual athlete is swimming 72 miles, riding a bike 3,360 miles, and then running 786 miles. And the difference between them and other people, they just really, really, really know how to reach way down deep inside to get the impossible done. And the triple-decker for them was their macro goal, and their micro goals were 10-time Ironman, 5-time Ironman, 2-time Ironman events. Mark Allen is a big hero in the sport, and Mark said, a man must not withdraw from the sport without at least once in his or her lifetime giving everything they have. I think that works for being a father, a brother, a banker, a doctor, a nurse. Back in the early days of these triathlons, there was a young woman who came out to Hawaii one year, and ABC Wide World of Sports captured her coming across the finish line, and it made this little obscure sport world famous. Because Julie— her name was Julie Moss— she came across She finished the bike ride, she was finishing up the run, she was having difficulties, and before she got to the finish line, she had collapsed, and she had defecated in her pants, and urinated in her pants, and started throwing up. And she didn't know how to quit. She didn't know the meaning of quitting. She kept crawling, and crawling, and crawling until she went through the finish line. ABC Wide World of Sports captured that, and it changed After that year, every year we had 2,000 people trying to sign up for the Ironman. People saw that was just an example of what the human spirit is capable of doing. She could not quit. She couldn't bring it to herself to quit. This is the attitude I'm talking about. Kathy's gone on to do the RAAM, the Race Across America. I have so much respect for her and the others who've done it. I attempted that back before it was a race, before it was called the RAM, the Race Across America. It was a 3,000-mile race, and actually I was being stationed from the East Coast over to the West Coast. I was in Rhode Island, and I was being stationed at Camp Pendleton, California, outside of San Diego. And I was thinking, you know, it's 3,000 miles, I have 10 days travel time, I guess if I did 300 miles a day, I could just ride my bike cross-country. And so I was under some pressure. Well, we made it about halfway. I went with another rider who gave up on me. He wanted to do 100 miles a day after a while, and I wasn't interested in doing 100 miles a day. I told him, I said, Jay, anybody can ride a bike 100 miles a day. We're here to set a world record. So we packed up the bikes and I thought I'd do it some other year. Well, that year never happened. And now I felt one of those— I'm one of those people with an excuse. Well, I was setting a world record, but— and then I have some lame excuse because I didn't have my mind strong enough and my plans figured out. And that, as Robert Service has said, sometimes it's not the mountain that wears you out, it's just that grain of sand in your shoe. It wasn't the ride that I couldn't do, it was me not having a mindset powerful enough to get over the obstacles and just gone on my own to finish that ride. So it's just a regret I'll have for the rest of my life. As we know, the marathon evolved to the triathlon, the triathlon evolved to the adventure race, and adventure racing is where I met Eric. Something I love so much, they don't even have the big ones really anymore, the big 10-day races. What I loved about adventure racing was the same thing I loved about selecting people through SEAL training and training people to be SEALs. Because the one thing that I quickly realized is you're not going to help the person if the person doesn't have the right mindset. But if that person has the right mindset, regardless of the talents or abilities, if the person has the right mindset, that's the person you want on your team. That's the person you want to give a chance to go through BUD/S, or the person you want to go through training to do a 500 or 600 miler with you. Strength. You know, a lot of people say, I'm really strong because I can go in the weight room, I can curl 60 pounds 10 times. I mean, that's not really strength. Regardless of the number of pounds or the weights or the repetition or the event itself, Strength doesn't come from something you can already do. It comes from overcoming something you once thought you couldn't do, and that's what strength is. Vincent Lombardi, he said, the quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor. Funny, it's so funny sometimes when I talk to the And I mention bonking, they all giggle and they go, oh my God, he's going to talk about sex. Well, as we know, bonking— when we talk about bonking in our community, it's not pleasurable at all. It's very painful. And I bonked. I would try to do it on a monthly basis. I tried to push myself at some point where I was hallucinating, bonked. Crashed out where I couldn't move at least once a month. The reason I like doing this is because I like filling that void. I didn't know how much I could push till I went over my limit, and I would bonk or hallucinate or pass out or bleed or something bad would happen. And and I felt if I wasn't pushing it that hard. For my teammates, for my team, or for myself, I wasn't giving it my all. I thought like that for decades. We all have bodies that fail. Nobody has a body that can go on forever and keep going, keep going, keep going without at some point failing, unless like we talked about earlier, the challenges they push on their bodies aren't challenging enough. What I felt about while bonking and pushing myself to the point of hallucinations and bleeding and unconsciousness. I know it sounds extreme, but I have a point here. I knew pushing myself that hard was eventually bad for my body. What it did, it made my mind so much stronger. I did a lot of this before becoming a SEAL. It just helped my SEAL training a great deal because I had the mindset when I went into SEAL training. It's really, really hard to beat a person who doesn't give up, no matter how fast or how slow or how talented that person is. Our bodies all would fail, but my mind kept getting stronger and kept getting stronger, which was bad for my body at some point because I kept pushing my body to points where I was hurting it. I eventually learned that don't go over that line. You go over that line, you're going to have physical problems. You push over that line too long, you give too much to that endeavor, that sport or that activity, you can have family problems perhaps, or work-related problems. You can't go over that line and live past that line because it's bad for you. And that line changes in our lives all the time. But there's nobody on this planet who will convince me that going up and touching that line Then backing off isn't the way that you'll get everything you can out of your life in that particular sport or endeavor. We have conversational pace, and we have race pace. Conversational pace is you might see people walking around the park or running, jogging in the park, just talking, or on treadmills in a hotel, and they're talking, they're watching the news. It's fun and socially acceptable and all, and you can meet and greet with your friends. But at SEAL Team, we, we couldn't train at conversational pace. We had to train at race pace. Race pace is a lot more uncomfortable. It makes the non-race pace times all the more enjoyable because you can't be at race pace all the time in everything you do. But if you're training for a mission or working for a specific goal, going at race pace, we got a lot more accomplished at race pace than we would have if we stayed at conversational pace. It basically means going way out beyond your comfort zone and operating at your full performance level. And reaching for that line. If you go over the line, it's going to hurt and it's bad for you, but at least fill the void so the void doesn't go on Unfilled. So many people's lives, at the end of it all, they've had a lot of void in their lives where it wasn't filled, and they probably could have done whatever they do much, much, much better, or given a lot more to it. In the Tour de France, they'd say, let's go out and empty the tank, let's give it all we have. So again, if I, I got to the mindset where if I didn't give it my all, I felt I was cheating my team. I didn't want to sell myself short. I didn't want to sell myself short for the sake of the team. I believe bonking was the ultimate test. Reinhold Messner, there's nobody on— there's not an athlete on this planet I respect more than him. Reinhold Messner, you know, he's climbed Everest without oxygen. He's climbed— what he'll do, he'll get his gear together, He'll look at some Himalayan peaks, some mountains somewhere in the world that's never been climbed. He doesn't take the beaten path. He goes on a route that hasn't been climbed. He'll go without oxygen. He'll go solo. And he'll tell his folks, I should be back in a couple of months. That, to me, is the epitome of reaching way, way deep down inside and achieving what you would think is not possible. And the slide that's up right now is a picture of Reinhold Messner. He doesn't look like a physical specimen by any means. If you saw him walk by a conference room or the park, you'd just think he was some typical guy. But that guy, his mindset and how he has the ability to reach so deep and achieve what most people thought was impossible, and he keeps going on and on. On and on, across the South Pole, the North Pole, Gobi Desert. The guy is incredible. And it's his mindset. It's not his body or a gift that he has. Dave Horton lives here in Virginia, not too far from me. He lives up in Lynchburg. And he is one of the greatest runners in the United States, long-distance runner. He ran across the United States once at 65 miles a day. He's just an incredible runner. But he told me something once that I think reaches far beyond the running community. He said, Don, if you want to test your body, go ahead, run a marathon. Anybody who wants to test their body, go run a marathon. But if you want to test your mind, do an ultra. Do a 50K or a 50-miler. That'll test your mind. But if you want to test your spirit, if you really want to test your inner spirit, go ahead, do a 100-miler. And I think that just pertains to so much more than running, and I always think of him and his, uh, him telling me that. As a SEAL, some of the guys I've worked with are just incredible. They're legendary. Had Medal of Honor winner get the Medal of Honor from President Obama this week. I'm just so proud of those guys. They are tough, tough as nails, these SEALs. And so are Rangers, and so are Delta Force guys and Special Forces. And Marines. And you know, in the athletic adventure racing world, we have guys like Mike Hoosier and Ian Adamson and just these physical specimens. But I really think one of the toughest people I ever, ever knew was Angelica Costaneda. And when I met her, she was 53 years old, and I was worried she wasn't going to bring enough food with her in one of my races. We're going to do a race in South Africa together. I said, Angelica, I've seen you bonk on TV before. I want you to have more food than that little bag you're showing me for 10 days of travel. What she told me gave me the chills. She was from Austria, and she had a beautiful Austrian accent. She said, Don, don't worry about me. I'll be okay. I'm not going to die on you. I might feel like I'm going to die, but my body will eat from itself. My God, when she told me that, I got the chills. This woman is great. This greatness sitting in front of me. I had 4 solid, solid— myself and 3 other super great athlete SEALs on my team, and we had to pick a woman. She was 53. We didn't want to pick an older woman, but there is no doubt in my mind after just hearing her say that to me that she was a woman I wanted on the team. Her resume was unbelievable. as well, but she was quite a bit older than the rest of us. When she told me that, I knew she was serious. That was Angelica Castaneda. Well, we went on and we became really good friends. I've seen her bonk, and I've told her about my bonking. I weigh 190 typically, but I've gone— I went from 175 to 138 once where just your muscles start eating away, and you can smell it happening. It's Terrible smell because your mind is so powerful. You just say, go, I'm not going to stop no matter how much it hurts. I'm not going to stop. I don't need sleep. I'm not going to stop. You go through all your fuel stores, your sugar stores, and then your mind keeps saying, go, go, go, and your body has nothing left. What it does is starts breaking down your muscle, and it's used as energy. You come back from these races sometimes, and I went down below 104 pounds a few times, and it's terrible for you going over that line. I just say touch the line and come back. But when I saw Angelica bonk, I wanted to make sure she wasn't going to bonk on me in this race. And she told me, don't worry about me, I will not die, my body will eat from itself. Well, not to repeat myself, but you go over that and you can end up in the Death zone, and you can die. It's come twice. I've done that to myself, where my liver and kidneys shut down at one time, and I was dying. I had to go on bed rest for a long period of time. I couldn't do anything, and I almost killed myself because I was pushing too hard. You can't go over that line. I would never, ever, ever suggest anybody go over that line because it's so bad for you. To the point of bonking, backing down, to the point of overdoing it, but backing down. I just think you get so much more done in the physical aspect, and it's an analogy for everything non-physical. But then again, we stay at that conversational pace, it's easy, it's within our comfort zone, way below our full potential. You know, there's just so many things I think that don't get done. As you know, as Kathy knows, You can run up and down these mountains day in and day out, and we were doing that. We were 6 or 7 days on our feet. If you took your fingernail and went over and over and over on the side of your desk there, it gets loose. It'll get turned brown, and you have to peel it off if you keep hitting it. When you're running up and down these mountains with trail shoes on or running shoes, that happens to your toenails, too. They get loose, and then you You have to peel them off. It was painful. I was taking off my 7th toenail one day, and Angelica was looking over my shoulder. In that beautiful Austrian accent, she goes, Don, what are you doing? I said, I have to remove this toenail. It's coming off. She yelled at me. She reprimanded me. She said, Don, if you were serious about this sport, you'd have those toenails removed before the race and have the skin sewn together so they don't grow back. And she was as serious as a person could be, and I'm being reprimanded by this older, beautiful woman who we had on our team, and that's the only thing we ever had an argument on, because I didn't have that done. Well, you know, it sounds disgusting, but on the slide I have there right now, it's a person's feet without toes. Well, that's Reinhold Messner. That's him. He lost his toes to frostbite. He lost 7 of his toes to frostbite, and he still didn't let anything like that stop him. Who cares if you're missing toenails? In his view, who cares if you're missing toes? It didn't stop him from climbing other mountains and crossing deserts and continents. And then bring that to the veteran. Look at the poor vets we have come back. Some, some are missing all 4 limbs, some with 2 limbs, legs amputees, arm amputees, and they're doing incredible things. Not only do they raise their hand and say, I'll go fight for my country, they come back PTSD, missing limbs, and they're going on to do the greatest things, and I'm so inspired by these young vets and feel absolutely terrible what they've gone through and what they go through for the rest of their lives. So the toenails, the toes, the limbs, things can always be that much worse, and we can't let it be a crutch to say, oh well, I could do more if only. We can't, we can't do that. Sir Edmund Hillary, of course, eminent Sherpa, climbed Everest, first to summit it, 1953. And when I do these talks, I don't try to talk anybody into climbing a big mountain or anything like that. But Sir Edmund Hillary, his philosophy was, it's not that mountain we're trying to conquer, but we want to conquer ourselves. Let's get everything we can from ourselves. A couple years back, we went and climbed the Grand Tetons. I went with some great climbers, and we did a 2-day climb. We did it in a day, and we were all proud of ourselves, you know, hey, look how tough Tough and everything we are. Anyways, we get back down with the guys, and Nancy Stevens comes down, and she just did the same thing we just did, with the exception of she wasn't a mountaineer. She had very few climbing abilities. She wasn't really an athlete, and she was blind. And that's just that human spirit, that combat mindset that inspires me so much. People like that, who can reach way, way down inside and do things that are just very difficult. Climbers have a saying. They say, the experienced climber is not intimidated by a mountain, but they're inspired by the mountain. And a persistent winner is not discouraged by a problem, but is challenged by the problem. And mountains are created to be conquered. Adversities are designed to be defeated. And problems are to be solved. We use climbing as an analogy for other aspects of life. In SEAL training—

Hey, Don, I just want to interrupt. I know we're at the top of the hour and we got a little bit late start due to some technical issues. So if folks that are listening live do have to drop off, we certainly understand that. The recording will capture the rest of what you have to say because I know you're going to talk a little little bit about your upcoming Everest expedition. So we're going to go ahead and just push on, and we've got a few more minutes here that we can spend for sure. But I just wanted to let folks know that if you do have to drop off, please feel free to come back to freewebinarwednesdays.com, and you can catch the recording and the last bit of Don's discussion today.

Alrighty.

Alright. There we go.

This is the philosophy we use to push people. This is the philosophy we use that we want to have people who are going through SEAL training to have. They don't have many options. They have one option: to have this mindset or not to have this option, this mindset. Because when they're going overseas, they're going over places— right now the military is in 89 different countries. And a lot of these places these guys go to, they go there and people want to take their lives. They have to have this mindset. SEAL training is the toughest training in the world, and— but it produces the toughest warriors on the planet. A lot of the ethics and the ethos come from the Spartans, and the Spartans wouldn't say, how many enemy are there? They'd say, where are they? We're going after them. And that's the mindset of a SEAL. Nothing's impossible. It's gonna seem impossible, but we're gonna go after it. So if you, if you welcome this pain, you know it's gonna be hard, whatever it is— training, racing, fighting, working hard— why not just say, I welcome the pain, bring it on? Because pain breeds strength. Pain is good, and extreme pain is extremely good. There are 2 types of pain. Temporary pain of discipline. You have to get through the hard parts to finish and reach the goal. If not, you'll have that permanent pain of regret, and that's something we don't want to live with, a permanent pain of regret. So why give up the dream? Why not keep pushing? At some point, at some point, these guys doing log PT, they're all in a lot of pain. Some are going to quit. it, and for the rest of their lives they regret it. Some are going to think, if I keep going, keep going, at some point the instructor will blow the whistle and I'll get to go jump in the ocean and get a break. And at some point I hope to be a SEAL. If not, you regret it and live with that regret for the rest of your life. These people in the military, they have to have this mindset. 2 little simple training episodes we had in BUD/S. Is they tie your hands behind your back, they tie your feet, and they throw you in the water. You bob up and down, you try to get a breath of air. Well, we had a guy drown in our— near drowning. I saw him at the bottom of the pool, and 2 Navy divers pulled him up. We're thinking, this poor guy, I mean, he just died, and this is some serious training. They resuscitated him, he lived. He had all the frothing at the mouth. When they pulled him up, but he lived. The next thing we had to do was we had to do a forward flip in the air, jump in the water, swim underwater from one end of the pool back to the other. And all they said was, don't give up. Whatever you do, don't give up. I was thinking, well, that doesn't sound very hard. If you give up, you're out of BUD/S. We don't want to waste our time with you. If you pass out underwater, we'll pull you up. So don't feel bad to yourself. Don't think you need to breathe. Just don't quit. So we did it. I went under, I did my swim, and it was hurting. My head was hurting so much on the way back. Felt like there was an ice pick in my brain. It just was so painful. I shot up to the water and I quit. And most of the class had quit. And the instructors were saying, those guys are weak. We don't want to waste our time with them. Maybe these 8 or so guys over here. We might be able to salvage them, and maybe someday they'll be SEALs. The long story is they gave us another chance, and I was thinking, no matter what, I'm going to finish this swim underwater. And it still was hurting so much, and the pain was getting more and more severe, and I did pass out underwater, and they pulled me up, and I was able to graduate BUD/S. And we just lost people because they weren't willing to push themselves hard enough. I needed that extra push at that point. So you could take a SEAL, you could take a warrior of any military service, you strip down all the weapons and everything away from that guy, that's not why he's so powerful. It's this mindset is why that person is so powerful. Happened on a An accident when I had a parachute jump, a high-altitude, high-opening at 29,000 feet, middle of the night. My oxygen mask snapped off. My head was pushed down really hard with a bad opening. I thought my neck had snapped. My jaw had been dislocated. I was seeing stars, and I was falling from 29,000 feet. I got my oxygen mask back on. I was able to dislocate my dislocated jaw. I was able to put it back into place. and finish the mission and land not too far from my teammates. And I started realizing I love the way I'm thinking. I absolutely love it. It's working well. And Eric, I don't know how much longer you want me to go on. I can go right to the next adventure I have planned, or I can finish up the next 10 minutes or so, whatever you'd like.

Yeah, I mean, I would absolutely love to spend the entire afternoon listening to these stories. But I think in the interest of time, just for the folks that do have to get back to their jobs. Let's go ahead, because I want to make sure you get a chance to talk about Everest Expedition, because that, in addition to pushing you beyond your limits and being another kind of macro goal, I suspect you're doing that for a great cause. And, you know, Frogman Charities is one of the sites that I put into the write-up, you know, figuring out how you can take this propensity to push yourself beyond what most people would think is doable. And use that as a way to generate awareness for others and the veterans and the families of the SEALs that have been out, and some of them have come back injured and some of them that haven't come back at all. I think what you're doing on Everest to try to raise awareness for that and generate some money to help those folks is a very, very noble thing.

Thank you.

Let's get to that. Take us through Everest, and then we'll go ahead and we'll call a close to this one.

All righty. One of the greatest tragedies in our lives, what we believe as SEALs, is not death. People will go to their death if they feel like they're doing the right thing. The greatest tragedy of our life is not death, but what we could let die inside of If we allow it to. I talked quite a bit about goal setting, micro goals and macro goals. I'm 58 years old now, and I know there are a lot of big things left that I haven't done, and I still want to do a lot more in my life. I've taken all my athletic experiences, and I grouped them up all into micro goals, and all of those preparing me for my next macro goal. And I leave in less than a month, and I'm going to go to Mount Everest with the goal of summiting Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. That's my physical macro goal. But I don't want to do that just for a personal goal. I want to do it as a personal goal, but also I want to do it for much more than that. I want to tie it in with something. I want to tie it in With the needs of our veterans. It just— that actually stops me in my tracks. I lose my breath. I get emotional. I get choked up when I see these young veterans with PTSD, missing these limbs, coming back from war after being 18, 19, 20 years old, their life completely altered. And they did what we needed them to do. But now I believe the rest of us need to do— be there for them. I'm very, very fortunate. I got out unscathed, pretty much. But these young guys and these young ladies over there now fighting for our country, coming back with all the problems they're facing now, we need to help them. So I set another macro goal, and that is I'm going to climb Everest, but I'm going to do it in hopes to raise a great deal of awareness for veterans, veterans in need, and for all the charities that support veterans. And it is my goal to raise $1 million. I'm not putting a time limit on this. I want to raise $1 million for veterans. And I'm starting off by doing this Everest climb, and we're going to send daily dispatches out, and we're going to tie it in with a story from a veteran or a charity that supports veterans. And they'll be on the Frogman Charities website, Frogman Charities Facebook page. Outside TV is going to be promoting it. Gala Wine is going to be promoting it. It's going to be promoted around the world. But the goal is, for this point, for the rest of my life, I am going to raise awareness and raise funds for the veterans in need. That's my presentation. I'm sorry it went on a little long. I'm really happy to be doing this with you, and I appreciate the time to let me talk about what I'm doing for the veterans as well.

Absolutely, our pleasure. I don't know if there's anyone out there that has got some questions. We'll allow a couple of minutes for that if you do have something, or Jeff, if you've got anything that you'd like to share. You know, like I said, I think I could probably stay on here and chat with you the entire afternoon and listen to stories. And a lot of the questions that I would ask, you'd probably say, sorry, Eric, I can't answer that, that's classified. But you can always try.

Yeah, yeah, the things that are classified, you know, most anybody with a top secret or a secret clearance will refrain and they won't talk about those type of things. But there are things that we have done in training and in certain times in the military and the SEALs that you can talk about. And I believe if you talk about them and it can help other people, it's worthwhile to talk about them. Absolutely.

So, hey, Doc, can you just go back a page? I know we've got a question wondering what social media accounts you've set up so that they can follow you, your Frogman Charities, and then also the effort. I know you've got a Facebook page, you've got a Twitter account, you've got an Instagram account. I believe that those are all just under Frogman Charities, if I'm not mistaken.

They are. That's right, Eric. Frogman Charities. Yep.

And my name.

Frogman Charities.

Yep, yep. So Don Mann. So you can go ahead and find that. And of course, if If you need some help tracking down Don, by all means reach out and I can definitely put you in touch. Kind of an interesting little side story, there's another Don Mann in my address book who used to be kind of the head of the banking division here for the state of Michigan. Google at one point actually merged the two of you in my contacts without me realizing it.

Oh, really?

When I thought I was calling Don Mann the banker, I surprisingly got Don Mann, the former US Navy SEAL Team 6 member, and I kind of had to think on my feet, but it was a good little conversation that we had otherwise. But there's probably only one Don Mann SEAL member out there that you can find.

Yeah, well, Eric, anytime I can ever do anything for you, I'd be happy to. Please send my best to Kathy. Again, I appreciate the time to be on your show. Absolutely.

For those of you that are still on, and we do have a good number of folks that stuck around, we appreciate going over a little bit. I know we're about 15 minutes outside of the hour, but this has been a great presentation. I would encourage you to go to the Frogman Charities. Don Mann's website, I think there's a GoFundMe page where you can provide some financial support if you'd like to offer that up as well. Don is very modest in not mentioning that, but I will bring that to the attention of our listeners as well, and we'll maybe put some of those links in the show notes. So if you'd like to support Don and try to help make his goal of getting to the million dollars a reality, you can play a part in that. But Don, this has been a great show. Thanks for joining us today, and we'll go ahead and we'll close it. We will be off next week due to some travel and conferences, but the following week we will be back at freewebinarwednesdays.com. So until then, have a great week. Keep an eye on the site for the recording replay of this, and we'll see you at freewebinarwednesdays.com. Bye everybody. Thanks.

Thank you, Eric. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you.

Thank you.