Ep 13: Dan Cerrillo on Mental Toughness & How to Live a Good Life

Welcome to the Rewild Gear Podcast. Modern life, society, and responsibilities have domesticated us, but now it's time to rediscover your adventurous side. Whether that's camping, hiking, hunting, fishing, or just spending time in the great outdoors, this is the podcast for you. Join us as we get back to the wilderness and rewild.

Welcome to the Wild Gear Podcast.

I'm your host, Seth Spears, and I am here today with Mr. Dan Cirillo. He is a retired Navy SEAL who spent 15 years leading people to safety in some of the most dangerous hotspots and war zones in the world, including Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and other very high-risk locations. Some of Dan's roles in the SEALs included security specialist, breacher, sniper, counter-surveillance, and BUD/S instructor. Dan medically retired in 2005 after suffering blast injuries during a hand-to-hand fight with an Al-Qaeda fighter in Sadr City, Iraq. And then since his retirement from the Navy, Dan has worked in executive security, protecting some of the biggest names in business today, including Paul Allen and Larry Page. He is the founder of Spartan 7 Adventure, an organization that teaches high-net-worth clients and organizations leadership, communication, offensive mindset, and advanced situational awareness skills developed by Navy SEALs. He is also the Chief of Staff for American Addiction Centers and leads their veteran treatment program, helping former military to break addiction cycles and to lead happy and productive lives. Along with that, Dan is also a husband and father and a board member for the Navy SEALs Fund and an ambassador for the Navy SEAL Foundation. He volunteers his free time coaching football at Lipscomb Academy near his home in Nashville, Tennessee. Dan, welcome to the Rewire Gear Podcast. So happy to have you.

Oh, thank you. Everything on there was correct except for one thing. I work for Sergey Brin, not Larry Page.

Oh, I got the name wrong.

It's okay. The wrong one. Sorry about that. Same difference though, right? They used to be— they used to have the shared security team until they split and separated.

But yeah. Gotcha.

Super.

Dan, I'd love to dig into your background a little bit and just kind of hear, you know, your background story, how, how you ended up getting into the SEALs and, you know, to where you are today.

Yeah, it's, it's funny. It's a really funny journey. I give a speech every now and then. I tell people that I'm on one side of the Grand Canyon. On the other side of the Grand Canyon is a dartboard, and I threw a dart and I hit a bullseye. That's literally my life. I'm a very, very fortunate person. So I was very anti-military. I, my mom had— gosh darn it, I should have— I don't know how to turn these things off. My mom was married to a few different military guys. And so, we moved all over the place. And after, I can't even count how many moves. I mean, honestly, it was probably like 25 different moves. Dan's fun meter with the military was pegged. And so, I went to high school, really rebellious, really focused on just playing sports, going to college, playing sports. And next thing I knew, I was at a Halloween party, massive fight like anything. The night before that, my girlfriend had taken me to see the movie Navy SEALs. And Monday morning, I was in the recruiter saying I want to be a SEAL. So yeah, life has it. Life has chances, right?

Yeah, it sure does. Where did you grow up, Dan?

So I grew up mostly in Cal. I was born in Washington, grew up mostly in California, high school in Florida, and then a little bit of college in South Carolina.

Okay, so you've been all over. Yeah. Yeah, super. So the Navy SEALs—they have this reputation as being the the best, the baddest, you know, the Like the elite military unit. What is one thing that, or maybe more than one thing, that a lot of people, they have this perception of the SEALs, but is either inaccurate or things that people don't know about it that they, that would be helpful to just understand what it's like to be a SEAL?

I think the most inaccurate thing is everybody, you know, like, did they drown you during BUD/S? They drowned you to make you become a SEAL. I'm like, no, they didn't drown you. They tried to, but the idea was to not drown, which makes you pass the test. So that's one accuracy. One thing that I don't think people realize about the teams is, um, in my day it was very, very roundtable, right? So you had a boss, you had mid-level management, but essentially the more experience you got, the more you were invited into this circle of, of trust to make decisions. And that was the one thing that we were— people, I'm trying to forecast this in the business world, is SEALs are incredibly good decision makers and problem solvers under stress. And so, you know, I have situations at work all the time where we went through a massive restructuring and people were kind of, you know, very, very tense and terse and everybody's like, you're just so calm. I'm like, well, I've been under this stress so many times, it's ridiculous. And you just got to solve problems. And the way we solve problems, the way that we learned in the SEAL Teams relates to business so much is that we always used to talk about a pizza. All right. And instead of— if you gobble the whole pizza up, it skids all over your face. And so we always talk about just eat one piece of pie, eat one bite of one piece of the pie, and then work your way around. And that's the one thing I think that people don't realize is how good we are at that, of micro, micro fracturing decisions. Even though we can see a really big picture, I can still make a decision here that I know how it'll affect here, because that's kind of our planning process. We just what-if everything. And like, we— what we plan from the— from how we're going to put our gear on all the way to how we're going to sit in the helicopter and how we're going to get out, you name it, there's a plan for it. And I think that not many people, when they start getting into a business plan, look at every variable along the way. They just kind of look at big picture, they look at the starting point, they look at midpoint, endpoint. It's like, well, there's so many start, finish, start, mid, endpoints in there that you just got to break them, break them up and fragment them, you know.

Yeah.

And then, and then be able to see the big, the big picture the whole time, you know?

Yeah. And so that's really affected your business career as well, I'm sure. Yeah.

You know, I've, I've been able to have a good amount of success in a very short time. A lot of failure in the beginning too. Like, so I'm not like, oh, it just worked. I had my own businesses. I did very well in the beginning and then they did not do very well. That was completely, totally on me. That's something I've learned. You know, accountability is something we talk about, but I never had to be accountable because nothing ever went wrong until it went wrong. And so, as I've applied that now into business and really start looking at my— at the why, constantly looking at the why, looking at the how, it's really affected how I am able to make decisions, how I'm able to mentor people. You know, a lot of people say leadership. I don't call it— I don't say leadership. It's mentoring. How do I find my replacement? By finding my replacement, I'm helping those people get better at what they do. And my job, my entire job is how do I make their lives easier? What can I do to make it— what decisions and what things that I can do and put in place to make their lives better? And that's in the teams. That's the one thing that we just do very well. You always are helping somebody.

Got it. Yeah.

You know, all the way from BUD/S, if you're judged in BUD/S, if you're a fast runner— I was, I was a pretty fast runner back when I was about 100 pounds ago. You finish the run, you turn back around, right? You turn back around, you go to the last man, you run back across the line with him, and you're kind of judged in that. And that's something I, I pride myself in. I pride myself in eating last, let my people eat first, getting raises for my people before I think about myself. And, you know, that's just something I learned from the teams.

You know, there's this concept of servant leadership, and it's— that sounds very much kind of that mentality.

It is. And, you know, the thing is, is a lot of How do I make sure I say well? I wouldn't even be political about it. A lot of people are completely full of crap when they talk about it. They talk about it. They write books about it. They don't actually do it. And I'm here to tell you, I've worked with a lot of leaders and big, big business leaders. I'm working with one of the biggest hotel owners in the world right now. I'm helping him build a security team, and I'm I'm literally at this point ready to walk away from him. You know, I'm just like, you're you're not a nice person. You know, and you talk a great game. He wrote a great book, but from my opinion, he ain't doing any of it. And I'm at a point where my personal business, I don't need him to be successful. And I don't want to be around somebody like that, you know. So that's the one thing. If people are going to read those books, really read into who wrote it and if they actually practice what they preach.

So what you're seeing is a discrepancy between what they're saying and what they're doing.

Yeah, I see it a lot. You know, I'm, I'm in that world now. I know who the guys who write the books are. I know who the guys who are giving the speeches, and I also know the flip side of who some of them actually are. And it's difficult. You know, I, I'll— I will never name names. I just— but I don't bite my tongue about it. And that— but the great thing about it for me is I really— it causes me to look at myself and really look in the mirror and go, okay, am I doing that? Am I starting to bite it in that realm? And that's the reason, you know, I don't have a podcast, I don't write books. It's because I, I know I have a lot of faults and who am I to start telling people what to do? You know?

Sure. Yeah. Self-reflection is so important.

Yeah. You know, I wasn't good at it for a long time and now it's something that I pride myself in. I was forced to do it. I was forced to really look at myself from the outside in. My wife, you know, we had a lot of struggles when she was sick and I didn't do well while she was sick. I consider myself a coward during it. And when she got better, I went and got myself better. And doing that made me really start looking at myself going, okay, this is, these are the things you did wrong. And every day focus on one thing and try to fix one thing, you know?

Yeah, exactly. So there's a lot of directions we could go here with, with this. And I'd like to hear more about your story about when she was sick, when you were sick. And, um, like I've heard a little bit about it, but I'd like to, you know, hear it from the horse's mouth, if you will.

Yeah. So, I, you know, I had my SEAL career was one that I'm just so lucky. I got to be the first at doing so many things. You know, things that were just— I look at now, I'm like, holy crap, man. One, I'm glad I'm alive. Two, I can't believe we pulled that off. And, during that entire process, I really overlooked my wife. Like, my wife was there, my wife is the mother of my kids, but I never really understood the value of what she actually was, you know. And, and I want to make sure I'm very honest with this because I'm— I own this completely. Uh, I, I— we were partners, we were husband and wife, but I wouldn't really say that I was as committed to her as I was to the SEAL Teams, right? You know, if the boys called, I went out. And you kind of go through that process. And then when, you know, I had lost a lot of friends, um, You know, a lot of funerals during that process. I never really ever understood how that affected me, but how it really affected my wife. Because all those guys came to my house. My wife was a realtor. She pretty much bought houses for almost every SEAL on the West Coast. She spent a significant amount of time with them. So she knew them. She knew their wives. She knew their kids. And when those guys died, I never really looked at that and said, how is she feeling? I just knew what I was feeling. And so when she got sick, it was the first time ever I was like, holy crap, if she dies, I'm literally like, I don't even know where the bank account numbers are. And I don't even know what my kids' school schedules are. I don't know. I'm clueless. And what I really found out during that process was how much I loved her and how little I could do to help her. And so I broke. I started drinking. I drank to a level that was just bad, you know. And when she finished chemo, finished radiation, all that other stuff, I was just in a really, really bad place. And I was— and I was in the flip side was, this is why I work in addiction now, is nobody knew.

Hmm.

Like, nobody had a clue what I— that I was in the position I was. Nobody had a clue that I went home every night and drank until 2, 3 in the morning, woke up at 6, worked all day, and as soon as work was over, I'd start it again. And I always told myself, you're not an alcoholic unless you drink on Mondays. And then, next thing you know, you're drinking on Mondays. And then, I would convince myself, you're not an alcoholic unless you drink at work. Next thing you know, you're at work and your hands are shaking, you're thinking about drinking.

Wow.

And, I just got lucky. I had another SEAL. He went through an experimental program. He told his story, but when his wife told her story about him, man, you talk about a baseball bat to the side of the head. I came home and I asked my wife, I'm like, am I like this? And, she's very honest with me. And, it really made me look in the mirror for probably the first time in my life and go and get help, get therapy, take an experimental medication. It was crazy. And, I had an awakening to a new life of peace and happiness and I've never drank a drop of alcohol since. And, I found out that my wife is the only person in my life who's ever truly loved me.

Yeah.

And, I've done my part now. I'm doing my part. I shouldn't say I've done it. To really repair what I feel like I didn't do for the last 20 years. I mean, the last 2 and a half years, we've just had a tremendous marriage. But I think for 20 years prior to that, I, I wouldn't consider myself a good husband. I would consider myself a good father, but not a good husband.

Yeah, that's fascinating. And especially, what were some of the steps that you took to kind of repair the relationship after not having done some of those things, or being there the way that You needed to show up for her?

Complete and total honesty. That's— that started just— I understand. I mean, because at that point, I think we were this close to getting divorced. And completely me, you know, like, I was just— I was— it was— I was in a bad place. And I came clean. I told her everything was bothering me. I never really was one of those guys who ever talked. Like, I never was like, hey, this bothers me. And It was the first time ever that I really had an emotional outlet about all my— because, you know, when the helicopter got shot down, Rob Reeves, Jonas Kessel, Heath, JT, I mean, all those dudes are my friends. And I cried for one day. I was like, okay, I'm crying for one day. Okay, no more. You know, you just hardened up, backpack, you know. And then after that is when I really let it out and in front of her and told her just Where I was. And it wasn't, you know, the fact of losing them is— I think that during my SEAL career, I had a fascination that I wanted to die in battle, this glorious— in a pile of brass. And I felt like a quitter. I just felt like I let people down. And during this, it was about a 2 and a half month process of almost every day just kind of wanting her to know that I was really trying to be a different person. You know, opening the door, throwing the trash, all these things that I had never just really, you know, you kind of do it in jest, but I never really did it, like doing the dishes, making the bed, doing laundry. And, you know, I think every day she was waiting for me to revert back to who I used to be. And, you know, it was just, it was a long process of accepting, of her accepting me back into her life. So, and I, you know, to this day, that's my focus is I I literally everything I do is I try to do knowing that I'm doing this for her, you know, because she's just she's just a saint to be with me. Like holy crap, you know, she is an absolute angel and a saint. She's this most kind-hearted person. You would not believe when you meet her that her husband's a freaking rootin' tootin' frog man, you know. Got it.

Yeah, it sounds like she's an amazing woman.

Yeah, she's good. She's good.

That's fantastic. Dan, I'd like to dig into a little bit about Spartan 7 Adventures. Tell me a little bit about that, how you got started doing that.

Yeah. So, it's funny. I think almost everything that I do starts by accident. So, I had this guy named Brian Valley. Yeah, seriously. Working out, when I opened my gyms, I'll start there because it all starts in there, is I got kicked out of 24 Hour Fitness for doing CrossFit. Alright. So, CrossFit was this big thing. My wife and I were there doing CrossFit. My son came in and my son is a beast. All my kids are beasts. Right? My oldest son was doing it with us and this trainer comes over, he's like, hey, you can't be training people here. I'm like, not training anybody. This is my wife. He's like, well, what about him? Like, totally rude, right? And, I'm like, it's my son. He goes, well, you still can't be doing it. And so, it really made me mad, right? And, I was a pretty angry dude back then.

Sure.

And, I let him know how I felt about him and what I wanted to do with a 50-pound dumbbell. And, of course, I was shown the door. So, I had to go buy my own weight set. And so, that started me down this venture. Anyway, long story short, opened gyms. And, a guy walked into my gym one day and he said, I want to go on this sheep hunt. I didn't know what sheep hunting was. I had no idea what it cost. I want to get in shape. And, he and I formed a relationship and then he started talking about all these hunting trips that he does, these really obscure places. And, he's like, I would love for you to train me to survive and how to use a weapon, et cetera. And, I'm like, I can't do that in a day. We can't just go to the range. I can't just spend a day. I need 10 days. So, I formed a company called Turning Steel literally around Brian Valentine. And, Brian is a big-time Microsoft guy back in the day. And, we used his ranch in Montana. He let me bring clients from the gym there. And, for 10 days, we played Frogman. So, we got there on Friday night, we trained all the way to the next Sunday. And, during that training, we went through land warfare, we went through close-quarters battle, we went through combat medicine, land navigation, you name what I could throw at them.

Hmm.

And, by the end, they were doing missions and Everything, I threw it at them. And that was created by Turning Steel. I was Turning Steel, that company. And I sold that company. And I got bored. And people kept calling me saying, we want to do that adventure again. And I had learned a lot of knowing that 10 days away for an executive is hard. So I just started thinking, let's focus on weekends. Let's focus on what I think people can learn in a weekend. And what I really didn't want to do is get back into tactics. Because everybody talks tactics, tactics, tactics in my world, right? And I'm like, okay, I can't teach Seth what I know about tactics in a weekend. Nor can I teach him in 10 days. I can show him. So how do I get Seth, a 40-year-old businessman who's wondering, hey, I'm 40, I'm a big-time business guy, I'm a great executive, but I wonder what it'd been like to be a SEAL.

Mm-hmm.

And I basically said, let's create adventures. Let's dress up the way we do. Let's use the same training facilities. Let's train as hard as we can, as safe as we can. In modalities like shooting, we're going to shoot, but like CQB, we're not going to— we're not going to do live fire. We'll do UTMs and we'll do simulation. We'll even do airsoft if we have to, but I could teach there, but I don't really care if they screw up. All right, so I'm not going to hammer tactics. I'm like, hey, let's have fun. Let's work on teamwork and communication, leadership, etc. And so Spartan 7 was born from there. And through that, I started understanding what adventures clients really liked and which ones they didn't like. Adventures that I wanted to do and I thought would be great. They just didn't like. And the ones that I was like, this is so boring, it's so easy, they loved them. And so, you know, like right now we posted our shooting adventure online yesterday and, you know, today we've sold 11. And that's no— there's no media. It's literally on the website, a link, and just an email out to the client base saying we're doing one adventure this summer. And most of Spartan 7 is private. So most of our courses are bought by a private group. So we've never really had to go market or anything. And I've narrowed the adventures down to what I think clients will enjoy. And so this year we did helicopter hog hunting. We did a Carlos— we did a race car driving, executive protection driving slash Carlos the Jackal mission. So went to Bondurant Speedway in Phoenix, raced the cars one day, executive protection crashing the cars the second day. And then the whole time they're learning how to gather intel. to go capture Carlos the Jackal. And so, at the very end of that weekend, a full-on scenario, police involved, you name it, chasing people to the cities, capturing them, interrogating them, them capturing Carlos, extracting Carlos, and then the final, them rescuing their own teammates.

Cool.

And, it was great. And then, this summer, we're going to go do the shooting adventure in Shaw's. So, Shaw's closed to the public, probably the greatest shooting facility in the world. And, just imagine if you had $20 million and you were going to build Everything you did build was going to move, twist, snap, shoot, still situation. And the fact that you don't got a bunch of yahoos there in order to get there, you got to come with me. It's, you know, only people to train there, special operations guys and elite law enforcement units. And so I'm able to take my clients there because part of Spartan 7, because of what I'm able to do in business and the security side in my full-time job, the money we make from Spartan 7, a lot of that money we donate. So we donate to Navy SEAL Fund, we donate to Big Fish Foundation. And, uh, my instructors get paid. And, um, but it's not— it used to be a profit entity, and I kind of made myself miserable trying to do a lot of courses. And so now I do a few courses, the profit is much higher, and we're able to donate a lot of money. Last year, I was— the most significant donation I made all in my life, and it made me very, very happy. That's the direction I want to go as Spartan 7.

Yeah.

And, uh, our final event of the year, we're going to JL Bar Ranch, which is just another exclusive high-end facility in Texas. Beautiful. I mean, like 7-star ranch in Texas, and we're going to go there and bring some of the most awesome guest speakers I can bring and then go shoot guns and ride horses and just have a hoot of a time, you know.

Sounds amazing. I'd like to hear a little bit more about the different adventures. You had said that the ones that you wanted to do weren't necessarily the ones that, that the clients wanted and vice versa. So I'd like to hear kind of the ones that you're most interested in and then the ones that they seem to be most interested in.

Yeah, so I, uh, one of the ones that I thought the clients would just do backflips over was a skydiving adventure. And so, you know, we went to San Diego. The whole idea was to skydive in, go do a mission, etc. And, uh, the first day would be all jumping, 3 jumps to 3 or 4 jumps in the day. And then the next day, uh, do a jump into a CQB mission, you know, etc. And, uh, we did it, we had fun. And I was like, okay, let's do it again. And nobody raised their hands. And essentially they were like, Dan, We know you like jumping. We jumped and we're cool. So they did not want to go jump again. None of them had the fire. One guy had a little— he was talking about he never has gone and done it again. And, you know, I realized that I actually don't like jumping. I did it, but I have fun when I'm doing it. I just thought more people would want that. That'd be more something they wanted. And that was not what they really wanted, right? The next one was I wanted to do a waterman adventure. And so, we had a yacht and we were going to go do shitboarding and swim in the yacht. And, I kind of got deaf ears on that one like, well, how far are we going to swim? I don't know, a couple hundred meters. And, that was like asking people to climb Mount Everest without freaking oxygen. You want me to swim in the night in the ocean almost half a mile? I'm like, yeah, what's the big deal? I'm not doing it. So that would never get off the ground. Um, and so far the ones they love, we go to San Diego, we do a, I basically call it a home defense course. It's really a CQB adventure. And during that time I'll teach team CQB, close quarters battle and combat. And then I'll also teach individual clearance through the house, um, from an executive protection side, but really giving them the tools to defend themselves in their own home. That, that's wildfire. We can, we can sell that thing out in like 20 minutes. Right.

Mm-hmm.

And the facility's beautiful. San Diego, you know, easy to sell San Diego.

Sure.

Um, my favorite one is Bull Hill Ranch up in Washington, which is where Naval Special Warfare takes their snipers. So I rent that— we rent out a portion of the ranch and we take our guys up there and we do a long-range shooting adventure and also horseback riding. During the horseback, so I'll go out there and we call it— it's called Mill It and Kill It. So you actually have to find the target first, then you have to measure the target, get your accurate calculation, which we teach them how to on a calculator, how to get exactly the distance, then they have to fire their shot. You know, and so they do that all in practice for one day. The next day they're actually doing it. Essentially, if we catch them doing it, then they're busted. And of course we'll catch them, but we, you know, we give them a lot of tools of how to be sneaky peekies, dead space, etc. And they really love that. I love it because, you know, the mountains of Washington are beautiful and they love it because they just out— you're out, your phones don't work, you're just in nature, you know. And I just— that's the happiest when I'm at— when I'm away from the stupid phone. And I'm just in nature, just looking at the beauty of God created, you know? Yeah, I hear that. That's the part of the SEAL Teams that I loved.

Got it. Tell me more about that. You know, our company, we're— our mission is to get people back into the great outdoors and spend more time with family and friends and, you know, reconnect with, with nature, with the natural world, and get away from technology because it's— we're surrounded by it day to day. So I'd love to hear more about your love of nature and why that's so important to you.

You know, it's funny is I, I don't know where my love of nature came from. I just knew that as a SEAL, I was a terrible admin SEAL. So you put me around the compound, I was going to get in trouble, right? Like, it's just a matter of time. But as soon as we got in the field, I just became like— I felt like a SEAL, right? Like, I have a lot of weight on my back. We're gonna move all night long. We're gonna lay up all day long. We're gonna sit quietly. We're not gonna talk. And you're just going to observe your surroundings. And I found that to be so beautiful and peaceful that even after I left the SEAL Teams, part of my recovery— because, you know, when I, when I got hit, um, it broke me up pretty good— part of my recovery was picking one event per year and just training as hard as I could to get to that event. And each one of those events was outdoors, right? The Tad Death March, um, Coeur d'Alene Ironman, ultra swims, something that was hard it was gonna make me, force me to train. But at the same time, just, I get out there and I just felt like a frogman again. And to this day, when I go to places where I love going to Montana, I was just in Idaho a couple weeks ago, my buddy Matt Bissonnette, um, he wrote a book called, uh, um, Only Easy Day. So Matt and I were out there shooting gophers, right? So, and, uh, we, it's just, we probably said 10 words and you just being out in that beautiful environment just so soothing to me, especially now because I am, you know, attached to this stupid thing. It never stops. And getting away from that and just being able to hang out with my bros and do something that I'm— I think I'm really good at, which is I'm a good shot. And just, there's something beautiful if you can take a step back and look at The surroundings of nature around you, there's just something very tranquil and beautiful if you allow yourself to see it. And that always brings me back to zero. All right, when I need to, when I need a break, like, I love mowing my lawn. I, I can hire gardeners, right, whatever, but I actually enjoy mowing my lawn. And it's an hour of just, you know, that Just silence of just mowing the lawn, you know, tranquility. I have a beautiful yard and my house is right on the river. And I just, something about being out there really just calms me down.

Yeah. Oh, that's great. How did this love of nature and being outdoors, um, how did that affect your recovery both after being injured and then when you were recovering from addiction? And did that play any play into that at all? On the health side?

Yeah. Being able— I've always judged my recovery. I had a stroke here Thanksgiving this year. And so, I've always judged my recovery on what I'm able to do outdoors. I can go in the weight room, I can pump pig, whatever. That's easy, but anybody can do that. I like to do things that are long and hard. And so, like, I want to get on my bike and I want to ride for 100 miles, but I, but I don't get to go ride 100 miles consistently. So, it's now, it's just a gut fest. I go, yeah, I'm gonna go and it's gonna suck and it's gonna hurt. And I'm way too 240 and fat people don't usually ride bikes, but this one does.

Uh-huh.

And during that time on the flat ground, all the skinny people pass me. And as soon as we hit a hill, I pass them. And in those moments, I'm looking around and I'm like, Dear Lord, thank you for giving me this ability to do this and to just be out, have the wind, the sun, raining. I don't give— I actually, I enjoy rain, right? I lived in Seattle forever. And I just— it makes me feel good. And so that's how I know when I've suffered a lot of injuries, each time that I recover, it literally starts with a walk. Like, okay, I'm gonna go for a walk after my stroke. You know, it's about 460 meters around my neighborhood. Took me an hour and a half. I had to sit down, you know, and it was brutal crying, you know, very— I've never been in that position before. But that's how I judge how Dan is doing, is to go do something hard. Do something— it may not be hard for some people, but for me after a stroke, you know, just trying to walk was hard. And, um, yeah. Okay, took me an hour and a half yesterday. I'm gonna do an hour and 20 today. I'm gonna do an hour and 10 and tell them, okay, now I'm gonna go run it. Okay, now I'm gonna sprint it. Now I'm gonna— and, and I can't do that inside because I just don't have that. I can't be on a treadmill. It just kills me. But the only machine that I can use that I really can is, is a VersaClimber, which is like $5,000. So it's kind of hard to find them. Um, but, uh, yeah, outdoors, man, I just love it. I feel good. It makes me feel happy. And yeah.

Yeah, that's great. What would you say your most memorable outdoor adventure or experience has been? And that could be either as a civilian or in the military, maybe one of both.

I would say in the military up in Mosul, Iraq. Um, and we weren't walking, we, we'd just gone and done a mission in a city called Tell Afar, and it was kind of crazy at night. I just remember driving back that morning, and, you know, everybody thinks Mosul is like a desert. Well, it's not. It's really beautiful, right? There's rolling hills and green grass, and it had snowed. And there was snow on the top of the hills and we're rolling this convoy, 7-vehicle convoy. We had just been in it all night long in Tal Afar. And, I remember just driving back and one, I'm happy to be alive, but two, holy shit, it's really pretty. We have these big Peltors, so it silences out the noise from the Humvees. And, I always put a little Walkman in there and I would just listen to classical music. And I just remember sitting there listening to classical music going, I'm right where I want to be and I'm surrounded by the people that I want to be surrounded by. You know, so that was a big one from the war. That was— it's just this very small respite of we just went through the most ridiculous nonsense last night. What could go wrong went wrong. You know, we nearly got killed 100 times and now we're driving down this road. Hopefully don't get IED'd on this road, but it's just beautiful. And so, in the civilian life, I think the most memorable one was the Coeur d'Alene Ironman. That morning we started, it was cold, the water was really choppy. And, my arms are so big, I can't wear a sleeved wetsuit when I swim, so I have to wear a shorty. And so, that water was cold, man. I'm not going to kid you. So, the first lap, Dan was like, oh, man.

That's right.

The second lap, I got warmed up and I was in the groove and I was just swimming in a school of fish. And then, I got on the bike and you're up in the mountains outside Coeur d'Alene. It was just beautiful, right? Just beautiful. And then, you get on the run and I'm on the run and you're running right next to the lake. It's just in the city crowds, people are partying, right? As soon as you got away from them around the lake, you're just sitting there like, man, thank you, God. Thank you for giving me the ability to do this. and just in this beautiful environment surrounded by other people who are just working so hard and for no recognition whatsoever. You know, it's— I'm just— they're just here to work and they're here to surprise people. If you ever get a chance to go see an Ironman, to see the type of people— don't, don't go in the first 8 hours to see that, you know, all the super fit people cross. Go at like 10 o'clock at night when guys like me cross. I got passed by a lady. I'm not kidding you, she was as big as my desk. And about as tall. And, she passed me on that run like I was standing still. And, she's laughing and giggling and I'm sitting here, I'm like, I'm a frogman and I just got passed by a 50-year-old housewife who's 5'2 with 70-inch hips. And, I loved it. I'm just like, oh my God, what an amazing woman. What an amazing human being. That's the thing that I'm in awe of, my daughter being in the circus and everything like that. Just seeing what a human body can do, the amazing ability of a human athlete is just something that, you know, awe-inspires me when I'm around really good people. I have a guy, you know, the CEO I work for, Andrew McWilliams, being in a room with Andrew, I just sit there, I'm like, you are brilliant and you're humble and you're nice and you're such a good human being, you know? You know, he and I go for walks. We'll just take a walk around the building, just kind of get away. And I'm obviously his chief of staff, but it's just like, it's kind of those things come into full circle when you're outdoors or when you're indoors. And I just love beautiful things now, and I love beautiful environments, beautiful people. And, um, you know, when I need to get away, I get outdoors. It's funny, if you— I'm in my office, right? So My office used to be configured this way, but in order for me to look out the window, I had to turn my head. So, I moved my entire office. There's a door behind me which I don't care about. I just close it because I want to look out my windows. I want to look out into my neighborhood, my front yard, and there's deer. We have coyotes. I try to kill coyotes as much as I can obviously, but it's just cool. So, I just like looking out and yeah, I'm fortunate. Yeah.

Oh, that's amazing. What would you say the biggest life lesson is that you've learned that nature and the outdoors and probably, you know, obviously your experience within the SEALs? What's the biggest lesson that you've learned through all of that?

Be kind to everything if possible. Right. You know, I learned that my buddy Chris Smith and Chris Smith is, he's going to be one day he's gonna be a very famous person. Right. So Chris is the most Eloquent speaker I've ever heard in my life. Highly educated, great SEAL career, great government career. You know, I can't really say what he did for work, but amazing career. And he's starting to speak about it. But Chris told me something one time. He's like, make 7 people smile per day, right? And what I discovered what Chris was trying to say was, don't be a jerk, right? And if you really go about your day trying to make people smile, It's impossible to be a jerk. Like, having a face like this, right? This takes effort. And, this is the way my face was for 20 years. Pissed off, stay away from me. I used to make jokes about it on Instagram, right? Sunglasses on, headphones on, asshole mode in full effect. Pardon my language, right? And, because I didn't want anybody around me, I wanted people to stay away from me. And now, I don't do that. And, what I found is by softening the way I want to live my life now, And instead of, you know, like people like, hey, you want to go hunting? I honestly don't want to go hunting right now. Coyotes are different because coyotes broke my dog's back. So we have a little personal history with each other. So that's different, right? Ground squirrels are different. Gophers. We have— those are not beautiful to me. But deer and elk and animals in nature are pretty. They're beautiful to me. I don't have a desire to kill them. And one, it's too easy. It's not like I'm going to miss. Right? I mean, maybe with a spear, that'd be a challenge. But if I'm hungry, I just go to the store, right? And I don't have anything against hunting. I used to take big-time hunters on hunts and I would film the hunts. I don't have a desire to do it. Right? I have— I like looking at the animals. I like looking at nature. I like— I just like beautifying my life. And for the first time ever, being very cognizant of trying to make it even better and make other people around me's lives better. And that's the biggest lesson that I learned the hard way. Was that if you are miserable and you exude misery, don't wonder why everything around you sucks, right? And I learned that the hard way, you know, of knowing that I created these amazing gyms. Like, my CrossFit gym in Seattle was probably one of the biggest in the world and incredibly successful. And at the end of it, I know exactly what happened. It wasn't because, you know, back then it was like, oh, this and that. It wasn't that. It was me. And I walked around with a chip on my shoulder. I was pissed off at the world. I expected everybody to be able to be the decision maker, problem solver that I was. And I would get mad when they couldn't do it instead of understanding the capabilities of some human beings. I was trained to a very high level and I have a capability of solving very, very unique problems fast under stress. Not everybody has that. And it caused me to be a really just a jerk. And I look at that now as probably the greatest thing that I ever learned in my life was what not to do. And that's the lesson that I really try to envelop and embrace is how I, how I used to be and how I want to be. And I believe in change in human beings. Like some people like, oh, 10 years ago he did this. Okay, great. I get it. But people can change if you allow them to, but they have to change themselves. And for me, the greatest lesson I learned was try to make 7 people smile.

I love that. That's, that's a fantastic quote.

Yeah, you know, and, and I'm living proof of it because back then I worked really hard to try to get what I had. I mean, I break my nails trying to work. Now I feel like I'm, I feel like I'm not hardly working and we're, we're just incredibly successful. And I look at that and I'm like, why? I'm a really deep why guy. And I'm like, maybe it's because I'm actually trying to be a nice person.

That's, yeah, that's great advice. When I was, I think, 17, I was at a business event and there was a guy there who was really successful and took me for a ride in his brand new 1996 Porsche 911 Twin Turbo. And it was like the nicest car I had ever been in. And it was just It was a humbling experience seeing somebody super successful that's just gonna take this kid in his car and show it to him. And something he said has struck me to this day is that every day, do something to affect someone's life in a positive way. And unfortunately, I often forget that on a daily basis. But every time I think about it, I'm like, oh, that's such great advice. Really need to focus on that more.

Yeah, that's something that, you know, I, I make it a very big point to not Allow the stimuli to affect the event. And, what I mean by that is I used to have really bad road rage. I mean, I was that guy who chased you home, right? So, guilty. And now, I think people's natural reaction if somebody cuts you off in traffic, you give them the bird, you scream at them, whatever, right? I don't. I just sit there. I'm like, they should have left earlier. Their problems aren't my problems. I listen to classical music or country music when I drive. I'm— I set my— I set my— I set my cruise control at 75, and I keep telling myself, you're in no rush. You're in no rush. And the flip side of that is I could be that guy flipping people off, cutting people off in traffic, weaving through, you know, the road belongs to me. By me not doing that, I'm trying to help people in my own way of saying, I'm just going to get out of your way. You're— you are in a mindset that you are selfish and you're self-important. And instead of me fueling your fire to make you angrier, you win. You can weave through traffic and cut me off. You're not going to get any reaction from me. Go about your business. And by doing that, I feel like I've done something good for them by not, you know, allowing them to affect me. And you know, the other things too, just, you know, asking people, you know, like when you're a waiter, like, how was your day? You know, like when somebody like, I'll take a while to get iced tea. Okay. By the way, how was your day? Tell me about your day. And you know, it lights people up, man.

Yeah, that's great. And that can definitely be a challenge to do the road rage side living in Nashville. Lived there from— I was there from 2005 to 2010. And every time I'm back, it seems like the driving has gotten even worse.

So really, dude, I was just in Tampa. Like, not— I think Nashville is the tamest city I've ever lived in. Oh man, see, I remember I lived in Silicon Valley. I've lived everywhere, right? I come to Nashville, I'm like, I've hit one traffic jam ever, ever. It was like 5 minutes long, which is not a traffic jam, you know. People wave at you, you know. And here in Nashville, like, I, you know, I have a veteran license plate and my son has a Purple Heart one, you know, obviously You know, but, and people like wave at you and stuff like that. I'm like, just the nicest people in the world. So I've never, I've been a few, few times, but not as bad as LA.

Yeah. My experience isn't that people aren't friendly. It's just that they don't pay attention. Like as far as pulling out in front of you and not using turn signals and just like cruising in the passing lane and, you know, things, basic, basic driving considerations.

Yes. I guess, I guess me being living in Seattle for 15 years, none of that even like Seattle, you want to talk about crap drivers, yeah, go to Seattle.

Got it. Dan, what's a— what is an adventurous experience that you've had that you would never want to repeat and why? I'm guessing you've got multiple ones as a sailor.

Yeah, I've had some— I've had some very, very scary moments. Um, let me think of a good one. I think probably the one I would never wish on anybody is I got entangled in a parachute with my buddy Jeff DeKlerk and He's gone now. God rest his soul. He's a very good friend of mine. And that experience, because it was so slow, right? We got wrapped and then we started spinning very slowly, speeding up. And, you know, normally when you're wrapped, it's pretty easy, but we had full combat equipment on. And so there was— we're really in— we're like, oh, okay. We had plenty of time until we didn't have plenty of time. But I just remember that whole way as we're starting to spin faster and faster and faster. And we're losing altitude. I'm like, you can see your death coming. I've had other moments where—

Wow.

There's death right there, but it's like that, right? This one was, I'm watching it come and I could cut away, but now I'm like at 1,000 feet. I cut this thing away, I hope this other one opens in time. And so you're sitting there and I'm looking up, I'm like, we got one good shoot. I— you're making decisions like, we're gonna hit really hard, but I think the option is to hit faster if this other chute doesn't open, or just hit really, really hard with this chute that is open. The 2 of us under full combat equipment, and we're already at the limits of our— of the parachute anyway, because, you know, like back in the teams, I walked around about 225. Jeff walked around about 230. We're jacked. Now, you got 300 pounds of gear on too. The ruck is 100-some-odd pounds, all your ammo. You're like a little waddle man. You don't jump out of a plane with that kind of equipment. You just fall out, right? And, you're making these decisions, you're just sitting here like, holy shit. And, Jeff and I are talking, we're communicating. And, right before we hit the ground, I'd say maybe 100 feet before we hit the ground, the great thing about Jeff was he had this immense hand strength. And, the guy could stop on a fast rope. And, if you ever talked to military guys, literally Jeff could stop on a fast rope, which I cannot. That is not part of Dan's story, right? Jeff could actually stop. Well, Jeff grabbed all the lines in front of him and he's kind of on his back like this in the lines and he rolled himself out full combat equipment and the chutes went bam and we hit the ground.

Wow.

And, it knocked us both out. And I remember when I came to, I could hear tick, tick, tick, tick. And I'm like, I turned my head and my watch had gotten— my other watch had gotten ripped off my arm. It's laying right here. I'm like, oh, my watch made it to heaven. All right. Like, okay. So I'm laying there and it's beautiful rolling, you know, yellow grass. Remember, like, okay, I guess this is it. I guess I'm here. You know, like, I remember sitting up and just beautiful rolling hills. All of a sudden, I look next to me and Jeff sits up, you know, about 20 feet away from me, and he starts cussing at me. And I'm like, man, I gotta be in heaven with this guy. And, uh, and then, you know, then I could hear people. All the guys came running. They had been— they saw it happen, so they already started running towards us. And, and, uh, but it was just that experience I would not want anybody to ever go through because it's one thing, like when I got blown up It was fast, right? I've been in vehicle wrecks, etc. They're fast. This was not fast. And there you— the outcome was, this is, this is gonna hurt, man. And I'm, I'm probably not going to live through this. And that's kind of what your brain is going through. And that was, that was probably one of the— I've had 2 times in my SEAL career where I've really just been scared. Like, just like, I'm scared. And that was one of them.

Wow. You know, you hear this concept of people talking about like a near-death experience and, uh, like their life just flashing before their eyes. Curious as far as if you had any experience like that with this and like what your thought process was.

Um, in that moment it was, you know, I didn't have kids, I wasn't married back then, so there was I really, I don't think there was a defining like, oh man, all this is going to happen. It was just kind of like, all right, whatever. You know, this sucks. I think that when I had that experience was when I got blown up. I, it was, everything was going wrong. You know, we had, we was a time-sensitive target. And, you know, up till that point, I had been compromised on 5 different missions and gotten in hand-to-hand fights in the doorways I was putting the charge on, right? And so that night, Jay Schmidt was the A breacher. So I was the B breacher. And I was like, okay, you know, good. You know, every night we flipped off and we were doing so many missions. And so I remember that night he went over and ba-bump, ba-bump, he stepped on these 55-gallon drums and he got to the door and all of a sudden you heard, you heard the commotion and I could hear him like, he's open. And I could hear the scuffling, whatever. And I started laughing. It's pretty bad for me to say that, but I'm like, finally, dude. Like, better you than me. That's kind of my feeling. And Jay's big, so I knew he was fine. It's going to take us 5 seconds to get to him. And I think 7— I was like the number 6 guy through the door, number 8 guy through the door, and we were in the fight. And, you know, we just— a SEAL element coming through your door, good luck. Good luck.

Yeah.

That's really what— that's really— and that's the way I coach football. Good luck, let's go, right? And so I remember going through that room and just seeing the fighting, you know, There's 3 hand-to-hand fights going on. There's a gunfight in the back. It's chaos. And we went through there and we did our thing and it was over quickly. And I remember just sitting there like, whoo, kind of chuckling, like, ooh, better you than me, Jay. And over the radio, hey guys, good job. You're in the wrong house.

Uh-huh.

And by this point, almost every time we were in the wrong house, right? And, you know, I got mad. And they're like, hey, it's that house next door. So we're in a one-story house, we just fought 4 guys, and next door is a 3-story mansion. Like, how do you screw this one up, you know? And so I'm pissed, and Andrew Ledford pulled him— I'm, I'm mad. And he's like, dude, calm down, get the team together and go. And I'm like, roger that. Go over, go over the wall. It's all this trash is in the yard, so I fall a couple times. I go up to the door I put the charge in the door, and in front of me is this big massive window. So I'm trying to stand in this window and put the charge on. I wheel back the charge a few feet, and the fucking charge falls off the door. Like, you know, and Mark Carter, who's—he's gone now too—who's my point man, and Mark just looks at me and just shakes his head, right? I'm like, dude. So I go back to the door and put the charge on. You gotta remember back then I could get this charge blown by eight seconds, right? That was fast. And so put the charge in the door, and it fell off a. Third time, the second time, right? And so I'm sitting there, and thank God it did, because when I picked it up the next time, I looked to my right and there's this round cylinder sitting there. And I'm like, that looks like an acetylene tank. And it's pitch black, and I'm looking at it, I'm like, that's an acetylene tank. And I have a main charge, and the main charge is a big charge. I'm like, I just tossed it out in the yard. So I grabbed a secondary charge, interior door charges, really small charge, and I put that on the door. And I'm like, okay, it may not open this door because it was a steel door, but hopefully it'll damage it enough where I can, you know, boot it in, you know. So get back, wheel the no-nail, and the no-nail is like a straw. It's just a long straw. It's a flash tube, right? And get back to the set point. And remember, this window's right here. So I'm trying to get everybody below the window and we call it turning steel. So turning steel, I'm rolling my safety, my final safety on my firing device. I called turning steel and I put my hand on Mark's head to put Mark's head down because I knew this glass was going to blow out on us. I put my hand on Mark's head down and I look up and there's a dude staring at me and I'm like, you know, kind of like, uh, remember I just put my point man's head down. Now I call turning steel. Everybody's got their eyes at the ground and I remember just like, open! And I just charged. You know, this is the beginning of the war. Later on in the war, I was just blowing the charge on him, you know. This is the beginning, you know, I couldn't tell if it was a kid or man. I just saw him move and I charged. So it wasn't like I was being a hero or anything. And I got to him in the doorway, we started going at each other. And I think what happened is I was trying to hold the device against my hand, my chest. I think what happened is the rest of the guys might have bumped into me because that's the next thing I remember was poof, this bright white light. And that was it.

Whoa.

And so, um, I was going, you know, I was out. And then when I woke up I had Justin Legg grab me by the night vision. He goes, he's dead. And my head hit back down and I could feel the guy stepping over me and I could hear, you know, they're fighting out in the street by now. It's kind of chaos, right? And I just remember laying there going, but I'm not dead, right? I'm not dead. And I remember just like, man, I hurt. I'm in a lot of pain right now. And I could feel somebody underneath me. And so I'm feeling and I'm like, oh shit, I killed Mark. Right? And I'm feeling, I'm like, when did Mark grow a beard? That was quick. I don't remember Mark growing a beard, but okay. Then I'm like, oh shit, I blew Mark's body armor off. Right? Because I'm blind. I was completely blind at this point. And I'm like, where's— I blew his body armor off of him. And then I'm like, oh shit, This is the bad guy underneath me, right? And so I'm kind of laying there, and then I, I, that's— I just go blank again. So I don't know what happens there. And then I remember just laying there, and I'm like, I just wanted to go to sleep. I was just like, God, I'm, I'm— I could, I could, I could— the pain was starting to set in, and I was just like, I just, I just want to go to sleep, you know? And I thought my arm was gone because my arm had been blown out of socket. So it's actually laying against my back, right? I was like, oh man, my arm's gone. I can't breathe. I'm blind. And I just kept telling myself, like, who's going to walk your baby girl down the aisle? And I just said, don't go to sleep. Don't go to sleep. You know, and during that process, I just literally started having these, like, very deep visions, very deep memories of my wife and my children. And, you know, like, I knew my sons would be fine because my son, you know, like, I have strong sons. But I was just like, who's going to take care of my baby girl? Who's going to take care of my beloved wife? You know, like, I just was like, you have to stay awake. You have to stay awake. And, you know, that— and I think I was going in and out of consciousness because I finally, at one point, I heard a voice. Right? And for a long time, I thought this voice was God. And I remember the voice just saying, open your eyes, open your eyes, open your eyes, get back in the fight, open your eyes, get back in the fight. And I'm like, okay, I'm up, I'm awake, I'm awake, right? Well, years later, what I realized that was actually my mom's voice. And so my mom, I went through, you know, this Mexico therapy. My mom, you know, my mom did the best she could. She was a great woman. She worked hard. But, you know, she, she had a hard life, right? We'll just say that. And, you know, when she would scold us, she punished us pretty hard. And, you know, she'd knock us around a little bit and she'd get on your feet. Let's fight. Don't yet get on your feet. Goddamn it, get in the fight. And it took me a long time to understand I was actually hearing my mom's voice. But yeah, I just, it was a, I don't know how many minutes it was, you know, But it was a lot of stuff went through my brain and it was very clear, very like, I could go to sleep right now, but I have to stay awake.

Wow. Yeah, that's, that's a great story. And hearing, hearing your mom's voice in that moment, do you think that was some type of alternative consciousness? And, you know, we hear so much about like a collective consciousness and things like that. And so I'm just curious as far as your thoughts there. Um, it was just You know, your, your mind taking over because your body was, you know, destroyed. What do you think that was?

Yeah, you know, I've always kind of wondered how did I make it through SEAL training, right? So 174 guys in my class started, 14 of us finished. And I always, because I was never some kind of great athlete as a kid. In high school, I had a pretty good athletic career, but it wasn't like I was All-American or any of that crap. I was just a dude. I'm just a dude who wrestled and played ball, right? And, I've always kind of wondered, and then I really started looking at my mom. For years, my mom and I kind of separated. We didn't talk. We had a lot of issues. And then, when I came back full circle, I really started getting into the why. What I realized is my mom was this immensely hard worker. The story for me is she was actually on a ladder steam cleaning a big huge freezer at Carnation Food Factory She fell off the ladder, which caused her to go into labor to have me.

Oh, wow.

That's how far along she was working, right? And, everything I remember about my mom is hard. Now, hard-loving, obviously, hard punishment, but my mom, that little freaking midget could walk. I mean, everybody tells me like, you have power walk. I'm like, bro, my mom could walk so fast and so far and just never— That woman, I don't, I don't ever recall her ever not working. And so I think about that all the time. I'm like, and I tell my daughter, if there was ever going to be a female Navy SEAL, you'd be the first one. And I have to rewind. I'm like, my mom would have been the first one.

Wow.

I am who I am because of my mom, you know. So I think about, I think about inner power and inner fortitude and, and what is actually inside the human soul and the human body, what makes, what makes that person and I'm truly 100% convinced that I have my mother's blood coursing through my veins, and that blood is strong and powerful. And I'm able to now transition from strong and powerful into the spiritual side. You know, that my mom found peace right before her death. She married a very, very good man who took very, very good care of her, and her and our entire family reconciled. And, you know, my mom found her soul at the end, and that's what I'm trying to do is find my soul. That's great.

Yeah, I love that. Dan, as a SEAL, you're taught to prepare for everything, contingency plans, no matter where you are or what you're doing. And that's so ingrained into like the very fiber of, of, of every SEAL and every military personnel, I think. But so I'd love to hear now, as far as your day-to-day life, what do you always carry with you as far as like your everyday carry? What type of gear or equipment do you have so that you always feel like you're prepared for anything no matter what happens?

Yeah, it's a good question. I've transitioned from having stuff in my pockets. Everything's in my backpack. I'm an executive. I'm a C-suite executive, but I carry a backpack and I will always carry a backpack. In my backpack is a small med kit from Focus Medical. So, Rob Hanna makes these really great medical kits. I carry one of those. I carry a tourniquet in there, 2 tourniquets. There's a bungee tourniquet, then a ratchet tourniquet, flashlights in there. I have aspirin in there. I have everything that I think, allergy medication, I think that I need to make sure that I can deal with something for an hour, right? I always have a belt, right? So, no matter what, I'm always wearing a belt because where's your first tourniquet? Your belt is always your first tourniquet. So those are that stuff is how I prepare. It's very hard for me now because I carried a gun for since the time I was you know twenty years old. I carried a gun up until about two and a half years ago that I start I stopped working for Sergei. So now I I almost feel naked, and I'm I go back and forth. Do I need the gun? Do I carry the gun? And what you learn in executive protection is that your gun is your eyeballs, right? You fight with your eyeballs because. Once you pull out a pistol, the fight— you've already lost the fight. Especially for me, the fight, I've already lost it. Whether I win the gunfight, I'm gonna lose the court battle. All right? They're gonna be like, oh, you're a Navy SEAL, all this training, you're a C-suite executive, you should have done— you shoulda, coulda, woulda. And so, it's something I become more comfortable with, but I do feel naked without it. But, in my backpack is everything that I think that I'm gonna need in that little what-if situation. And it's not much, you know, flashlight, you know, med kit, tourniquets, aspirin, allergy medication, cough drops, masks, obviously. It weighs, it weighs like 30 pounds. So it's only, it's only got every cable you can think of. But yeah, you know, and that stuff is the same stuff that I travel into the woods with, you know, there's all, I always have medical equipment. I will never go in the woods without medical equipment. I'll never go out in the woods without a means to find water. It doesn't mean I carry water with me, but I always have a means to get water. Plus, even just a trash bag. There's a trash bag in there in case something ever does happen, right? But, those are the things that I have on me all the time. My truck is completely outfitted. There's emergency kits in the truck, all kinds of stuff. I wouldn't call myself a prepper, but any one of my kids pull off the side of the road, they're ready. There's flashlights in there. There's everything they need to get that vehicle in order. Boom, you know?

Yeah, yeah, that's great. And if you're, uh, if you're gonna spend an extended period of time in the woods, what, what additional gear would you always have? And obviously everything— oh man, it'd be a little different, but just kind of the bare minimum.

The number one thing is a bivy sack and sleeping pad, you know? I mean, if I, if I go into the woods anytime, there's always a bivy sack and sleeping bag. I carry my puffy jacket Mm-hmm. Right? So, my puffy jacket can fold up, but there's nothing that can replace good sleep. Sleep is everything. And, no matter where you are, you're going to have to sleep. And, the difference between sleeping like crap or sleeping not like crap is the difference between a ground pad, bivy sack, and a puffy jacket. So, those are always with me. I don't carry a beanie hat. I know I'm supposed to, but I sweat. I'm always hot. So, when it's cold, I'll carry one. I always have gloves, some kind of glove. But a bivy sack, my puffy jacket, and a ground pad, no matter what, anytime I go in the woods. That's literally the first thing that I pack.

Yeah, no, that's great advice. And obviously, I, I, when I talk to former military over the years and I ask these questions as far as like preparations and what they carry, one of the first things that they always say is it's all up here, you know, it's all in their head and just having that knowledge. And so that's a skill set that you've been blessed with, uh, because of your training. Um, but I'm curious, is Some of the defensive skills that you've learned, like hand-to-hand combat and things like that. I'd like to hear a little bit about that as far as the type of training that you learned and feel like you're super proficient in.

Yeah. So, I'm lucky enough to be a— I call it pre-war SEAL. So, you have post-war SEALs and you have pre-war SEALs. I was a pre-war SEAL who went into the war. So, before the war, we did a system called SCARS. I'll just call it hokey. It was pretty much the dumbest thing ever invented. It's called Autonomic Reactions. And, we'd go out there and like, Oh, completely freaking useless. There was like one move that I learned of, like, say you're at the urinal and you're taking a pee and somebody tries to attack you, you learn to punch them in the wiener right next to you. That's about the only thing I learned from STARS, right? So other than that, completely useless. Um, once the war started, we started working with Dwayne Dieter. And, you know, Dwayne— the people who— Dwayne has multiple levels. Um, I don't know the top upper levels. I can tell you that some of the stuff Dwayne teaches, um, Some people can sneer their nose at. I can tell you that one of the drills that he taught me, which is called the hooded box drill, I completely believe saved my life. All right, and because you're blacked out, hood— the hood comes up and there's 20 situations in front of you. Hood comes down, hood comes up. There's just multiple situations. And that was the only thing that I can completely agree prepared me for Iraq, because what it does is the hood comes down Hood comes up, you might be in a fight right then and there. Hood comes down, hood comes up, there's a little girl standing there asking for Girl Scout cookies. That's how Iraq was. Afghanistan is totally different. Iraq was each— you may be in a fight in one room, giving chemlights to little girls in the next room.

Wow.

And then the next room, you're back in a fight, right? And so that drill, the hooded box drill, was something that, um, I just absolutely believe is invaluable. Once we transitioned from Dwayne stuff, then we got into MMA and we started doing obviously ground fighting and kickboxing, etc. And one thing that I was always good at, I was a really good boxer. And obviously coming from wrestling background, I picked up jiu-jitsu really easy. So I would say I don't do the boxing anymore because my hands, I did too much of it and my knuckles are just gnarled. And I'll go plate the bag and for like 2 days my hands sort of can't type or anything. Jiu-jitsu I stopped doing about a year and a half ago just because My shoulders are really bad. My elbow is really bad. And, you know, time is very valuable to me. So, but I got really good at it very quickly because jiu-jitsu is chess, right? It's, I'm going to set you up. I'm going to move my hips here, my shoulder here to set you up, give you a little bit of chin to try to get you to do something so that I can twist it on you. And I'm kind of a math— I consider myself a mathematician. I am, I'm always 5 moves ahead of you. And so say you're a better jiu-jitsu practitioner than me, you're in better shape than me. Okay, I'm just gonna wait you out because eventually you're gonna get tired and do something stupid, especially as you subtract years, people get stupider. I hate to say that, but it's truth, right? The younger a person is, the quicker they are to be impetulant. And so, um, that was something that we prided ourselves in. We had our own, you know, we, we loved to roll. We love to get on the mats with each other and it formed some really good relationships. Some guys got really good at it, Jocko, Brian Sargent, they became like Chris Gude, they became like magicians at jiu-jitsu, right? Jocko is a world-class jiu-jitsu practitioner now. And, I just loved it. It was great competition and something that I prided myself on being good at, not the best, but good enough to use it when I needed to use it.

Yeah, that's fantastic. It's always interesting to me to hear people talk about their martial arts experience and things like that, especially jiu-jitsu, and they don't specify what, what school or style. I have a little bit of a background in traditional Japanese aiki-jitsu and samurai jiu-jitsu. And so when you hear people today, it seems like they just speak— they're speaking specifically about Brazilian. And so it's always interesting, the dichotomy there and the difference between those 2 styles and And everything. So yeah, so that's, that's interesting.

Yeah, it's because, you know, for overseas, as soon as you get in a hand-to-hand fight, you're going to the ground and you're going to the ground with a tremendous amount of gear on. And so I've been in those situations where I've been on top and I've been on bottom and learning when you, you know, like people ask me about mental toughness, how do you build mental toughness? You got to do mentally tough things over and over again until it becomes normal. Well, same with, same with fighting. The more you are on top, on bottom, on your side, hundreds and hundreds of times, the more comfortable you get being in that position, and therefore you're not going to panic. And so, jiu-jitsu, obviously, with gi, no gi, that's gym jiu-jitsu. What we did was combat jiu-jitsu of how do I break this human being quickly and defeat him or eliminate him Fast. Yeah. In the most violent fashion that I can do it without hurting myself. That's the jiu-jitsu we practiced. Obviously, we didn't practice on each other. But when you have that mentality of, I'm not here to get a belt, I'm not a Gracie, I'm not a— who— I don't even know those schools. I didn't have any money when I was on the team, so I couldn't go to any club and I couldn't afford the belt anyway. So it was, I'm here to destroy you.

Sure. Yeah, that definitely sounds more like the Japanese mentality of like kind of that battlefield art than more like the competition level. Dan, so I always like to ask guests what companies that they see are doing just a great job, like whether that's an outdoor company, a gear company, brands that are doing a great job as far as the quality of the products that they're putting out, their environmental stances, the things that they're doing for conservation and all of that surrounding kind of outlook. Do you have any company or brand that you really like?

I like certain gear, but as far as like the company standpoints and stuff, I've, I've done a— I wouldn't know if it's a good job or a bad job. I've done my best to kind of stay out of like a company philosophy. Like, I'm working with a, with a Fortune 100 company right now, and they're a very liberal company. So it's kind of the first time I'm being like, my— what I'm doing is having to match their company ethos. When it comes to gear, I just I liked good gear, so I never really got into who made it, how they made it. I knew what crap gear was, and I knew what good gear was, right? Like, the last gear company we were sponsored by was Black Diamond, and so, you know, almost all my new stuff is all Black Diamond. But I love Marmot, I love North Face, I, I'm a big Patagonia guy. Almost everything I have is Patagonia because that's what I got issued. Great quality. And the fact that— well, the fact that I got issued in like 2003 and I still have it And it still works. Yeah, just kind of— and the— of what I did with it, right? Like, I still have the jacket that I got blown up in and I still wear it. I just sewed it up, you know? Wow. So it was good stuff.

Yeah, that's incredible. Dan, what book or books have had the biggest impact on your life?

Hmm. That one, I feel, most of the wrong book. I like history books. You know, I'm I read a lot of history. You know, I think when we we were we were young, always we were soldiers once and young. I've read Jocko's book Extreme Accountability, Extreme Ownership. I enjoyed that one. It kind of it kind of clarified things that I was thinking. I mean, I hate to read books by other SEALs. You know, it's just kind of a taboo of. It brings back memories that I sometimes don't feel like bringing back and I don't want to give them any money anyway. There's a book I just read about Warren Buffett of financial success, not his, but a book he recommended. I don't have it. It's in my office. Let me look at the name real quick. I've read it twice and I'm tearing my— that happens when you get blown up too. You lose a lot of your memory, your short-term memory. So, the book is called The Intelligent Investor.

Okay.

And, you know, my degree is in finance. And so I've, I've always been very interested in the market and the money, but I'm not smart enough to know it to the level of experts. And that book really breaks it down to like the stay-at-home dad investor, right, who's just trying to put some money away in retirement, not trying to get rich, just make sure that He's not going to be dependent on Social Security when he's older. So I like that book a lot.

Yeah, that's great. Do you have a favorite podcast?

Obviously, Joe Rogan. I do a lot of work with Joe. So I like Joe because Joe's a dude. Joe is— he's just a dude, man. He says it how it is. He understands that what he says could make waves and ripples, but he's brave enough to speak the truth and powerful enough to question the lies. And I respect that. I listen to Mike Ritling's podcast when certain guests are on because Mike's my bro. Andy Stumpf when certain guests are on. So, I think probably the podcast that I'm on, I start listening to. If I'll start listening to yours, I listened to yours the other day to just kind of get an idea, but it always comes down to subject. Who is this person and do I feel like hearing about them? Type thing, you know. And there's some subjects that, you know, like gun podcasts, I have no desire to listen to whatsoever. You know, I own a lot of guns, but I'm not a gun guy. I just put— I shoot what they put in my hands, and that was as much as I know about guns. So there's some subject— politics— I just won't do it. Um, you know, there's— I just like talking. I like, I like podcasts where people just flowing, man. They're talking, you know. So those are the ones that interest me.

Yeah.

And usually I don't ever search for them. Somebody just sends like, oh man, you should listen to this. I'm like, okay, I'll listen.

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. Dan, what's one piece of advice that you would give to our audience?

Start your morning out with a routine and a strict, unflappable routine. And so my routine sets the tone for my day, and I do the same thing every single day, you know, and it's an exacting routine that When I break that routine, my day is kind of chaos. I believe in 2 things, control and chaos, right? Some people say control is illusion, but it doesn't mean you can't try. But chaos is not an illusion. And so, my routine is when I wake up in the morning, I do not use an alarm clock. I wake up to the sunrise and first thing I do is I just kind of lay there and I hold my wife. And, I don't have a set timeframe. She's sleeping. It just It makes me understand of what I'm doing and what, what, what I love. I just sit there and I just kind of watch her sleep. I get up, go do my business. I read my paper while I'm doing my business. The only time I really kind of get on the phone is that for that kind of stuff. And I don't do social media in the morning. I just get on the paper and I just read business. I read sports or read something, you know, just whatever news is out there. And I go work out. So I go ride my bike. And then, I lift. And then, the final part of that part is— 3 final parts is by then my wife is up. Usually, she joins me working out. We make our tea and we go sit on our deck and we just drink our tea on our deck very quietly. That is probably the most important part of my day is just being able to sit on my deck with my wife. Sometimes we talk, sometimes we don't talk. And just kind of enjoying nature. And then I go to work and the final— obviously, I cruise control to work, but the final part of my day is something I think is probably the best piece of advice if I was going to give you any advice is I say 2 things to myself when I pull in the parking lot of my office. One, my problems are not their problems. And I say it to myself twice. My problems are not their problems. 2, make 7 people smile. And I say it to myself twice. Make seven people smile, and then I go to work. And then the final part, you know, is hard. The hardest for me to do is when I come home. I do my buddy Tom Shea. He writes a good book. I basically try to do what he has. Some wisdom he's imparted on me is ten, ten, ten. Ten minutes for her. Ten minutes for me. Ten minutes of intimacy. And so when I come home, she'll first thing is, "How was your day?" How was your day? Tell me something about your day. And I want her to talk and I want her to— and I ask random questions like, what is your favorite flower? You know, like how— just questions that I didn't know the answer to. And really, it's telling me that work is not important. Work is over. I am home now. I am a father. I'm a husband. And I am not a worker. I'm very, very strict about that. I do not come home and work. Work is work, home is home. And then, I tell her what she'll ask, how was your day? And, what I don't do when I tell her about that is I don't talk about my workday. I tell her a funny story, a conversation, what I ate for lunch, just anything but work. And then, the next 10 minutes, we just kind of spend time with each other. I just make sure that she knows that right in that moment, she's the most important person in my life. And I really preached what I— when I teach leadership and stuff like that and communication, I really teach— it's called front sight focus. And I am absolutely into this conversation right now. There are no distractions. I'm not looking at my phone. I'm not— I am in this moment right now. And that 10 minutes of intimacy, that is part of it. There is nothing going to come into this moment between you and me and my beloved. And so those And it's probably 27 pieces of advice, but it's a routine and that routine is absolute. And the days that I break that routine are days that are not good days for me. And I have, I'd say I have 350 great days a year now and 6 bad, right? Whereas I used to have 6 good and 350 bad. So.

Wow. That's phenomenal advice. I've been taking lots of notes here. This is great. Dan, thank you so much. I really appreciate our time today. This has been a fantastic interview, and I think that our audience is really going to gain a lot of wisdom and insight and hopefully some great life lessons. So thank you so much for your time.

Yeah, I get it. Oh man, I really appreciate having me on. I, you know, I enjoy good conversations. I enjoy good people. And I, you know, I had fun. It was fun. It was very relaxing. Thank you for— thank you for allowing me to Just be relaxed.

So, of course, thank you so much.

Thanks for listening to the Rewild Gear Podcast. You can check out the show notes for today's episode at rewildgearpodcast.com. If you're ready to spend more time in the wild, our line of high-quality minimalistic outdoor gear can help you do just that. Check us out at at rewildgear.com.