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EP638: Robert Young Pelton - A Renaissance Man Living In Dangerous Places
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What happens when adventure, craftsmanship, and innovation intersect? Have you ever wondered how a tool can transcend its function to embody the philosophy, resilience, and experience of its creator? Or what compels someone to trade the comforts of normalcy for the chaos of war zones and uncharted territories? What does it mean to put yourself on the front lines of history—geographically, emotionally, and morally? Uncover what drives individuals to document humanity’s rawest realities, often at great personal risk, and why these stories matter so deeply.
Knives are among humanity’s oldest and most essential tools, but they’re so much more than just blades. In this episode, we delve into the artistry, engineering, and philosophy behind heirloom-quality knives. Explore the delicate balance between form and function, the challenges of designing tools for extreme conditions, and the fascinating cultural and historical narratives surrounding these objects.
Robert Young Pelton is a Canadian-American author, some of the books he wrote are The World’s Most Dangerous Places, Come Back Alive, The Adventurist, and Three Worlds Gone Mad. He’s a journalist, and documentary film director known for his fearless conflict reporting and interviews with military and political figures in war zones. A modern-day renaissance man, Pelton’s life defies convention. He is an adventurer, journalist, and knife maker whose career has taken him to some of the globe’s most dangerous and transformative places.
From designing innovative, durable knives with over 20 patents to embedding himself in conflicts across Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine, Robert brings a wealth of unfiltered insights. His work, featured in outlets like CNN and CBS, captures the stories of rebels, soldiers, and everyday people navigating extraordinary circumstances.
Visit eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.
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Transcript
Beginnings in Dangerous Travel Writing
00:00:03
Speaker
I always wanted to write a book about the world's most dangerous places, so I self-published. I did very well with that book. Microsoft came by and said, gee, you know, we're we're starting this thing called Expedia. You have a lot of travel content, which I'd already databased. They paid me a lot of money, so I became that guy, you know, the danger guy who went through all the dirty wars. I was with a special forces team, you know, the horse soldiers, they call them.
00:00:25
Speaker
right at the opening of 9-11 in Afghanistan. And I was always amazed at the crap they're issued with. You know, their backpack survives. It's like lowest bidder stuff. And I started to make a knife based on those principles. Like, what would these guys need and want?
Introduction of a Multifaceted Career
00:00:47
Speaker
Welcome to the Thought Leader Revolution with Nikki Ballou. Join the revolution. There's never been a better time in history to speak your truth, find your freedom, and make your fortune. Each week, we interview the world's top thought leaders and learn the secrets of how they built a six to seven figure practice. This episode has been brought to you by eCircleAcademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.
00:01:13
Speaker
Welcome to another exciting episode of the podcast, The Thought Leader Revolution. I'm your host, Nicky Baloo, and we have a very special guest lined up for you today. Today's guest is a bit of a thought leader, a renaissance man, and an adventurer, journalist, knife maker,
00:01:34
Speaker
Man About Town. He's someone whose work I've followed and respect a great deal. And I'm excited to have him on here because I've always wanted to ask him a bunch of questions.
From Marketing to War Correspondent
00:01:45
Speaker
I'm speaking, of course, of the one and only Robert Young Pelton. Welcome to the show, Robert. Hi, Nicky. How you doing? I'm doing great. So Robert, I was showing you, before we started recording, a couple of your knives that I own. Right. The flippers here, the hasts.
00:02:03
Speaker
and I got to tell you, the design of these knives is amazing. And they're also, frankly, for flippers, really good hard use knives. So I want to jump into the whole discussion about your knife making and the rest of it. But before we do that, we always start off by asking our guests to tell us their backstory. How'd you get to be where you are today in life?
00:02:28
Speaker
Uh, you don't want to ask me in my backstory. You'll be here five hours from now. But basically, um, I was born in Edmonton, Alberta and, uh, ended up, uh, living in a car when I was 60 and I went to St. John's in Winnipeg. Remember the adventure school. We can do it a thousand miles, um, by canoe and we snow shoot during the winter and we raised meat and sold it door to door. Studied Latin, ancient Greek, whatever. So I became a marketing guy in Toronto.
00:02:58
Speaker
work for the media. Oh, that's where I live now. Correct. That's a good talent. And ended up moving to the States on one of those genius visas. Actually, they call it a chicken sexer visa because you have to have a certain talent, right? So I knew how to make big shows. So I worked in Hollywood for a while, and then I had a business. I had 50 employees. I began publishing travel guides as a side to my design and marketing business.
00:03:27
Speaker
and Always wanted to write a book about the world's most dangerous places. So I self-published. I did very well with that book. Microsoft came by and said, gee, you know, we're we're starting this thing called Expedia. You have a lot of travel content, which I'd already databased. And ah they paid me a lot of money. And then at that point in my career, I thought, you know, now is the time I was about 40 something ah to make that
Exclusive Journalism Experiences
00:03:53
Speaker
leap. So I became,
00:03:55
Speaker
That guy, you know, the danger guy who went through all the dirty wars, lived with the rebels, the terrorists, whatever. And within months, you know, I had a TV series on Discovery. I had big profiles in ABC News. I was the first guy to be like what they call a solo journalist ah for ABC. And, i you know, I was sort of a running joke. Like this guy goes to war zones on his vacation, but I didn't have a job. So I didn't really have a vacation. So that's what I did. and Somewhere around, well, 2003, I got tired of being a journalist. I had a bunch of scoops. I did one famous one for CNN where I interviewed John Walker Lind. And I started setting up ground networks in war zones. So I set up a ground network in Iraq, moved on to Afghanistan, had 1,200 people working for me in the tribal areas in Afghanistan, worked as an advisor for the four stars.
Innovation in Knife Design
00:04:51
Speaker
I went to Somalia, then tracked pirates, ran a ground network there, ah worked in Libya, same thing, setting up a ground network on the smuggling of migrants, things like that. And ah you know in between, there I worked for Vice, National Geographic, I mean, you name it, you know you can Google me.
00:05:08
Speaker
and In all that, I am always intensely curious. And I was asked yeah but by Jeff and Essie, like, hey, man, you should design a survival knife. All these other guys have survival knives. And I'm like, yeah, but I'm too busy for that. So for 10 years, Randall bugged me. And finally, I did what they call the HEST original, which I'm sure you're familiar with, the Hostile Environment Survival Tool.
00:05:36
Speaker
And Jeff was kind of blown away how small it was. It's just a three-inch knife. And I said, well, if you don't have a knife with you, it's not much use calling it a survival knife. And from there, I started looking into the knife industry. And you got to remember, I have over 20 patents to my name. So if you give me a challenge, I'll try to reinvent it. And the knife is a great challenge because it's probably one of the oldest tools in human history. So trying to come up with something different, with something that basic, it was a challenge. So I then realized that the folder part of the knife industry was really where the action was.
00:06:10
Speaker
And about that time, ah my friends, I was with a special forces team, you know, the horse soldiers, they call them, right at the opening of 9-11 in Afghanistan. And I was always amazed at the crap they're issued with, you know, their backpacks or knives, just like lowest bidder stuff. And I started to make a knife based on those principles, like what would these guys need and want? And I've outfitted that team now for almost, I don't know, 20 some odd years, maybe both, actually more.
00:06:37
Speaker
and That's my research you know in the field. And and you know soldiers, particularly SF guys, are really brutal on knives. They don't do a lot of slicing of tomatoes. And you know they they poke, stab, bend. And the one criteria has to be like, it can't break, period. It just can't break. So whatever you want a knife to do, it's still got to work as a knife. So I then kept perfecting. Basically the same knife. I mean, when you look at what I designed, there's there's a whole lot of variance.
00:07:05
Speaker
from the basics, right? I've done a couple of crazy things like the Acculus and the Dagger, and I've done some fixed plays like the Six Inch, which was for combat combatives. And so I'm not really well known as a knife guy, and I make my knives in the States and Northern Italy, you know, I make them in places where I form a relationship with the owner. And many times I'm one of their first customers, one of their first OEM customers. yeah So whether we make them in San Diego or Maniago, Italy, you know, at Lion Steel or Tour,
00:07:35
Speaker
They just have to be the kind of knife that I put my name on it. And that's that's getting more and more unusual in the knife industry is something that's got a person's name on it that's actually used by that person, designed by what that person wants it to do. And that's it. No no marketing gimmicks, no no changing the colors every year, stuff like that. So that's my backstory. And that's an intro into DPX gear and how it got involved. Well,
00:08:01
Speaker
Thank you for sharing it with me because I had no idea you were originally a Canuck, like myself. so that Google, man. Google is your friend. I'm telling you, there's more stuff on me than Google. Thank God it's all good. um you know I've been around. I'm 69 years old. ah I started when i was working when I was 13, sweeping floors and factories.
00:08:19
Speaker
There's a lot of, well actually there's stuff on my boys school, you know, they killed, they're famous for killing 12 kids. So yeah, so i'm I'm in the media, you can you can read all day long. And I've read up on you, I just never read where you were born before. and I'm like, oh, he's Canadian, cool. Well, you know, it's funny my my family is originally from America, like in 1627, they came to America.
00:08:41
Speaker
And I called my dad and said, hey, I got my green card. He said, yeah I was thinking of getting my passport. I said, why? Well, you know, your grandparents are American. I'm like, oh, now you tell me. yeah So I'm sort of a bi-national guy, right? That's awesome. I buy a lot of knives. I'm a big collector. I've actually got close to 120, 125 knives.
00:09:02
Speaker
fixed plates, folders, you name it. I've got hard use stuff. I've got delicate stuff. I've got stuff that cost me 20 bucks. I've got a knife that I paid $3,000 for, too. And I'm fascinated by knives. And i'm I'm not a special forces guy. I don't go out there doing crazy stuff. But when I came across DPX, I just I looked at the design and it's just a really cool design. You know, you got this little divot here on the top part of the blade, which can be used to open open a can of beer, I guess. No, no. like So that idea comes from street gangs in Malaysia, and they would use they would cut notches in their folders to pull them out of their pocket. So now you think about that. That's one tiny piece on that knife, right? It's patented. That is designed to allow you to open the knife instantly to the rear of your assailant, meaning like somebody comes up in front of you. yeah Your knife is in your pocket.
00:10:02
Speaker
You pull it out, it catches on the edge of your pocket, it deploys, it makes kind of a nice click sound, oh but it's behind your back, okay? Nobody that I know wants to play, hey, what's behind your back? So it's it's a very specific design. Now it also opens beer tops, but that's just me showing off, right? That's that's pretty cool. um Interesting, I interviewed Ernest Emerson of Emerson Knives, and he's got the wave feature on his,
00:10:29
Speaker
folders, and the the whole point of that was to have a self-deploying knife as soon as you pulled it out of your pocket. Well, ernie actually know Ernie developed that. He doesn't like to talk about it, but he was going to use that to catch the other guy's knife.
00:10:43
Speaker
In other words, and in his idea of knife fighting, that you could use that little notch and you could grab the other blade. You never talked about that. You didn't say that on the podcast. Trust me, when it comes to doing patents, for example, you have to be careful, right? That what you patent is not somebody else's idea. So it has to be unique and have a special function. And, you know, Ernie's a great guy, so there's nothing negative towards Ernie.
00:11:08
Speaker
Rapid deployment in your pocket is just one use of that thing, right? And Ernie's turned into a rapid deployment. And now I think his patent has expired. So a lot of people put little nubs and hooks. But that's been replaced by flippers. But the problem with a flipper is that you're deploying your weapon to the front.
00:11:27
Speaker
Yeah. Which means that somebody can, in that time you take your knife from your pocket and you project it forward, someone could grab you by the wrist and flick it out of your hand. So there's a lot of reasons to have ah a rear deploying weapon.
Philosophy of Functional Design
00:11:41
Speaker
That's awesome. I'm sorry, no, I didn't want to say weapon an edged weapon. for to to be sure But I i purchased the first time I went on to blades Canada, and I purchased three of your three of your flippers, including this one. I think this this is one of the ones that has been made by line steel in in northern Italy. I got to tell you, this is the smoothest action of knives. It is perfect in terms of how it fits in my hand. The scales, I don't know, I think they're titanium. They're just incredible. One thing we do is aircraft gave titanium, but do you notice how it's beveled, right? You have a curve in there and then you have the inside hollowed out. I mean, it's also a balanced knife. I mean, most people don't spend the time to actually like see if one knife is better than the other and our knives all balance.
00:12:33
Speaker
They're fantastic. Some knives are balanced to go back in the hand, and some knives are balanced to go forward, put the weight forward. But folders usually balance around the middle, just in front of the pivot. Yeah. It's it's an absolutely beautiful knife. And it's obvious that it's designed for hard use. It's designed to do a job. And I love it. um At the time when I bought your knives, I bought a couple of t-shirts from um ah our friends at blades canada of yours the dpx t-shirts but i was i was a bit heavier then i got an into shape dropped almost sixty pounds so those large t-shirts don't fit me anymore i have to give them away but i love the logo i love everything about it and
00:13:17
Speaker
it's um It's pretty darn amazing that someone like you came up with a knife like this, and there's guys who all they do is make knives, and all they've done for years is make knives. But the design of this thing is simple. it's ah It's designed to be used in a particular way, and it's fantastic. And I just got to tell you, I love your knives. I think they're absolutely spectacular. I'm a big, big fan.
00:13:43
Speaker
Let me brag for a bit. So I've been living in the bush working since I was 10. You know, how many camps I've set up and how many fires I've lit and how many things I've skinned and blah, blah, blah. So I'm not a survival guy. I don't go around saying, you know, let me show you how to rub two sticks together. I'd rather use five gallons of gasoline in a bit. But the point is, is that everything that goes into my products is based on me needing something that I maybe couldn't find with something else.
00:14:08
Speaker
That's not to say I don't like other knives. You know, my original knife was a buck general of all things, right? Because I was a lumberjack and that was a great knife. If your chainsaw got cut or you had to do something, it was a great long knife. But everything in that knife has a reason. Every square inch, every millimeter of real estate. I mean, the the blade.
00:14:26
Speaker
is thick because it is designed A, not to break, but B, leaves a hell of a wound hole. And also, if you're using it to pry or whatever, it's thick enough. The handle size is my hand. like I got Sasquatch hands. The skull crusher is a non-lethal form of deploying that. If you're traveling overseas and somebody just bugs you, you just tap and afford with that.
00:14:48
Speaker
They'll go away because, you know, so the the deep pocket, I mean, the the fact that that thing sits so deep in your pocket is all specifically engineered for a reason. And even the wire strippers, you know, the hex hex drive, I just you know, I'm proud of this like a child, because when you make the same knife for 10 years or 15 years, you get a lot of input and and people saying, oh, what about this? What about that? ah We absorb all of that and we integrate it into the knives we make.
00:15:19
Speaker
But it's still the same knife. It's just better and better and better and better. you know You talk a lot like Ernie Emerson does about his philosophy on knife design and knife making. If you look at his knives, for the most part, they've been the same for year after year after year as well. And a lot of other companies, like you said, every year they come up with a different colored handle or a different colored sprint run or whatever the heck it happens to be. And it's more a marketing gimmick than actually ah something that's designed to be functional and useful. so
00:15:51
Speaker
Well, I'm a Land Rover guy. like I'm a Land Rover guy. I have a Leica camera. Once you get something right, you don't have to go too far off center to keep it working, right?
00:16:02
Speaker
and People say, well, oh, that knife was out yet last year. And it's like, yeah, it still does the same thing it was designed to do. So go ahead and buy your new Ninja knife, but you'll come back to buying practical, durable
Real Stories from Conflict Zones
00:16:16
Speaker
knives. And by the way, you know, I call these heirloom knives because I want my grandkids to have every knife that I own. You know, I want this thing to be around years and years from now. And and that's tough to make a knife that lasts that long.
00:16:29
Speaker
Yeah, they are illuminates. I'll be giving them to my sons when I'm gone. And they both like knives. That's a good thing. Thank God my boys aren't pussies. That's it's a beautiful thing. So so Robert, let me meander a little bit into your career as a journalist. I mean, what the heck made you decide to go do that after being a business owner? It's not exactly the typical career path.
00:16:57
Speaker
Well, I didn't start out to be a journalist and I have no ambitions to be a journalist. I um i wanted to get on the camel trophy, which is ah was a yearly expedition put together by R.J. Reynolds. And they they put you in these brand new land rovers and you drove across some hellacious part of the world.
00:17:15
Speaker
In this particular one, it was Africa. So we drove 70 cars, I think. ah Drove discoveries from Tanzania to Rwanda, basically the birth of the Nile of Burjumbura. Actually, it's in Burundi, sorry. And there's no Canadian team. so I approached I.J. Reynolds and said, well, you know, I'll be a journalist. I'll be the there's two guys in the back. Right. But I'll also be a ringer since, you know, I've been winching since I was 16, working for the Forest Service or whatever, driving Land Rovers. So they said done it's match made in heaven. So I my first published article was in Soldier of Fortune, if you can believe it. And sure. Yeah, that's such a good thing, man.
00:18:00
Speaker
But the point was is that I began writing articles for people about things I i enjoyed, right? And i and but you know I was a copywriter when I was 17. I was very, very young, probably one of the youngest copywriters in Canada. And I've not ever been trained to write. So you know buts it's hard for me to write.
00:18:19
Speaker
but I think you have to write things down to pay respect to the people who are doing the things you're covering. And you know, the idea of an embed, which I don't do embeds. I think I've done two in my life. um People say, let's go to the front lines and you know, you can live with us and we're going to go kill Russians or whatever.
00:18:39
Speaker
What if you don't if you don't write about it? what's What's the use of going? Right. That's my point. So I then graduated to filming. But, you know, my most famous scoop is um CNN was a big fan of my work, right? Because, you know, I help people out. I talk to journalists all the time. Like, how do you get here? How do you get there? So when 9-11 kicked off,
00:19:01
Speaker
A lot of people wanted me to go over to Afghanistan because I've been to Afghanistan. I actually did a documentary on on my Discovery Channel, and they're like, oh, you know the Taliban? Like, yeah, of course, I've been with the Taliban.
Building Intelligence Networks
00:19:10
Speaker
um So I went over and and went to London, and just cleaned out their safe, just took all the money that was in the safe, stuffed it in my pockets, went to Afghanistan, hung out with General Dostum. He had a special forces team. I filmed them. The head shed kept saying, get rid of this journalist, because this was still secret back then, right, right after the deployment.
00:19:31
Speaker
And they're like, well, he knows more about Afghanistan than we do. So you you become this symbiotic guy where you're documenting history, you're interviewing people, you're filming stuff. And then there was a big battle that I was involved in, in the Kalijangi at the fort there. And I said to Dost, I'm like, hey, you know, you know, I know a lot of Al Qaeda guys. ah If the survivors are alive, I want to talk to them. So these guys showed up at my door like, I don't know,
00:19:57
Speaker
two or three in the morning. And they were all battered and shot up and gut shot and broken legs and chest wounds. And so I interviewed them and they were all screaming because they thought I was going to kill them. Right. and And they speak some of them speaking. And the sf guys were like 30 yards back like, you know, these guys blow themselves up. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. But, you know.
00:20:18
Speaker
So, they come back and they said there's an American in the hospital. And I didn't know if that was Mike Spann or whether that was some other guy. And I went and I found this guy named John Walker-Lint and I brought a medic. And we started treating his wounds and he started talking to me. And then I sent that up to CNN and they and they thought I was kidding, right? They thought like, I found an American, he's an Al-Qaeda guy, he's still alive. And he gave me a pretty good interviewer, we did.
00:20:43
Speaker
and It was only after MSNBC ran some silly little thing that they called me back and said, is that the same guy? I said, yeah, I told you. I spent all this time with this guy. And I brought him home. And then they handed him over to the CIA. And they're like, oh, OK. So back then when you uplifted video, it took forever, right?
00:21:01
Speaker
And they're like, oh my God, this is an American al-Qaeda guy. And they called him the American Taliban for some reason. It's like, no, it's not Taliban, it's al-Qaeda. And then they called me back and they said, have you got any more? I said, yeah, I spent like an hour and a half with the guy, two hours, I mean, talking. So that was probably my my crowning achievement as ah as a journalist. But you know I've done other things that if you, once again, Google the you know stories I've written about everything from pirates to rebels to whatever.
00:21:30
Speaker
um I just try to give you a slice of life. you know I'm not political. I'm not trying to sell you anything. I just want to show you what it's like in these rebel camps with soldiers in combat. and I think I got turned off. I was working for CBS 60 Minutes in Iraq.
00:21:46
Speaker
and They were being dictated how to cover the war. You know, like don't use tripods, move around. Like they had these meetings with the military by phone on how they wanted the military media to cover the war. And I bought a.
00:22:02
Speaker
I read Bentley and I just started driving through the countryside interviewing people about these mass graves that Saddam had created, you know, all these massacres. And I realized there was no market for that. You know, there was the story, the real story was that Saddam Hussein was a butcher and that's a good reason for us to be there. But they are obsessed with weapons of mass destruction. And I told them there's no weapons of mass destruction. You know, I've got a line on a few here and there, like chemical weapons and whatever. but There's no nuclear campaign or you know giant repository of secret weapons. And that's when I said, screw it. And that's when I started the ground networks, like literally getting real information from people in small towns, vetting it, publishing it.
Personal Stories of Conflict
00:22:44
Speaker
And we became literally the number one source for clean intel in Iraq and Afghanistan. And we published it. It was public. It wasn't you know secret or private.
00:22:53
Speaker
And then when I moved over to Somalia, there were no news organizations. There were like some guy had a blog from London or something. So anyway, that's that's why I'm not really a journalist. Yeah, I'm originally from Iran when I 11 years old. The Islamic Revolution took place in Iran and my mom and dad.
00:23:15
Speaker
We're seeing what was happening. And so were we, you know, there was mass demonstrations in the streets, like tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of Tehran. um And the Shah, you know, to his credit as a human being, um didn't unleash his soldiers on those demonstrators to mow him down and to kill him. If he had, he'd have probably crushed the revolution pretty quickly and stayed in power, but he didn't. And um There was a lot of violence going on. And eventually he left the country ah to get cancer treatment. And shortly thereafter, the the military and the intelligence services, Salvage, declared that they were neutral. And so the mullahs were able to overthrow the regime and and take over. And here's what was happening. ah You know, we are Christians, so
00:24:14
Speaker
There was a lot of animosity toward us. One day I'm i'm in my house and the window smashes and and a bottle lands next to my feet. ah And it's got a ah piece of cloth and it was burning up top, a Molotov cocktail. And my dad was there. He saw it. He grabbed it. He pulled the cloth out so it didn't explode and saved my life, you know, and they, uh,
00:24:43
Speaker
They spray painted on the walls outside our house, you know, and ah die Christian scum and death to the Shaw and all that kind of stuff. and Mom and dad were like, this is not a place for us to be anymore. And shortly after they made that decision, the revolutionary tribunals, very similar to the terror in revolutionary France and and also in revolutionary Russia, started arresting regime officials and sympathizers. And dozens of people were being executed by firing squad every day.
00:25:20
Speaker
And they they they them didn't livestream this. They televised this every day. It was crazy. um And we came to to Greece first, 1980, just a month before Iraq invaded Iran. And two years after that, ah we were finally able to to come to Canada.
00:25:41
Speaker
we yeah our application was accepted and and we became citizens. So that's something I experienced when I was quite young and haven't really experienced very much since. But I've always found it super fascinating. So stories like the ones that you're telling me.
00:25:57
Speaker
you know, wake something primal up inside me, something that I'm excited about, want to hear more about. And there's times that I think, man, it it'd it'd be cool to go out there and and and actually experience it. But I'm thinking, in general, probably not. If I don't have to, it's good to live a simple life. It's good to live a ah life where I'm doing things, where I'm educating people, I'm helping people uplift themselves. And I love having conversations with men like you who've done a lot because they get to learn from you.
00:26:26
Speaker
Well, you'd be happy to know that, you know, I visited most of the front lines in Ukraine and there's a huge crowd of DPX gear fans in the front lines in Ukraine. So I bet there is benefits to visiting ah wars. Well, the funny thing is, in Ukraine, if you give somebody made out of metal and I'm not too sure where this came from, they have to give you something back because it's bad luck to give somebody something out of metal.
00:26:51
Speaker
And they would show me these knives they make. and They're just gorgeous knives. I don't know. There's a whole Ukraine sort of knife industry in there. And and I would just re-gift them to other people because they need them more than I do. But I have to say, they're not getting political now.
00:27:08
Speaker
You go to Ukraine, spend some time on the front lines, meet those people, and you'll feel like this is America and the 1700s fighting for freedom, right? You've got an oppressive, larger enemy who is ignoring your ethnic, religious, historic roots. They want to impose some other you know form of government on you. And these people are fighting, you know? And and they're very in in ingenious.
00:27:37
Speaker
the very determined not to be taken over by Russia. And I just wish every American could spend just 15 minutes on the front lines, you know being shelved, drones, whatever, and just realize how serious life is for some people. right And as you know from your experience that we're missing some of that intensity where shit matters, right? And and we should make decisions accordingly. So that's just my little political rant.
00:28:05
Speaker
you know um i I think that Vladimir Putin is a yeah is a dictator who wants to restore Russia to its past former glory. Greater Russia, Novorossiya, is the philosophy to which he subscribes. Well, think of it this way. The Russians are flatlanders, right? If you're not stealing shit, somebody's stealing your shit. And and this is, you know, I was in Chechnya with the rebels in 2000. In 1999, I know what it's like to fight the Russians.
00:28:45
Speaker
the The idea that if you're not expanding, you're contracting is really what drives a lot of nations, right? They say, if we sit here, other people are working harder than we are. And you know Putin's a bastard. There's no argument there. But he's just taking care of business. you know Most leaders of countries Always think on the offensive, not the defensive, right? So it's it's interesting to see what's going to happen now that there's a new administration coming in. um I think Trump's going to try to pressure both sides to come to some sort of settlement. He's so he's not going to he's not he's going to tell Putin you're not going to have the whole damn country. Forget it.
00:29:31
Speaker
um And he's gonna tell Zelensky look you're not gonna conquer back what you lost So what do you want to do? ah And at at some point I think they're gonna come to terms. It's gonna be an uneasy peace and It could flare up into war any time But I think it's it's gonna stop. Well, we hope but we don't run the world anymore, you know, the world runs us so we We hope that Ukraine is made whole and that Russia has a lesson, like in Syria, that there's only so much you can sustain before the people remove you.
Global Political Chaos Discussion
00:30:10
Speaker
Have you ever heard of Peter Zihan? Google his name and go back 10 years. He's always saying China's falling apart, Russia's falling apart. yeah That's his brand, right? That's his brand. Do you agree with him that this would probably be one of the few times that Russia could project power that way, or do you think he's full of it?
00:30:27
Speaker
No, I won't be that crass. Look, we we live in a world of chaos, not perfection. There's no good guy, there's no bad guy, right? I'm not a bad guy, you're not a good guy, vice versa. We live in a world of ever shrinking resources and everybody wants those resources. yeah So we come up with ways other than war, you know, and we call this fourth generational warfare. I'm not going to shoot you. You're not going to shoot me, but I'll.
00:30:59
Speaker
I'll stab your tires and you have flat tires and you won't get to work on time. You know, I'll hack your internet. I'll just make your life miserable. oh I'll buy Google or I'll buy this and I'll just make you seem like you're talking crazy. And we're under attack, and as most nations are, by the way, by smaller nations who are just projecting chaos. They're just putting monkey wrenches in our in our business.
00:31:20
Speaker
Now, we have to also learn to be not absolute, right? We have to understand that, you know, Iran exists. I don't like Iran. I don't like the way Iran's run. um I feel sorry for the people. But how the hell do you get them back? How do you get the people back into civilization like Taliban? You know, like I spent so much time with the Taliban, you know, and then Libya with rebels, whatever. Everybody's got this perverse view of the world as if that's wrong and I'm right. And Every once in a while, we see an Arab Spring happen. And that is me, you, all the unwashed people are tired of these people, the 1% of the 1%. And we just want a decent life. We want our kids to play outside. We don't want to worry about crime, whatever the basics, right? And this might lead to an isolationist world, or this might lead to us being more engaged in defending democracy. And and this is what you got to pay attention to, is that
00:32:15
Speaker
What Russia does to us, what we do to Russia, what the UAE does to Sudan, what Sudan does, whatever, you know it's like this, they're always just throwing sticks in your spokes. They're not winning anything. They're just destroying the quality of life.
00:32:30
Speaker
So thats that's my lesson that I learned from being to like over 150 countries is don't look for absolutes, you know but look for small gains, but also watch your back because your mind, your your balance, your bank accounts, your internet's being screwed with, right? What's your take on um how the world's gonna look under the second Trump administration that's coming in in January? Oh, now you just got me nailed to the wall. Okay, we're gonna do this.
00:32:58
Speaker
so I just gave you a little spiel on chaos, right? Chaos agents. um I believe we have two factors at play. One is called kayfade, which is a wrestling term, which is if you buy into an unrealistic scenario, then you enjoy it because there's good guy and bad guys. The Marvel universe is part of this thing where I'll watch a movie if I know that's the good guy and that's the bad guy, because I know how it's going to work out, right? the Same with wrestling. There's a good guy, there's a bad guy.
00:33:29
Speaker
Problem is, in wrestling, is the bad guys make more money than the good guys. you know We're cheering for the bad guys. So hold that thought right there. So we live in a world of kayfabe. And Donald Trump is is classic at inventing fictional scenarios that make people happy, right? You want free this? You want free that? Here, vote for me. Secondly, we have outside nations like Israel, UAE, Russia,
00:33:52
Speaker
Turkey, you name it, all undermining our ability to perform democratic processes. That could be disaster relief. That could be voting. That could be education. It could be my respect for your opinion, your respect for my opinion. And their goal is to put us at odds with each other. You know, the more energy we expend fighting each other, the less we spend fighting other people.
00:34:21
Speaker
Now, case in point, the issue of Ukraine is very simple. Russia attacked Ukraine. In 2014, they felt threatened by NATO. They felt threatened by U.S. activities undermining the 2019 Russian election. They had reasons to be nervous about encroachment, right? That then turned into a bloodbath, right? They used deceit. They used a little green man, et cetera, et cetera. Just as Biden was coming into office, they rolled the dice and they said Biden's going to be weak. He's an old man. He's not going to do anything. Let's let's do this, right?
00:34:54
Speaker
And they were supposed to go in, topple the government and reset Ukraine back to the way it was. Ukraine used to be governed by pro-Russia puppets. That didn't work. It got bogged down. So we did what we've been doing since 1947. We've been simply kneecapping Russia every day, just messing with them, right? We don't have an overt policy, but in 1947, there was a memo written um about how we're going to handle Russia. And this is George Kennan's ex-memo. That's the one you're talking about, right? You're good. You're good. Yeah, you're good. So we've been doing that. Now, I don't necessarily agree with that because I think one well-timed cruise missile into Putin's bedroom mike might solve problems, but there's a whole lot of political mess behind it. So anyway, what i'm saying i that would be a big risk. I'll tell you that right now.
00:35:42
Speaker
Well, it's been done, right? We have taken out people, right? It's it's it's not not the head of not the head of the largest nuclear power in the world before. not helping you remember something russias Russia is not a large country. It's a big country.
00:35:56
Speaker
by size is not a large company by military or by concept for their nukes, except for their nukes. They got a lot of nukes. You know, we know those nukes because we went in there. you Remember in the 90s, we went into all those nuclear facilities and go, oh, my God, what a mess. Like we took pictures of like the rust and the decay. You got to remember that it's a corrupt.
00:36:30
Speaker
So what we have now is is ah is an administration coming in that is really more of like a tea party thing, right? It's it's like shrink everything down, inject chaos, don't don't necessarily move forward, but then get rid of these things. And which again, is that remember that thing I told you about that you and I fighting over something versus working together to fight a greater enemy. So I think we're going to see a lot of turnover like we did last I think we're going to see our enemies and our frenemies take full advantage of an isolationist regime. And I think the economy is going to suffer. And I think at some point, we're going to distrust politicians even more. Because right now, I think we like a lot of lizards more than politicians. And and you and I are going to argue about what's the right way, who's the right guy, who's a good thing.
00:37:21
Speaker
but we have to get back to basics, right? We have to get back to Canada is our friend. My neighbor is my friend. If I have a reason to argue with them, it should be about like the noises chickens make at three in the morning, not because he voted for this guy or he believes in this policy, right? Which he has no control over. So I just caution everybody with get back to the basics, you know, in combat and war is the greatest thing in the world to take you right back to the basics, you know, life or
Social Media and Information Warfare
00:37:52
Speaker
death, good or bad. So ah I try not to
00:37:57
Speaker
get on a soap box and lecture people. But i I do see a lot of evil things happening in terms of manipulation of ideas, injection of concepts that are not American. ah Like this thing about Canada. you know Why are we trying to take the piss out of Canada? Canada is like Americans there saying, please.
00:38:18
Speaker
yeah h He Trudeau. He hates Trudeau. He wants to get. Even Canadians hate Trudeau, but it doesn't mean that we should get into it. Right. It's like it's it's absolutely we hate Trudeau over here, brother. We are. No, we are. Look, he's I'm not telling you.
00:38:33
Speaker
I'm not telling you I agree or disagree with what he's doing, but those nudges were designed to weaken Trudeau's position because when when he was on the outs, Trudeau ah insulted him more than once gratuitously in ways he didn't need to. Now he's trying to make nice and, you know, Trump's got a long memory. And so I'm a I'm a paleo-Canadian, which means I moved here in 1981, something like that.
00:38:59
Speaker
Oh, wow. Just when I remember. monday and I don't remember Canadians. I don't remember Canadians ever liking politicians. Honest to God, because remember the old truth, though, right? He was in the same position like when he he was as hated as much as his son is. His son is at his next level, brother. And when I was came back, we came to Canada in ah July of 1982.
00:39:22
Speaker
And Trudeau was not super popular then, but, you know, compared to his son, it's not like his son has done some insane things like when the freedom convoy went to Ottawa to ask for them to get rid of the vaccine mandates, he wouldn't meet with their leaders. And he said these guys are fascist, racist.
00:39:42
Speaker
I got to tell you, I went there to demonstrate against the vaccine mandates. I think they were unconscionable and un-Canadian. I think if you want to take a vaccine, you should take a vaccine. But if you don't want to take a vaccine, your life shouldn't be taken away from you. That's un-Canadian. But you sound so American talking like that. You sound like you're angry at something and Canadians are just like, look, hockey, weather, politics, you know, and what's for dinner?
00:40:05
Speaker
I was here at the at the Freedom Convoy. People were lining up the streets. There was it was the first time there was a first popular populist movement I've ever seen in my lifetime in Canada. And there were non politicians. One of the guys who was one of the organizers who now just got sentenced to prison because of his role in it, which I think is disgusting. ah I interviewed him on the podcast. We went to Ottawa.
00:40:29
Speaker
Man, it was a family atmosphere. They had bouncy castles there. There was little kids. There was families. I'm Middle Eastern. I'm kind of brownish. I'm not a white guy. There were lots of other brownish guys there. You know the truckers, 43% of the truckers are Punjabi Sikhs, OK? These are not exactly white guys in Canada. And he's calling them racist. He was saying all that. This crap he said to people, we hate his guts over all this. And then he came after my bank account with the Emergencies Act.
00:40:59
Speaker
That's when I got really annoyed. I'm like this guy. Just be careful, because I worked in a very dark world for a while. Right. You know, yeah I when I was in Afghanistan as a consultant for the four star, I also worked with Mike Flynn. Right. Mike Flynn's job was to kill people. yeah And my friends all killed people for a living. And they use databases, they use social media, they use all the things that they use now on us. Right.
00:41:28
Speaker
Yeah. So my introduction to social media is not necessarily a good thing because they would create like little silos, fake meetings, fake rebels, whatever they would lure people in, they would get killed, whatever. I'm just saying that I'm seeing that weaponized form of of social media being used here. So when you're talking about the truckers, when you're talking about Brexit, when you're talking about ah eating pets and whatever, you know, these are very carefully curated ideas that are then manipulated, then read, then reread. So just be careful. I was there, brother. when it comes i there i am hungry I interviewed two of the organizers of the truckers, right? yeah I went to Ottawa. I was there. I saw it happen. I didn't agree with what was being said on social media or not agree with it. I frankly think everybody is trying to push an air in them. I figured that out. I'm not too smart, but I'm smart enough to figure that out.
00:42:22
Speaker
Well, I saw the whole trucking thing. This was just a bunch of guys who wanted their livelihoods, man. That's all they wanted. And Trudeau, i thought you he was the one who was weaponizing social media against those guys. He was the one who was trying to get... okay let's So you're proving my point. and And the other thing you got to watch is the money. Where does the money come from? How do you microfinance certain bloggers? How do you microfinance certain... you know, political platforms, things like that. And I'm just I'm not arguing with you. I'm just saying that this exists as a
Quality Over Mass Production in Knives
00:42:50
Speaker
tool. Information warfare is very much a tool. I've seen it. You're 100 percent correct about that. um It's ah it's a crazy thing. And you dragged me in here. So we weren't going to talk about it, but I'm just telling you that I've seen politics that it's worst, right?
00:43:04
Speaker
Yeah, no, you have. There's no question about it. There's no question about it. And I got to tell you um that ah the coolest thing about you is that you make knives, as far as I'm concerned. There you go. That's the coolest thing. And knives don't argue. like They are what they are. You just... They are.
00:43:22
Speaker
These knives are things of beauty. And i love I love your little signature logo that's on the edge of the knife over there. I don't know if you can see that. It's a beautiful thing. It's just because I'm too lazy to sign my whole name, Robert. I love it. I think it's cool. um And i yeah ah I'm interested in um finding out about the people who create these things, what goes through their heads, why they decided to do it in the first place.
00:43:50
Speaker
and The main message I'm getting from you about what made you make knives is you wanted tools that you could use because you're someone who lives a life outdoors. You do interesting things. Have you seen the chop, by the way? You know, I designed a knife that I've always wanted to set up camp. It's called the chop. it'ss It's a 12 inch knife. It's some people think it's shit actually a knife.
00:44:14
Speaker
or um So I'll design knives because I want knives. That's what I want. And I don't care if I sell one or 10,000. The other thing I did is, um I don't know if you know the story of Billy Waugh, but Billy Waugh, sure, of course, one was yeah a legend, was the world's oldest. c i pararamid And we became friends. I was writing a book called License to Kill. And I wanted to learn all about the origins of you know, SF and CIA and things like that. paramially So, you know, we became friends and he's a funny guy, like, you know, fifth group guy, one of the first SF teams. He's from Texas, little guy, little guy. And he learned how to jump nuclear backpacks into Russia, like just crazy stuff, right? He was in McVie's song. He got all shot up. He became an alcoholic. He lived on some remote island.
00:45:04
Speaker
came back, became a paramilitary, was was babysitting Bin Laden through binoculars. and And so we hit it off. And I said to him, you know, Billy, what what kind of knives did you, when you were in Macri, what did they give you? And he said, well, they gave me this.
00:45:20
Speaker
crappy little demo knife. You know, it's like a Swiss army knife, but it's made in America. And I said, OK, what else did you have? So well I had a peringue. I said, OK, I get it. And ah he said, and I had this big stabbing knife. I had this sort of old World War II band. I said, OK, well, you know what I'm going to do is I'm going to reinvent those as if they were exactly what you wanted. And I'm going to put your name on it. He said, why the hell would anybody want my name on their knife? And I'm like, well, it's it's a thing, Billy, don't worry about it.
00:45:49
Speaker
So I did this knife called the Billy Waugh demo. I don't know if you've seen it. No, it's just um going on your website as you're speaking, and I might order it right now. I'll leave it to you to to see it on the internet Internet. But essentially, it's it's got the blade. It's a flipper. It's when it fits in your hand. You're like, oh, that's a knife. And then I put an all on it. Right. For like doing I used to be a blaster blaster assistant and you got a little all on it to put demo charges in there. And that I think is one of the knives I'm proudest of because it's one of the first knives that's a concept knife, right? Yeah. But yeah, I would carry that thing anywhere. It's just a gorgeous piece of steel. um I'm looking for it. I don't see it on your on your on your on your site yet. But just do we want a demo? And you'll see it. OK.
00:46:45
Speaker
There aren't that many products linked to Billy Waugh, as you can imagine. Oh yeah, the Billy Waugh demo knife. It's showing up. There it is. OK, man, that looks really cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:46:57
Speaker
OK, why don't I see that on your website to buy? But I'd love to buy it. It's an RYP design. It's technically not a DPX gear knife. It's one of my projects. So I'll do projects like the Acculis or whatever. There's just something I think needs to be. Send me a link to buy. Send me a link to buy. I'll order it. I'll do that.
00:47:16
Speaker
Yeah, send me a link to buy. I'll order it. But I tell you what, it looks really darn cool. It looks really darn cool. You know, if you know Bill Harsi, do you know Bill Harsi? So Bill and I are friends. He used to be a lumberjack. I used to be a lumberjack. And so I said, look, I'm designing this knife for Billy.
00:47:34
Speaker
But you know, I really want to have your name on it. Like I want to have that Bill Harsi touch because he's he did the SF stuff. It's probably one of the few knives you're going to see two designers working on for a legend like Billy. I was going to have him on the show, but he won't come on video. He wants to do the interview by phone and I don't know how to do that. Not with my setup. He's shy. i hear him First of all,
00:47:59
Speaker
His hand drawings, you know, he he says he's a lumberjack, right? But when you look at the quality of his pencil drawings, because he he does everything by hand, right? It's like this should be in a museum. Like I said, when you die, give me all that stuff because I want to put it on the wall because it's just gorgeous. And he's a very simplistic designer.
00:48:20
Speaker
He does a lot of work with my buddy Curtis Iovido from Spartan Blades. I've had Curtis on the show a couple of times. Curtis is a good man. um And he also designed a few things for Chris Reeve knives back in the day, mostly fixed blades for those guys. I've got one of them. Yeah, his stuff's some his stuff's amazing. It's amazing. I'm a big fan of Parzy and his work. The problem is the knives he makes are so damn expensive, the SF guys don't want to take him in the field. So the issue And then they get these little griptilian autos or something, which I went to Navy Special Warfare with my cowboy boots on. And I put the griptilian up against the corner and I hit it and it broke into about, I don't know, 12 pieces. My guy goes, yeah, yeah, we know. That's why you're here. We know they they spend more money replacing those things than they do buying them.
00:49:10
Speaker
And I just refuse to let my friends go out at night without the proper tools. A shitty knife. No kidding, man. Yeah, I'm not saying it shitty, you know, it's cost, it's lowest, you know, it's and and by right now, I have guys can buy whatever they want, right? They have a whole team that does nothing but buy junk. But what I'm saying is the idea that things are forged in the military.
00:49:31
Speaker
was a shock to me because I thought they're going out with crappy knives like the standard issue for Navy SEALs for SF was crap. Now they have better choices, right? That's good. As far as these knives are great, they are pretty expensive. um I mean, well, it costs money to make knives, you know, it's it does. It does. One of the realities is America is a very expensive place to make knives. It's very expensive.
00:49:56
Speaker
I can take any American made and I've go to China, have it done one quarter of the price, something like that. yep Now, i had I secretly had them make a knockoff of the DPX Hest folder in titanium.
00:50:12
Speaker
Nice. I was very specific. I said, I need American titanium. I need American D2. I don't want this China crap that came off of old boats or whatever. And they came back with a price that was more than what I was paying for limestone. I made the urban in America right with Southern Granite. I love those guys. They're great.
00:50:37
Speaker
But they're tits up now. so that Well, actually, they're re they're reconfigured, I think, in Florida. But the original original team was great, just great. and and they really And what happened is they started to expand, right? And they started bringing middle managers. Oh, so why? So now things had to be cheaper. And I caught them once with this.
00:51:00
Speaker
Like really messed up, like instead of the knife being perfectly centered, they'd kind of cocked it over to make it look centered. And I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's that's cheating. And then they tried to BS me and that was just before they went tits up. But that's not to say the people involved originally.
00:51:18
Speaker
You know, we're just gems, just hot rod guys, knife guys, whatever. And this is what I'm trying to get across is that there's very few companies that people have a passion about machining perfection. yeah And they have to hire good people who are talented and they have to pay them a decent salary. And you're going to pay more for a knife that comes from a quality manufacturer.
00:51:40
Speaker
The Spartan boys knives are top notch. I'm happy to pay. I've got a bunch of their knives, including a couple out of their Harsies. I like their fixed blades. To tell you the truth, I got about close to a half a dozen of their fixed blades. They're amazing. and Chris Reeves, machining is really top notch. Excellent. Excellent.
00:52:02
Speaker
And again, what my point is, is that the Chinese came in and started doing those gas station knives, you know, where they stamp them out and they're five bucks. And somebody said, no, no, that's not the market. Go hire American designers, go get government subsidized CNC mills and start making $200 knives, $250, $350, whatever. And when the fit and finish is excellent,
00:52:28
Speaker
but they ripped the guts out of the knife market. They saturated the knife market. And I think a lot of people were disappointed because you had all these designs, all these knives, you know, cranking out, but they're all, they're not cheap, they're not expensive. And now they're blowing them out for like 25 bucks, 30 bucks back to gas station point. And if you're a knife fan, I would always buy a knife from a guy who I could call on the phone and yell at him if something didn't work, right?
00:52:56
Speaker
I would also buy a knife from a guy who actually uses his knife in some situation where I hope that that knife is meaningful, right? Not just carrying it around. And I'm one of the few survivors in that world of a guy who really uses his own knives. I don't come out with 20 new knives every year. If I do come out with a new knife, it's got a hell of a story guide like the Billy Wong knife, you know, where it's it's ah It's something that I cherish and other people cherish.
Learning from Diverse Perspectives
00:53:25
Speaker
So that's my only spiel about the knife business. it It allows me to provide an authentic product to an authentic user. I try to keep my costs as low as I can. I don't put bells and whistles on things. um But you know, equipment, material, talent.
00:53:42
Speaker
And if you don't keep good people employed, how are they going to buy knives, right? like So you you just got to feed the machine. so You do. your your Your knives are fantastic. um You're a good man. ah You're a smart man. Well, you don't know that. You're just assuming that. But that's OK.
00:53:58
Speaker
Well, in the hour that I've spent with you, I've picked up some vibes from you. i'm ah I'm a pretty good judge of character. I'm good at sizing people up really quickly. And I've really enjoyed speaking with you. you know Your take on ah politics is one I hadn't heard before, so I appreciate it. One of the things I tell people is I do these episodes to inform and educate the people who follow me and listen so they can learn something that will be beneficial to them in their life or in their business because I work mostly with business people.
00:54:32
Speaker
But here's the real secret. I come and I interview someone like you because I want you to spend some time teaching me something I don't know. I want your your wisdom, your coaching. And I'm 600 plus episodes into this podcast. I'm close to 170 episodes into another podcast that I do. I've interviewed close to 700 men and women, and I've learned something from each one of them. And I feel so grateful.
00:55:02
Speaker
Robert, for that, for the chance to speak to people who really are very, very good, the best in the world at what they do. And I consider you in that number and get to see how they think, get to learn what they know and challenge my own assumptions about things. You challenge my assumptions about ah certain aspects of domestic politics and North American politics. And I'm grateful for that because otherwise I'd stay in my own bubble.
00:55:30
Speaker
And I think all of us need to challenge the powers that be that govern us, because I lived in a country where we didn't do that. And because of that, we had to leave. So you of all people should always say, why do I think this way? It may may be right and may be wrong. Right. And I'm saying the more people you listen to, the more places you travel to, the more ideas that are shoved into your head.
00:55:54
Speaker
the more you can judge accurately and just look behind the curtain. There is a guy with a lever. I mean, I'm not a conspiracy nut, but things don't just grow out of the ground. You know, naturally somebody plants. Oh, absolutely. Really enjoyed this. Please send me the link to open it up there. We want to talk soon. Okay. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year, my friend. Same to you.