Cody Alford: What Makes a Warrior When the War Is Over?

You know, for most of human history, the warrior had a clear role. What happens to a warrior when there's no longer a war to fight?

The real mission within begins.

Well, let's even go back. Like, what makes someone a warrior in the first place? I guess.

I know that's a, that was a term that I heard thrown around a lot throughout my military career. And I, and I never agree with the majority of the responses that I heard. And those would be like, oh, this guy's a warrior. And it was very battlefield-centric. And then, as I moved up in rank and got to peek behind the curtain as I progressed through my military career, I realized that the real warrior was the man and woman who was not only capable on the battlefield but was also competent back at home looking out for the people that they would be serving alongside. And, I realized that that wasn't always the case. And so, the savage or the warrior term that gets thrown around A lot was a competent, compassionate, capable person, no matter what their roles or responsibilities were, because not everyone has a combat lead role, but everyone that serves a role inside that mechanism is super crucial. And a lot of people, I think, didn't give themselves enough credit or their environments didn't allow them to flourish enough to actually kind of step into those true roles. It was like kind of almost stay in your lane. warrior to me is, is someone who, who finds a way, who adapts and overcomes no matter the surrounding, no matter their scenario, uh, whether it's conflict or just communication. Uh, maybe that's not the term for everyone else, but it's definitely something that I've tried to embody myself throughout my career and as a civilian.

I, I feel like that term grit gets thrown around a lot, you know, like particularly towards the young generations now, like, oh, they're, they're, they're not getting any grit instilled. So did, what did the military teach you about grit that most people I'm going to never learn.

That it sucks to suck. And then the only way to not suck is to endure the suck. And it seems very basic terminology, but for instance, I was walking with my 4-year-old son today and we're walking our dogs. It's about a mile and a half. And he's like, Dad, I basically want to stop and sit down for a little bit. I'm like, hey, we're about halfway home. You know, normally I say we're almost there, but I'm like, hey, we're about halfway home. You're doing great. Keep on going. This is this is where you grow, and it was not brought up again. You know, and then like we get home. I'm like, man, I'm so proud of you. You didn't want to like take a break. He's like, my legs are tired, and you know he's four. But I feel like I'm tired. I'm gonna go sit down. I'm hungry. I'm gonna go eat. I don't want to today, so I'm not going to today. And the grit comes in like many forms. I feel like the coolest thing about grit—it's a it's a completely. self-imposed opportunity to grow because the pack can't carry you. You have to carry yourself. And I feel like what you said with the modern generation is like, there probably is a bigger desire to be part of something bigger than themselves and greater than themselves, but realizing that their ability or inability to show up determines that. The military taught me is like, how bad do you want it? The first time I've ever was in a school where I could quit, I could drop on— it's called DOR, drop on request, was the moment I knew I was in the right place. Because a lot of people can do hard things, but they usually kind of stay stuck with it because they feel like there's no out. But when they have an out for themselves, that's when they're really afforded the opportunity like, yo, how bad do you want this? You said you want this, you talked about you want this, but Your actions are showing differently, and it gives you that opportunity to really find the the mind over matter because our brains are so much powerful than our bodies. And I have to remind myself that at 41, you know, when I'm in the sauna for you know 40 minutes at you know 200 degrees, I'm like, oh, I can go forever. But my brain is much stronger. My willpower is significantly stronger than my body as I'm depleting my body of all these nutrients and you know all these like you know fluids. Like I have to be smarter and capable, and I feel like some people only look at what their bodies are capable of doing, not what their mind and their body are capable of doing together.

That's kind of the opposite of what I would have thought, that, that you felt more like, like attached to the circumstances when you, when you had the option for an out where it was reflected back to you of like, this is a choice. I guess I almost assume that most people need the boundary of not having the choice to endure sometimes, but your experience is almost the opposite.

Well, because think about it, right? So if you know that you can't quit, then you're going to get by one way or another, right? Now, just because you get by doesn't mean that you are getting by in a way where you feel fulfilled or you feel like you earned it, I should say. Anytime there's a chance to fail, there's a chance to succeed. And I think especially growing up through the military and seeing a lot of different phases from an 18-year-old little boy to a 33-year-old man, I noticed that people like the fact that, oh, I can't quit. Uh, they can't stop me. Well, now you're just like society. You're, you're the societal norm of just like the herd mentality pushes you through. But then even when that happens, the herd mentality finishes as a whole on the finish line. But you don't have, not everyone's a top performer. Not everyone is successful. Not everyone is impactful. Not everyone is a leader. Not everyone has taken something away. Because they, they minded over matter the, the hardship or the adversity that they were currently going through. That's something I always found pretty interesting throughout the military career.

Did the military get anything wrong in your judgment in terms of like how it, how it builds grit or how it builds the warrior as we're defining it?

Do I feel like they got anything wrong? No, I mean, honestly, people can say what they want to about the military. The military is one big psychological operation, especially the Marine Corps. I mean, no place in the world can you take people from all around the globe, put them through a 12, 13-week period, and have them come out on the other side and feel like they're absolutely invincible. That does not happen anywhere else. And the military has been using doctrine that's been around since the inception of it, And it's still using those same doctrines today, and I think they got it pretty good. The the the thing that gets wrong with the military and gives the military the bad rep are the participants in the military. You know, a lot of people feel like they got cheated. A lot of people felt like, well, my leadership sucked, and that's a lot of it out there, right? There's poor leadership everywhere. But I had those same experiences with poor leadership, just like everyone else did. So that's when you get the chance to evolve as a person, like. Okay, are you going to speak up? Are you going to bring suggestions? Are you willing to take a punch to the face, you know, figuratively and, you know, physically at times? You know, is— are you willing to, to be seen? And most people want the glory, but they don't want to be on the battlefield. I kind of bring this back to the whole, like, uh, like Christ walking to his death, right? There's all these people on the sideline that were blessed, touched, and lives changed and transformed. from this person. And as Christ is walking to his death, they're like, oh, please don't look at me because I don't want the same fate as you. Right? It's like they want the salvation, but they don't want the hardship that must be endured to receive it. You know, they want the recognition without the absolute turmoil that you must go through to become the person. Right? A lot of people take the military context and they're like, well, I got cheated. But did you cheat yourself? Because nothing was handed out to me in my military career. In fact, I was, generally speaking, underqualified. I did not have like— there's a lot of like academic scoring as well that you need, like it's called like a GT score, your ASVAB. I was always subpar on all these requirements. And when I was told no, I found a solution. I found a way. And most people don't do that. And What I think is the best about the military, those men and women who were able to hit those roadblocks and then find another way, they're generally pretty successful in the real world too. Same way with civilians. It's like, I've been working this job for 4 years and I've never got a raise. Well, bro, have you asked for a raise? You know, have you shown the value? Have you even brought up what you're doing, what you're working on, how your department's doing better? People are honestly too scared and No fault of their own. It's generally an experience-based thing where I was really exposed to a lot of that in the military because if you want to eat, you got to speak up. If you want change, you got to speak up. I remember telling officers no in the military, which is super taboo and definitely something that you're not supposed to do. And, there's repercussions that come with that. But, when it's significant enough for me to step into that role to put my hand out and say, stop, It's for a reason. And that's where logical and like common sense comes into play. And I don't think people kind of push their, their boundaries of who they really are. I'm like, we're all breathing. We all got the same, you know, mechanism inside of us. We're all fueled by, you know, this spirit, this soul that's like, you know, pumping in this like lifeline in front of us. We all have the same capabilities. Do we have different gifts and traits? 100%. But we all have a voice. And if you don't, if you can't personally speak and you can write, you know, you can transcribe something like that's the most powerful thing we can do is speak up for ourselves. And I just don't see a lot of people do

that. To me, that's like having agency. Like, where did you learn that? Did you learn that in the military or from your youth?

Maybe the youth. You know, I played— I started playing football at 7th grade. I played soccer before that. I was, you know, I think every kid played soccer. You could suck and still play soccer. Football, especially in Texas, 5A football, you had to be good and pretty big and good at the same time. I was a super small, skinny white kid in Duncanville, Texas, 5A football, and I never found myself starting until my senior year. The struggle that I faced was that I loved the camaraderie and the teamwork that came with football, And so when they're looking for scout defense, right? So they're looking for basically like the beat-up defense that can run these plays so the offense can just hammer them and get all their reps in. Even though I knew I was a punching bag, I gave it everything I had because I cared about the team winning, even though the team to win was the varsity team, which was 2 years ahead of me, right? But I had influence on how I show up because if I cut corners because I didn't want to get hit hard or I didn't want to go hard doing 2-a-days in Texas heat, then I'm felling the team. which is why I'm there in the first place, because it wasn't Cody Alford football, it was the Duncanville Panther football. It was a team, and I really fell in love with that team aspect at a young age.

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In the military, what I noticed, I remember this, I remember it was like day 1 or day 2, once you actually get inside your like prescribed boot camp platoon where you do all your, you're already done with all your in-processing. I very vividly remember my drill instructors asking, who here wants to be a leader? And when I tell you that I was scared, I was terrified, but I raised my hand because I'm like, why would I want to sign up for something for 4 years just to get by? You know, just to be a gray man. Like I had dreams of becoming a scout sniper. That's why I joined the military in the first place. So like, and that wasn't a guaranteed place. Like I couldn't just directly sign up for that as a 17-year-old kid at the recruiting station. But I knew deep down inside that if If I don't lead, I run the risk of someone completely incapable, you know, being in charge of me. And when people look at people on social media or people doing businesses, they're like, well, why are they doing it? Well, they're doing it because they did it. You know, why wouldn't they want to do it? They're just as capable as you. That's why I love these success stories of just like, because everyone's a normal person that do abnormal things. I wasn't handed a silver platter. I wasn't given a guaranteed birth plan for my military career. Like, Cody, if you just keep on doing your job, this is where you're going to end up. None of that was the case. And I had multiple times to throw that away, to derail myself, to get distracted, to chase a shiny object. So any decision I would've made would've completely changed my entire military experience. But one thing that allowed me to have the experience that I've had as a service member, as well as a civilian, is why not me? I want that. I want to do that. Why can't I learn that? Why can't I be good at this? Why can't I get this opportunity? Well, in case you can't, well, why not? And then you go find a way, right? Because generally, what I've learned from the military specifically is people tell you no to opportunities that they were never courageous enough to take themselves. Not everybody wanted to be a scout sniper or a force reconnaissance Marine or a Marine Raider in the Marine Corps. And I didn't know that. But a lot of these guys that were in charge of other people who wanted to aspire to be those roles, they did try out. And the trend that I saw was that these young Marines be like, hey, I want to try out for the sniper endoc. Well, their leader tried out and failed, and then he has a sour taste in his mouth and he talks about how he was cheated. And therefore he has this chip on his shoulder and he just projects that down on other people. And The military is a very jealous organization. Not all the time, but you got to think that you're honestly not in charge of your own destiny. There's generally 2 people in front of you at all times that write reports on you, do reviews on you. And generally speaking, if you have a bad relationship with them, you can kind of see where that goes. Well, that's the same way in the civilian workforce. But the thing is, the competition isn't thick. The competition generally stops at like, oh, I was told no, so I'm not going to move forward anymore. I don't have money, so I can't start this business that I want to. These are all fallacies that we tell ourselves. I started my, my business with $0 and an iPad. It's about how bad do you want it and how long are you willing to endure the suck? How hard are you willing to dig deep and find that grit to, to go for something you actually say you want? And I think that's the most powerful thing that we have as humans, and especially Americans, the land of opportunity. Yeah. Is everything perfect here? Absolutely not. But I'd much rather be in America than anywhere else in the world. I love this place. We have some of the most amazing people that are, that are homegrown, that are imported, that are all around the globe. And they come here with the same opportunities as everyone else has. But the problem is, is that people don't realize that those people had to put themselves out there. They had to get told a bunch of nos before they ever got told one yes. They had to actually put their money where their mouth is. You know, most Americans have no problem spending $200 on a Friday night at a bar or the course of a weekend at a bar or maybe even just like a nice fine restaurant. But you ask that same person to invest $200 into something healthier for them, something that can transform their life or maybe continued education for themselves, and it's like a roadblock. And I think it's more of a generational thing because how America is kind of set up is you go to school, then you go to college, then you get a job, and that's your birth plan. You invest in a 401, and then you die one day. But before you die, you know, you'll get to buy your dream car finally that you're never going to drive because you're too terrified because you've been living in fear your entire life. Where I said, screw that. You know, I'm like the complete opposite. I bought my dream truck when I was 23, and I drove that '52 GMC everywhere, cross-country to work every day. And old-timers would always be like, why is that thing in the garage? I'm like, why would I say this is my dream truck and not use it? You know, that's like having a favorite pair of pants that you only wear on special occasions. It doesn't make sense. But once again, you know, I was shot in the helmet at 18. And it really changed a lot of perspective for me because I'm like, wow, you know, life is extremely short. This wasn't like a, I almost got T-boned by a car. This was like, I almost didn't come back to existence. And so it drove me even harder to push after these things that I said I wanted. And I knew the play. I remember some of the hardest training I ever did in the military. I remember it was, it's called patrol phase during recon school. And it's like, 5+ days, you got limited food. You always have access to water, so you don't obviously die, you know, heatstroke out there. But you definitely have limited access to food, completely limited access to sleep. You're carrying 100+ pounds of gear on your pack, and you're playing GI Joe in the woods on Camp Pendleton. And I remember walking for hours through this, like, creek bed. It's wet, water's up to, like, my shins, and the moon is out and the clouds are there, and there's mountains on both sides of me. I'm like, Whoa, I envisioned this when I was a kid. You know, all those movies I watched, you know, the insert whatever war movie or military movie that ever existed. Like, I envisioned this as a kid saying this is what I wanted to do, and now I'm actually doing it and I'm in that role. Therefore, I didn't care that my feet were completely soaking wet. I didn't care that I was hungry, because what did you expect?

How important Is the, you know, knowing your mission though? Like, because, because what I hear is like, you knew what you wanted out of football, you knew what you wanted out of the military, because there's many people that have discipline but no mission.

That's a huge and great point, right? There's a lot of people with external discipline with absolute zero internal, like, foundation. And I was one of those people. When I retired from the Marine Corps back in September 2018, I lost my mission, my identity, and my purpose. I was so happy I was getting to retire. I was super desperate at the time too. My brain was shutting down. I'm drooling on myself nonstop. I was pretty tapped out. And so I was excited for that opportunity to get to experience life. But as soon as I picked up my retirement paperwork, And I got escorted off my own compound, I instantly lost everything as quick as— even though I was looking forward to that transition, as soon as I got escorted off the compound, I was like, I am so lost. And when I got out, I didn't know who I was, what I stood for, or what I believed in. Those 3 things, I had no clue about any of them. And I was determined to make that my mission. If you don't have a mission, and some people are I think take a mission and they look at it completely different. A mission can simply be, I'm going to go through my day without having any negative self-talk. I'm going to go through my day and I'm— before I touch my pillow, I'm going to make sure I do at least 20 push-ups. 20 push-ups before I even touch that pillow. I'm going to make sure sometime in this 24-hour period, I'm going to do 20 push-ups. That could be your mission. Your mission is wherever your feet are at and what your mind is going through. And I live in a really weird world, weird, unique world where it's all in my head. And I'm willing to bet so is everyone else's because we're all kind of just making up what we think life is. But I know very factually there's a, there's a war in a world inside my mind. And when I'm looking for a mission to, to grow and expand, sometimes it has nothing to do with anything outside of us. It has to do with everything inside. Like, man, I want to be a better person. Well, I can tell you this much. I've been wanting to be a better person for a long time. my life. And, you know, each one of those, you know, let's just say Lego blocks to build my foundation, some of those things took me a year and a half to even like, I can't believe I overcame that. You know, but we get so used to saying, man, I want this new item from Amazon. I press it and 2 days later it's at my house. I want to have pizza tonight. So I go out and I drive and get pizza or order and have it delivered. We're so used to receiving what we want externally instantly. But that thing that we seek the most internally, it takes time, right? And I'm a firm believer. You talked about like this ancestral foundation, you know, the same people that existed in my entire bloodline are flowing through my DNA. The hundreds of thousands that ever existed are flowing through my DNA. So not only am I working on my own problems, I'm working on all the other things that my generation never did, not because they weren't capable, but they just probably weren't exposed to. Let's just go back to a made-up time of, you know, loincloths and mud huts. There was no like speaking up out of place. It was shut up and color, do what the elder says, pay the fee to the king, do this, do that. It was very rare that the rebels existed because there was a high price to pay, and that was your life. That was honestly your bloodline was at stake. Now we wear funny clothes, we have made-up jobs, we have imaginary money. It's still the same mental slavery, but it's a mental slavery as a choice thing. Not everyone is courageous, and being courageous doesn't mean you're brave enough to charge a machine gun bunker. Being courageous is is the ability to think, right? Thinking has become a crime. Thinking has become this one crucial tool that we have for success and survivability that people don't even allow themselves to to like embark on. You know, I I. Had a coaching group for years, and I remember one of my participants in there, great dude. He's like, "Man, I really want to be able to like you know buy a house, you know, and have a farm." I'm like, he's like, "I just I just don't have the money yet." I'm like, "Well, how much is the house and farm?" He's like, "Well, I don't know." I'm like, "Well, then how do you know you don't have the money for it?" I'm like, "Well, what can you get approved for right now?" He's like, "Well, I don't know." I'm like, "Well, how do you know you can't afford it?" But most people won't even go that route because whatever story they're telling themselves, that's just truth. That's it's it's. And fate, it's there, they're locked into their situation. And that's simply not true, but it's, it's a completely mental disease.

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I'm always encouraging people to create. You had a dream as a kid. Every hardcore gangster to every successful person, they cried as a baby. They went potty in their pants. You know, they smiled, they laughed, they played in dirt, they played with rocks and sticks. They were so creative. And then one day something happened where they were told to stop and to get in line. And that's when we go from creators to just consumers, consumers of rules, Consumers of regulations, consumers of well I couldn't do it so therefore you can't do it. Especially with kids and technology, it's like I'm like guys, my godsons, I love them to death, but when they were younger they would just watch other people play video games. I'm like totally cool to do that if you have a mission. Like let's say there's an objective that you can't get over on a game, absolutely watch a video on someone how they overcome that so you can go replicate that. But there has to be a point in time where you're like, why can't I do that? I'm super talented. Well, you can do that, but it's going to take grit. It's going to take time. And the thing is, you can put your heart and soul into it and nothing's guaranteed. And that's a scary mission to know that whatever you want and whatever you're really striving for and sacrificing for is not guaranteed. That's what keeps people like, you know what, I'll just, I'll just stop. I'll just go back to doing what I'm told. Not because they're incompetent or they're slave mentalities, but because it's easier to have something guaranteed. Guaranteed than to step into a world that is unknown, right? And that's the same thing with like self-discovery and, you know, personal development is like, look at me, I'm jacked, I'm disciplined, I, I have all the things in line. But I've worked with a lot of those people as clients, and at the end of the day, what they don't have is themselves. You know, everything they touch turns to gold. They have the family, the cars, the house, the things, the employees, the people they're blessing— great things. But they're still empty inside because they have sacrificed their own inner dialogue for an external mission that is gonna die off with them. And the thing that lives on past you is who you become within. That's like saying, oh, I give my kids everything they want. Well, what they want is to see you handle conflict with your spouse. What they want is to see you, what presence is really like. What they want to see is how you handle this crazy lifestyle that you either are part of or you developed yourself and how you still make time. To pet the dogs when you come home and ask the kids how they're doing and play for 5 minutes, right? That those— but that can only happen when you work on yourself. And I feel like the younger generation that's constantly just viewing and consuming, they don't realize that the only difference between the person they're watching and wanting to emulate and themselves is the fact that person's doing it. But that's the problem is like when you are so conditioned and programmed and there's no catalyst that triggers you and exposes you, once you see something you can't unsee it, right? The first big, like, fuck you dinner I ever was at where, like, my friend ordered for the whole table, the king crab, the tomahawk steaks. Like, I've never experienced anything in my life. Now, granted, he's very positioned to do that. And so he's blessing us, you know, collectively because he wanted to. But the moment I saw that, I'm like, oh my God, I can't unsee this. So instantly, once I got to a place, I wanted to take my friends to that same level of experience because I know what it impacted me on. Ordering for the table? I never knew that was a thing. I've seen it in movies, but movies are fake. Of course they are, but so is life to a certain degree. Everyone's making it up. It's just who's bolder to go out there and defy the conformity of their own mental constraints and the societal programming that they've been— that they're willingly accepting as truths in their life, vice going out there and paving their own path. They don't have to reinvent the wheel. But going out there and taking a chance on themselves, you know, to me, I never understood why people don't do that.

Yeah. And as you're pointing out, mission is so important. So how does one know what their mission is?

Good luck. I don't know. I'm 41. And I'm still trying to figure that out. I don't claim to have any answers. But I know that I'm not the same man I am today that I was even 30 days ago, let alone 8 years ago. And as much as I've tried to force what is my mission, what's my purpose, because I've asked God this for years, like, what's my mission? What's my purpose? I'm never going to get there if I stay in my comfort zone. I'm never going to expose that path if I keep on doing the same thing that I'm doing that's causing me pain and turmoil. I've worked one job as a civilian since I've been out of the military since 2018. Day one I worked that job, I was thinking about my business, We Defy the Day 1, I was thinking about the thing that I kind of paused to get this opportunity because of, you know, big money, big opportunity. I could finally prove that I'm more than just a veteran. You know, I know I'm capable of something more, you know? So it was like, it was a big opportunity for me, at least. So it was a big opportunity, period. The people I met alone was priceless. However, I was thinking about the thing that I really wanted to do. And so sometimes you have to do things that you don't want to do, To get the clarity of the thing that you do want to do. You know, so when you're looking for, when you're trying to identify a mission in your life, it's like, man, if you could change one thing about your life right now, what would that be? Some people are like, oh, I need to make more money. Okay, tight. How many more shifts? How much more money? How many more shifts is that? How many more jobs is that? What can you sell today? And then you're like, wait a second, I wanted $400 more a month, but I could like sell my Xbox to make that. Okay. So is now your mission to find an extra $400 you can create extra a month? And when you get into that new pattern, even it's like, man, I want to mow 2 extra yards a month, right? Because you're doing like a side hustle. Once you start going down on the path of betting on yourself, the path illuminates. But as I keep on, you know, throwing the spaghetti at the wall and I keep— and I narrow down the things I'm actually interested, why can't I make a living and impact based upon that? Well, you totally can. But the thing is, is like, it's unconventional and it's not the norm, especially for America. It's not the norm, especially around the world. Honestly, it's not the norm to branch out and take a, take a gamble on yourself. We gamble with our, our souls, our money, our time, our relationships, our families. We gamble with all sorts of things 24/7, but gambling on, for, on us is not really something that most people do.

So what I hear you saying is that you, you've been very motivated Throughout your whole life. What would help someone to get motivated? What, what would help someone to kind of turn up that fire to actually start taking action?

I have 2 big fears in my life. Fear number one is when I die, seeing who I could have become. Fear number 2 is if I'm fortunate enough to have a deathbed, looking over to my wife and asking her like, hey, did you have a good life? And she tells me it was okay. Not okay as in like, oh, we didn't go on that trip, trip to Greece. She doesn't care about all those things. Okay, as in like, yeah, dude, you were awesome. You were present. You were loving. You were a great husband, a great dad. Like, my fear is that it was okay. And then if it's okay, that means I lived a life that was simply a dream inside my head that I never manifested to reality. And I have full control over that for the most part. You know, I can't control what happens outside of me, but I can control my thoughts and my actions. And the fear of like not knowing who you could become. Like, I don't even know who that guy looks like, but I tell you, that guy is not sad about himself. That guy is not going to give up. There's plenty of times in my life I wanted to give up. There's plenty of times in my life there were— I was just laying on my floor, be like, oh, we haven't made a sale. I don't know what I'm doing. Like, just straight like pity party. But that's also part of the process. Like, You're supposed to feel lost when you're walking a path that few ever embark on. I'm not better than anybody else. The competition is just simply me. And I think if people just looked at their competition as simply them, not what, not what Susie down the street has or what Tim down the street's doing, but what are they doing? You know, I hate my job. I get that message all the time on the internet. I hate my job. Go find another one. And most of these people that I talked to that hated their job, what they really hated, It was their mindset. Because most of those people that I worked with and I helped them help themselves shift their mindset on how they even show up to work, they got recognized, they got paid more, they got raised, they got promotions. They started to love their job. And what they really despised most wasn't their job, it was just themselves. It was their own self-talk, their own self, that image they see when they look in the mirror. When they focus on their eyes.

What did you do to support their mindset? How did you help them change?

Ask some questions, right? Most people don't even ask themselves questions like, why do you— I hate my job. My job's— my life sucks. Well, why does your life suck? Oh, just nothing's working out for me. I'm like, well, what's not working out for you? Right? We come up with these, like, you ever see those, like, boards, like, especially on podcasts, they press a button. It's like, hello, hello, right? It's like all these, like, soundboards, these soundbites. We fall into this like, man, I'm hungry. Well, what are you hungry for? Well, I don't know. I wanna make more money. Well, how much more money you wanna make? Well, I don't know. I just wanna make more money. Well, if I gave you, if you earned an extra dollar today, would that be happy? Well, no, I don't want a dollar. Well, how much do you want? Being able to be specific and have clarity in your life, only you can do that for yourself. And that is super scary. You know, one of the practices that I do to my own self, I'm driving into work, I have this beautiful drive. To my office. And I ask myself, Cody, you have all the financial abundance that you and your family need to live a life that you want to live, where we're able to bless our friends, bless strangers, you know, have, you know, a good life for ourselves doing the things we want to do. What are you doing with your day? I ask myself that literally every day. What are you doing with your day? And then I remind myself, I'd be doing the same thing. I love helping people. I love creating content. I love being able to like use a digital platform for something positive. That maybe not won't go viral, but someone on there is gonna be like, dude, if this guy can do it, sheesh, I can do that. And I want them to. Some guy messaged me yesterday. I recently started going back to jiu-jitsu and he's like, oh my God, I have a higher belt than the legend Cody Alford. That is so freaking awesome. I'm like, good for you. Let's go, bro. That's awesome. He's like, thanks for responding. Good for you, bro. It's not a competition against me. You're the only competition, right? It's just simply you versus you. And so the questions I ask them are just for clarity in what they want, because your version of success and happiness will be completely different than mine. And that's totally allowed. That's totally okay. But most people don't even ask themselves those questions because it's hard. It's hard to sit with their thoughts. That's why most people stay busy. They're constantly blasting music. They're constantly going places, distracting themselves. But the silence is where all the answers are at. You know, we've all had those moments in life where that voice in your head, call it what you want to, but that voice in your head said, don't go down that street. Go left. Go back and check the freezer again. You didn't come up with that on your own, but the voice was in your head. And then you go action that thing and it turns out that you benefited from it. And we all have had those experiences where that voice came into our head that said, don't do that. And you said, nah, I'm gonna do it anyway. And it didn't work out for you. So the only way I can hear that voice is if I'm kind of sitting still, if I'm not drowning out the voice with negative self-talk, completely external constant stimulation of things, right? Whether that's substances, music, media, literally anything that drains our mind. And you can do those things if you like. People like working, working with background music. That's totally cool if you are allowing it to put you in a state where you are thinking, and that is just the mechanism that kind of triggers the thinking to occur. But most people will only attach themselves to the external things because this is the most important thing. This is external life, which is not true in my life. Not true, not true in my eyes. And it's taken a lot of time to do that.

What does a healthy warrior look like in everyday life?

I know without a doubt, I'm called for more in life. Do I know what that means? Not a clue. I have zero clue, but I know that I'm called for more in life. I can only fulfill that mission if I face the things that I know I'm avoiding. When I come home and I'm guilty because I tell, you know, I used to tell my family, I gotta do all this work still in my own business that I'm creating. I gotta do this. No, I get to do this, you know? And so changing how I show up and changing myself changed my environment. So the environment that I want to see on the outside of me, I have to become that on the inside. And I'm not a perfect person. I'm not. I don't preach Perfectionism. I teach and preach progress, right? Inches make feet. You know, I don't. I'm not just gonna go start a new task and be the best at it. I'll be the best at it over time, or I'll be pretty dang close or pretty good. But I'll be significantly better than I started. But I'm gonna have to suck and struggle and suffer through it. So a healthy warrior to me is someone who is emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually stable. Someone who is like, you know what? I'm stressed out. I need to take a break. Someone who's not afraid to ask for help. You know, the warrior. class today, you know, a lot of my amazing friends that have taken their life over the years, they got out of the military. They were the most savage dudes I've ever met in my life. They were great everything, not just on the battlefield, great everything. Teammates, friends, parents, husbands. And they get out, they have the jobs, they're making the money, they still have the great family, the children, the dogs that love them. And then And then they take their life. And I'm like, dang, so-and-so took their life? So-and-so was so much stronger than me. And I asked myself, how is that? Why is that? Are they weak? Definitely don't think they're weak. But that just goes to show you that you can avoid you as long as you want to, but one day it's going to catch up to you. You're going to face it now or then. So my question to people is like, why would you go through your entire life? Because you're going to suffer no matter what you do in this life. No one makes it out of this thing unscathed. Nobody. Right? So why would you suffer without any purpose or intention? Why would you choose that over suffering with purpose and suffering with intention? Like, oh dude, I know to be a better husband for my wife and my family because I want to be. Because she deserves it, but I want—I know I'm not this guy I've been. Well, that's gonna be super hard, and it's gonna suck, and it's not—I'm gonna change my mindset instantly, but it's not gonna change my environment. My wife is still gonna think I'm still that same turd, still that same dude that's too busy, too too you know. I used to be super. Maybe I am, but it's a little different now. But I used to be super task-oriented, like I gotta have a goal, I gotta make money, I gotta gotta gotta I gotta do all these things. Well, just when I wanted to start, when I wanted to start changing, my environment didn't catch up instantly. That takes time because even though my outside world is a perception of my own internal reality, the outside world takes time to catch up to what you're working on on the inside. And so the only thing that I can control is my thoughts and my actions. And I don't know, man, I'm just super proud of myself. Because statistically speaking, I shouldn't be here for a lot of reasons. But I also know the weight that comes with that. And like, you know, one of my main goals is that like, I hate my friends or people that I don't even know, military or not, taking their lives. I hate it. It hurts so many people. And the more people I've talked to that have been in those situations that have been on the brink of taking their own life or have took it, but it wasn't successful, thank goodness, hearing their mindsets and it was like it was never even planned. It wasn't even like a planned thing. It was just a decision. They decided to wake up and go do it. And I'm like, wow, that's incredibly in-depth. And that blew my mind away. So then that tells me, well, if I'm not feeding myself some type of positive outlook on a daily basis, every 24-hour period, I have to reset myself to remind myself who I am and what I'm doing. Even if that just means who I am today is, a dude who's going to not yell at my kid, you know, or raise my voice. And what I'm doing today is I'm going to do at least one task that I know I'm capable of doing. That could be your whole mission. But if I don't remind myself and reset myself that every day, then I'm susceptible to the outside world. And I believe in spiritual warfare. And if you and me are connected to the thing that created everything, that means I'm pretty powerful. But the more that I'm deluded, the more I'm distracted, the more I'm like beat down, especially by myself, because no one can defeat me but myself, because I have to choose that.

Right.

And the more that I'm programmed to view that way, the more I'll keep on feeling like a prisoner to my own potential. And I don't know what my potential is, but I know I care about helping people. I know that I want to live a happy life where I'm genuinely happy because I've had the dream life for years. And man, I remember being outside my house complaining about how my life sucks, dude. I have like the dream Instagram life. I have beautiful property, I got a garden, I got deer walking everywhere. I can shoot guns anytime I want to. And I've told myself, man, I'm not happy. Had nothing to do with my outside world. It had everything to do with how I was viewing not only myself, but the world that I was actually living in. And that takes time to pull these shades off your eyes because, you know, they say new levels, new devils. And so it's like growing is a— it's a— it's an evolutionary thing. It takes time. I used to be super addicted to, uh, adult content, okay? When I made the conscious decision to stop that, it took me like a year and a half, almost 2 years to really kick it. Doesn't mean that I wasn't trying on weak 3 or month 3. I was trying the whole time, but once you decide to go on a path, you're going to get on a bicycle, you're going to fall off, you're going to get back on, do pretty good, but then you're going to fall off. Then you're going to go on a jump and you're not going to land it. Then you're going to go on and jump it again. You're going to land it. Then you're going to turn. You're going to fall. You're going to turn. Then you're going to be successful. It takes time because what got you here won't get you there. And life is not a straight line. Death is, but life is not. No matter what we do or fail to do, we're going to die one day.

I think you make such a good point though. A lot of people, whether it's with the adult content or anything, they think it's one thing like, oh, one thing has to happen and then I'll stop. One thing has to happen and then I'll be a better person. And what you're saying is like, no, man, it's the journey. And you have to be in it the whole time. And it's not always going to be great. It's gonna suck sometimes. But it's the process that gets you there, not, oh, just having a kid is going to make you a better person. Or just one day you wake up and you're just like, oh, I'm just not going to do, you know, adult content. It's like, no, you might still have that bubbling up in you and it's going to take some time. There's a question I always ask everybody at the closing. If you could wave a magic wand and bring back one ancestral practice, what would that be and why?

Nature. I would bring back the ability to connect with nature. Speaking from experience, I rejected— I lived in nature my entire service. I rejected it when my wife and I moved into a van and traveled around the United States because I'm like, I don't want to be cold, wet, and miserable. I did that for 15+ years, but that was the fear of change. Nature heals. Creation is nature. Nature, if you look at nature, the grass, the trees, the birds, the bees, they don't care about politics. They don't know what a war is. They don't know what a debt-to-income ratio is. No, there's no kitchen that bees go to. There's, there's no grocery store for deer. Oh, but yeah, it's everywhere. Of course, because they find a way. And nature, nature provides, nature heals. And I mean, I I think that I was reading a study, like 3 days in the nature resets your nervous system. And your nervous system is extremely crucial to your happiness and fulfillment. If I give you a compliment, James, you're an amazing guy, dude. You're like one of the best guys I know. You might be like, I know this to be true, but inside my insides are really feeling uncomfortable right now. Like I'm receiving praise or a gift and it's kind of uncomfortable. I don't like birthdays because I don't like to be seen. That's your nervous And when your nervous system's in a fight or flight, you cannot receive the abundance that life has to give you. So nature, I would say, go out and walk barefoot. Even if you live in an urban environment, go to the park that's full of like trash can that's overflowing and just walk barefoot or sit barefoot. You know, sit in silence without music. Go walk in nature, listen to birds, reset your mind. You can't find clarity in a place that brings you chaos. So, you're not going to find clarity in the house that is absolutely chaotic for you, but you can go outside and tune out the world and just sit and breathe and look at what has existed before you and will surely exist beyond you because that is longevity and that is the truth, right? Everything else that we touch and make, it crumbles and it dies and it goes away. Nature has stood the dawn of time since creation. That should tell you a lot. That's why I love the outdoors. I love hunting, camping, campfires, eating steak with my hands, walking barefoot. My kids, he's 4, he's constantly telling me, Dad, my feet are so much stronger than yours. His feet are stronger than mine to a certain degree. But I remember 7 years ago when I first got out of the military and I started walking barefoot because my wife's always barefoot. I couldn't even walk on rocks. It was too painful. Now I can walk on rocks. I'm not saying it's not painful. Some rocks are more painful than others, obviously, but I can do things with my feet that I was never able to do before. And when you think about what your feet are able to connect with the earth and then how we trap them with socks and rubber and all these other things, when you think about how we're just constantly getting removed, there's always a layer between. Yeah. Healing, growth, and like where we're at. And we create that for a reason. And call it whatever, call it conspiracy, call it just like, hey bro, we gotta wear shoes and socks. Sure. But even people when sandals were invented back in the day, you know what they were doing? They were sleeping under the stars. They were having fires. They were being around healing modalities. They were fellowshipping. They were conversing. All outside, all in nature. They would sleep on mats on the ground and ground themselves and reconnect to the earth and reset their baselines. And they didn't know what baseline was back then. But you know what they weren't stressed out about? Oh my God, my boss is the worst. You know, Costco was— the parking lot of Costco was just so chaotic today. They didn't have those things. And we're exposed to so much, and it just completely shocks fear. Distraction, delusion. Someone's better than you. Someone has more money than you. You suck if you're not 21 and own 4 properties and a Lamborghini. You know, like there's all these things that are out there and you have to ask yourself, why is it so abundant? And why does everything point to keeping me away from my truth? That is the craziest thing that I just don't understand. But conversations like this, you know, I'm not saying that I have the answers, not even saying what I'm saying is the truth for someone else, but for someone out there, It will at least stimulate a pivot in the way they think. It's like mission planning. When we plan missions, we come up with like 3 courses of action. One's the simplest, one's going to be the one that gives us the most bang for our buck, and one's the dream mission. And out of 3 of those courses of action, we're going to create the best one. But it takes a bad idea to stimulate a good idea. And if you can go on that journey of the unknown, Could you imagine not only what you can change for your life, but the other people that you can bring along with you? That to me is the most powerful thing.

No, hands down, hands down. If someone wants to work with you, you have a couple programs, right?

Uh, yeah, so I created— I basically created, uh, it's called Reclaim Your Fire. I created this like, like 6-week program. I've seen the internet, everybody wants a quick fix, but like if you give yourself 6 weeks, 1-week objective at a time, you can do a lot of damage for yourself in a positive way. Uh, so people they want to work with me, they can reach out to me on my website, which is wedefythenorm.com. That's my personal brand, or CodyAlford.com, which basically kind of like talks about like the speaking events that I do, some of the other philosophies and like writings and my email list that I hopefully do a decent job like giving people not just inspiration, but the empowerment that they deserve. Because it's not like this is Cody's way, but it's like, yo, bro, find your own way. Just know that you can do it too. That's really the best way.

Awesome.

Well, thank you, Cody. Uh, truly inspiring you, what you've done, what you've done with it, and what you continue to do. Yeah, really appreciate your time. Thank you all for joining us on this journey. Ask those questions. Cody nailed it, right? You gotta ask those questions, have the courage to ask the questions and be in the suck, cuz it's not always easy, but the way there is to stay curious as usual. So thank you again, and we'll see you next time. Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You can find the show notes, links, and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's eatpluck.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.