Grit, Mindset & the FBI: Jeff Harp on Becoming Elite

Welcome to the Pathway to Peak Performance. In this episode, we have Jeff Harp as our first guest in this episode. The first part of it is all about his early days, and it's really important that you watch that because it leads into the second half of what's happened for Jeff and his career. It's a very interesting perspective on how to achieve peak performance in a very difficult situation, or in his case, a series of situations. I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to the show.

So before we get into all the FBI stuff, let's go back, let's talk about, you know, childhood and sort of, I mean, you know, you had the wrestling thing and you know, you're doing all those, those things that got you to a D one school as a D one wrestler. But let's, let's go back. What were the things, I mean. Like, I remember a story that you told me about, you know, breaking your collarbone and, and still having to wrestle at, at, you know, talk about wrestling and, and you know, the idea there is like, um, the podcast is the pathway to peak performance. Mm-hmm. So every single time that we get to someplace, it's, we're gonna try to tie that back to like the mindset and the things that you were doing to achieve peak performance, you know, to get, and then when we get to the FBI stuff, it's gonna be like, Hey, you know, like all that stuff that you told me about as much as you can. Mm-hmm. Right?

I would go back before that. I would go back before, like, you know, when I broke my collarbone 'cause that was sort of already things were kind of rolling for me. I'd already made the decisions of, you know, what it took to, I don't wanna say be a champion, but you know, you make a commitment to yourself and to others about doing your best. And I would say that. You know, I grew up in a kind of a Evansville-ish, not a small town by any stretch. There's a couple hundred thousand people, but it's, it's considered sort of a rural community. It's farming community. It's on the Ohio Rivers blue-collar work. Whirlpool had a big plant there. They were a major, major employer and me Johnson. These are, you know, mostly labor jobs. So yeah, I grew up in a pretty tight-knit community. The town's kind of divided in two sides, you know, you got the West-siders and the East-siders, and the West-siders were the farmers and rural folks. And the East Siders were the people that worked at Bristol Myers Squid, or me Johnson, and more affluent. And so I grew up on the side where the, where the workers were. And I think that has a big influence on anybody, because to me it was, um, you know, if you wanted to get something done, you kind of did it yourself, you know, as a family. Even you didn't necessarily have the money to, to go out and pay somebody to like, people here, clean your house, mow your grass, you know, we did it all ourselves. When I was a kid, we, you know, we had, we were on food stamps at times, but I never felt like I went, went without, you know, my dad was a railroader, so he would be gone a couple days, he'd be gone two or three days in home, one. But I never felt, never felt like, you know, I went without a dad. Yeah. My mom was a stay at home mom. So, you know, I think if you go back and talk to any of these guys that are super high peak performers, you know, and I've had conversations with my buddies who are seals or Olympic athletes or, or whatever. You all kind of have the same background. You all have the same kind of, uh, upbringing. Not everybody, everybody's got some sad story to tell, but it's just, you know, well-grounded and simple and fun. You know, I lived on a creek. We, my brother and I, whenever we would come home from school, we spent all of our time. We'd leave the house and go out into the woods. You know, we had guns and bows and arrows and knives and shovels and pick axes and building dams on the creek and swimming in it, and catching crawdads and snakes and everything else. So, you know, I started working on cars when I was like 13. And so it was just kind of that upbringing that made you realize that if you wanted to do something, you had to do it yourself, or you had to be committed to getting something done. It wasn't, it wasn't handed to you. Nothing was handed to you. My first car, my dad said, you're 16, you want a vehicle there it sits, it's out in the field. It's on four blocks and it has no engine or transmission. And I said, okay. So I put a motor and transmission in it and four wheels and it rolled and it was great. So it all kind of starts there. It doesn't, you don't, I don't think you fall into success or peak performance. You, you learn it and it sort of builds upon itself. You find out what it takes for you to succeed and you stick with it. And it's different for everybody.

Were And were you aware of it? I mean, like, were you, you, did you make a decision where you said, Hey, you know, I'm gonna be somebody.

You know, I don't know I had some relatives who were high ranking officials in the government in, uh, in the sixties. My great uncle knew the Kennedys. He was deputy director of the Bureau of Prisons. Wasn't a big guy, but he was a fighter. My grandpa was a fighter. My other grandpa was a, you know, shot down twice in World War ii, POW twice. That's bad luck, man. Um, I think that I just became aware of the fact that everybody has potential. Everybody does. And you have to, um, in order to sort of tap into that, I think you gotta \fail. And if you fail at a young age, a lot of people are discouraged and never go back. You know, they never kid fails and just says, Hey, you know what? I'm not gonna be good at this. I'm just gonna move on, do something else. And when I walked into. I grew up in a community that wrestling was big, really big, uh, like it is in a lot of the Midwest. And I, uh, when I walked into the wrestling room as a freshman in high school, I had already wrestled for, I don't know, four or five, six years. And I was okay, but I was a small kid. And so, you know, wrestling in the 65 pound weight class, there weren't a lot of, so they, they would ask me, Hey, you, you know, there's only one or two once, don't you move up a weight class? I'm like, okay. And I'd wrestle two or three or four weight classes up. It didn't matter to me and I'd win. And they're just like, okay, well, you know, so you can do that. So it made me realize that, you know, the old saying, it's not the size of the dog and the fight. It's the fight inside the dog. Uh, you know, my dad told me that years ago and I'm like, Hmm. It sort of resonates later. But you know, as a freshman, I walk in the wrestling room and the wrestling room where I grew up, there's, it's full, you don't have to go out and try to get kids to come out for the sport because it's full. You gotta cut people from the team. And I did okay as a freshman, but I didn't wrestle varsity. And I remember at the end of the freshman season, one of the things that I did, like I was big outdoors guy, you know, I hunted and fished, hunted all the time. Hunting season coincides with wrestling season. And so oftentimes on Saturday morning instead of going to wrestling practice, I was out duck hunting. And I remember the coach came to me one day and said, you gotta make a decision. Either you're, either you're a duck hunting or you're wrestling because you obviously can't do both. Well, we didn't, we didn't wrestle on Sundays. We did go to church on Sundays. And so if I could duck hunt early in the morning on Sundays, be at church by nine or 10, then I could still go to wrestling practice on Saturday. So I was able to figure out how to do all of it. But, uh, the coach came to me one day and he said after the end of the season, my freshman year, I placed fourth in the city, which was okay. Um, but he came up to me, he goes, you know, you're probably gonna wrestle varsity in next year. And we have really high expectations, don't embarrass us. I was, I was kind of taken back, you know, I was, I was, I don't know, 14 years old. And for a coach to tell me something like that, it was, you know, I don't think it would go over too well here where we live. You might get arrested for that. But he told me that, and it, it made me think, man, I gotta do something. And so. That summer between my, so freshman and sophomore year, I thought, you know what? I'm gonna work out. I'm gonna bust my ass. I'm gonna do whatever it takes and I'm not gonna disappoint them. And that's what I did. I decided to do that. I went to training camps. I worked out, I remember I used to run, I lived next to this, uh, small state university. They had a road that went from my house, it was about a mile and went from my house back to the university where they, you know, where, where the university was built. And I used to run that and I would run and I would hop on one, you know, I was a skinny, little weak kid and I thought, well, I'm gonna build my legs up. And so I would run, hop on one leg for a mile, and then I'd turn around and hop on the other leg for a mile. Then I would turn around and hop on both legs for a mile. And then I would sprint back. And I would do that two or three times just to build a, you know, 'cause I was trying to make myself stronger. And my uncle had was in the army, and he had a weight set, and he gave me his weight set. And this was one of those old rickety, you know, the bench was probably about that wide, you know, in the waist. But I would go in the basement and I would work out until I threw up. I would do pushups and I would lift weights, and I would do curls, and I would do all this stuff until I literally threw up. Then I'm like, okay, well, I must have worked out hard enough, and it was in my grandma's basement. You talk about like redneck living, man, it was in the basement at my grandma's house. I'd go down there and work out in this old rickety weight set until I'd throw up. Then I'd come home and shower up, and my grandma lived right next to my mom and dad and my grandma's like, you're gonna kill yourself. And that's, that's kind of how it all started.

But that was you. There wasn't anybody saying, I mean, I guess the coach saying to you, Hey, don't embarrass us. You knew you had to level up. But there wasn't anybody sitting there saying, Hey, work out until you throw up, do these hops until you do this. No, you were figuring that out yourself.

Yeah.

And I think, you know,

You have to figure that out yourself. And it's certainly, if it's one of those things you can figure out yourself, you're probably gonna be more successful at it than those that have to find out from somebody else. Because if you figure it out yourself, it's a little easier to buy into it than if it's somebody that has to tell you how to do it or what to do. Um, yeah, I, I, I knew that I had to do something if I wanted to be good at wrestling. I knew I had to really work hard and as a sophomore, when I started wrestling, I knew at the beginning of the school year, wrestling practice was super hard. You know, where I went. It was, it was very, very demanding. So what I did when school started, I started running, I started getting in shape so I could be in shape for wrestling, you know, so I, once I walked in the wrestling room, I didn't have to, you know, spend the first month getting in shape. I was in shape to get in shape, and that was, that paid off because I could focus on the skills rather than the, the physical attributes that you needed to do it. And we had this, uh, we had this peg board in the wrestling room. We had ropes and peg boards, and I was, I was, you know. Addicted to doing those, and nobody could do the peg board. And I'm like, let me try it. And we had two of 'em. We had one that had pegs that went straight up, and another one that was a square peg board that had 'em in different spots. And you had to be able to hang on one peg, pull one peg out, and then put it, and then, you know, sometimes they were crossed. And I would do that two or three times before practice. I would climb that rope two or three times before practice. I got to where I could go up and down the rope four times without using my legs, without stopping. And, you know, I, I prided my, it, it sort of builds upon itself and it gets addicting, that you see these accomplishments that you can do. And so you continued to do more, and I think it all kind of started there. And then I started winning and wrestling my first varsity match, I remember I wrestled this kid, and he was warming up. He was, you know, looked bigger and stronger than me and was running around like a madman. I'm like, I don't know what's gonna happen out there, but all I can do is do my best. And you know, I went out there and won. And then I won again and I won again. And I had, you know, 10 wins in a row, and I had 20 wins in a row and I had one setback. And uh, I remember the coach saying, he is like, just don't worry about that one. You got a lot more matches to go. Then I won another 10, then another 10. And uh, we came down to, and this is all as a sophomore, and this is important because this is really a turning point. People ask me about turning points in your athletic career. This is a turning point for me. So I'm a sophomore. I have two losses. I'm wrestling in, uh, the sectional tournament in Indiana's sectional regional semi-state state. So I'm wrestling, wrestling in the sectional tournament. One of my losses were from a kid that was outta state. I wasn't gonna see him again. The other loss was from a kid that we knew. If I won the sectional, which I was likely gonna win, I would face this kid that beat me. In the semi-finals of the regional, you had to finish first or second to advance to the semi-state. The coach came to me and said, you're probably gonna win today. He said, that's gonna put you in the same bracket with Wallace, and in order to go to semi-state, you're gonna have to beat him. And I said, okay, well, what do we do? He goes, well, you can forfeit the match, and you'll be in the opposite bracket of him, and you won't meet him until the finals if you make it through the finals at regionals. And I'm like, okay. He said, it's up to you. I said, no, I'm not forfeiting any match. I'm gonna go out there and win. And if I gotta wrestle Wallace in the semi-finals I got, I got, you know, I'm gonna have to beat him at some point. And so, you know, I went out and won the match in, uh, sectionals and ended up facing Wallace in the, uh, semi-final, I think he was, he was ranked in top two in the state, and I was probably in the top 10. But, um, and his brother, his older brother who was a coach, had wrestled one of my, uh, guy that went to my high school who was also a really good wrestler and beat him. So there was sort of a little bit of rivalry between the school, obviously, and then maybe my team and his team and individually, me being on the same wrestling team as the guy that beat his brother. And so we, we meet in the semi-finals. If I don't win, I don't go on. And I had only had two losses up to that point. And, uh. So I meet him in the semifinals, and lo and behold, third period, we're tied. It's eight to eight. And I'm like, wow. I was, you know, I, it was just all a big blur to me. And it's super funny because I remember my uncle and my dad and every my, my family we're like screaming and yelling. I can still kind of hear it. And, uh, my coach, um, after, after regulation time, you go into overtime, there's no tie. You go into overtime. And I remember walking up to him and saying, I'm so tired. He's like, bullshit. He said, bullshit. And I get out there and kick his ass and I went out there and beat him in overtime so bad. They had to stop the match, and they took him off on a stretcher. He was so exhausted and the crowd went crazy. Nobody expected a sophomore, he was a senior, and this kid was ranked in the cup, top two in the state. Nobody expected that to happen. And I went on to win every match after that, except at state. I lost two matches. I ended up finishing fourth. I got beat by the state champion and, uh, the state runner up. So, but that was as a sophomore? That was as a sophomore. Yeah. And so to me that was a really big turning point because you kind of look at it and I saw what the hard work pays off, what it, what you can do with hard work. You know, everybody says, oh man, that's tough. That's hard work. And I'm like, yeah, you know what the, you know, the saying about hard work, hard work is hard. There's no two ways about it. Hard work is hard. And I realized that if you put the time in, you put the effort in, you commit to it. It'll pay off. And that's kind of where it started for me. And it just perpetuates and builds on itself. And that might sound cliche-ish, but it's the truth. Success builds on success. You know, success, you know, failures are good to, to make you realize that you can, uh, move on. I mean, I got beat. It was devastating for me to get beat. I, uh, I took it super hard, but I had to regroup. And that's the great thing about wrestling. It's just you and your opponent and God out there. And only one person's walking away with his hand raised. And that's, that's a tough sport for a 14, 15-year-old kid, you know, to go out there and be humiliated in front of, you know, everybody. 'cause you are, and the crowds that would come to our matches were doing the 2500 to 3,000. These were not, you know, 10 parents coming to watch high school wrestling like they do here. These gyms were packed and these gyms were packed with people from the same side of town that were all farmers and rednecks and, and blue collar workers. There were more fights in the stands than there were people watching the match, but it, you know, people throwing trash on the mat. By the time I graduated as a senior, it, I got booed so bad when I walked on the mat. I'll tell a story later about it, but I asked, remind me to tell you about a story about a kid who was undefeated and he, they called him undefeated in the newspaper and in quotes they put NCJH and that was not counting Jeff Harp. They put that in the paper and, uh, you know, we wrestle at these schools and it's just, it's, it was a big deal to me. And it just became sort of, you know, a passion. Winning is addictive. Losing can unfortunately be addictive because you get yourself down in the dumps and figure you, there's no way out. You start down that spiral if you don't have the wherewithal, the gumption, the energy, the, you know, the commitment to pull yourself out. You can swirl that drain and, and not come out. So that's kinda where it all started. And it has, and I would say that year, you know, as a 15-year-old sophomore, that made me realize that everybody has potential. Yeah. So where do you go from there? Well, and so, uh, you know, I kind of bring everything back to wrestling. May not be everybody's, you know, everybody may not see it that way. You can't always bring everything back to sports. No, you can't. But for me, that's, that's kind of what did it. So, um, I came back, I went on and wrestled in the spring and the AAU stuff and did phenomenally well and was undefeated and got MVP and law, all kinds of awards. Came back my next year as a junior. We never had, had a state champion at my high school, ever. My high school's over a hundred years old. It's had wrestling probably a hundred years. Never had a state champion at my high school. And, uh, my town never had a two time state champion. So my junior year I come out and my coach beginning of season says, you're ranked number one. And I'm like, okay. That's a, sometimes that's a hell of a cross to bear, you know, in NCAA basketball, that's like the kiss of death. Yeah. It's like the kiss of death. Probably in football too. It's, you're just in your head the whole time. Yeah. It's in your head the whole time. You're, you're, it's like you're competing against yourself and not your opponent. And so I just kind of decided, Hey, look, I'm just, I don't know what the rankings are or what they mean. All I know is what I can do and what I'm gonna put forth into it and what I told myself as a junior, I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna work harder than anybody else. Now I don't know what every other wrestler in the state of Indiana is doing. I had no way of knowing that. But what I did know is what I was doing. And when I went to bed at night, I wanted to know. There is absolutely no possible way. Another human being could be working as hard as I am. There's no way. If there's not enough hours in the day, I've occupied 24 of them with becoming better. So there's no way anybody can be doing more than me. And that, you know, I went on my junior year and walked through the state tournament, became our first state champion. Then you come into your senior year, and of course after winning state for the first time, undefeated, you know, I was ranked number one. You got a huge target on your back. But I knew, okay, I got this worked. Gotta do the same thing again. Gotta push myself even harder. Gotta make myself even better because now people know who I am and they're gonna be gunning for me. And uh, I went through my senior year, same thing. I ended up my, my senior year, the school, that was our big rivalry. It's kind of like the Marin Catholic Redwood. It was close to us. It was Catholic school, modern day. They hated me. It was the one they had the kid. Um, Tom Zener, who was a good wrestler, really good for them. I think I was, his only losses. The Evansville Courier and Press was our local paper. They did an article on him and they were talking about how great he was. He was an undefeated wrestler in quotes that said NCJH. And in at the end of the story, they're like, and yeah, by the way, NCJH means not counting Jeff Harp. He had never beat me. And so, and I wrestled him I five or six times during the year, and that's pretty hard to do. It's hard. Any sport, it's hard to beat somebody or a team over, over and over again. Eventually they end up, but I knew in my mind. Nobody was working harder than me. I knew that not only would I have stay at practice, you know, I was at practice every day. I would stay at after practice and run the stairs. My football stadium at high school holds 15,000 people. So it's a stadium. They had a college bowl there. After practice, we had this thing called the Superman Club. It was all voluntary, and you would stay and you would run the stairs in the football stadium after you were completely exhausted. And we all, you know, the better guys stayed and did it. It was a, you know, it was a sort of a badge of honor to be part of the Superman club. So we all got these t-shirts that had a big Superman emblem on 'em. And we wore those. And when we wrestled that modern day in the dual meet. It sold out. You could not get in the gym. There were so many people and we were at their place and both, we were ranked in the top three as a team. They were ranked in the top two or three as a team. And when you walked in it, you couldn't hear yourself talk. It was so noisy. When I walked out on the mat during the introductions, people booed me so loud. There was stuff people were throwing. It was like watching Barry bonds up to bat and them not throwing a pitch to him and throwing chickens out on the field. But, uh, you know, we wrestled them. I, I've won again. And, but that match was another point where, you know, made me realize that you face adversity in life and you only overcome adversity by, you know, sometimes sheer will. And we were about 30 seconds into the match. I had attempted some move, and I heard something like a board break. And I knew, I knew soon as it happened, I'm like, uh, that's not good. And if I were to default to injury default, that's a loss. That's just how it works. Yeah. And so we went outta bounds, and I looked at the referee and I said, Hey, I need an injury timeout. And of course, the crowd went crazy because I, you know, they, you could tell by the referees, um, what he, what he does, that I took an injury timeout, so now I am hurt. And I got up and I walked over to the coach and he said, Hey, what's going on? And I stood there and looked at me and I said, I think I just broke my collarbone. And he started to raise his hand. I said, don't touch me. He said, what do you wanna do? I said, I'm going back out there. And he's like, are you sure? And I said, yeah, I don't know how I'm gonna do this, but, uh, I can't let him, I can't in front of this crowd, let them see this kid beat me. No way. He's like, okay. Now you probably get arrested for that today too. A coach allowing a kid to go out and compete with a broken collarbone. But I went out there and competed with a broken collarbone, and I actually beat him worse than I ever did. And, uh, I, my collarbone was broke. It was separated from the clavicle. The sternum, it was clavicle, was separated from the sternum, and went to the doctor and went to the, I think I went to the ER that night. And they did the X-ray and everything? Yeah, well, they put me in a splint. Fortunately, we wrestled them like the first week of December. So you still had Christmas break in there. So I took like four weeks off to let it heal. And you know, collarbone takes a little longer than to heal, but I was not going to not wrestle the rest of the season. So I came back in January and, and finished out the season, and I won state again. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So those are the kind of, you know, those are things that, and maybe the, you know, everybody's done that, I don't know, maybe my story's, you know, not special to anybody or some other person can tell you, but it's one that's 10 times better. But for me, those are the things that help me and my mindset myself apart and set myself up for success and be a peak performer.

Yeah.

You know, and so I was, you know, I was offered, uh, scholarships to go to, to college at different universities. I, uh, I chose the University of Illinois because it was, I had a girlfriend at home. It was younger than me, and I didn't wanna be 10 hours away, or, you know, Michigan or Oregon or some of these other schools that I had looked at Nebraska. I wanted to be as close to home as possible. And the Big 10, obviously, is the best wrestling in the country. And I thought, well, they're offering me an opportunity. I'm gonna go there. I was likely gonna have an opportunity to start as a freshman. And, uh, so I chose Illinois

And that's where I went. And how'd that go?

How did, how was it like now you're in a totally different category, totally different now you got the, the cream of the crop, everybody's a two-time

state champion in the wrestling room. Yeah, yeah. Minimum. Yeah. You know, and I kind of, you know, I came from this semi-small town rural community where I was king of the hill and you walk into the wrestling room in a, in a big 10, at a big 10 university, everybody's king of the hill. And as a freshman, you certainly are not top dog. I got my ass kicked first few months. You know, we started wrestling pretty early there. You couldn't wrestle organized practice with a coach, but it was expected that you started, when school started, you went into a program, you, you started doing some sort of training program. And I hurt my neck my freshman year, so I was not able to compete as much as I wanted to. I had, uh, school was hard. You know, I had, I'd gone to high school where I was majoring in power mechanics and shop, and I was not taking algebra, pre-calc, you know, science and everything else. I barely got by in high school. Even. I got straight A's in shop and our architectural drawing. So when I went to Illinois, you know, I, when I went to take the a CT test, this is a funny story, I didn't have a score. You had to have a score to, in order to be placed in classes, in, you know, what courses you're gonna be in. They did not have, um, Prop 48 back then, where you had to score a minimum to get in. So this coach schedules me for the, to take the exam. I scheduled at my, you know, one at the high school, and it's like a three-hour exam or something, two, three hours. I. On a Saturday and I walked in, they told me the test was two or three hours long, and I said, I got plans and I left and I didn't take the test. So the coach calls me a couple weeks later, Hey, we don't have a score. What happened? I said, yeah, I, I, I was really busy that morning. He's like, what do you, well, I was going hunting. So he's like, you have to take a test. He goes, now you're gonna have to come up here. You gotta drive up for the weekend or drive up on a Thursday, and we'll take, we'll schedule for the test Friday. So I went up there and took the test, and I pretty much did like drew my name with the bubbles and, and so I got placed in. Probably the lowest classes that they have at the university, which wasn't a bad thing 'cause at least I had some foundation, some base to start with. You know, I had, I didn't, people say, well, what math did you start with in college? I said, I started with intro algebra. And they're like, what? I don't even, I don't think they offer that. I'm like, yeah, they do. All the athletes are in there. So yeah, I started, you know, the bottom of the bottom of the barrel.

Yeah. So, uh, let's fast forward you wrestling.

I wrestled, wrestled at the university. I was all Big 10. Um, team captain, MVP. Most take downs. So I, I had a successful wrestling career there. Um, graduate from the university. Did well my last couple years. I finally figured it out, you know, I kind of looked at it like I did wrestling as a, you know, teenager. I've kind, I looked at academics the same way, Hey, I gotta figure this out 'cause there is no life for wrestling after college. I wasn't going into the NFL or the MLB, so I knew I had to get a degree. So I figured it out, got my degree, graduated, went to work, uh, for a company that was outside of Champaign. They did a lot of, uh, they made wood, windows, and doors, like Anderson. My undergrad was in forestry and so I worked kind of in their wood engineering stuff. Then I moved to a company out in Portland. And when I, uh, moved out to Oregon, my buddy was a, a D.A. out there, an assistant D.A., and he's like, oh, you oughta put in for a job with, uh, the Portland Police Bureau. Ah, I don't know about that. Yeah, I'll put in for a job. So I thought, ah, maybe I'll do that. So I thought about that and my, um, ex, my wife at the time came out to visit and she was, uh, in elementary education and we, she was gonna move out. We had a daughter. So I had a child when I was in college and which is a whole nother story, you know, that adds a whole new dynamic to your life. But I wouldn't change it for anything. And she came out with my daughter, and I picked her up at the airport in Portland, and I lived in Redmond, which is a couple hours from Portland. We had to go over the Cascades, and it was a snowstorm and it was a blizzard, and we got stuck, and it just went from bad to worse. And uh, she decided I'm not moving out there. And I'm like, oh no. And things really got bad between us after that and we split up, I ended up moving back to Indiana where she was a teacher. And uh, after I had moved back, I, you know, I obviously couldn't apply to the Portland Police Bureau if I was living in Indiana. I started looking at, well, maybe this law enforcement thing is there's some opportunity there. And so I looked at the marshals, I looked at Secret Service, and I remember my great uncle who was a deputy director, the Bureau of Prisons, always talked about how great the FBI was. And I mean, he was involved in some of the most notorious cases as a warden. He was a warden at Terre Haute, which is a death penalty prison for the federal government. Um, he knew the Kennedy, so I thought, you know what, let me see what this FBI thing's like. And, um, I went in with the attitude, the application is free. There's no charge, and all they can do is tell you no. So I applied to the Secret Service, the DEA, the FBI, and I was going through the process with the DEA same time as I was going through the process with the FBI and, uh, I decided that the bureau was probably the better way to go just because they have, you know, you're not just working drugs, you're doing like 300 different violations. And so I went through the whole process and even got the temporary appointment letter, and uh, then I got a letter from him a month later saying, Hey, we're having a hiring freeze. We'll let you know if we're interested in down the road. I'm like, what? So that was kind of how the Bureau started. And that was in '89. So a few years go by. I moved from Evansville up to South Bend. Um, I get remarried, have a daughter. I'm living in South Bend. I'm going to graduate school at Indiana University South Bend, working on my MBA, which I was, it was a grind 'cause I was at work eight hours a day and then I'd go to class from, you know, 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM and I'd come home and study, you know, from. You know, 10:30 to midnight, and you can get up and do it all over again the next day. It was a grind, and I was not a business major, and I had never had a business class. And I was taking, you know, graduate-level accounting and other business classes that were a struggle for me. And, uh, my roommate, who I was living with in Evansville, calls me up outta the blue, says, Hey, you got a letter from the FBI? And I said, all right, open it. I mean, hopefully we're not, I'm not on the 10 mills wanted it now, which surprised most people. And he said, okay. So he read it out to me and said, the, the nuts and bolts of it was, Hey, we're hiring again. You scored well. Are you still interested? Give us a call. And so I thought. What the hell? So I called him and the recruiter, I was talking to the recruiters. He goes, yep, you did good in the last round of everything. We had this hiring freeze for a few years. You know what, you interested in applying again? I said, yeah, I'm, I'm got a good job. I said, I'm going to grad school. She goes, no, that'll help your application. I'm like, all right, I'll, I'll apply again. What do I need to do? I didn't need to do anything new. She goes, yeah, we changed the whole process. I'm like, you changed everything. She goes, yeah, you gotta do everything again. I said, oh my God, are you kidding me? She goes, no. And so I went through the entire thing all over again. I, and you know, I mean, I started from scratch. I had to take the written test again. I had to go through the whole interview panel again. I had to, I remember when I went up to Chicago to take the physical, it was kind of funny because I had to run maybe two miles, do pushups, pullups sit-ups and stuff, and I was still in really good shape because I had been working out a lot, and I remember when I ran the two miles on the last lap, they were like, you have two laps to go. And I said, no, I only have one now, you got two. I said, I'll run two, but I only have one. The other guy looked at him, he goes, yeah, he's only got one. He was like, wow, he's moving. You know, I did, I don't know, 40 pullups. I maxed out the test, but to me that again was, that was an example of I wasn't going there to be a, you know, a mediocre performer. I was going there to be at the top of my game. I know the, the process to hire be getting hired in the FBI with a degree in forestry was gonna be ultra competitive. So I needed to stand out somewhere, you know, academically I was okay, but I didn't have a degree in engineering, or I didn't speak a foreign language. I wasn't a lawyer, I wasn't an accountant. So they gotta take a few of the other people on, why not me. There needed to be something that set me apart. And so I, you know, I, I did really well in the physical fitness test, and next thing I know, you know, the, the odd thing about the bureau back then is there was the Unabomber case wasn't solved. Timothy McVey just blew up the world, or blew up Oklahoma City. Domestic terrorism was a hot topic. They just started rehiring again. They were trying to get people, they were putting like 50 people in a class through the academy every two weeks. So they called me up and they go, Hey, um, we need you beat the academy in two weeks. And I'm like, what? They said, yeah, can you give your employer a week's notice and get all your affairs in order? And I said, I, I can't. I owe my employer two. I mean, come on, this is you really? Isn't it normal to give a two-week notice? They're like, well, yeah, you can take it or leave it. And so I went into my boss the next day and I said, Elaine, I, I hate to say this. She goes, you're leaving? I said, yeah. Oh, what day? Where you moving on to? I said, well, I gotta go next week. She's like, what? I said, I, this is like a lifetime opportunity. And they understood. They didn't, you know, they weren't thrilled about it. They knew something was going on because the bureau had to come in and interview them. And I always said, Hey, I'm gonna give you a month's notice, you know, but I came in and gave him, I dunno, a week and a half notice. And I drove to Quantico, Virginia, you know, when my old Toyota Corolla and I pulled up to Quantico and at the FBI Academy, and it all started there. You know, I remember sitting in class the first day. And everybody introduces themself and it's, uh, it's pretty impressive to hear. And people are, you know, given their best side, you know, they're not being humble about everything. And I was pretty humble about my background 'cause I was listening. They went in alphabetical order, and so was about halfway through and I had heard from A to G and I was like, man, I dunno if I'm in the right spot or not. I think they must have went through the stack. And the guy was on, I was in the do not hire, and he couldn't remember where it was at. So I got in the wrong stack and I said, I actually told people that. I said, I had no idea how I got here, and I'm impressed by everybody's background. And I said, I'm, I'm honored and humbled by the fact that I'm here with all you people 'cause there were some very highly skilled, highly educated, very successful people in that room. And we had to take the, uh, physical fitness test like the second day. And I thought, okay. Maybe this is, you know, something I can excel at. And they, people scored between like one and 50. Nobody ever really got above a 30 the first try. And so I thought, all right, you know, when I saw the test, I'm like, what do you mean nobody ever gets above a 30? I'm hoping to get a 50. And they kinda look at you like, I don't know what planet you're on. And the very first physical fitness test, I think I got a 48 and they were, you know, kind of like in shock and awe. And I said, well, I didn't come here to be second best, you know, I came here to perform and be at the peak. And I said, I know. I have a skill set physically that many, many people don't. And I said, but what I don't have that I have to focus on is this academic side that all these people have. So I need this spare time that they're gonna use working out. I need that time to study. And that's what I did. You know, I, I didn't slack off on my working out, but I was able to channel my energy and focus on the academics because I had already figured the physical fitness part out. Not that I was some like physical fitness star, but I didn't come there not in shape. I took it on just like I did wrestling and I knew showing up. I wanted to be at the top of my. My game. I didn't want to have to, you know, go to what they call it, um, or not if you weren't in shape, they had a little session for you after class that you had to do. I don't remember what the Power PT. Power PT, and then probably half the class had to go, and it was optional for others. Well, I chose to, I wasn't, you know, being, you know, conceited or boastful. I told 'em, I said, look, I, I would love to do it, but I got other things I need to focus on because, you know, going through the FBI Academy for those four months or five months, whatever it is, is like going to law school. And I needed to focus on the academic side and study. So while they were working out, which I already had figured out, I'm gonna go study. And so I did that. I ended up, uh, graduating in the top of my class. I got the highest achievement award for physical fitness. I scored a perfect score on the physical fitness test and uh, got my orders to Los Angeles. You know, they have, it's funny, somebody asked me yesterday, so when, how do you know where you're going? You get your orders to the FBII said, when I went through it was quite the process and it's a little entertaining and they try to make it lighthearted and entertaining. And so one of the things they tell you when you get in is you're probably not going back to your field office. Probably just not gonna do that. It's just not, not how it works back then. And they said, we're gonna put you in one of the 56 eel off-field offices based on your background and the needs of the FBI and the old guys will always tell you the needs of the bureau. That's where you're gonna go. So that can be. Anybody's guess. And so what they did was you had a picture, you had a little headshot, they gave it to you, you walked up, they handed you an envelope, and this is at eight weeks, they handed you an envelope and you, uh, open the envelope and you take the photo with a thumbtack and you go up to the big map and you put it on the board. So everybody knows where you're going. There are a few people that were not so elated. I think a couple people cried. A couple people quit. Almost 16 outta my class came to San Francisco, which was unheard of, but the Unabomber hadn't been solved. So it was, it was fun. It was really fun. And it was the, um, kind of downer side of getting orders that day is I think, yeah. So the day we got our orders was the same day that we had two agents get shot in my class. And so everybody was pretty down because, uh, I was standing next to the female that got shot. And I remember hearing the sound. We were in the gun cleaning room and the instructor was out in the hallway. They were, we, it was chaos because we were getting ready to go to our white collar two exam. It's the middle of the summertime in Virginia, so it was probably 110 degrees with a hundred percent humidity. Um, there was another class coming into the gun vault. We were leaving the gun vault. We were late on the range. We were late to our class. Some of this is kind of built in to cause stress for you. Uh, we had to go to our white-collar two exam, which was a hard exam. Um, the instructor was out in the hallway and he was t he was showing another student trigger control, and most of the instructors carried a sidearm. Back then, I don't, I don't think they do today. He pulled his sidearm out, which he forgot was loaded, and he was showing trigger control. And as he was doing it, he cranked off a round, and it went into the gun vault, and it shot Tracy in the back in, in her back, came out her stomach, and went into Joe's back. And, uh, the bullet lost enough velocity going through her that it tumbled in him. He, I think he lost a, a kidney out of it. He almost died. Tracy's on the ground, you know, screaming. I've been shot. I'm, I'm standing next to her. And I, I looked down, I'm like, there's no blood. I don't know. And I, so I rolled her over and I put my hand on her back and there was blood on my hand. And I knew she'd been shocked in, I lifted up her shirt and you could see it looked like somebody had stuck a pencil, you know, right out her belly. And fortunately for her, it went in her back, sort of in the muscle fatty tissue, and out kind of the same area. So it didn't, didn't hit anything vital still, I think it may have hit her hip bone or something, but it lost enough velocity that it tumbled inside Joe. And he lost a kidney. He almost died. They had to life-flight him out. The Hostage rescue team is based outta Quantico. Their paramedic was, happened to be in the academy building, so he was, he came in, they administered first aid to him right away. They fired the helicopter up and they flew him to, I think Manassas Hospital, where both of them ended up recovering fully and graduating the academy some weeks later. But they both did. Wow. Yeah. That's a wild thing. It's a wild thing. It's never happened again. It happened one time. And you talk to people in the FBI, hey, I heard about in a class where somebody got shot. And I'm like, yeah, that was my

class. Yeah, that's, uh, that's an experience, right? Yeah. So you get orders, you're on your way to Los Angeles. Talk about landing in the, uh, field office in Los Angeles. Yeah, so I had, um,

I get orders of Los Angeles and they assign you kind of based on your background. I had, my background was what was considered diverse, so I didn't have like a specialty and uh, you know, a pilot or a foreign language or accounting, or law. So I was kinda like the, the rest of the us, you know, our US is what they called it, so the rest of the us and so I was put. On an applicant squad that gets, you get farmed out to do all the work with all the other squads and you're doing background investigations. And we were doing a bunch of presidential appointees, Clinton at that time, and they had, um, those presidential appointees, they, you have like a 14-day deadline to get everything done. So there's a, it's, it's like you drop everything and the bureau does these backgrounds. You have 14 days to get to initiate, do the investigation, do all the paperwork and send it into DOJ. And so it's a grind. And, uh, I remember my first day in the office, you know, my supervisor gives me a stack of freaking, uh, background investigations or applicant. You do the FBI background investigations. And he is like, oh yeah, by the way, you're going with, you know, squad C nine, they're doing a gang raid tomorrow. And, you know, they're, they needed some bodies. So I volunteered you, I'm like. He goes, you need to go down there and talk to them. And I said, okay. So I went down to the squad meeting and the, it was a task force of LAPD and uh, FBI agents working gang matters. And yeah, we're going into Inglewood tomorrow and here's, get your packet and see where you're assigned and what time you're supposed to be there. I'm like, that's it. Yeah. I didn't say it, but I'm like looking at myself going, alright, is there, do I need to know anything else about this? And they literally, you know, you, I showed up the next morning at the sheriff's station in Ingleside and I didn't know anybody. I just showed up in my FBI car in my raid jacket and they're like, oh, your harp, yeah, you're assigned with this guy. Yeah, we're going in to hit this house. It's a, a drug gang thing. And, uh. Good luck. So I, I remember the very first one I did, we, I remember we pulled up at, you know, 0 dark 30 and hit the house and you're expected, you're an FBI agent. You're expected to know what to do, when to do and how to do it. And there was no other agents with me. I was with like two other cops and you know, me and there were other agents, but they were assigned to these two other cops. And I'm like, okay, you want me to do okay? You watch this door? I'm like, okay. So it, it kind of went back to, well, I guess this is why they, they teach you to do things at Hogan's Alley. You know, Hogan's Alley is the, you know, where they put all the real-life scenarios together at, at Quantico. I remember hitting that house. And, um, we arrested the guy. No shots were fired, everybody's guns are drawn and they arrested the guy at the door. We went in, we helped with a search, and I remember opening a closet and, you know, they went through these bags. These bags were like full of cash. Just full of cash and people like, oh, aren't you tempted? I'm like, it's just a job. You know, I don't, just a job and it's just paper. Yeah, just bag it up and be done with it. Move on. You know? Thank God nobody got shot. Yeah. Oh. So that was like my introduction into the Los Angeles field office. And so, you know, after you do one or two of those things, you kind of get into a routine. And I did that for the first six months. And then I, uh, they had a tryout for SWAT and my, there was the second in command, the assistant special agent in charge was an Illinois grad, and he was a baseball and basketball player at Illinois. So when I came to the office, I was assigned under him. I remember my supervisor came to me and said, Hey, the ASACs want wants to talk to you. And I'm like. That's usually not a good sign. So I went and talked to him and he's like, yeah, you know, I'm, my name's Chuck and you know, I went to Illinois and I was baseball and the basketball player. And so he was great. So six months into my tenure at AT NLA, they had a SWAT tryout and Chuck came to me. I worked out all the time and I got to know all the runners and stuff in the office. We had a big law enforcement race they did, and they recruited me to run in that race. And so I got to know all the SWAT guys, Hey, you should come out for swat. So they had a requirement. You had to do two years in the office before you could try out. Well, Chuck comes to me and says, ah, go ahead and try out. I'm like, ah, I don't wanna be that guy that, nah, go ahead and try out. So I tried out and I made the team and you know, I don't think some of the people weren't too happy about it, but a lot of the SWAT guys were my gym buddies. You know, it's funny how you make these relationships in different settings. Well, the gym was the setting I made all my relationships in, and it goes back to that I'm preparing for peak performance as an FBI agent. It's proven that if you are in good physical condition, the likelihood of you surviving a gunshot are 10 times greater than if you're not. And so I took that to heart and I made sure that I was in good physical condition knowing that I may be going on a, on a raid with a gang squad, and if I get shot, you know, it's that whole mindset, and I've never been shot. Uh, you talk to people that have, and the courses that I've been in, the real-life scenarios that I've been in where people are either shooting or shooting at you or you're shooting at someone, it's a mindset, and you have to have this positive mindset. And again, this kind of goes back to being a sophomore wrestling and beating somebody and having that positive mindset. It's all, you know, it's all part of, you know, what you think. If you think, you know, there's an old saying, they told us in the FBI Academy, if you get shot and you think you're gonna die. You're likely gonna die. So you know, you need to have that positive outlook on life and positive mindset. So, um, go to swat. So I was on the SWAT team for about a year and uh, they had a, and that is, this is LA SWAT? This is LA SWAT, yeah. So I was on the SWAT team for a year, so I and LA SWAT down there. They're involved in a lot of high-risk stuff and back then it was in the height of gangs and drugs, and so we did a bunch of high-risk things. We, you know, I went to several kidnappings and, you know, people holding knives or guns to somebody's head or throat. And so, you know, it was, it was pretty, uh, uh, eye-opening to be involved in those kind of operations. The team leader, the SWAT team was a former hostage rescue team member. So we had, you know, a fairly decent and robust training scenarios and a lot, we had good equipment, you know, for SWAT teams. So LA SWAT was pretty highly thought of and pretty well equipped. And so I was on the SWAT team about a year, and I remember, um, a guy in the office came to me and said, Hey, they're having a tryout for the hostage rescue team. I'm like, okay. He go, oh, you should go out. And I'm like, yeah, I don't, I I barely meet the minimum requirement. I said, I've just passed like my two years, or two and a half years, what it was. And they said, oh, you should do this. And I'm like, I don't know. So I, I looked at it and I had a daughter that was, uh, living in Philadelphia at the time, and you know, selfishly, I'm like, well, if I make this team, I'll be back on the east coast. Never lived there, but I'll be close to my daughter, so why not? So my SWAT team leader, usually what happens is your SWAT team leader endorses you. They, you know, you send this package back. My SWAT team was out on vacation the day it was all due. And so I talked to my supervisor and the ASACs, like I send it in. He goes, I'll give you your endorsement. And so, um, I was approved to try out for the hostage rescue team. They. All the paperwork went back and I got notified. Hey, you can, you, you can try out.

I mean, and for, and the people that don't know, HRT is the elite of the elite. I mean, this is the national SWAT team. It's a tier one asset

like Delta and Seal Team Six. They do a lot of training with the military groups. Um, they're counter-terrorism response team. Um, they have national responsibility for any major event, uh, the Olympics. I've been to a couple different Olympics. Anything that is really, really, really critical. We, we did a couple operations in Virginia Beach with the Hell's Angels. So yeah, they're, they're very top tier. All they do is, uh, you know, we called it training and working out or being on an athletic scholarship. So what some of the guys, you know, my coworkers at the academy would say, are you still on that athletic scholarship? You've been milking that for a lot of years and now. Um, but uh, yeah, so it's an elite group of guys and. Most of the guys on the team, former military, former special forces, former, you know, Navy Seals, former, uh, Delta operators. So these are really high-speed guys that are usually in their late twenties, early thirties. So they're, and for a man that's not old, I mean, kind of peak performance, you look at Olympic athletes for males, you, you, you start looking at ages of like 24 to maybe 31, 32. Those are really critical years for you being in top physical condition, you know, top mental condition because. You may have a little more piss and vinegar in you at 18 or 19, but you don't have it there mentally. And I think that's why there's a big advantage for in, in college football for these guys that go into the military and come out at 20 and they got four years left to, uh, to compete in, in college at the college level. They're mentally way better off than they were as a high school 18-year-old. So yeah, these are, these are grown men. Um, and the other thing that makes it unique is these are grown men with full-time jobs. They're not fighting for their job. You don't have to go back and do that. You got a job and many have families. So, um, it's a hell of a commitment. And so yeah, you go back for two weeks. I remember when I got selected, go back, you know, I was an avid outdoorsman. I'm like, man, I gotta take care of my feet. You know, they had like these, these secret groups that would give you like, this is what's gonna happen. You know, during the two weeks or the last two years, they've done this during the 14 days. And so there was kind of a, you know, a hump out there as what was gonna occur in the 14 days. And I never looked at it. I'm like, they can't shoot bullets at me, you know, and I'm gonna be physically, it's super challenging physically. They, since they can't shoot bullets at you, the only thing they can do is wear you down mentally and physically and see how you perform. So I thought to myself, well here we go back to my wrestling, the mental toughness for wrestling. I'm not gonna let that be the thing that breaks me, because I'm gonna be prepared physically. I don't care what they throw at me. There's nothing that can throw at me that I haven't thrown on myself physically. Yeah, I went back for the two weeks and uh, it was tough. It was really tough.

Yeah. Course navigation, you've got navigation everything.

It's like they try to, when they designed this two-week course, they went to the Army and they went to the Navy and they said, okay, for your Special forces, yeah, you guys got six months to do this qualification course. We don't have six months. Tell us what we can do in 14 days. Buds, you know, you've got hell week, you've got a, you know, a finite period of time in Buds, but it's still longer. What do you do that we can, you know, mimic that? And so we kinda, and, and the hostage rescue team adopted sort of this training curriculum for selection that they felt was as good as they could get. They had a finite period of time, and they'd be able to use their evaluation in that, you know, 14-day period. So yeah. So you go back there for the 14 days and very first thing you do is you shoot, if you can't qualify shooting, well, there's no sense in going any further. And some people fail out from the firearms call the first day. First day, usually about 50 people show up for the selection.

That's about normal. And so how many people make it through?

Yeah, that's a, that's always a real good question, and everybody says, you know, year to year, it's funny, it never changes. It really, it may fluctuate. Wait a little here. May fluctuate a little. There, there's about a 25% graduation rate out of, of the two weeks.

Yeah. They're pushing it.

Yeah. And that's about normal. You know, we, well, I went through in July, which they stopped, they don't do 'em in July anymore. Too hot. Too hot. They had people going. First day we, we took people off on IVs 'cause they were, I mean, they took, one guy almost died, so they decided to quit doing it in July just because of the heat factor. It's, it's, you know, the selection is hard on the participant. It's tough on the operator. Operator's gotta be there every step of the way, you know, obviously we know what's coming along. We still gotta be there to evaluate. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, you got people fail out the first day, very first day you take a physical fitness test and it's not the same FBI physical fitness test. It's very rigorous. Um, and I wanted to know, again, I go back to my wrestling mentality. I need to be at my peak level, my peak performance level for this, because I don't wanna be in the middle of the pack. I don't wanna be the guy that they're looking at going, yeah, he's on the border. No, I, that's, that. That's not how you get over the hump. You get over the hump by being out. This guy physically freaking knocked it outta the park. Well, let's see how they did everything else. So I wanted to be, I wanted to allow myself to focus on, I wasn't a former special forces operator. I wasn't a Delta guy, I wasn't a seal. So I wanted to make damn sure. That what I didn't have to worry about was the physical side, because that's what most people fail. And I'm like, okay, if I can, if I can get over that hump, that gives me the ability to focus on this other stuff, this tactical stuff that I have to do. The shooting, the sleep deprivation, the grind you have to go through and stay mentally sharp. You know, the arrest scenarios, if you're physically exhausted, that impacts all this other stuff. And they know that. But that's how they kind of, that's how they weed the people out. Can't shoot live bullets at you. They could raise your stress level up and see how you react. But if you're in top physical condition, that's just one more thing you don't have to worry about. Yeah. And I, you know, I have very good friends that are seals. My college roommate was a seal, you know, I very close friends on Seal team six and you know, they're like, yeah, that's, if you've got you, you've gotta kind of figure out what you can and can't do. And if there's things that. Going out for the hostage rescue team. If there's things that I can do, let's make sure that I'm at the absolute top of my game for those. So the things that I am not sure about are the ones that I can worry about and focus on.

Yep. So HRT. So LA swat, you're working, Hey, bank robberies got a hostage situation. You're lining up on those dudes and, and now you're in a totally different category.

Totally different category. I mean, you're flying to worldwide. Yeah. Just wherever you need to go. Yep. Handling major action. Major action. Some of it covert. Yeah. Um, but yeah, you're involved in, you know, you're working with all the other government agencies, whatever three-letter word is operating overseas. You're working with them, you're working with the military groups, you're working with the foreign government, military groups, the foreign government, special forces groups. You're working with all those and people don't really have a total grasp or understanding what the Hostage Rescue team does. Maybe if you play Ghost Recon, a kid's heard of it, you know, but, uh, you know, a lot of people don't know 'cause they don't advertise it, they don't brag it. It was born out of the 84 Olympics and they didn't want what happened in Munich to happen in Los Angeles. And so they're like, Hey, we need a team that can respond to this. And the whole. Posse and military involvement. You know, there's, there's ways to kind of navigate that. But if you have a civilian non-Department of Defense special forces team, that gives you a lot more latitude for those sort of special operations. Yep. You can move differently. You can move differently. You can deploy people easier, you know, does it take a, you know, a presidential act to get, uh, the military above? You don't have to declare martial law. These are, these are civilian paramilitary, you know, special forces,

light groups. Yeah. So we can go on and talk a lot about a lot of different stories. Let's talk about the USS Cole.

Okay. And so I had just gotten remarried again. Seems like the FBI career path. Tough on marriages, right? Well, so yeah, that's kind of a, that's another whole story itself. But, so the FBI, there's some statistics, at least when I was in that they're not so proud of. One, they had the highest rate of suicide of all law enforcement. I personally know seven people that have taken their own lives with their firearm. Seven. I know personally. Second, they have the highest rate of divorce of all law enforcement. Law enforcement has the highest rate of divorce of any other group in the country. The FBI is the subset that has the highest within the FBI. The hostage Rescue team has the highest rate of divorce. So yes, it's tough on the family, it's tough on marriage. Um, I had just gotten married. I'm not gonna say what number that was, but it was again, and uh, my young wife was, um. Not from there. And this is, I think the Coel was October 10th-ish, somewhere in that neighborhood. I'd gotten married in September, so I'd been married a whole like 30 days and get a call in the middle of the night. You gotta be at Quantico for what you don't know. You just know that, you know. So I'd been on the team a couple years and you always leave on a Friday with your bags packed, ready to go because you never knew. And you know, I was always, I always took pride in the fact that I never put a gun away that wasn't clean. And so I, all of my equipment, I was, I'm kind of very OCD about it. And, uh, you, you tend to see that there's a lot of guys that are in that category, that are on these teams. You know, it's like if you go to the military academy, my very good friend Jim West Point graduate, you go to his house, I'm like. I'd move something like out of the square corner, and you'd see him walk around, and he'd go back and he'd put it back, or the corner of his or his bed was made up perfectly. You'd just pull the sheet down a little bit. You'd see him go into his room and he'd fix a sheet again. So yeah, it's a little bit, uh, a little bit over the top OCD, but you know, there's, there's a study that was done, and there's a lot of Olympic athletes that are OCD and that are suffering from ADHD. And, um, they were able to be peak performance by harnessing and channeling those attributes into peak performance. So, I don't know. I was probably a ADHD as a kid I've never been looked at or diagnosed, but everybody says, man, they used to call me the monkey on crack. So, I don't know, maybe I, I had some, some severe case that should have been diagnosed at some point. Maybe as an adult too.

Yeah. So you get orders. USS Cole. Uh, where you get orders, right? Yeah.

You called the Quantico. We had pagers back then, so you'd get a, there was a code on the pager, I think, and it meant to go to Quantico, and I, I, I kind of had a sense of what was gonna hap or that we were gonna get called because the explosion happened. You know, obviously there are 12 or so hours ahead of us. We hear it on the news. Um, you know, it's a US interest obviously, obviously overseas. And so I kind of had the feeling that we were gonna get called. So when we got called, we go to Quantico, um, you know, we're loading up everything in our trucks, taking them out to Andrews Air Force base where we load everything on a, at that time we were using a, a C 141 military plane and we would, you know, we load up everything. We load up helicopters and Humvees and armored personnel. You, they have the, we had the capability to fully deploy as a, like a military unit, and we sent an advance group over, and I was in that advance group. Uh, we had, I don't know, maybe 40 people in the advance and just to kind of look at things, set it up, and kind of established what we needed on the follow on. We got there and we kind of, Yemen was not a, um, a friendly country as far as military assets in the country go. Mm-hmm. I think Clinton had opened up that port for refueling purposes because it was, you know, shorter. Yeah. We needed it. We used a lot of fuel and we went around, I guess maybe Suez Canal or whatever. So it was strategically, it was important for us to kind of go back through the med there or Red Sea, whatever it is. And so yeah, at the, at the, uh, and aid and at the port, they had. Taken, um, Al-Qaeda, they had taken a raft like a, a uh, zodiac full of explosives, 2,500 pounds and pulled it up to the ship and then they blew a hole in the ship damn near sank the ship. And if you've never been on a ship, the hull of those ships are solid steel and they aren't like your pleasure boat, where you've got a thin thing of fiberglass in it. These things are thick and it ripped that ship open like a can opener. And there were 17 sailors that died immediately. You know, unfortunately, they pulled that boat up that had the explosives in it, next to the enlisted men's mess, and that's where it went off. And so when you went into the mess hall on that ship, I mean. I, I, this, I'm not trying to be insensitive or gory, but it looked like freaking somebody throwing a hamburger meat against the wall. It was a god-awful scene. And, uh, 17 sailors died. 30 or 40 other people were seriously injured. And I think Captain Kurt Lippold met may have been his first ship as a captain. Uh, that guy was devastated, you know, here he is, you know, all he's just trying to do is refuel this boat or ship and attacked by terrorists. Yeah. Get back out there and do his job. But before we even got out to the, where the ship was, we landed at, uh, the airport in Aiden. And, uh, we sat out there forever. It was hotter than hell. And, uh, of they said, well, the, the ambassador at the time. Um, ambassador Bodine, I think was her name was not, um, user-friendly with us coming into the country with long guns. She didn't want us to look like, you know, an invading force. She was very sensitive to that. And John O'Neil, who coincidentally died 9/11 in the towers, was, uh, he was at the New York, uh, assistant director in charge, and he was in charge of this investigation. You know, he was trying to negotiate with her on getting us the team that's gonna protect the Americans in there. And so we sat on that runway and we sat on that runway and sat on that runway. It was hot. There's no AC in the 141. And it was, it was, it was miserable. Finally, they said, Hey, they're gonna, they're gonna let us come in, so we lower the back end of the plane. And there they are with RPGs pointed into the, the back of the plane. As you know, the Yemeni military we're all kinda like, that's interesting. I hope they decide not to light one of those off. So they raise the back end, back up. Some no more negotiations went on. And kind of what they said was, is, um, you can come in without your long guns. Well, what do you mean by that? So we had M fours and MP fives, and if I remember correctly, we said, and I, and I don't, can't go into, you know, all the gory details, but kind of paraphrasing and, uh, going over it lightly in a nutshell. We said, okay, we'll leave the M fours on the plane, but we're bringing everything else. Well, everything else also meant, you know, we carry explosives with us for breaching, um, some really sophisticated equipment. We had some, all kinds of three-letter agencies on that flight with us. Um. We kind of, you know, we said, Hey, we'll leave these long guns off. So we were able to kind of negotiate that into letting us in the country. And I remember we had to go through the airport metal detectors and they were literally like on our bags, which I had everything in my bag you needed to, you know, blow a wall down. And I remember seeing 'em push those bags through this makeshift magnetometer. And I'm just thinking, I don't know what they're looking for because whatever they should be looking for is in my bag. And they're just pushing 'em on through. And I kind of looked around and, you know, you got a little Yemeni guy sitting there squatted down on, you know, on the ground. Like they sit and I kind of look, I'm like, there's no screen. They're not looking at anything. It was kind of a save the face, you know, we're checking your bags. We checked into the Aiden Hotel, which was there, which was probably a, you know, four-star. By Yi Standards Hotel. Um, I remember the pillows I think were made out of straw. They were filled with straw. There was dust everywhere. Guys were getting sick from the dust in the air and the sanitary conditions were not so great. You couldn't drink the water. Um, I remember I didn't get sick. I had, I think I had a cold when I went there so that never, the air is not very clean. So, you know, I didn't, I didn't get sick in my stomach. A lot of people did. I remember telling the kit, you could order food from their kitchen at the hotel. I'm like, I ordered fried cheese. I'm like, we fried cheese up in Greece, 450 degrees. It's gonna kill everything. So, you know, I mean, I can eat cheese for a while and bottled water. So that's kind of what I survived on. But guys, you know, people were getting sick and, you know, at nighttime, they were shooting at the hotel and you know, it was a dangerous situation. I remember going to fill up the trucks. The Suburbans we needed to, you can't fly 'em full gas, you gotta have a quarter tanker left. So we landed and they asked me and a couple other guys, let's go get gas in the Suburbans. Well, okay, pay for it with, well just go change some money at the hotel. So I, well, I remember going to the hotel and trying to exchange some cash and you know, we obviously had some pallets of cash with us, but I said, Hey, I need to, you know, I so many words I need to, I have enough money to fill up all these suburbans in gas and went, okay, well I gave 'em several hundred dollars in cash and they came back with like grocery bags full of Monopoly money. And I'm like, all right, you know, whatever. We took him to the gas station. I pulled up the gas station with a couple buddies of mine, and we fill up the, fill up the tanks and gas was pretty cheap and I got these grocery bags and I kind of shrugged my shoulders and I gave him the guy, the grocery bag and he shrugs his shoulders and we leave. So, you know, that was that. Rest of the team comes in and uh, next day we get up and we make our first trip with the investigators over to the ship. And you could, from the hotel, you could see the ship and it was listing and you could tell that damn thing was almost ready to sink. And they had brought in a, like a barge and I think put the barge sort of underneath it to give it some buoyancy so it wouldn't sink. Yeah. Going on that ship was crazy because it just literally ripped through the hall of that ship, killed those 17 sailors, wounded, you know, 30, 40 others. It was crazy, crazy. We were there, we had to fly the long guns out of the country and I got, uh, chosen as one of the guys to accompany the weapons back to Germany. And so I got on that 141, it was me, 30 or 40 M fours and two pilots. We flew back to, we flew back into Ramstein and. Brought all the weapons back and we were staging from Ramstein, so that was kind of the base. So we brought all the weapons back to our staging area and stayed there. And then I took another flight back to Yemen the next day or a couple days later.

So you conclude your investigation there?

Yeah, they concluded their investigation. There's a great picture of me and all the other investigators in John O'Neill's book, the Man Who Saved America maybe, or something like that, or the, I can't remember what it's called. It's a good picture of all of us on top of the hotel and Aiden. And so that concludes, and we didn't know how long we were gonna be there. It happened in October. Um, the investigation, I don't, we were there for at least a couple weeks and I think we were in Germany for a couple weeks, so maybe total a month away from home. Um, but we thought we were, they told us, Hey, you're gonna be here through Christmas. So yeah, those things were never fun. Unplanned, missing Thanksgiving, Christmas, you know, never fun. Yeah. We may have missed Thanksgiving. I don't, I don't remember. It was pretty close.

So you come back from that, uh, and then you're back to the, the usual stuff that you're doing. There's probably some other activity in between that.

And, uh, there's missions all along. You know, they can, they had a rotation. You'd be either in duty cycle, training cycle, or mission. And if there was a mission that came up and you were in that window, whatever 90-day window, you would, whatever part of the team you were on that was in that, that category. If it was mission, then you were off on the mission. If you were in the training cycle, then you were, you know, off somewhere in the US us doing some high-speed training with some group or military or, you know, I got, I was a breacher, so I got to go down to, uh, Virginia Beach with the seals and we got to do a lot of different breaching activities with them and yeah. Yep. So, but there were other missions that would go on, you know, if you were in the mission cycle, you know, we got, you know, I went to various countries around the world, various missions to do various things.

Yep. Lots of activity. Lots of activity. Gone all the time. Yeah. And it's heating up at this point got thees blown up.

Yeah. So, um, prior to the coal was the bombing of the embassies in Nairobi and Kenya. That was probably ‘98. Something happened. ‘99. I don't, I don't recall. But there were also domestic operations that we were involved in. They had a, you know, we had big Hell's Angels operation, uh, in Virginia Beach. We took care of, we were in Puerto Rico a couple different times, the violent gangs down there. Uh, there was corruption within the police departments. The local FBI field office was getting shot at with RPGs. So we went down there and handled that. Um. There was various other operations within the US that we did the HRT, not when I was there, but you know, they were involved in Ruby Ridge, Waco, um, big significant events. Yeah. So 2000, the next year is nine 11, a little less than a year from the coal. Cole blew up in 2009. 11 was obviously September, 2001. And I was, I was physically sitting at FBI headquarters when that happened. So you could see the smoke from the Pentagon. I was watching TV when it ha, I was working on terrorism matters. I was signed up there on a TDY from HRT to help with, um, one of the hostage situations that we had and. I remember coming in, driving in that morning, I still have my HRT vehicle. I would pick up my buddies from headquarters, nobody drives to headquarters. I had a parking spot because I was a guest and a TD wire. And so I picked up a couple of my LA buddies and other people I knew from the hostage rescue team that had moved on. I say, I'm driving in the next few weeks. I'll pick you up in Woodbridge, Manassas, Springfield, I'll give you right into work so you don't have to take the grind, take the train. So I remember driving in that morning, September 11th, and we were all talking about how beautiful it was that day. Virginia in the fall is amazing. It's just amazing. And uh, it is good. It was a crystal clear day. I remember looking at the TV monitor. One of the guys in the office said, God, Nate, a, a helicopter just ran into the World Trade Center. And I'm like, I. It couldn't have been any clearer today. What kind of shit? And they're like, oh, it was an airplane. I'm like, man, that's crazy. And as I'm watching second plane hit, and we knew, we knew, so it was all hell broke loose at headquarters. All the alarms were going off. Everybody's not in a panic, but you know, now everybody's in, we're activating the Emergency Operations Center, ciock, um, everybody's, you know, phone lines were all down. I think the World Transit Centers have the largest trunk of Verizon lines in it on the East Coast. We had priority numbers that we could use to dial out on. I remember calling a couple friends and my brother, who was a agent at the Washington Field office, and we had talked a little bit, and I'm like, he was on the evidence response team. He, I remember saying to him, you know. You going to New York? He goes, yeah, I've had a, I'm getting ready to head home now. And he was, I was on the phone with him as he was crossing the 14th Street Bridge and he said that, I'm not going home. I'm like, what's? He goes, the plane just hit the Pentagon. So he got off and went over to the Pentagon. He was thinking one of the first agents, there's a picture with him and Bush and Cheney and yeah. So he was one of the first agents at the Pentagon.

Crazy. Crazy. Absolutely crazy. Yep. I don't think anybody ever experienced anything like that before. I mean, Oklahoma City certainly was a shocker. Right. Um, but, and you know, but never saw anything like, like that.

Nope. Closest thing to would probably have been, uh. Pearl Harbor.

Yeah.

Surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Yeah. That came out of nowhere. This kind of came outta nowhere. There were obviously some intelligence failures along the way, uh, but there were probably some intelligence failures along the way with Pearl Harbor.

Sure. So yeah, that was a pretty coordinated effort. Right. I mean, that wasn't something that was, uh, that was just like, uh, hey, let's, uh, hop on these airplanes. Let's just do this. Like, no,

I worked terrorism in LA. That was the substantive case matters that I was assigned to work. I arrested one of the first, uh, guys involved in the First World Trade Center bombing, and just kind of on a fluke, you know, I was doing a trash cover. And that's basically, you go to the curb where somebody leaves their trash. It's fair game and digging through trash, you know, diapers. And I. Imagine what's, when you're digging through trash, imagine what that's like. Maggots and gross stuff. And I came across the phone bill that had maybe a couple phone numbers we didn't have. We did some tracing and one thing led to another and we did an arrest and uh, I had a guy that was, it was totally unexpected that we found this guy. I just happened to be with another, it was INS at the time was my partner. And I'm like, Hey, let's go check this apartment out, see if he's there. We pulled up and. Sure. Shit, he's freaking, we found his car, which we hadn't seen for years. And, uh, I, I was on the regular bureau radio for cell phones and I'm calling for help. I need to get somebody over there. And of course, this time, this is a, now it's a high-profile case. It was a dog when they handed it to me. Now it's, you know, big deal. And I got people calling, Hey, we're coming. I'm like, yeah, you know, I got, I think we got it handled. So I had one of my swap buddies dress up. He had some PGE stuff and he used it often to, you know, as a ruse. And he is like, he comes there and he is like, yeah, I'm gonna, I'll put this on. I'll go knock on the door, tell him there's a gas leak. And we had an arrest warrant already. Um, and, uh, got him out, took him down. Yep. There was four people in like a 500-square-foot apartment. When the four of us went in with the four of them. There's almost no room to turn around. It was pretty tight quarters. Wow. And he was uh, he was known to be sort of like a badass and he was, he was pissing his pants. He cooperated completely. You don't wanna get shot. I don't care how tough you are. Yeah. You know, like to tell you stories about what happened with the Hell's Angels, you know, when we arrested them and you know, one of the baddest of the bad, and the guy was in bed with his wife when we went in and we threw those flash bangs in there and went into that bedroom and he was in bed with his wife that was over nine months pregnant. It looked to me like, and he pretty much whimpered by the time we got in there and cuffed him and put him on his knees. He turned into a badass after he was cuffed. Got mouthy, but not before. Yeah. Nobody wants to get shot.

Yep. Oh, so post 9/11. All this stuff goes down. You get, uh, an assignment. Where are you going? What are you doing?

So I, I went from the hostage Rescue team to, uh, the counter-terrorism division. I was promoted as a supervisor, and so the Afghanistan war had started, um, I got assigned to what was called the Gito Task Force, and we were responsible for the collection of intelligence from the detainees that they were putting at Bagram and then ultimately down in Guantanamo Bay. And, um, kind of, there was a ad hoc group that had been running that before I got there, and, and I formalized it all, made a whole unit out of it. We had analysts and agents and, and everybody else, but so we, I operated that, um. Guantanamo task force for about three years. And during the time I was there, you know, we had high-value targets that were being captured in Afghanistan and all around the world. And, well, you got KSM there. KSM was there. Yep. I visit, I went to Afghanistan and all these other places and you know, I, I've been to these black sites and I've seen some of the folks that they, you know, they've captured and everything else. So yeah, worked very closely with all the other three-letter agencies and it was very interesting at that point in time.

Now, you know, I. We're talking about peak performance. You've got agencies that weren't really talking to each other the same way previously, now that are really talking into one another, and you're really trying to take it up to another level. Uh, threat level is super high. Um, everybody's still on pins and needles thinking like, Hey, there's another, another, another attack come in anytime. Uh, so now you're tapping into that and you guys are probably pushing like major weight.

You're really working hard, working hard, working long hours. Um. You know, and I, I take it back to those mental toughness days of wrestling. Yeah. I was, I was tired. Yeah. I was, you know, exhausted. And now I kind of shifted the focus of the physical performance of what I was able to do to performing at a peak level in an operation. It all kind of translates over. You can carry these qualities over in from one aspect of life into the next, into the next, into the next. You don't have to be able to do, you know, 40 or 50 pull-ups and then move into the next phase of your life and do 40 or 50 or pull-ups to perform. But what you can do is you can look back and go, well, I was able to perform at this level and I was able to, you know, I knew what it took mentally to do this, so I'm gonna carry that over into this next aspect of my life. And the next, and the next and the next and the next. And it's, you know. If people ask about how did you kind of get to, uh, this point, you know, mentally tough, physically tough. And I said, it's a lifestyle. It's not a fad. And many people choose to go down the path as a fad. January 1st, the gym's packed, or January 2nd, the gym's packed by the first week of February, you're the only soul in there again, right? So it's a lifestyle. It's not a fad and it's not just physical peak performance. You take that physical peak performance and you translate it in the other things you do in life. We all can't be superman and bad asses our whole life, but what we can do is take what we learned when we were full of piss and vinegar and use that and apply that to be successful in business, in life, in, uh, whatever aspect it is. You know, life is hard. When I said earlier, hard work is hard. Life is hard. But if you have the skills and the mental toughness, you know, that you can overcome personal things. You know, I, everybody's gone through personal things. I've gone through personal things and you know, I've had low points in my life where I look in the mirror and, you know, you wanna spit in the mirror and you're, you feel bad and you, you know, you're depressed. And you, you, you, you know, people that get into those deep dark holes, you're like, shit, you know, this must be where they are. How do I get out? And you sit back and you go, wait a minute. You realize that, yeah, I'm not in this deep dark hole. I'm struggling, but I know I can get out. 'cause I've been there before. I mean, this may not be the same hole, but I've been down and I've been beat. And I knew that I had to get out and I knew I had to succeed. And so you go back and you look at that reflection in the mirror and you go, nope, I'm not gonna allow you to do this. I'm going to get out because I know I can. I've done it before.

Yeah, it sounds like the thread is, um, a decision. Yeah, it's a decision in that moment to, uh, to push forward through tough times no matter what. And, uh, it's not always easy. It's not always gonna be fun. You know,

There are peaks and valleys, right, peaks and valleys and you know, like I said earlier, it, some people find it earlier in life. Some people find it later in life. Um, the unfortunate part is if you find it later in life, you don't necessarily have all the fun physical abilities that if you would've found it earlier in life, whenever your dad said go out and throw the baseball more, go out and lift weights more, go out and run a little more. Maybe you would have excelled in whatever you were doing. Go study some more. Maybe you would've gotten into Stanford or Harvard. You know, when you're at 50 and you look back and you go. Gosh, you know, it's funny. Maybe I should have done that. It's, it's too late, but it's not too late to be successful and it's not too late to try to be a better person and try to utilize that ability to perform at a peak level. No matter what age you are performing at a peak level, at 20 may not be the same physically as it is at 50 or 60, but the concept's the same. You don't let off the gas. You may not be going a hundred miles an hour when you're push on the gas when you're at 60, but if you're going 50, make it the best 50. Don't make it anything less. Do what you can to make it the best. And I, I think that's kind of how I've tried to carry over. We all have setbacks, we all have done things we wish we hadn't done, but it's how you look at those things in the rearview mirror. When I was coaching, I always gave this analogy of, of a vehicle every 16-year-old wants to have a car. Every 16-year-old knows what a windshield is and what a rearview mirror is. And I used to always say, I said, look, there's a reason why the windshield is 70 times larger than the rearview mirror. And the reason is, is because what happens in front of you is a hell of a lot more important than what happened behind you. But that mirror is there for you to glance up every once in a while and just take a look at what happened behind you, because you may learn something.

Yeah. Learn how to fail forward too. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Take those lessons, apply 'em to hey, uh, you know, if you're doing it the right way, it's like, Hey, I'm gonna actually learn from this and I'm going to, I'm gonna execute differently next time and, and, uh, operate in a way that's gonna make me, um, a better person.nAll those things, it's hard, it's super hard.

Yep. You know, we all have failures and we all, you know, if you're not a psychopath and something happens, that's a setback. It's how you, how you deal with that setback to try not to let it happen again. Yep. And you may, it may happen again and again, and again and again, but you can't give up. You know, I learned long ago when we talked about those early stages of my life. You can throw in the towel, you can. Tell the coach you got a broken collarbone and quit. You can get your ass kicked a few times and give up. Or he can say, you know what, nah, I'm gonna forge you ahead. The windshield's bigger, there's something more important up ahead. So it's just, it's, it's about being at your peak performance all the time and never, ever giving up. A good friend of mine asked me about, Hey, you trained with the Navy Seals. You got friends that are Navy Seals. My son wants to be a Navy Seal. What, what's is it all about? Swimming, you know, he's, he's okay swimmer and I called one of my seal buddies and he said, I said, you know what I told the guy was, I said, it's about never quitting. Never quitting, never give up. He goes, yeah, that's true. He goes, it's funny, somebody asked him one time about being, being a swimmer and being a wrestler, and he said, uh, he goes, you can teach a wrestler to swim, but you can't teach a swimmer to be tough. And I'm not knocking swimmers, I'm just saying, you know, mental toughness is a really, really difficult thing to adapt to. And I'll guarantee you swimming. You asked Michael Phelps about swimming hats off, that guy is tough as nails. Wrestling is a hard sport inherently, everything about it makes you mentally, physically, you are completely exhausted, and you're expected to go out on that mat and perform time and time again in front of everybody. You don't go into a dark room. You don't jump on the, you're not on the football field with 11 other players. The quarterback throws a bad pass. You don't catch it. No. It's you and your opponent in front of everybody, and only one guy walks away with his hand raised. That's humbling. That teaches you humility, but it also teaches you that, Hey, I gotta go back and do this again and again and again.

So we could talk about so many things. I think we could just go on and on for hours. You finish up your career, San Francisco field office, second in command, uh, you retire. Um, and then you take a job. Um. With, uh, a company. Mm-hmm. Head of security, I don't know what, what your exact title was at that point in time, but then, uh, transitioned into another organization. Um, and what's it like for you as someone who is operated at such a high level when you're around others who don't operate at that level? That's a challenge.

It, it, you know, I've, I've managed people most of my adult life in some form or fashion, either as a coach, team leader, um, a manager in the corporate world. And people that know my background, I think sometimes, I don't wanna call it, are intimidated. It's sort of a mystery to some because of the FBI title, um, others. That, know my background as a wrestler, wonder about like, what, what in the hell's wrong with you, that sport's crazy. And so I go back to the whole mental toughness thing again and never giving up and how to develop, you know, teams, be respectful to people. It's, it's hard, it's, you know, the expectation I obviously have, have put tremendously high expectations on myself. I always have. And that can be a challenge as a person, as a friend, as a spouse, as a manager, because people look at you and they feel as though that's what you expect out of them. And it, there's good and bad to it. One, it's good because I believe that people will rise to the occasion. I, I always give people the benefit of doubt. Some need a little coaching and, um, pushing to get to that level. The people wanna perform. People don't wanna be slackers, slackers don't perform. Slackers don't get paid. Well, slackers don't achieve success in whatever it is. And I don't care if you're, uh, you know, somebody that's mopping the floor or you're in charge of the entire organization. If you're a slacker in either one of those, you're not gonna be successful. And I, I always tell people that my peers, my coworkers, my subordinates, you don't have to live up to do what I do or what I did, but take it as an example of what you're capable of doing. Be the best. Don't settle for second best. Don't settle for something that's mediocre. Mediocrity gives you exactly that. If you wanna be successful, you gotta push because hard work is hard. And if you're a high-performing person, my guess is that you will never have people that perform at the level that you think they should perform to. Sometimes there are, you got great coaches that have great players that have done great things and gone off to be Olympic gold medalist, but those are that small group. You've gotta learn to recognize that not everybody's an Olympic gold medalist. Not everybody is a peak performer, but your job as somebody that was given that gift of peak performance, given that gift of recognizing what it took to get from A to B and all that hard work in between, it's your job to try to coach and get people to move in that direction. It's easy to just let 'em fall off the map. Uh, I'm not gonna deal with that person. Well, now you, I think you have responsibility in life to give people the same opportunity that you had to be a peak performer. Maybe I learned about it at 14. You know, I thank God for that. But those that didn't learn about it at a young age, for whatever reason, weren't in the right environment, didn't have the right parental setting, whatever it might be, but recognize that peak performance is available to us all. It's a mindset and people have the ability to achieve that goal. They have to put their mind and body to it. It's not easy. Hard work is hard. Getting to be a peak performer is hard. You won't interview any person that was part of any special operations group, any Olympic caliber athlete, any D one athlete, whatever the sport is, they're not gonna tell you, yeah, I was just a natural, I was gifted. Maybe you were, but it wasn't the gift of your physical abilities that got you there. It was your gift of recognizing what it took to be a peak performer that got you there. The gift isn't your physical tools. The gift is what, how you mentally got yourself to that point and learned that, hey, I can put these tools together and be a peak performer.

Alright, so, amen. And I think the last thing I wanna say here or talk about is, alright, you find somebody later in life, they're coming to this point in time. They haven't had sort of, you know, wind streak, but they want it. So if you were gonna give a playbook. Super simple. Something that somebody could do, get up tomorrow. Hey, how do you start executing? What are the things that you're gonna do? You know? And that's kind of vague 'cause we're talking about all different types of people. Yeah. What is, what are, if you could just break it down, maybe three or five things that you think are super important for people to do in order to start moving towards that peak performance.

Yeah, great question. Admiral McCraven spoke at the UT graduation. He was a Navy seal and I don't keep referring to seals 'cause I think they're, you know, the best of the best. I personally think they are. But I have a lot of friends that are, and I, I admire that group. He said it best and people ask him the same question. He talked about peak performance, how do I get to be the peak performance of a Navy seal? And his response was. It starts with making your bed in the morning, and he uses that analogy, is it? It starts with the first thing in the day. You've gotta do something to start with. You've gotta perfect something initially. And when he was going through Buds, it was about making that rack perfectly with the pillow in the right place. So when you walked out of the room, I started my day with doing something right. May it be a simple task, it may be a mundane task, but that's how I started it. And I think being a peak performer is you have to start somewhere and there's no bottom, there's no top. There's a starting point. And so if you have a starting point, there's always a finishing point. And the hard work is what falls in between the two ends of the spectrum. And you gotta decide, where's that starting point? What is it? How do I do it and how do I perfect it? And it might be as simple as making your bed in the morning, cleaning your house. There's, these are all simple things. These are all tasks that you perfect. And when you walk away and you fold your arms, you're like, I did that. That looks good. And that allows you to go into the next one and the next one and the next one. Maybe the next one is more complicated. Maybe the next one's more involved. Maybe in the next one, you need to, uh, do it with people that you have to develop some sort of teamwork or network. So you gotta perfect that. So it's all, it's, it's all these building blocks and it, it started with something simple. And so you have to have that starting point where you're able to accomplish something to perfection. And it might be just making your bet.

Pretty cool. Well, I'm humbled to have you here, Jeff. You know, you're an outstanding guy.

No, I'm glad I was able to talk to you about this, and if anybody's able to get one piece of one nugget of the, whatever amount of time we talked here, then mission accomplished. And I, I'm humbled by the fact you asked me to come here. I, you know, think in life that, you know, I was very lucky that a lot of things that came my way and my coach told me in high school, God rest his soul. He said, you know what? Luck’s 99% hard work, so you'd be lucky all you want, but I know how you got there.

Maybe we'll call this episode. Just that luck is 99% hard work. All right.