Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
EXIT Podcast Episode 09: Braxton McCoy
316 Plays3 years ago
Braxton is a motivational speaker, a colt trainer, & author of The Glass Factory, a memoir of his recovery from catastrophic injuries after a suicide bombing in Ramadi in 2006. We discuss:
- breaking colts, raising cattle, raising kids
- the power of stewardship
- life mediated through movies
- the opioid epidemic
- traveling through the underworld
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction: Braxton McCoy on Exit Podcast
00:00:17
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to the Exit Podcast.
00:00:18
Speaker
This is Dr. Bennett.
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm joined here by Braxton McCoy.
00:00:21
Speaker
Braxton's a motivational speaker, a Colt trainer, and the author of The Glass Factory, which is a memoir of his recovery from a suicide bombing in Ramadi in 2006.
00:00:30
Speaker
Welcome to the show, Braxton.
Critique of Texas and Cultural Observations
00:00:32
Speaker
Thanks for having me.
00:00:33
Speaker
I appreciate it.
00:00:34
Speaker
So I want to get this out of the way, first of all.
00:00:40
Speaker
You've got just the biggest hard-on for Texas, and I just need to know...
00:00:46
Speaker
what did the Lone Star State ever do to Braxton McCoy?
00:00:50
Speaker
My issue with Texas is that Texans are still living off of the memory of San Yusento and what their great grandfathers did.
00:00:58
Speaker
And they, they act like, you know, somehow that's like, like they're a continuation of that glory.
00:01:05
Speaker
And meanwhile, they've got people twerking in front of their kids in the library and stuff.
00:01:09
Speaker
And
00:01:10
Speaker
I think Texas is the most important state.
00:01:13
Speaker
I think Texas is critical, probably even the most important state politically in the country right now.
00:01:18
Speaker
And I kind of want to troll them into behaving like the Texans that they say they are.
00:01:22
Speaker
I actually love Texas.
00:01:23
Speaker
Every time I go there, I really enjoy it.
00:01:25
Speaker
And I've got a lot of good friends down there.
00:01:27
Speaker
I just want them to be who they say they are.
00:01:29
Speaker
That's it.
00:01:29
Speaker
Like, honestly, I'd like Idaho to be who Texas pretends to be, you know?
00:01:34
Speaker
Yeah, man.
00:01:35
Speaker
It's, it seems like that's almost all over.
00:01:38
Speaker
Like it,
00:01:40
Speaker
you almost can't get away from it.
00:01:42
Speaker
I, I, I moved back to Texas actually, um, a couple of years ago and, uh, it's like everywhere's the same and you just, there's no, um, you know, the, the culture is just sort of what's going on online, what's going on, on, on the news.
00:01:59
Speaker
And, uh, and I don't, I don't know how you fix that, but yeah, no, I, I, I definitely, um, had some disillusionment from my sort of fond childhood memories of Texas.
Cultural Shift and Right-Wing Dynamics
00:02:09
Speaker
It's,
00:02:10
Speaker
And I think you're right.
00:02:12
Speaker
I think it's at a decision point where a lot could change really fast out there.
00:02:18
Speaker
Yeah, and I don't want to digress too much, but I mean, you say we don't know how to fix it.
00:02:28
Speaker
I don't know.
00:02:29
Speaker
It's difficult to fix or neither one of us really know how to fix it.
00:02:32
Speaker
Like, I'm with you.
00:02:33
Speaker
But
00:02:35
Speaker
I hate the word conservatives.
00:02:37
Speaker
I'm not in conservatism.
00:02:39
Speaker
I'm not a conservative.
00:02:41
Speaker
Sure.
00:02:41
Speaker
I just don't.
00:02:42
Speaker
I don't.
00:02:42
Speaker
Yeah, I don't even like the way that positioning.
00:02:45
Speaker
I think that's a horrible way to position yourself.
00:02:47
Speaker
Like conserve what?
00:02:49
Speaker
You know?
00:02:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:51
Speaker
But.
00:02:52
Speaker
I do think that whatever this thing, like I'm, I'm quite comfortable to say that I'm on the right, whatever that means.
00:02:58
Speaker
And so the right is in an interesting cultural position for the first time in my life where they kind of can become the new punk rock.
00:03:06
Speaker
And I think that's your best way out is it, you know, everyone always talks about the culture and the culture is important, but if you can make those traditional values kind of, um,
00:03:19
Speaker
embrace the fact that it's dissident to be traditional now and make it kind of punk rock.
00:03:24
Speaker
I think that's a good way in on the culture side.
00:03:28
Speaker
Like we've got to get out of this right wing, especially on politicians or these stodgy bow tie wearing, you know, hall monitors, what you always hear them called.
00:03:37
Speaker
And I think that's pretty accurate.
00:03:38
Speaker
So, I mean, we need to break that is what I think.
00:03:42
Speaker
And that's kind of what I want Texas to do.
00:03:45
Speaker
because they're just in a good position to lead on that front if they'll do it.
00:03:51
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:03:52
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:03:55
Speaker
And we, I mean, honestly, I wanted to talk about this.
00:03:57
Speaker
We can just talk about it now.
00:04:01
Speaker
I think you're absolutely right.
00:04:02
Speaker
I mean, I look at, I look at all of the smart, honest, interesting people that I'm aware of right now and
00:04:13
Speaker
there's a lot of them that are not either temperamentally or sort of historically interested in being associated with the right, but they're all having to admit that like pretty much everything that's sort of happening right now that's cool and that's new is like weird right-wing people
00:04:35
Speaker
Anon's on Twitter.
Post-Afghanistan Political Mobilization
00:04:38
Speaker
To the extent that anything's happening, that's where it's happening.
00:04:41
Speaker
And I know I totally agree.
00:04:43
Speaker
It's a really interesting moment.
00:04:46
Speaker
After the last election and January 6th, it seems like there's a lot of smart money that's just saying,
00:04:55
Speaker
we're not gonna vote our way out of this and we're just getting out of politics altogether.
00:04:59
Speaker
At the same time, after watching the route from Afghanistan and this growing political mobilization among vets like yourself, guys like Joe Kent, I feel like people really are starting to wake up.
00:05:14
Speaker
And you always hear people say that, but I feel like people really are starting to wake up and maybe there's still things we can do.
00:05:20
Speaker
And it seems to me that vets,
00:05:23
Speaker
play a really important role in sort of leading the way on that.
00:05:27
Speaker
And I wonder where you stand on sort of, is there a path forward and what is that path?
00:05:35
Speaker
You, we, we as a nation, well, to the extent that we're even a nation, but we as a nation have got to make people answer for this and not just for the withdrawal, but for the 20 years of lies that we were told for, you know, they lied us into Iraq and then they lied about every, basically every stage of the war, both wars, particularly, you know, we've got the Afghanistan papers that just proved that these people had no idea what they were doing.
00:06:00
Speaker
They knew that it was a failure, but they were lying anyway, or it was always going to be a failure and that
00:06:04
Speaker
that they were failing at the time and they lied about it.
00:06:08
Speaker
And it's easy to say, well, it's for the profits of Raytheon technologies and these companies.
00:06:13
Speaker
I mean, sure it is, but it goes deeper and bigger than that.
00:06:18
Speaker
It's a culture that is willing to give up its youth when they know that they're being lied to is already...
00:06:27
Speaker
in some sense, like ideological prisoners.
00:06:30
Speaker
And like, you're already almost a slave if you're behaving that way, you know, like, well, we all know it's bullshit, but we're going to let our kids, sorry, I didn't mean to cuss there, but we all know it's bullcrap.
00:06:40
Speaker
And, you know, if you're willing to allow your kids to do
00:06:45
Speaker
you know, be put into the meat grinder for a lie, then what would you be willing to tolerate?
00:06:49
Speaker
So I don't think that this, like the whole coronavirus stuff is all that far out of left field really.
00:06:56
Speaker
Cause I mean, we have set ourselves up for this.
00:06:58
Speaker
So a solution, we've got to make some people answer this answer for this.
00:07:03
Speaker
And yeah,
00:07:04
Speaker
Joe Kent is the only guy that's out there saying that part.
00:07:07
Speaker
Everyone wants to talk about the botched withdrawal.
00:07:09
Speaker
And then you've got the Ben Shapiro's out there.
00:07:10
Speaker
They're like, we should have never withdrawn.
00:07:12
Speaker
I mean, whatever.
00:07:13
Speaker
Right.
00:07:13
Speaker
Like Ben had plenty of opportunities to pick up a rifle and he never did.
00:07:16
Speaker
So I don't care too much about his opinion, but we've got to have some kind of commission that goes through every single, every single step of these wars and explain what was going on.
00:07:29
Speaker
So that people know what really happened to their sons and daughters over there.
00:07:32
Speaker
I think that kid,
00:07:34
Speaker
that would be a big, we almost need like a dozen hack horse, I guess it'd be a way to say it and really force the country to look at themselves.
00:07:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:45
Speaker
When I, so, so Joe was on a space, I think you were in it too recently talking about sort of his, his views and the way that he sees Ford.
00:07:56
Speaker
And that was one of the reasons why I, I asked him like,
00:08:00
Speaker
you know, who are your allies in this fight?
00:08:02
Speaker
Who do you find interesting?
00:08:03
Speaker
Who's on the way up?
00:08:07
Speaker
And, you know, he mentioned Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene and some other sort of figures who, like, it makes sense that those are the people that he mentioned.
00:08:19
Speaker
I just wonder if, like,
00:08:22
Speaker
it seems to me like we need more people.
00:08:25
Speaker
It seems to me like we need more candidates who are willing to push because this group, they get media attention from us, from our little weird sector of Twitter.
00:08:43
Speaker
But it seems like in order for them to become like a meaningful political block without the cooperation of the media, like the squad has on the other side,
00:08:52
Speaker
um, it is going to require a lot more people and a lot more candidates of that stripe.
00:09:00
Speaker
Um, like, do you think, do you think that it's possible to move the needle with things as they are right now, or does it need to grow more?
00:09:10
Speaker
10 years ago, I would have said absolutely not.
00:09:12
Speaker
You're going to need a lot more support.
00:09:15
Speaker
But after watching what AOC has been able to do to the left because of her ability to garner media attention, I think that we are in an age where someone like Joe Kent that's just really hard to ignore is going to have an outsized impact.
00:09:31
Speaker
And I mean, who knows, right?
00:09:32
Speaker
There's no, like, I don't have a crystal ball here, but I think Joe Kent could be a real game changer.
00:09:39
Speaker
And, you know, you point out the Marjorie Taylor, the his support for Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gates, and these people are not veterans, right?
00:09:49
Speaker
I, you know, I think what you're, that the signal that's being sent there, at least to my mind, is that this is a person who's not just, you know,
00:09:59
Speaker
I'm sure he's a Trump supporter and all this, but he's not a sycophant and he's looking for people that he knows are going to be able to get the attention of the media.
00:10:09
Speaker
And I think that's a smart way to look at it.
00:10:13
Speaker
Um, you know, if you can get 3% of Congress that can be in the news all day, you can do more than having 50% of Congress on your side, in my opinion.
00:10:21
Speaker
No, yeah, I think that's true.
00:10:22
Speaker
And I mean, you know, Joe, he's, he's got the look, he's got the pedigree.
00:10:27
Speaker
Um, I honestly, I listened to that space and I immediately tweeted out, you know, watch this space.
00:10:33
Speaker
This guy's going to be president.
00:10:35
Speaker
I think he is.
00:10:36
Speaker
Um, cause he's just, uh, uh, really genuine and, and, and, uh,
00:10:43
Speaker
You know, he talks, he taught, I don't know how to say it, like, because expert is such a bad word, but like, he talks like somebody who really knows what the hell he's talking about and no sloganeering, you know?
00:10:56
Speaker
And, and while at the same time, you know, taking the sort of politician boxes that you need to tick.
00:11:03
Speaker
So, so yeah, no, I, I totally agree.
00:11:05
Speaker
And I think, I think it'll depend on, you
00:11:11
Speaker
sort of the strategy of like how how how hard does he pivot to the center and like how does he how does he generate sort of the the trumpian because the media paid attention to trump because they hated his guts and he had to be like really abrasive and joe's not like that and so it'll be interesting to see his his his strategy and how that moves forward
00:11:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:37
Speaker
And he, a thing that he has working against him and he's got people that are much smarter than me helping him.
00:11:42
Speaker
So I'm sure they've thought of all of this, but,
00:11:45
Speaker
with him being a trump supporter they can harness some of the that anger and vitriol about trump against him without using his name they can just say this trump supporter running so he doesn't get the positive side of the media covers they're like they don't have to say joe kent every time and like i say i'm sure they've they've thought of all this but it is it is something worth worrying about i think
00:12:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:09
Speaker
Honestly, I think he's a strong enough candidate that he's going to probably break through that penumbra pretty shortly.
00:12:14
Speaker
But, but yeah, I mean, that's, that's always a hammer that they have to use on anybody who's well, who's not an establishment Republican.
Braxton's Personal Journey and Recovery
00:12:25
Speaker
So I w I want to switch gears to your business, which is training Colts and, um,
00:12:35
Speaker
That's what we're going to talk about the glass factory and your your physical injuries in a little bit.
00:12:44
Speaker
But like training sort of undomesticated horses cannot be the easiest thing on the body.
00:12:52
Speaker
So I got to think in something pretty profound to you.
00:12:56
Speaker
Why don't you tell us a little bit about that?
00:13:01
Speaker
I grew up on a little horse outfit in Southern Utah.
00:13:04
Speaker
And when I, when I got wounded, I still of course own some of my own horses and, and all of that.
00:13:11
Speaker
And when I got home, one of the, one of the most painful things was realizing that I really couldn't ride them.
00:13:18
Speaker
And it came from me.
00:13:21
Speaker
you know, everyone told me I couldn't, but I was just kind of like, piss off.
00:13:24
Speaker
I'm going to do what I want.
00:13:25
Speaker
So I saddled up this horse one day and it's kind of basically a kid's horse that was on my old man's place.
00:13:30
Speaker
And I took him out down this lane and the ground was cold and kind of frozen and slick.
00:13:38
Speaker
And the horse fell down and my hip ended up like slipping in and out of socket.
00:13:43
Speaker
And anyway, he just injured me more.
00:13:45
Speaker
I got back on him and rode him home.
00:13:47
Speaker
But
00:13:47
Speaker
you know, I had to sit down and have a real conversation with myself and come to terms with the fact that I wasn't going to be able to ride horses anymore, maybe forever.
00:13:57
Speaker
I mean, who knew?
00:14:00
Speaker
And then, you know, I went through and I guess we'll talk about it and everything, but I went through a lot of extensive rehab and about eight years of it.
00:14:08
Speaker
And I ended up getting to where I could jog again and hike and do this kind of stuff.
00:14:12
Speaker
So I went back down to my old man's and, you know, I had sold my horses off and all that by then.
00:14:16
Speaker
And
00:14:17
Speaker
down to my old man's and was helping him start this buckskin colt.
00:14:21
Speaker
And the colt kind of moved funny on me and twisted my, he was, the colt had some issues and pretty serious issues.
00:14:27
Speaker
And I was going to get off him and he, he didn't blow up or anything, but he, he come out from underneath me pretty good and twisted my knee up.
00:14:33
Speaker
So I went to the doctor and he was looking at my knee, telling me what I tore and all this.
00:14:37
Speaker
And then he said, let's look at your spine and everything and see how the, you know, everything's healed up there.
00:14:42
Speaker
And they found that my skull is,
00:14:46
Speaker
it's for whatever reason it's just kind of set off now from the top of my the highest whatever that top vertebrae is it's just kind of pinching the spinal cord a little bit and the doctor said you know if you get bucked off on that you're gonna die you know and i'm like well okay i guess even even after overcoming all this other stuff i really can't ride horses anymore and
00:15:09
Speaker
And then I spent about a year not on them.
00:15:11
Speaker
And my wife and I were talking one day and she's like, just you're miserable, you know, just start doing.
00:15:16
Speaker
So I started doing again.
00:15:17
Speaker
And so, yeah, it's not easy on the body and there's real risk there.
00:15:21
Speaker
But it does mean enough to me that I'm willing to take that risk.
00:15:25
Speaker
Obviously, I try to be smarter about it now.
00:15:27
Speaker
But when I was younger, I don't just climb on them and let them buck.
00:15:30
Speaker
I mean, sometimes they buck anyway, but.
00:15:34
Speaker
as far as the profundity of it, I think what I've found is with the whole PTSD thing and all of that, and I don't, you know, it is what it is, but what really happens is you're living, you're kind of living in Iraq in your head all the time in my case or Afghanistan and some other people's cases.
00:15:51
Speaker
And
00:15:53
Speaker
You know, you build that synaptic loop because you try not to think about it and then that makes you think about it again.
00:15:58
Speaker
And so you're just kind of always stuck there.
00:16:00
Speaker
And I love horses.
00:16:02
Speaker
I just always have.
00:16:03
Speaker
So there's that part that's really just like a deep adoration for them.
00:16:08
Speaker
But also I found that riding green horses, I have to pay attention.
00:16:11
Speaker
I can't.
00:16:12
Speaker
I can't zone out and I have to live right in the moment on their back of fort, because if I don't, I'm going to get piled up.
00:16:22
Speaker
And I think that really helps clarify my thoughts and keeps me, you know, for at least 10, 12 hours a day, it keeps me from thinking about anything to do with the war.
00:16:32
Speaker
And I, that's just really useful.
00:16:34
Speaker
It's, it's, it's gotten, I mean, I've known it's the market improvement, I guess, that you notice when you're,
00:16:40
Speaker
kind of forced to live in the moment and these things make you live in the moment so those are the main reasons why I still do it I guess yeah that makes sense uh you you mentioned in the book that um the cowboy hat is sort of a talisman for you it's it's it's a a Jungian symbol
00:17:01
Speaker
Can you tell me a little bit about what that means to you?
00:17:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:04
Speaker
I mean, it's at the risk of running into the cringe here.
00:17:10
Speaker
When I was a kid watching all these old cowboys and they were just the best people I'd ever met.
00:17:17
Speaker
And they pretty gruff guys that I was around a lot of Mormon guys, but they were still pretty gruff, you know, kind of maybe drank a little coffee here and there when their wives weren't around.
00:17:26
Speaker
And maybe there was some whiskey in the bunkhouse at Brandings, you know, but
00:17:30
Speaker
Otherwise, they were very dedicated to God and most importantly to their family.
00:17:34
Speaker
There was great people and they all had these rotten old hats on their heads all the time.
00:17:39
Speaker
And of course, I had, you know, as a kid, we didn't have a lot of money or anything.
00:17:42
Speaker
So I was always wearing like a $15 straw hat or a cheap felt hat or whatever, just kind of wanting to be that archetypal guy.
00:17:49
Speaker
And it kind of embedded itself into my personality in a way that I had never really experienced.
00:17:56
Speaker
I guess I had just not realized it.
00:17:59
Speaker
Like when I went to Iraq, I took a hat with me that I'd drilled a bunch of bulls in and it was one that I'd kind of had an emotional attachment to or whatever.
00:18:08
Speaker
And then I came home and when I was going through the darker stages, I noticed that I wasn't wearing it anymore.
00:18:16
Speaker
And it wasn't anything to do with like giving up.
00:18:19
Speaker
I mean, I guess, you know what it was, is it was a recognition that I was not the person, I was not like them.
00:18:25
Speaker
I was living a horrible life.
00:18:26
Speaker
I was chasing girls and drinking and doing drugs and all this stuff that I shouldn't have been doing.
00:18:31
Speaker
And so I had kind of taken it off.
00:18:34
Speaker
And then when I started to get a little better, I was wearing it again every day.
00:18:37
Speaker
And, you know, as you start to reflect, especially in writing and you're putting things together chronologically, you kind of notice stuff like that.
00:18:45
Speaker
And
00:18:47
Speaker
So for me, it is definitely in some ways a symbol of my goodliness, I guess.
00:19:00
Speaker
Obviously, I'm still a failure, but I don't know.
00:19:03
Speaker
I just feel like it's a thing that, like you say, it's a talisman.
00:19:06
Speaker
And
00:19:07
Speaker
Like my grandfather was so funny about this.
00:19:09
Speaker
He wouldn't wear a black hat because that's what bad guys wore.
00:19:11
Speaker
He would only wear brown and white hats, you know.
00:19:14
Speaker
So it is kind of there's a cultural element to that, too.
00:19:19
Speaker
Like one time they were at the NFR, my old man and my grandpa, and they were getting ready to go to the rodeo.
00:19:24
Speaker
And my old man was wearing a black hat.
00:19:26
Speaker
And he was like, you're not going to wear that out there, are you?
00:19:29
Speaker
And he's like, yeah, I'm gonna wear it.
00:19:31
Speaker
And he's like, well, everyone's gonna think that we're like bad, bad folks.
00:19:35
Speaker
It's like, so he kind of really believed that.
00:19:38
Speaker
And so maybe I just have a little bit of that.
00:19:41
Speaker
Maybe I'm just sentimental biologically, you know?
00:19:45
Speaker
But it definitely, it is definitely one of those things that's kind of embedded in my soul.
00:19:49
Speaker
And I've kind of, I kind of just embrace it now.
00:19:52
Speaker
Well, I mean that, so that leads really well into one of the things that you mentioned in the book is,
00:19:59
Speaker
is how much of your experience, even in the most, I mean, maybe especially in the most intense moments of combat and basically love and violence, sort of the most intense experiences of life, how so much of that is mediated by our expectations for movies.
00:20:21
Speaker
and how that might create kind of a feedback loop of people acting like movies, acting like people who were acting like movies.
00:20:27
Speaker
Yes.
00:20:28
Speaker
Because the whole brown hat, white hat, black hat thing, I mean, that's from like the 40s.
00:20:33
Speaker
That's not ancient, right?
00:20:35
Speaker
That's from TV.
00:20:36
Speaker
Gene Autry.
00:20:37
Speaker
Totally.
00:20:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:39
Speaker
And yet it's become real just because everybody has that expectation.
00:20:46
Speaker
And I just found it so interesting that like,
00:20:49
Speaker
you know, in our, in our lives, how many experiences of like, how many times are you going to propose to somebody?
00:20:58
Speaker
How many times are you going to get shot at?
00:21:00
Speaker
How many times, you know what I'm saying?
00:21:01
Speaker
There's like these really pivotal, emotionally intense moments that you're only going to personally experience a handful of times, but you're going to see them in film or in movies like a bazillion times.
00:21:13
Speaker
And so how much does that override the reality of the
Radical Honesty and Faith in Recovery
00:21:17
Speaker
experience?
00:21:17
Speaker
How much of that is, is, is media and
00:21:20
Speaker
And I wanted to ask, like, that seems like a really profound insight.
00:21:27
Speaker
Do you handle media differently in your house or things you or your kids stay away from, things you encourage sort of on that basis?
00:21:36
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:21:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:38
Speaker
My, my kids watch Davy Crockett from like the fifties and occasionally Paw Patrol.
00:21:46
Speaker
And like, I'm, I'm very strict about what they watch.
00:21:50
Speaker
I've got a daughter who's 14 that she lives with us full time now.
00:21:54
Speaker
And she didn't until recently.
00:21:56
Speaker
So it's, she always thinks it's a little bit weird because you know, her mother was not like that, but I don't care.
00:22:00
Speaker
Like I'll, I'll tell you one rule.
00:22:02
Speaker
If,
00:22:03
Speaker
if I come in and there's a cartoon with a bunch of colors that look like they resemble a certain flag that's been hung on embassies, I turn that freaking thing off immediately because I don't even care what the content is.
00:22:14
Speaker
I just don't even want that in their brains, especially since, you know, they're doing it intentionally.
00:22:19
Speaker
It's insidious by it's, it's intentionally insidious.
00:22:23
Speaker
So yeah, I'm really careful about what I have them watch.
00:22:26
Speaker
I mean, and I, you know, some guys are,
00:22:32
Speaker
a lot more comfortable with even violence around their kids than I am.
00:22:35
Speaker
I, I love, we, you know, I did some fighting growing up and I like watching fights with my kids.
00:22:40
Speaker
I'm okay with that because it's a sport, but I don't like, I'm not going to have them watching war movies, you know?
00:22:47
Speaker
Just, yeah.
00:22:48
Speaker
I, yes, I'm very, I curate media pretty strictly in the South.
00:22:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:53
Speaker
I mean, you, you also have a lot of sort of ruminative moments in the book.
00:23:01
Speaker
where you're watching war movies, and you're watching people do terrible things and have terrible things happen to them.
00:23:08
Speaker
And I wonder if that was was in any way cathartic for you as you were going through that recovery process, or if that was like, probably shouldn't have done that.
00:23:19
Speaker
It's hard to say, you know, because it's almost like a form of
00:23:25
Speaker
Immersion therapy, you know, you could, you could think of it maybe as a form of immersion therapy.
00:23:30
Speaker
So maybe it does some good, uh, you know, of course in, in, um, if you're doing immersion therapy or I guess even cognitive behavioral stuff, you're being monitored by somebody that's kind of helping you through it.
00:23:41
Speaker
And, you know, when you're alone with a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of pills, maybe it's not the best headspace to be in while you're, but I don't know.
00:23:50
Speaker
Maybe it did help.
00:23:51
Speaker
I really don't know.
00:23:52
Speaker
Um,
00:23:54
Speaker
It's just so hard to say.
00:23:55
Speaker
I know that when I was writing about the darker stuff in that book, I hadn't drank in a long time.
00:24:04
Speaker
And for some of it, I actually went out and bought a bottle of whiskey and got drunk and wrote it drunk.
00:24:09
Speaker
And I honestly, I think
00:24:11
Speaker
Well, I should say, I'm not sure I could have been as honest as I was without removing those inhibitions.
00:24:16
Speaker
So I just don't know.
00:24:18
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not an expert.
00:24:20
Speaker
I don't know, man.
00:24:21
Speaker
So I wish I had something better for you.
00:24:23
Speaker
No, that's interesting.
00:24:26
Speaker
On a broader scale, just in terms of like what was good for you, what was bad for you, there's a huge theme in the book of like the darkest times for you are the most sort of detached.
00:24:41
Speaker
where you're detached from your body, from other people.
00:24:47
Speaker
Like in sort of the heat of the moment, you mentioned that like someone's calling out to God and that everyone, when they get hurt like that or when they're in danger like that, almost everyone calls out to God.
00:25:03
Speaker
And it's almost as if like it's because you can't tell if it's you saying it or not.
00:25:10
Speaker
It's almost like it's the body.
00:25:12
Speaker
It's sort of the animal calling out to God, not you.
00:25:17
Speaker
And from that place of detachment and trying to piece yourself together, you know,
00:25:29
Speaker
How has your understanding of God sort of evolved?
00:25:35
Speaker
This is one that I'm working on and probably will be working on for my whole life.
00:25:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:45
Speaker
You notice certain patterns.
00:25:47
Speaker
And one thing that I saw every time, like you mentioned, is every time someone was dying, they all did call to God.
00:25:54
Speaker
And it's hard not to recognize or not to notice that.
00:25:58
Speaker
And so you're kind of data caching over the years.
00:26:01
Speaker
And then you see stuff happening on the news or whatever.
00:26:05
Speaker
And you know...
00:26:08
Speaker
you know that like it seems like civilians are kind of surprised when they hear people you know shouting oh god or allah or whatever but you know i've seen it and they do and i am like that i remember when i was younger i was born until i was like 13 and i was so into that church that like if i had
00:26:27
Speaker
I didn't have car keys at the time, but just to use as an example here, if I had lost my car keys, I would have called, you know, I would have prayed about it.
00:26:36
Speaker
That's the kind of person that I'd been.
00:26:39
Speaker
And I definitely lost that through the war, but about four years ago, maybe five years ago now, I was running, doing duathlons and stuff like that.
00:26:50
Speaker
And I'd had a really weird pain in my chest.
00:26:56
Speaker
And then I went in,
00:26:57
Speaker
and they look, my, my mother-in-law is, uh, been an EMT for like 30 years.
00:27:02
Speaker
And so she's pretty, you know, she's pretty handy with that kind of stuff, but she's not soft.
00:27:07
Speaker
So I called her and she said, you need to go to the hospital.
00:27:09
Speaker
So I go to the hospital and they run a test and they say, well, you've had a heart attack and it doesn't look like you had a heart attack today, but you've had one at some point.
00:27:17
Speaker
So to stay there for like 12 hours or something, I forget how long it was.
00:27:23
Speaker
And then I go home and,
00:27:25
Speaker
All this time, I know I've got this IVC filter in my body that is basically like a ticking time bomb.
00:27:31
Speaker
And, you know, so there's all these reasons.
00:27:34
Speaker
Sorry, the IVC is to pick up clots, right?
00:27:38
Speaker
It's a it's a filter to to stop getting into your lungs, your heart.
00:27:43
Speaker
Correct.
00:27:44
Speaker
It's kind of looks like an umbrella without a skirting on it.
00:27:48
Speaker
But yeah, it's in your inferior, your inferior vena cava or interior vena cava camera with that.
00:27:53
Speaker
But anyway, that that gigantic vein that runs up in front of your spine.
00:27:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:59
Speaker
Yeah, so I go through this whole thing and then it turns into this process.
00:28:02
Speaker
I'm going to the University of Utah.
00:28:03
Speaker
They're doing echoes and all these different things to check on my heart.
00:28:08
Speaker
And I just had a son, my first son.
00:28:12
Speaker
And my boys and obviously my daughter too, but my kids mean the world to me.
00:28:18
Speaker
And I was holding his hand in bed and I was just sitting there thinking, he was tiny.
00:28:26
Speaker
He was like maybe four or five months old.
00:28:29
Speaker
I was sitting there thinking, I'm not going to never going to see this kid grow up.
00:28:32
Speaker
You know, if you have a heart attack when you're 30, how the hell are you going to live very long?
00:28:35
Speaker
And so I ended, I got out of bed and I got on my knees and I just prayed and I hadn't prayed.
00:28:42
Speaker
I can't even tell you last time I prayed.
00:28:43
Speaker
It probably had been a decade or something.
00:28:45
Speaker
I don't know.
00:28:45
Speaker
It had been a long time.
00:28:47
Speaker
And, um, as I was praying, I just was, I became overwhelmed with gratitude because, um,
00:28:56
Speaker
What struck me was that I was upset that I was going to die young, but I could have died 10 years before that or 12 years before that.
00:29:06
Speaker
And so I'd been given in some sense, 12 free years and I was not appreciating those.
00:29:12
Speaker
And I kind of came to that recognition.
00:29:13
Speaker
And now, so every night I pray every without fail, you know, of course, every once in a while I might fail, but I try very hard to make every night.
00:29:21
Speaker
And I just say, thanks, just kind of a gratitude thing.
00:29:27
Speaker
Because, you know, I don't know that I need anything and I just feel like it's worthwhile just saying thank you.
00:29:36
Speaker
And so that's kind of my connection to God at this point.
00:29:39
Speaker
And I'm trying to, you know, I'm definitely trying to deepen that.
00:29:43
Speaker
You know, we have a mutual friend that works on me every day.
00:29:48
Speaker
And I'm, you know, I'm trying.
00:29:50
Speaker
Um,
00:29:51
Speaker
Gosh, I know, I hope I answered your question in that ramble, but that's a hard one for me because it's, it's not, not trying to say that it's too personal, like how Peterson says, who can dare say that they believe in God.
00:30:02
Speaker
I, I actually do like that.
00:30:06
Speaker
I respect that view, but I don't agree with him on that, but I am.
00:30:14
Speaker
I'm not sure I want to be the guy that pretends to have, I definitely don't want to be the guy that pretends to have a relationship with God that he doesn't, but I try, you know, I definitely try.
00:30:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:24
Speaker
I mean, that, that, I mean, you talk a lot about, um, sort of radical honesty, uh, toward the end that that was something that really helped you, uh, turn things around as you, you, you confronted, um,
00:30:42
Speaker
you know, embellishing what happened to you and feeling just really despicable about that.
00:30:46
Speaker
And then, and then, uh, uh, an acquaintance or a friend invite invited you to introduce yourself to women at the bar with, uh, I have, I'm Brex McCoy.
00:30:57
Speaker
I've had to kill people.
00:30:59
Speaker
Um, can you talk a little bit about that philosophy and sort of how that has changed, uh, things for you in your life?
00:31:08
Speaker
Yeah, that came from my buddy.
00:31:10
Speaker
He actually since passed away, but he was a really neat guy.
00:31:16
Speaker
After he got out, he was a Ranger and an SF guy.
00:31:19
Speaker
After he got out, he dedicated his life to helping vets try to get better.
00:31:23
Speaker
He was just a really neat cat, but
00:31:25
Speaker
he we were in dc and he pulled me out in the hallway and he was talking to me about it and he's you know he says first of all he wanted me to go to japan and do this weird bushido thing with them and i was like sure maybe i'll do that it was like supposed to culminate with like sword cutting on the chest and stuff and i was like yeah let's go man um but like yeah let's try that i'm down to try anything at this point you know um but yeah he says uh
00:31:53
Speaker
Yeah, just tell people who you are and what you've done and see how that works.
00:31:56
Speaker
And I did it for a while.
00:31:58
Speaker
And, you know, the looks that you get are always, you know, here's what I'll say about that.
00:32:05
Speaker
I don't think that you attract the right kind of girls when you behave like that.
00:32:12
Speaker
So I had some issues with dating that might have been attached to that.
00:32:17
Speaker
But for my own personal well-being on the mental health side, I really do think it helped a lot to...
00:32:25
Speaker
kind of express those demons.
00:32:28
Speaker
Because I think in his mind, obviously I'm putting words in the mouth of a dead man, and I mean that respectfully, but I think in his mind what he saw was that a lot of the problems I was having were coming from that I felt like I was walking around a marked man in a way that everyone else could see, but I was trying to hide it from them.
00:32:51
Speaker
And so just expressing that right up front would, would, you know, be useful.
00:32:56
Speaker
And a lot of this actually came from religion, you know, says thou shalt not kill.
00:33:01
Speaker
And I remember I told my old man that one night at the bunkhouse, we were hanging out and he was talking, he's a Mormon guy.
00:33:07
Speaker
And he was talking about, uh,
00:33:11
Speaker
you know, heaven and religion and this kind of stuff over a bottle of whiskey, no less.
00:33:14
Speaker
But, um, and I, I've had conversations like that.
00:33:20
Speaker
So, so I tell them, I'm like, you know, I appreciate you trying to do all this, but I have done stuff that is unforgivable.
00:33:31
Speaker
And we talked a lot about that.
00:33:33
Speaker
And so I think that that, you know, I was wearing that on my soul, um,
00:33:38
Speaker
and getting it out really helped, even though it, you know, was wildly inappropriate and probably made me look like a crazy person to a lot of people, but I do think it helped.
00:33:50
Speaker
And then it transitioned into other aspects of my life too.
00:33:54
Speaker
And like, especially that book is, I mean, no one's going to accuse me of undersharing and like, yeah,
00:34:03
Speaker
I think it was useful because to the extent that there's anything powerful in that book, I think it's that.
00:34:07
Speaker
So I owe a lot of that to him.
00:34:09
Speaker
And I think a lot of my recovery to him too.
00:34:13
Speaker
And, you know, horses are like that.
00:34:15
Speaker
Horses are incapable of lying.
00:34:17
Speaker
Like this is one thing that people, I really think don't understand.
00:34:21
Speaker
Like a horse will not lie for you.
00:34:23
Speaker
You know, it's part of doing this work.
00:34:25
Speaker
Like you can't ride a horse five times and tell someone you rode at 60 because he's not going to pretend that you rode him the other 55 times.
00:34:33
Speaker
So I think that there's like a commonality there that, um,
00:34:37
Speaker
is felt.
00:34:39
Speaker
And it's probably what, you know, I'm not saying like, I'm this great trainer, you know, I'm okay.
00:34:44
Speaker
But I think that it helps that too, because I treat them with the same level of respect and honesty that they treat me.
00:34:51
Speaker
You know, if you're a jerk to me, I'm not going to be nice back to you.
00:34:54
Speaker
And we just kind of see eye to eye and it works.
00:34:57
Speaker
And I think all of us would do, would do better to try that.
00:35:01
Speaker
Now don't go up to people at a bar and tell them that you've killed people, but yeah,
00:35:06
Speaker
I don't know if you're struggling, try it.
00:35:09
Speaker
Well, and you know, you know, you, you, you stop me if you need to, but do you ever talk to God that way?
00:35:19
Speaker
No, no, you know, and I probably should, man.
00:35:24
Speaker
For me, it's, I don't know how to approach the almighty.
00:35:29
Speaker
I, you know, I work outside and I live in a place where,
00:35:33
Speaker
I can see stars in the trillions, not in the thousands.
00:35:37
Speaker
And so I'm kind of surrounded by majesty all the time.
00:35:40
Speaker
And I spent a lot of time in the mountains and, you know, the indifference of the mountains is palpable.
00:35:47
Speaker
And so I just, you know, I definitely have this feeling where like I'm appreciative and I want to try to become a good and faithful servant at some point in my life.
00:36:00
Speaker
But I,
00:36:02
Speaker
I don't know that I should, like, I'm trying to remain humble, then I don't know that I should be troubling this person that's got, or this, you know, God with these problems when he's got kind of better stuff to do, you know?
Pain, Purpose, and Societal Issues
00:36:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:36:21
Speaker
That, yeah, that's, that's, that's interesting, man.
00:36:23
Speaker
And maybe this is related.
00:36:27
Speaker
You divide suffering into
00:36:32
Speaker
There are things that just happen because we're finite and the universe is infinite and, you know, just sort of the vicissitudes of life.
00:36:41
Speaker
Then there's stuff that society does to you.
00:36:46
Speaker
And then there's stuff that's your own fault.
00:36:49
Speaker
And you seem to take an approach of, let me take responsibility for as much of this as I possibly can.
00:37:00
Speaker
which I've also read Extreme Ownership, which is a great book.
00:37:04
Speaker
And I think that that's wise.
00:37:07
Speaker
It also, though, I was struck reading the story about how much of that suffering almost seemed just inevitable.
00:37:16
Speaker
Like once you were lying on the ground all shot up in Ramadi or all ball bearinged up, you were going to be
00:37:29
Speaker
in traction for months.
00:37:32
Speaker
You were going to be in an extreme amount of pain.
00:37:35
Speaker
They were going to give you something for the pain that was inevitably going to lead to dependency and withdrawal.
00:37:43
Speaker
And the reason I ask about that is I think a lot of, so I have family that have opioid problems.
00:37:52
Speaker
And I think a lot of opioid addiction is like that.
00:37:55
Speaker
Somebody gets seriously hurt,
00:37:58
Speaker
They're in genuine pain.
00:38:01
Speaker
They get an oxy script that they and their doctor feel they need and then they never get off.
00:38:07
Speaker
And I just wonder, do you feel like if you could have been sort of, you know, not in control like God, but in control like you and your doctor at the time,
00:38:21
Speaker
Do you think there's an alternative to opioids?
00:38:23
Speaker
Do we need to just get better at people helping people walk it down?
00:38:27
Speaker
Or, you know, what do you feel like you've learned from that?
00:38:34
Speaker
I can't remember how the case shook out, but there was a case in the UK that was
00:38:39
Speaker
brought against, I can't remember which, you know, Pfizer, one of these pharmaceutical companies.
00:38:44
Speaker
And the accusation was that the real pain medication in the OxyContin was the Tylenol and that the OxyContin was acting more like a nicotine additive that was actually there just to make you addicted to it.
00:39:00
Speaker
I think that what Pfizer, whoever, I'm not trying to, I don't remember who it was, whichever drug company, I think that what they said was, well,
00:39:08
Speaker
the sort of heroin opioid aspect disassociates and that has some level of, that provides some level of benefit in and of itself, just being disassociated from the pain.
00:39:20
Speaker
So like basically it's what they're saying is it feels really good to be high on a synthetic heroin.
00:39:28
Speaker
And so that provides its own benefit.
00:39:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:39:31
Speaker
Yeah, it does feel really good.
00:39:33
Speaker
And maybe there's a benefit there.
00:39:35
Speaker
But if you do a cost-benefit analysis, I think, or a risk analysis, or however you would say, then I don't think that the benefit outweighs the risk.
00:39:47
Speaker
I get hurt every year riding colds.
00:39:49
Speaker
Two years ago, I tore my ACL and MCL.
00:39:52
Speaker
This last year, I busted my hand, and I broke just bones on bones.
00:39:57
Speaker
And
00:39:59
Speaker
Every time I go in, I tell them I absolutely will not take, don't write me a script.
00:40:05
Speaker
I don't want it.
00:40:06
Speaker
I'm not taking it, you know, and I take ibuprofen and it works.
00:40:11
Speaker
And usually you'll take ibuprofen for like three or four days, maybe a week or two, broken bone, maybe two weeks.
00:40:19
Speaker
And then you're better, you know, because a lot of the, a lot of the pain is coming from inflammation.
00:40:23
Speaker
And of course everyone's body's different, you know, yada, yada, but yeah,
00:40:27
Speaker
I just think that it's not useful.
00:40:29
Speaker
I don't think it's useful at all.
00:40:31
Speaker
And it's, it's fun.
00:40:33
Speaker
And like, this is one of the things that I think it's not good to pretend that it's not because it is extraordinarily fun.
00:40:40
Speaker
I mean, it's amazing.
00:40:41
Speaker
There's a reason that grown men who've never had it in their life get hurt and they can't stop pushing the, you know, the drip button while they're in the hospital because it's a good feeling.
00:40:51
Speaker
I've been on Dilaudid.
00:40:52
Speaker
It's, it's, it's a ride, man.
00:40:54
Speaker
It's a lot of fun.
00:40:56
Speaker
It is.
00:40:56
Speaker
And so, no, I think that you should avoid that stuff anytime that you can.
00:41:00
Speaker
And as far as the, the taking responsibility for your own suffering part, the most important element there is if, if your goal, cause I try to look at things strategically, if you, if your goal is to, you know, you're going to have a goal to get from a, get to A to B or whatever.
00:41:21
Speaker
Well,
00:41:24
Speaker
If your goal is to get better and more healthy and all of this, then it doesn't actually matter who is at fault.
00:41:36
Speaker
You can't do anything about it.
00:41:37
Speaker
So you might as well turn...
00:41:39
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:41:40
Speaker
But yeah, placing blame does nothing unless you put it on yourself because you're the one element of this story that you can control.
00:41:46
Speaker
So yeah, it's like not great that this kind of stuff happens, but it's part of it.
00:41:50
Speaker
And then also you can go back.
00:41:52
Speaker
I'm the one that signed the papers.
00:41:53
Speaker
I'm the one that walked out the gate.
00:41:54
Speaker
I knew what I was doing.
00:41:55
Speaker
So it's still at the bottom, I'm responsible for all of it as well.
00:42:00
Speaker
I mean, sure, this guy blew himself up and that sucks.
00:42:04
Speaker
You know, worse for him than me.
00:42:05
Speaker
But yeah,
00:42:09
Speaker
I just don't think that it does you any good to wallow in that suffering because it's too easy to give yourself a pass once you start doing that, because you can tell yourself truths like, yeah, this, this happened to me.
00:42:21
Speaker
It wasn't, you know, really wasn't my fault, you know, and just start looking for kind of cop out excuse stuff, or you can decide, look, man, I have got myself hooked on this thing and I've got to figure out some way to get off of it.
00:42:37
Speaker
And, you know,
00:42:38
Speaker
Really, maybe it takes, I think it does take finding something that you care about more than you care about you.
00:42:46
Speaker
because your ego will never push you through hard stuff.
00:42:48
Speaker
Like people think it will, it will push you through stuff that regular everyday people think is hard, but it's actually not that hard at all.
00:42:56
Speaker
Your ego will not push you through things that are actually difficult.
00:42:59
Speaker
So you've got to find something that is more important to you and kind of aim yourself at that and then make yourself responsible for that.
00:43:07
Speaker
You know, as a parent, I talked to you on the phone a while back and we both, I think,
00:43:12
Speaker
have to share this view but as a parent your your number one job in life is to be a dad so like i am now responsible for these mouths and i gotta do whatever i gotta do to to take care of these kids and there's if you approach the world in that way you'll be more healthy mentally too i'm sorry i keep digressing there's this i haven't thought about this book for a long time and i'm remembering a lot of a lot of stuff um yeah no i haven't actually expressed
00:43:42
Speaker
No, it's really good.
00:43:46
Speaker
Again, it's a point from Jordan Peterson.
00:43:48
Speaker
He talks about treating yourself as if you were someone you were responsible for taking care of.
00:43:55
Speaker
And it seems like that circuit, you found that circuit independently in the book, because every time you experience major growth, it's
00:44:06
Speaker
you know, I, I, I need to do this for my grandpa.
00:44:09
Speaker
I need to do this for, you know, the guys who were in the attack, who didn't make it.
00:44:14
Speaker
I need to do it for my daughter, for my girlfriend's kid.
00:44:17
Speaker
Uh, so I can, you know, take him to little league and teach him what he needs to know.
00:44:20
Speaker
Like, uh, so much of this is about stewardship and, and taking responsibility for someone else.
00:44:31
Speaker
And, um,
00:44:34
Speaker
Does that, I mean, you had to, I mean, does this happen to you when, I mean, how old were you when this happened?
00:44:41
Speaker
20?
00:44:41
Speaker
Yeah, I was 20.
00:44:43
Speaker
I turned 20 in Iraq, yeah.
00:44:45
Speaker
Yeah, and yeah.
00:44:48
Speaker
it's just unreal to watch you have these experiences that I'm like barely having at 35, you know, when you were basically a kid and all this growing up and confrontation with death.
00:45:04
Speaker
And I think going back to the issue of pain, I feel like, and you tell me what you think about this,
00:45:15
Speaker
I feel like the opioid situation fundamentally is a denial of pain and a denial of death.
00:45:27
Speaker
It's to say we shouldn't have to experience pain and therefore we're going to do this really dangerous and ill-advised thing so that we can detach from the pain.
00:45:41
Speaker
We're going to
00:45:43
Speaker
pretend that it doesn't have to be part of our experience.
00:45:46
Speaker
And when you talk about going into the underworld, and this is, I guess, I guess I'm maybe asking a similar question.
00:45:56
Speaker
I hope it's not the same question again, but like, if someone is going down into the underworld and they're experiencing the pain and they're having their confrontation with death, um,
00:46:10
Speaker
is that something that the people around them can make easier?
00:46:14
Speaker
Or is that something that just, you know, you have to kind of go through alone?
00:46:22
Speaker
It's, it's hard and it's supposed to be hard.
00:46:27
Speaker
You know, Peterson, he talks about how, you know, I'm not trying to relitigate his debate with Sam Harris here, but when they were talking about truth,
00:46:36
Speaker
And he talks about this in lectures and writes about it as well, but says how pain is true.
00:46:40
Speaker
Like no matter what, you can't talk yourself out of pain.
00:46:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:45
Speaker
We are, so I think,
00:46:47
Speaker
that truth that he's hitting on there, we embody that truth.
00:46:53
Speaker
The only way to like the lesson, like God put the lesson, wrote the lesson on your heart.
00:46:59
Speaker
If you'll just look for it.
00:47:01
Speaker
The only way to get stronger is to break your body down.
00:47:04
Speaker
And then it builds back up again.
00:47:05
Speaker
Like this is what weightlifting is or running or whatever.
00:47:08
Speaker
And you have to experience that sort of pain to get to the next place that you want.
00:47:13
Speaker
So if you are denying yourself that experience, you can't, you can't actually end,
00:47:17
Speaker
you can't actually get the benefits of it.
00:47:19
Speaker
So really it becomes a, it becomes almost a useless suffering and there's nothing worse than useless suffering.
00:47:27
Speaker
Like this is what Peterson talks about all the time.
00:47:29
Speaker
Like this is what the Soviets did, right?
00:47:31
Speaker
They would try to make people suffer for no reason because they know that that's the worst possible thing that you can do to somebody.
00:47:38
Speaker
And we do this to ourselves with drugs.
00:47:40
Speaker
So yeah, I, I think that there is real lessons in the pain and not just in the,
00:47:46
Speaker
The uber macho, which I think is kind of dorky stuff where it's like, oh, just walk it off and toughen up.
00:47:53
Speaker
I mean, all that stuff's good, but that's not helping.
00:47:56
Speaker
I mean, explaining to someone that, yeah, man, it sucks and it's going to suck and it's supposed to suck.
00:48:05
Speaker
You're just going to have to learn to accept that this is supposed to be this way.
00:48:09
Speaker
And if you do, what comes out of that on the other side will be more than you could have possibly envisioned beforehand.
00:48:20
Speaker
When this happened to you, the culture had not dealt with war trauma in two generations.
00:48:29
Speaker
Nobody around you knew how to handle it.
00:48:32
Speaker
And I honestly, I think
00:48:35
Speaker
War injuries are uncommon enough in the general population that I feel like most families that confront this probably still don't know how to handle it because it's something that is being born by a small fraction of the population, has been for decades.
00:48:53
Speaker
But let's suppose that you're back there.
00:48:55
Speaker
It's 06, 07.
00:48:59
Speaker
And you're Braxton's dad or you're his best friend.
00:49:04
Speaker
And you know everything you know now.
00:49:08
Speaker
How do you help him cope with that at his stage of the despair and the nihilism?
00:49:23
Speaker
This is going to go against everything that I just said, but
00:49:26
Speaker
I really think that for, again, it depends on personality types, right?
00:49:30
Speaker
Like that's the other thing that you're confronting is, or that you have to confront here is that not everybody is the same, but at least for the way that my brain works, tough love would have been better than too much sympathy for me.
00:49:43
Speaker
I would have been a lot better off with someone saying, listen, you've got to get your crap together and I'm going to help you do it, but you got to get your crap together.
00:49:52
Speaker
If God forbid one of my sons ended up in a similar situation, that would definitely be the approach.
00:49:58
Speaker
It'd be like, well, you can't do the work that you used to do around here, but that doesn't mean you're not going to work and get them out doing stuff and really force them to endure again.
00:50:12
Speaker
you know, you look at the kids who, there was a kid down where I'm from, got in a motorcycle accident, spinal injury, ends up paralyzed from the, you know, he's quadriplegic or paraplegic.
00:50:25
Speaker
He can't walk.
00:50:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:50:29
Speaker
And he was down for maybe two months.
00:50:31
Speaker
I mean, it's a horrific injury.
00:50:33
Speaker
And then his dad, while he was
00:50:36
Speaker
while he was in the hospital, his dad had one of his tractors set up and outfitted so that he could run it with just his hands.
00:50:42
Speaker
And then as soon as his kid came out, he wheeled his chair out there and helped him into the tractor and put him back to work.
00:50:48
Speaker
And he did it every day.
00:50:49
Speaker
And now that kid is living as good a life as he possibly can.
00:50:53
Speaker
He's doing really, really well.
00:50:54
Speaker
And it's, I honestly think it's because his dad helped him get back to work, that sense of fulfillment from work and also not spending too much time away from who you really were
00:51:05
Speaker
before the injury, I think helps a lot as well.
00:51:08
Speaker
I had another friend who ended up in a car accident and he ended up paralyzed as well.
00:51:14
Speaker
And his dad wasn't quite in the same situation.
00:51:17
Speaker
He's a construction guy.
00:51:18
Speaker
Didn't really, wasn't really in a position to help his kid in that same way.
00:51:22
Speaker
And that kid has a lot of problems, a lot of problems still, you know, 20 years later, still has a lot of problems.
00:51:27
Speaker
And
00:51:28
Speaker
So I think helping them get back to work, I, you know, I know that almost sounds like the walk it off thing, but I don't mean it that way.
00:51:35
Speaker
I just mean tough love in the sense of let's get you contributing again and get you some sense of purpose.
00:51:41
Speaker
No, people have to have a place.
00:51:42
Speaker
They have to fit somewhere or else it's like you're saying the suffering is pointless.
00:51:47
Speaker
If it's not, they need, they need a story.
00:51:51
Speaker
They need a, they need a story to fit that suffering in and, and a justification that, that, that,
00:51:58
Speaker
that makes it meaningful.
00:52:02
Speaker
You know, I honestly, I don't think you even have to get, you know, shredded by an IED to, to face, I think almost everybody who doesn't have purpose faces that same sense of, you know, what's it all for?
00:52:20
Speaker
And, and, and, you know, a lot of those same people, you know, kids I went to school with,
00:52:27
Speaker
they end up addicted to heroin, not because they went through anything traumatic, but because why not?
00:52:32
Speaker
You know, like what, what, what, what high purpose is being defeated by me just going and, you know, getting hopped up on goofballs.
00:52:42
Speaker
And so it, it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's way bigger than, it's way bigger than vets.
00:52:47
Speaker
It's way bigger than car accidents.
00:52:50
Speaker
It's, it's, it's the whole society, I think.
00:52:54
Speaker
I agree.
00:52:55
Speaker
I think that's why you're saying that
00:52:57
Speaker
the opioid rates in places like Ohio and Akron and whatever, those kinds of areas in Ohio are a lot higher than they are in these rural, you know, at least rural Western communities.
00:53:10
Speaker
There's not a lot of drug use in our area.
00:53:11
Speaker
Now there is kind of a lot of drug use in Wyoming and,
00:53:15
Speaker
in montana but really not here and i'm sure mormonism has plays a role there but it's also that their dads have these big operations that you know they they know what they're doing they're doing that day when they get out of bed i think that really matters i think it matters a lot yeah a lot in fact what was that movie from uh the uk from when we were kids uh it's like the train car diaries or something that's not what it's called um
00:53:42
Speaker
Anyway, these kids, they grow up in, I think it's London is where they're at, but they're kind of going through the same thing that we're going through now where all the jobs are gone and they know that there's kind of, in some sense, no hope for them, at least in their community.
00:53:57
Speaker
And they all end up hooked on heroin and, you know, just being waste.
00:54:02
Speaker
I mean, it's a pretty good film, but... Are you talking about Trainspotting?
00:54:05
Speaker
Trainspotting.
00:54:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:54:05
Speaker
Trainspotting.
00:54:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:08
Speaker
I think that's kind of the same story.
00:54:11
Speaker
And as far as the whole two decades of separation between us and Vietnam, a lot of this happened in Vietnam, too, and everyone knew it.
00:54:18
Speaker
A lot of it happened.
00:54:20
Speaker
This is maybe something that people don't know as much, but a lot of this stuff happened with the World War II guys, too.
00:54:25
Speaker
They were taking speed and all kinds of stuff and alcohol.
00:54:29
Speaker
It's pretty common, and I really think that it's that loss.
00:54:32
Speaker
I know that it's kind of become the...
00:54:35
Speaker
kind of the buzzword, but I really do think that that loss of sense of purpose is a really, really big problem.
00:54:43
Speaker
And if you don't have God,
00:54:45
Speaker
in your life, which a lot of these kids don't, if you don't have God in your life and you don't have anything to make you really feel like you should get out of bed in the morning, I mean, what hope do you have to recover?
00:54:57
Speaker
I mean, like why recover?
00:55:00
Speaker
Like for what?
00:55:01
Speaker
You know?
00:55:01
Speaker
Oh, that's exactly it.
00:55:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:04
Speaker
Why?
00:55:04
Speaker
What's the point?
00:55:05
Speaker
It's because it's hard.
00:55:06
Speaker
It's unbelievably hard.
00:55:07
Speaker
And what's waiting for you at the end of all that suck that you're being asked to embrace?
00:55:15
Speaker
Um, no, uh, uh, I actually had the opportunity to be at a bit like there were all the bishoprics and the stake.
00:55:23
Speaker
I was an executive secretary at the time in the ward and, uh, elder Bednar came and spoke to just the bishoprics.
00:55:29
Speaker
So it was like just a chapel and elder Bednar.
00:55:33
Speaker
And we were talking about sort of the state of missionary preparedness.
00:55:37
Speaker
And it became this much deeper discussion of like pretty much no group.
00:55:43
Speaker
No demographic in the church was sending out sort of prepared missionaries, not just to be missionaries, but just for life.
00:55:53
Speaker
And he said that basically the exception was rural kids.
00:55:56
Speaker
And the thinking was that...
00:56:01
Speaker
rural kids from an early age are given a task that is not sort of make work, you know, cause you know, the kids in the suburbs get homework assignments and occasionally you're asked to do chores, but like, you know, that was me growing up and there was always a sense that was kind of fake.
00:56:19
Speaker
And it was sort of like, it builds character, but it's not like, you don't actually need me to do this.
00:56:23
Speaker
You're just sort of making me do it.
00:56:26
Speaker
And, but farm kids,
00:56:30
Speaker
from an early age are given tasks that are necessary to the functioning of the family and they have a place and they're, they're important.
00:56:39
Speaker
And that level of that level of confidence and, and self-esteem is the wrong word, but, but, but not knowledge of where you fit in the world is unbelievably powerful.
00:56:56
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:56:57
Speaker
Well, yeah, absolutely.
00:56:59
Speaker
And especially with animal husbandry, you can't take a day off.
00:57:02
Speaker
I mean, we can't even hardly go on vacation because you're married to your animals.
00:57:06
Speaker
And I actually think it's spot on.
00:57:09
Speaker
That makes a lot of sense to me.
00:57:11
Speaker
It's not menial stuff.
00:57:13
Speaker
It really does matter.
00:57:15
Speaker
My daughter helps around here and she knows that she helps and she gets the perks of that, but also comes with the responsibilities.
00:57:23
Speaker
You know, you got to water even when it's 20 below, you know what I mean?
00:57:27
Speaker
So...
00:57:29
Speaker
Yeah.
Masculinity and Maturity
00:57:30
Speaker
One more about the book.
00:57:33
Speaker
I know masculinity is something you think about a lot.
00:57:36
Speaker
The way manhood's viewed in our culture, the types of men that we're producing.
00:57:41
Speaker
And in some ways it looks like your conception of manhood is pretty conventional.
00:57:47
Speaker
It's cowboy stuff, it's goon stuff, self-reliance, mental toughness.
00:57:52
Speaker
But you spend a lot of this book just getting the macho kind of beat out of you.
00:57:57
Speaker
because you're constantly up against these physical limitations.
00:58:00
Speaker
You're being confronted by douchebags.
00:58:02
Speaker
You can't do anything about it.
00:58:04
Speaker
And it seems like there are cases where you view letting go of that egoism as a good thing.
00:58:14
Speaker
But there are other times in the book where you kind of seem to be fighting to take it back.
00:58:17
Speaker
Like, so you get sort of accosted by these hood rats on your way out of DC.
00:58:23
Speaker
And then...
00:58:25
Speaker
There's this scene where you're on the drive back to Utah and you just floor the accelerator and you almost throw the car off a canyon.
00:58:32
Speaker
And I have to think that those two events are very tightly related.
00:58:38
Speaker
It's this domain where you know that you can still confront danger and win.
00:58:44
Speaker
And you're like, I got to get a win.
00:58:45
Speaker
I got to take this back.
00:58:48
Speaker
And later you talk about tuning up this guy who molested a kid at a party.
00:58:57
Speaker
And it's obvious that you enjoyed getting to do that and being able to do that.
00:59:01
Speaker
And so can you talk about sort of which elements of like macho tough guy stuff
00:59:08
Speaker
you were glad to leave behind, which ones you fought to hold on to.
00:59:12
Speaker
I expect that maybe there's some ambivalence and maybe it's still kind of, but tell me what you think.
00:59:21
Speaker
First of all, I've already got the assault charge, so I guess I can talk about that.
00:59:25
Speaker
They can't charge me again.
00:59:28
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I did like beating that kid up.
00:59:30
Speaker
I liked it a lot and I'll do it again, you know?
00:59:34
Speaker
Um, gosh.
00:59:41
Speaker
So I've been, I've been teasing people about crying in church a lot recently.
00:59:44
Speaker
And my daughter's been dragging my butt to church every Sunday.
00:59:48
Speaker
Uh, so I've been, you know, anyway, I've been going over and there's a lot of crying going on.
00:59:53
Speaker
I just don't, you know, I'm trying to use this as a way to answer this.
00:59:59
Speaker
You know, anytime I comment about this, people will say, well, if your mom dies, someone's like, yeah, man, I'm not saying you can't ever cry.
01:00:06
Speaker
Holy crap.
01:00:07
Speaker
Get a hold of yourself here.
01:00:07
Speaker
What I'm saying is you should have, I think it's good to, like, I like to read poetry.
01:00:16
Speaker
I really like poetry.
01:00:17
Speaker
I like to...
01:00:20
Speaker
like play with baby horses.
01:00:22
Speaker
I think it's beautiful.
01:00:23
Speaker
I like to play with my kids, you know, like all of that kind of stuff I think are blessings of God.
01:00:29
Speaker
I think it's, it's ridiculous to pretend like you can't appreciate real beauty, especially, especially God's beauty or our beauty that God has created.
01:00:40
Speaker
But at the same time, I don't think that needs to translate to you being comfortable crying in front of your neighbor because you're
01:00:47
Speaker
of some very trivial thing because you're still especially to be the i mean in the church there's a dishonesty to it like you sometimes feel like people are kind of putting on a show yes yeah yes especially the first sunday of every month and brother it's like so um
01:01:11
Speaker
You're still supposed to be that.
01:01:13
Speaker
I think that your, your duty as a man is to be the patriarch of your family.
01:01:18
Speaker
And God forbid you're a person who wasn't able to have a family for whatever reason you're just, you're still, you should still participate as a patriarch in your extended family.
01:01:29
Speaker
Then, you know, be the good uncle and the good role model.
01:01:33
Speaker
And I don't think teaching your boys that it's fine to put on this waterworks show for no reason is a good thing.
01:01:40
Speaker
I think it's like you say, it's dishonest and it's weird and you shouldn't feel comfortable just crying all the time.
01:01:48
Speaker
You know, the public said my dad, who I don't have a good relationship with, last year during the whole COVID stuff, he got an infection in his spine and it looked like he was going to die.
01:02:02
Speaker
And I hadn't spoken to the guy in years.
01:02:05
Speaker
And I didn't think that that would affect me.
01:02:07
Speaker
I kind of carried it for a couple of days.
01:02:10
Speaker
And then I, one day I was going out to feed at the end of the night and my wife confronted me about it.
01:02:15
Speaker
And, you know, I ended up burying my head in my hat and walking out the door because I started crying.
01:02:20
Speaker
And it was, uh, I guess I wasn't ready.
01:02:25
Speaker
I wanted to be able to say I was very frustrated because
01:02:29
Speaker
that my father was gonna die without me being able to say goodbye to him and tell him that no matter what has happened in life, I forgive him because I did not want that on his conscience when he was going to meet his maker.
01:02:41
Speaker
So like, I think it's not just that I think that there are no appropriate times to cry or anything.
01:02:47
Speaker
And I like, I don't think there's some strict code.
01:02:49
Speaker
I do like the Ron Swanson quote, but I don't think there has to be some strict code about it.
01:02:55
Speaker
But I don't think that you should just embrace
01:02:57
Speaker
behaving like a woman because I don't think you're a woman and like it bothers me it just really bugs me so as far as masculinity in traditional sense I think one of the most overlooked aspects of that is being the guy that gets up and goes and does his chores you know takes care of the stuff that you're supposed to like not everybody is going to be
01:03:21
Speaker
I've got friends that are UFC fighters.
01:03:23
Speaker
They could beat the crap out of me in a fight.
01:03:25
Speaker
If you've attached your sense of masculinity to your ability to beat everybody up, then that's a really weak form of masculinity.
01:03:35
Speaker
There's always going to be somebody bigger and better, the old cliche.
01:03:39
Speaker
Then we do this thing where, at least culturally it seems, we do this thing where if you'll take your shirt off and lift weights in the streets, somehow that
01:03:50
Speaker
now you're licensed to be the leader of masculinity in the world.
01:03:55
Speaker
And I'm just like, this is really weird to me because I don't, there's a wholeness.
01:03:59
Speaker
My father, who I had almost no relationship with, was the toughest man I'd ever met.
01:04:06
Speaker
When I ran, I helped run a mixed martial arts gym for a little while.
01:04:11
Speaker
And we had a heavyweight in the state of Utah that was a pretty dang good heavyweight.
01:04:15
Speaker
He actually passed away two years ago of cancer, but
01:04:18
Speaker
He was a very good fighter, very tough.
01:04:21
Speaker
He was like kind of a top 10 on the regional scene.
01:04:23
Speaker
Very, very tough guy.
01:04:25
Speaker
And my dad got out of prison, came down to the gym and my dad really lit him up in a sparring session.
01:04:32
Speaker
So he was like a great fighter, you know, a really great fighter, but he was never a man.
01:04:37
Speaker
And,
01:04:39
Speaker
You know, so I just think that there, maybe it's something for everybody to find out, but if you're not taking care of your responsibilities, then you're definitely not embracing any kind of masculinity that I recognize.
01:04:49
Speaker
And this whole, this whole time, like I reject the toxic masculinity thing, but not, not because of the way that you see people do it on Twitter, because I think the entire premise is dumb, you know, it comes from Sapolsky, right?
01:05:02
Speaker
And those
01:05:03
Speaker
that troop of baboons and, you know, it's just like, come on, man.
01:05:11
Speaker
It's like, okay, what, anyway, like what, what unite reunited that tribe, if not toxic masculinity or masculinity rather than, you know, rather now he would say, well, once that, that rude guy was out of the way, they were grooming and, you know, doing all these things again.
01:05:27
Speaker
It's like, okay.
01:05:28
Speaker
So your idea of a good culture is like,
01:05:32
Speaker
orgies and no sense of direction.
01:05:34
Speaker
Okay.
01:05:34
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:35
Speaker
You know, like we don't see the world the same if that's what, you know, so it's kind of hard to, I definitely don't, I can't really pin pinpoint it, but I do think that you have to be a whole man.
01:05:46
Speaker
And I think that the whole man is like, I'm not obviously some intellectual, I break horses for a living, but,
01:05:53
Speaker
I think being open to reading and discovery and embracing the journey and then practicing some sense of stoicism and taking care of your body and your responsibilities, I think that's what
01:06:05
Speaker
It means to be masculine, you know, being the dad that you're supposed to be.
01:06:09
Speaker
I kind of hate the word tribe the way it's thrown around, but to be like the leader of your clan or whatever, that's what a man is to me.
01:06:18
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:18
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:21
Speaker
Maybe, you know, subject, one of the things that you confront way early in your life is just the fact that like there are hard limits.
01:06:31
Speaker
Like, you know,
01:06:34
Speaker
I didn't work very hard in the gym in my teens and twenties and like, I'm still getting stronger.
01:06:41
Speaker
Like I still haven't found, you know, what I can do.
01:06:46
Speaker
And, but I am getting to the age where like, it's right around the corner.
01:06:50
Speaker
I'm, I'm, I'm going to find it like real quick.
01:06:54
Speaker
And it's not going to be like dramatically more than what I can do now.
01:06:58
Speaker
And, and so maybe the, the, the mature,
01:07:05
Speaker
masculinity because the, the, the teenage masculinity is sort of like, I'm infinite.
01:07:11
Speaker
I'm bulletproof.
01:07:13
Speaker
Uh, I can, I can do what I want.
01:07:15
Speaker
And, and maybe, maybe this mature masculinity is, I know that I'm not going to be, I don't have infinite strength, but I'm going to be as strong as I can be.
01:07:26
Speaker
I'm going to be as smart as I can be.
01:07:27
Speaker
I'm, you know, I'm, I'm going to find my limits and try to push them.
01:07:32
Speaker
Um,
01:07:33
Speaker
And that's what I see in the book is there's just tremendous strength.
01:07:38
Speaker
And I know that you like downplay, you know, you were sort of embarrassed to film you running a mile for the first time.
01:07:46
Speaker
But like, whatever the limit is, you pushed it.
01:07:52
Speaker
And then you pushed it further and then you pushed it further.
01:07:54
Speaker
And then you sort of, you summit on that forbidden mountain.
01:07:59
Speaker
And that's sort of the...
01:08:01
Speaker
the apotheosis of the book is, is, is making that summit, um, on your, on your, your busted legs that hurt all the time.
01:08:11
Speaker
And, um, so, so that, that's what, that's my read on it.
01:08:16
Speaker
I think is, is that it's, it's about realizing whatever God gave you.
01:08:23
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:25
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:26
Speaker
I, I, that's a good, I think that's, that's a good way to put it.
01:08:30
Speaker
I,
01:08:31
Speaker
I still in my mind think I can ride anything with hair, but I don't, you know, I don't, I don't enter rodeos anymore.
01:08:38
Speaker
And even last year I was going to go ride some more bucking horses.
01:08:41
Speaker
And luckily I got hurt and wasn't able to, but like this year I kind of got over it because if I break a bone, my family doesn't make money.
01:08:49
Speaker
So I think that there is some truth to that maturity aspect, but at the same time, when a horse does bust loose on me,
01:08:56
Speaker
you know, it's not like I don't enjoy it.
01:08:57
Speaker
It's still pretty fun.
01:09:00
Speaker
So, I mean, there's obviously there's, you know, it's not, there's always risk and, and pushing the boundary is about risk, but there's also a recognition that there is a boundary, if that makes sense.
01:09:18
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
01:09:19
Speaker
Um, you, so one of the things you, you, you hide this in a footnote, um,
01:09:25
Speaker
But you talk about letting go of the idea of conquering nature.
01:09:29
Speaker
And I thought that was so interesting because that seems like something that I would almost be tempted to hold on to.
01:09:35
Speaker
Can you say what you mean by that?
01:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, we...
01:09:42
Speaker
If you maintain that mindset, like everyone kind of does this where it's like, well, I'm going to get to the top of that mountain because I'm going to just to win for whatever reason.
01:09:54
Speaker
I think that you learn or you lose.
01:09:56
Speaker
You lose too much along the way.
01:09:59
Speaker
Like if you're...
01:10:02
Speaker
having goals is good and all of that.
01:10:04
Speaker
And that applies even if you're out hunting or whatever, but what happens when, you know, you've, you've decided in your mind that you're going to get to the top of this Ridge or, you know, just to say that you did, and then let's say you're hunting elk.
01:10:18
Speaker
And then it turns out that you see a bull that's down, you know, a different Valley.
01:10:23
Speaker
And you're like, well, I said, I was going to go up because I'm saying this, cause this is totally me.
01:10:27
Speaker
Well, I said I was gonna go up to the top of that so I'm gonna go up to the top of that, and then I'm gonna go back down to get that bull well it's like why, you know it makes it doesn't make any sense and I think that it there's a there's a real Tower of Babel element to that, where you're like trying to prove that you can conquer these obstacles that
01:10:48
Speaker
that God made.
01:10:48
Speaker
It's almost like you're viewing God like when you played Excitebike, you know, and you made like these obstacles in the way and, you know, once you could conquer those, then, you know, that was a win or whatever.
01:10:59
Speaker
And it's all, I think it's almost like viewing God in that way.
01:11:01
Speaker
I really don't, there's just something about it that I find dirty.
01:11:05
Speaker
Because you can't conquer.
01:11:06
Speaker
Like, that's the one thing you will never conquer for sure is nature.
01:11:10
Speaker
So it's like very Sisyphean, you know.
01:11:13
Speaker
And I just think that you miss too much when you view the world that way.
01:11:17
Speaker
And I do think it's kind of gross because I do think it's kind of a shot across the bow of the Almighty, whether you realize
Colt Training and Economic Insights
01:11:25
Speaker
it or not.
01:11:25
Speaker
And I don't like that.
01:11:28
Speaker
No, that makes sense.
01:11:30
Speaker
I also want to get into a little bit about the business side.
01:11:35
Speaker
So we started talking about the cult training business.
01:11:38
Speaker
And then I just found the spiritual element of that so interesting that I didn't get into the business side.
01:11:44
Speaker
Are you okay to do a couple questions about that?
01:11:47
Speaker
So if someone wanted to get into the cult training business for themselves, you know, we have several guys that have some land.
01:11:57
Speaker
And are interested in agriculture and livestock.
01:12:02
Speaker
What would it take for them to get started?
01:12:06
Speaker
People in the industry are going to tell you that it takes a lifetime.
01:12:09
Speaker
And that's true.
01:12:10
Speaker
But you can get good enough to get started.
01:12:15
Speaker
You're going to need help.
01:12:17
Speaker
from someone who actually knows what they're doing, not your neighbor that watched a Buck Granman video, but someone who really knows what they're doing to help you.
01:12:25
Speaker
And you can get good enough to build the kind of horse that most people, most people need, like a horse that they can trust to go up and down a trail.
01:12:33
Speaker
So you want to lean, and this is not me trying to,
01:12:38
Speaker
But we're going to start opening up some opportunities to do that kind of stuff.
01:12:42
Speaker
And if you can spare a week to go spend a week with somebody and then keep in touch, like what we're going to do is try to keep in touch with people and help them via Zoom after they leave, help them keep these horses going.
01:12:55
Speaker
That's a way that you could start because you really need to take a couple of horses from...
01:13:01
Speaker
from nothing to never being ridden to being safe before you can appreciate and do a good job on a real good horse, a real expensive horse, a real valuable horse.
01:13:13
Speaker
You just don't ever want to mess one up.
01:13:16
Speaker
So you want to have help getting going, but you can do it.
01:13:19
Speaker
You absolutely can.
01:13:20
Speaker
Now, you're not going to be Dwight Hill, but you can get good enough.
01:13:26
Speaker
It's a conquerable skill.
01:13:29
Speaker
So, I mean, it's, you're going to have that circular pen.
01:13:32
Speaker
What, as far as equipment, are you going to need besides just the ordinary things you need to, to groom and take care of a horse?
01:13:39
Speaker
A good halter and a flag.
01:13:41
Speaker
You can get a lot done with those two things.
01:13:43
Speaker
You just have to really know what you're doing.
01:13:45
Speaker
And then of course you got to have a good saddle.
01:13:47
Speaker
That's where you're going to spend the most amount of your money, but you can do it with a flag.
01:13:50
Speaker
You can just do it with just a broken horse with a just halter.
01:13:54
Speaker
If once you, like I wouldn't advise, I rope a lot of colts.
01:13:57
Speaker
I don't think I would advise trying to rope them because that takes, that does take a lot more finesse and kind of know how, but yeah, a good halter and a flag and saddle and then time with someone who knows what they're doing.
01:14:08
Speaker
You can get, you can start a horse with just that.
01:14:12
Speaker
So basically, I mean, if you've already got, if you're already doing horses and you've already got the equipment you need for that, you're basically there.
01:14:21
Speaker
It's just the know-how.
01:14:23
Speaker
That's what you need to go get.
01:14:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:27
Speaker
And the round pen's expensive, but you can, there's, I mean, you can build your own round pen for cheaper too, but having a good quality round pen is worth the money.
01:14:37
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:38
Speaker
You've warned on several podcasts and spaces and things that meat prices are about to get crazy.
01:14:45
Speaker
Are you considering branching into anything, any other livestock, cattle, anything like that?
01:14:51
Speaker
We raise a few cattle.
01:14:54
Speaker
The problem is margins are so thin on cattle.
01:14:56
Speaker
And as of right now, the problem is more on the supply side.
01:15:03
Speaker
We're not short of cattle.
01:15:05
Speaker
we're short of tackers and supply issues that way okay and then eventually we might end up short of cattle because a lot of small-time guys are going to take a big hit a friend of mine just told me the other day that he's liquidating 80 percent of his hurt because he can't afford him uh you can't get him slaughtered and can't afford him and he lost a hundred thousand dollars on that deal so yeah it was rough um
01:15:30
Speaker
Yes.
01:15:31
Speaker
So we will, we probably will add in some, but not this year.
01:15:36
Speaker
We'll probably add a few more head next.
01:15:39
Speaker
Well, we're just going to watch the market and see what happens.
01:15:42
Speaker
And then we'll probably add a few more head of cattle next year.
01:15:45
Speaker
But it's, it's a rough time to be trying to do that right now.
01:15:50
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:51
Speaker
But if you got land, maybe it makes sense to just get one for yourself.
01:15:54
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
01:15:55
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:56
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:56
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:58
Speaker
And, you know, it seems like this is just sort of a broader question.
01:16:01
Speaker
It seems like if, if meat prices go through the roof, you know, and other things with the supply chain, lots of things might start to go off the rails in the near future.
01:16:11
Speaker
Just in general terms, how are you preparing and how would you recommend others sort of get ready for what's coming?
01:16:21
Speaker
I'm going to go shoot a bull elk maybe tomorrow.
01:16:24
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:25
Speaker
And butcher that and stick that thing in my freezer.
01:16:28
Speaker
And then I'm gonna go shoot a mule deer.
01:16:30
Speaker
My daughter's gonna shoot a mule deer.
01:16:32
Speaker
And then I'll probably shoot a cow or two if I have to of my own.
01:16:37
Speaker
You know, I know not everybody has those options.
01:16:39
Speaker
But like you say, if you've got land, get something that's almost ready to slaughter and finish it yourself would probably be a really good idea.
01:16:49
Speaker
I've also heard that things like generators, refrigerants, you know, refrigerators, freezers, all of that are maybe going to become difficult.
01:16:57
Speaker
So maybe invest in a couple of good chest freezers if you can afford it.
01:17:03
Speaker
And I hope you had a garden this year that you put up.
01:17:06
Speaker
And, you know, some people are in the inflation part, they're going to be okay.
01:17:09
Speaker
It's just going to maybe suck.
01:17:10
Speaker
But if you're in a position where you've got a garden, learn how to can and put that stuff up and
01:17:16
Speaker
dry whatever you can, you know, do that, that kind of thing.
01:17:18
Speaker
Like basically become a Mormon, essentially.
01:17:21
Speaker
You heard it here first.
01:17:24
Speaker
Like, I mean, it's funny, like the Mormon churches and the Mormon people are the most prepared for this of any people in this country.
01:17:30
Speaker
It's not even close.
01:17:33
Speaker
It's really funny.
01:17:34
Speaker
So,
01:17:35
Speaker
Yeah.
01:17:36
Speaker
You know, make friends with Mormons.
01:17:37
Speaker
That'll help.
Conclusion and Braxton's Work
01:17:41
Speaker
Roger that.
01:17:42
Speaker
Well, listen, this has been an awesome conversation.
01:17:45
Speaker
I so appreciate you taking as much time as we've taken.
01:17:49
Speaker
This is a really, this is a really great talk.
01:17:51
Speaker
Braxton McCoy is the author of The Glass Factory, which is a great book that contains
01:17:59
Speaker
Lots of other things that we haven't talked about that is absolutely worth checking out.
01:18:04
Speaker
He's got a limited signed hardcover run that is on its way out the door right now that you can go order at BraxtonMcCoy.com.
01:18:15
Speaker
Is that right?
01:18:15
Speaker
Yes, sir.
01:18:17
Speaker
And if you're interested in what we do here at Exit Group, you can check us out at Patreon.com slash Exit underscore org or on Twitter at Exit underscore org.
01:18:29
Speaker
Thanks a lot, Braxton.
01:18:30
Speaker
It's great to have you.
01:18:32
Speaker
Thanks, Ben.
01:18:32
Speaker
I appreciate it.