Left of Greg 100 Our 100th Episode Celebration

Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. I'm Brian, I'm the host of The Human Behavior Podcast. You're going to be watching the video version of our audio podcast. Please, guys, if you like the video, like it, subscribe to the channel. There's going to be more content on there if you're already a subscriber, and a better way for us to get you guys some more stuff. If you have any questions or comments, go ahead, leave them below. Check out our links down below to get a hold of us and to actually find out more places where you can get more information about this. Please like and subscribe. Follow us on Facebook at HBPRNA (Human Behavior Pattern Recognition and Analysis).

Remember, all these cases that we discuss and all these discussions that we have are through the lenses of what we call Human Behavior Pattern Recognition and Analysis. So please like it, share it, tell your friends about it, and we hope you enjoy the show. On today's episode, Greg and I are joined by some of our past guests in order to commemorate our 100th episode. In today's show, we talk about some of the things we've learned along the way, how the podcast has grown, and we get some of our guests to give us their best impressions of me and Greg.

We're releasing this episode on Thanksgiving in order to give thanks to all of you who have supported our work by listening to or watching the show. Special thanks to all of you who have reached out to us with questions and comments. Please keep them coming because it helps us improve the quality of our content. Please don't forget to follow us on social media. You can find the links in the episode details. And if you enjoy the podcast, please tell your friends about it. Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you enjoy this special episode.

All right, man. Well, one of the things, we appreciate you coming back on here and celebrating our 100th episode. You were one of our guests that made the list of people we wanted to have back. So, is that good or bad?

Oh, wait a minute. It's more reasonable to say, Stephen Drumm answered an email and I didn't have anything to do today. I think that's a better way to explain it.

Thanks a lot, Greg. I really was liking where that conversation was going. So long, but distinguished.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

So one of the things, because we had you on, and one of the things you did was, you helped build a kind of a resilience program within the Navy, the Warrior Toughness program. Not just being an active duty SEAL, but this is training later on that you helped do. And now you do that also with private companies and such as well. So I kind of maybe start off because this is around Thanksgiving time, big time also for resilience and mental toughness and all that, just because of the holidays, which can be rough for some people. It always is in my family down on the South Side, but that probably has to do with the amount of alcohol consumed more than anything. Any holiday folks, don't buy in.

So, what are you... We'd love to hear kind of like what you're thankful for, even though middle of the pandemic still. We just had, I guess when you're listening to this, just had an election, so hopefully we're all still here. And then it wouldn't have figured out who won.

Yeah, that may be the case. This is funny that we're recording it now. Brian will edit it in, and he'll have a photo and Brian's, you know, will be frozen like this and he'll say, "President so-and-so." It'll be a different voice and everything. It'll be very clever, I bet.

Yeah. So what are you thankful for still, even though it was kind of a rough year, 2020, and it's starting to wind down. So what are the things that helped you come through the year and what have you been thankful for?

You know what's funny? I remember when this whole started. I remember, and I may have brought this up on the episode. I think it's really well into it. I remember being there and right as gigs started, my live in-person stuff is what I love to do, right? I love to connect with people. It gives me energy. It's a passion of mine. But opening up the envelope with the check for my advanced payment and just happened to tear that in half and feeling very like woe is me, right? Because then that was the indicator of what was to come. And feeling a little bit sorry for myself until I realized exactly how many people were suffering, aside from the actual human loss, but the actual jobs, the type of things that people were going through. And so then I realized, there's still a way for me to be effective. There's still a way for me to be of some kind of service.

And I think, fast forward several months, I've been able to do some really good virtual events and I'm hoping I've really been able to give some content that's helped people. And I think we all go through the different cycles, the highs and lows, as we go through all of this. And I think, I'm no different. I still have my doubt like everybody else. I still face that. I still face the frustration of a wife working from home, of two kids who are doing distance learning, so there's competition for both real estate and bandwidth. My wife actually gets out and goes to her offices to work. I'm now doing my thing, doing the Mr. Mom, if you will, making the lunches and all that. And so there's the one aspect of me that's frustrated.

But then, if I'm really able to stop and reflect and really look at and say, "You know what, where do I find the gratitude?" which I started doing every day, and I'm glad you brought that up. A good friend of mine, Shannon Cassidy, that we went through some speaker training, she was like, "Where do you show acts of... How do you connect with acts of gratitude in your life?" And so I decided I'm going to do that every morning when I wake up, is decide what I'm grateful for. And, this morning was my daughter's birthday and I got to be there and enjoy that. I get to see her all day. And just being around my kids, even though it interrupts my workflow, it's been a gift to be able to have that much time with them. And you guys know, from being in the military, that's the things that you really long for when you're deployed and such. So that's like one of the big things. And I think I would recommend everybody take a time out, before they go to bed and before they wake up in the morning, to just come up with something, not just the same crap every day, right? "Well, I have my health." Right? But something different that really gets you to engage in what you're grateful for.

No, it's really good. And you kind of even mention it, same similar issues. Same thing, wife working from home, I'm working from home. We got the little insurgent. She's fashioning weapons out of toys in a room and had to deal with the homeschooling stuff. But you said, because I had the same feeling where, yeah, the kids are here, it interrupts your workflow and what you're doing, but it's how you handle that. It's kind of like, "Hey, you know what, I may never have this opportunity again," or, "This might..." I mean, she's my little... What is she? Eight. So it's like, "Well, this is pretty cool. I get to spend a little bit of time with her that otherwise would never have happened." And now it's hard to have that every day if it occurs where she's coming up here one time, snuck up the stairs and I was on a call and she would wave and be quiet. She's like, "Oh, are you on a call? You're on a call? Okay, I'm going to go downstairs," rather than just leaving. She had to explain what she was doing, which was adorable and hilarious. But you're like, it doesn't flow. So not only do you have the gratitude, but just having that kind of mindset of like, "You know what, how do I turn this into something positive?" And I think that's a really good one. I don't know, Greg, if you have...

Yeah, first of all, coming up on Thanksgiving, I just want to share that I'm thankful for having a friend that is as motivational as Stephen Drumm, that is as driven as Stephen Drumm, that is, he has structure in his life that I only wish that I had. And I will one day, I'll keep swinging. But I would bring up to both of you, remember every time that we were deployed, that we wished for this? We prayed to God to get us out of where we were so we could be back home with our family and just concentrate on them. And I remember thinking, "Oh, man, I would love being on an island somewhere and just having my family and having nobody else. And every day we would get up together." And now we've got it, and every one of us has got some gosh darn thing to say about how it ruined our life or how it messed us up. So, I love that, Stephen. Every night I drop to my knees and I pray for the day that I just had. And now every morning I'm going to get up and I'm going to be thankful for something different. So you gave me some inspiration there. I appreciate that.

No, thanks. It was funny, and that's exactly right. You brought the point that we're guilty of this both in our personal lives and in terms of business. And I just had a call today with a client and we discussed, a lot of times our sales force, a lot of times our staff are looking, they're become so fixated on the future, on the next quarter, that it's kind of coming at a cost of being as fully focused and engaged in the present. And things can distract. That excitement can distract, that anxiety can distract from that. And so I think it's a great, it's a great reminder to just stop and be like, "All right, let's center ourselves and let's focus on what we can do to be the most effective right now, professionally and personally."

That's a great point. And we thank you for obviously coming on here not just to recap, but your original episode was awesome. We got a lot of positive feedback from people who kind of heard stuff that Greg and I talked about from a different perspective and just how it applies, right? Like you said, at work, at home, that kind of stuff. And sometimes we don't always go that route just because we're so used to doing what we do. So when you were coming in to go, "Well, yeah, what you guys are saying applies right here," and we're like, "Yeah, we knew that, that's why we had you on the show." But we really appreciate having you on there. So we're curious if there's anything that you've had, or like listened to an episode, or something funny about, or a "Greg-ism." I was really wondering if you have a "Greg-ism" that's stuck with you, or something that you've heard on a show or anything like that. You know what I'm trying to say? You know what I'm trying to say?

So what you're saying is that... No, you don't have one of those. Thank you very much, by the way. And I speak very slowly too, right?

Oh my God.

Well, you know, it's so funny. I'd love to unpack some great wisdom, but I remember, if I can remind the audience, because even though I'm sure they remember the conversation we all had like clear as day, is how I even ended up there. I was like, working with Greg many years ago, being so impressed by exactly what you guys talk about, the fact that nobody else talks about it, and how it translates so broadly. And that's the thing that resonated with me. Is you take something in this combat environment, you put it in a different context because of how human behavior is, it absolutely fits. And that's one of the connections I try to make with my work is, "Hey, these things that we do to prepare for combat and be resilient after stressful events, that absolutely applies to the other things, even when it's not life and death on the line." But I connected, I asked you guys, I'm like, "You guys are just so darn entertaining. I don't know what the heck we're going to talk about, but can I come on and hang out for a little bit?" And so that's really what it was all about. So I was like, "Hey, can I come on the podcast?"

That's a gracious thing. No, we appreciate you coming over. That was, that was good too. You know, with Greg always saying that, I look back to, "You know, is that, hey, you know what I'm trying to say?" or, "You know what I'm saying?" And I eventually learned, like, I don't have to answer that when he says that because otherwise, after the start of the podcast...

Yep. Or, right, right, like I'm on the street, that was my pregnant pause. You know what I'm saying? And see there it is again. And so I do it so much that it's one of those diphthongs. It's one of those things that you don't know that you do, and then when somebody comes up and says that, the greatest thing is being roasted by your friends because they have no borders. There's nothing that's without. We say that all the time, Brian, who's worse on a Marine? And I bet the SEALs are the same way. Well, you guys, I don't know if you guys had it in the Marine Corps or the Army, or the police department. You know, whenever you leave a command, whenever you leave, you get a paddle, right? You get the big paddle with the poem on it, the rhyming poem, and they're absolutely brutal that, yes, it quotes the chorus. You hang them on your wall. And then people are like, literally... Clearly you had no friends in the SEALs. That's why you always hang it behind your desk so people can't walk around to go read it.

Yeah, it was a SEAL. That's great. I, I think, I just got to say, I mean, I just loved being such a... as you articulated, Brian, being such a fan of Captain Dale Dye. And oh, yeah, yeah. So I know the projects he was involved with. I just remember, like, watching Platoon. My parents who were like very anti-war, they're like, and they felt I was a little too much like gung-ho with the military. Like, "We're going to take him to see Platoon! That raw, visceral war is going to fix him." And also be like, "Hell yeah! That's it!" Exactly. Like Band of Brothers, or no, Saving Private Ryan. I remember I, we all watched that. A lot of guys in our SEAL platoon, we watched that on my first combat, on my first military in Germany. You remember, when you watch movies overseas, you got to stand for the national anthem, and then you watch the movie. And I was like, "Man, that was awesome!" And Band of Brothers, all-time favorite mini-series, hands down. And think about it, all Dale Dye. So everything that you mentioned, Dale Dye was in the central theme of every one of those.

That's fantastic. Every single movie that you're wrong. Yeah, before Dale Dye there was Chuck Norris. No, he was great because he, like, totally admonished me on the show. He's like, "Bro, why do you say that?" What? I was like, "Oh, sorry, sir." I locked my body. I was like, "Yeah, it's my show, but, yeah, here you go. I'm going to go ahead and take a backseat real quick." So yeah, he was great. Well, man, we really appreciate you just at least hopping back on here and for a little bit, a little bit more of your time to get from you. And we know it's valuable, so I don't want to take too much more, but we really appreciate you having back on here. We thank you for having a guest. And again, if we want to do something again in the future, I think we definitely should because there's going to be more. So, hey, let's do something together. All right.

All right. So we're welcoming back for this segment, Mr. Scotty Witt, who has been on the show twice as a guest, who's been listening to us probably longer than anyone that I know of, or that's listening, and it's kind of watched us grow. So, Scotty, first of all, thank you so much for joining us back on here for our 100th episode.

My pleasure. This is great. This is, and it's a respectable hour. This is the first time I haven't had this at four o'clock in the morning or something.

Yeah, I do appreciate that. We do make you get up at some really, really early part of the day, and you're half-awake, and then you've usually got, usually, yeah, stuff to do, and you usually, last couple of times, you had Bill Shakespeare kind of behind you joining in.

Yeah, I thought I'd go for a Clint this time.

There we go. We got, we got something going on.

I can't, I can't have kind of Greg in the background lying in a bed in a gold sheet, so I went for a Clint.

Here's the thing, Brian, this is one of the rare times that we actually are fans of Scotty Witt. You know what I'm saying? So, there are many times that we have guests on because we want to move the dial or, you know, get a point across or argue a point perhaps, but you're one of those people that Brian and I just do the, when you're on, and just let you have an open mic. We dropped the mic and just let Scotty go.

You had me at "cognorati." That's so true.

And you were both a guest and a listener at first who reached out and we kind of started a correspondence. And there's so much bashing on social media and everything, but it also allows for connections like this. Really cool. You're literally across the world in Australia, and we somehow, we connected. You heard me on a podcast then from there and just to exchange ideas and thoughts. And it just really opens up that aperture, which is what we're trying to do, right? Is get people to, "Hey, you got to open up the world a little bit, see what's out there." And to connect like that. So I'm always thankful for those positive things that come out of it, because we only really hear about the negative, but we have stuff like this to be thankful for. So I appreciate it.

It's funny, I listened, I went back and listened to the first three episodes again because I was, I don't know, I was just something to do, I suppose. It's been interesting watching...

What's that? The rough episodes, I call them.

Well, the DNA has always been the same, that's the first thing that became really apparent. But it's been interesting, if you take a, you know, a 30,000-foot view, sorry, the phones are going, I'm still at work here, and the camera puts on 30 pounds.

He's only doing this because he's out of reach, Marren, because you can't know that I can't reach through. He's like an 18-hour plane ride away.

Exactly. I'll forget why I went. Yeah, I think the DNA has not changed, but it was interesting reflecting, and my memory was kind of true to it. But it was interesting, those first few were really much a platform for generating kind of where you guys were at and what you were doing. And it was interesting, once you stepped off that soapbox, in a good way, that once you kind of got off what it was that you were here to do, and you actually started drilling into just the content, it was really interesting watching both of you open up mentally and physically to different sorts of content. And that's when it started getting really, really rich. So it was like a story or a play. We needed that exposition at the beginning of, "Who's Greg? How do I get to know Greg? How do I get to know Brian?" And then we met a couple of the board members and stuff, and it'd be great to have those some of those voices back. Like, I remembered listening to Cody at the beginning, it's like, "That's that, yeah, I'm Will." And of course, Shelley. Just get some of those characters back.

But once you've kind of got your rhythm, then you both started opening up, which is why I flicked that email maybe 10 episodes [ago] when I said, "Oh, you're standing up now," which is really, it was... No, it's just a really, it's all about behavior and human behavior. So what that's what I was picking up on, is your whole body language changed. And that was the first time I noticed, which is the email you were talking about, where I went, "Hey, you really took it up to Greg on that one." It was the first time I'd ever heard you go, "Hey, hang on, hang on. I actually, I'm on a roll here, dude. Let me talk." Anyway. But that's just, just painting a picture of the last, 94 episodes or whatever, I think that's what just dropped as 94. And just watching that progression of the different sorts of facades, to quote Greg again, "Got to get the scales dropped from my eyes." And you start, we see, he even does the arm motions.

Well, I got, got a half a page of notes here on my yellow pad because I'm colorblind. So, anyway, it's been great to, I know I made some notes of some of the stuff that, like, John Mitchell's Episode 49 was, was a really good one. It was just, I started to hear just some passion. And I know, and what was ironic, I guess, is that because you guys don't talk about motive, it's always about to stick to the artifacts, stick to the artifacts on the architecture. That was the first time I really heard some of your emotional connection to the content that started to come out. And that was really good to kind of meet part of the heart and soul of who Greg and Brian were. And Michelle Palandini's, I think that was like 46 or something. That was great. The Tom Lake one.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

But that that was a particularly moving episode. That was, that whole period there, sort of 40 to 60, were really good. And then you moved into the fear stuff, and I think that kind of got you back on track.

But, and the mass shooting one was really interesting, Episode 70. And of course, you both went crazy over Dale Dye.

Yeah, yeah. It's just, oh my God, were we fanboys or what? I know I've never talked about... I know I totally let me, Dale Dye... Well, I even said it, I was like, "All right, I already, I'm just going to call this right away because this is going to be a different thing."

Yeah, yeah. Well, and then he yelled at me. He told me he berated me on my show, and I went, "Yes, sir. Yes, sir." It kind of opens up. Anyway, that was just an interesting observation. The other cute observation was you didn't use who the podcast is affectionately named after until the third one.

Oh, really?

Yeah, which is interesting. Yeah, a penny, a penny must have dropped, and then I think you started generating your own kind of byte that you could just drop into the...

Yeah, and then save time. That was the thing. So leading up was kind of like, "How do I intro it? Find our own way." Like you said, you got to find the voice. And we just got to, the only way to do it with this podcast thing, especially as much research as I did on it before we did, I was like, "Man, there's so much. You'd kind of just have to do it." And all the best advice that I went back through that I realized work were people that were saying like, "It's going to suck at first. You're going to hate the sound of your own voice. It's going to be awful. If you make it past a few episodes, you'll keep going. Otherwise, you're going to do a few and go, 'Oh, this isn't for me,'" and that was it. And I knew that with Greg's dynamic, Greg not understanding, there's not a bad way, just not understanding the format. He doesn't know what this is and he's trying to teach instead of just trying to have a discussion, and because that's what he knows and wants to do and get the message out there versus, "Let's bat it around a little bit. It's going to be a little rough, but our opinions aren't formulated yet." It was hard to get to that where now we can just be like, "Hey, want to do this topic? Boom! Yeah, I got this. This is, let's go right now." And we can come up with something and have a great show and go back and forth in just a matter because we have that rhythm and that routine. So it's kind of amazing.

And I think Brian hit on something. Brian came to me with the idea of the podcast and, professionally, I have never said no to Brian because his instincts are great. He's got great ideas. He's always trying to move the ball forward. And so even if it's something I'm uncomfortable with or I, I principally, it was opposed to early in my career or whatever, I always say, "Yeah, let's do it. Okay, I'm in a hundred percent." Now Brian and I are learning each other. We're in that dark room with 16 ounce gloves swinging around trying to hit each other on those first couple episodes. And we would bring somebody on and that was the exact wrong thing to do because what we did is we brought on, we coveted what we know the best. So we brought our friends and we brought our board members on and everything else, thinking that they would be as excited and have the spark that we did. And many times, many times that was not what I'm trying to say.

And I got burned a couple of times because I reached into my rolodex and I go, "Hey, Brian, I've got this great person that I knew back in the day and I did this." And, you know what, I forgot the old water under the bridge. So they would come on and they would go, "Well, Gary, you and Brick have a great show here." So that, that Alcoholics Anonymous where we met. And we're like, "You know what, with a podcast you can't unring that bell, man." And especially when Brian started saying, "Let's go Facebook Live," all of a sudden the spotlight's on you and all those warts and all are showing.

Yeah. And so I was curious as to what, some people have written in and given similar, like, "Oh, I hear it now." So I'm curious if anything ever stuck with you or something you've heard enough times that you now see it or hear it when you, somehow think of it when you see something. I don't know.

Well, I think there's just a list of "Greg-isms." And I even wrote them down: "trick bag," "sled," "45 pounds," "caper," "architecture and artifacts," "gallows humor," that one, that one just keeps coming back to me, "scale from the eyes," and, "yellow padding it." Like that, that's definitely one where I go, I might be in the middle of a conversation just doing my own thing. Instead of saying the words, "I need to make some notes," it'll be, "I just need to yellow pad that."

Yeah. So Steve was on, Stephen Drumm was on, and he goes, "Do you know what I mean? You hear what I'm saying?" And he was, he was doing that because when I get animated, apparently he thought that I repeat those type of comments. I don't see it. And I've never watched one of our episodes. I'm petrified to go back, you know. I don't know what I say.

No, it is also interesting watching, well, sorry, listening, watching at the beginning, there was this, which is a really normal part of the process, that some of the stories would repeat because you feel like you would have to catch people up on stuff. And then, a little bit like, did you ever watch The Wire?

I, yeah, I know the show you're talking about.

TV show called The Wire. What was really interesting about that particular show is that the dialogue and the text was very, very unforgiving. Whether you understood the syntax or the languaging, there was no, "We're not going to explain this languaging to you. You just have to kind of get on board and deal with it." And it's been interesting also watching this, just bear with me, this is where my analogy is going, is that after a while you started to let go of feeling like you had to tell these stories over again because you just got on with the content, if that makes sense. And that was, that was a great refreshing watering of that layer of kind of who Brian and Greg was. That was, it's just been interesting watching that development.

Brian's going for that Daytime Emmy. Brian's scripting is getting, it's getting better and better.

I think it's cool that you can pick that stuff up because, you know, it's awesome, right? Because you're articulating things that I didn't know it, but I knew it, right? So I said, "Yeah, it's gotten better," but I didn't know what had changed. I just figured, you know, we're building it and it's getting better as it goes along. But now it's great from an outside perspective, we go, "Yeah, well, here's why, because you used to do this and then once you've got past that, it got even better." So it's, it's cool to hear that, and I really appreciate that, just because I can't roast Greg the whole time, but I think a small roast on Brian would be like, for example, the story you would like to tell would be the one about, "You know, I did really, I did really well, I didn't punch that guy."

Yeah, people were like, "No, no, no, no." It's like, "I know, I've heard this story."

I've said that though. I always preface that story now. I'm like, "I know, that's brain damage."

Yeah, I really don't think Brian's repeating it. I think Brian thinks he's saying it for the first time. He's doing the Charles Manson, "Hey, if I haven't heard it, it's new to me."

Yeah, and like punching the keyboard.

But you've let all that stuff go, and what it means is you can get to the content quicker because we don't need the preamble. And so the sentence, so each episode opens up quicker to what it is you're trying to get to because all those little preambles disappear. And I think that's why it's been crystallizing and becoming more of a diamond rather than staying in the coal kind of territory. But again, that's just an outside eye sharing a very jaundiced, very brown eye. It's a very pink eye, brown eyelid, guys. I like to call it. You got to clean the pillow.

Greg, Greg doesn't let up the gallows humor. Yeah, but let me tell you what, it's like this all the time. So Shelley's answer, people go, "It must be great living with Greg." She goes, "I've been with him over 35 years. I've heard it all. There's nothing I haven't seen. Take him, you can have him." So Marren, people go, "What's it like hanging with Greg?" And he's like, "I just can't wait to get to the bar and have that first Jameson." So it's not very complimentary in my own...

That's what I tell people. I go, "If you ever see me start laughing or I have a reaction, it's there's still about, I've heard about 80... Like it's slowly, the percentage of what I've heard is going up. So I'm, but I'm still only at like maybe 85%. So there's still something where Greg will throw in, I'll be like, 'Holy cow, I didn't, did not see that one coming.' So I've never heard that one before."

Yeah, yeah. And there was also, what was good about the going live, which is just too really too early for me, but it, it was an honoring and a respecting of your listeners that they can now start to join the conversation. Because when you're listening to a podcast, I can't, I can't talk back. It's just a one-way conversation. And by progressing that relationship to a two-way conversation means you, it's a much bigger respect for you or for your audience. And I think that can only grow.

Yeah, and that's what we're trying to do with it. One, I'm always asking people, like when some people write in, "Hey, really like the show," or, "This is cool," and I'm always like, "Hey, if you have something that you want us to cover or questions, just send it to me. We'll cover it." And I always try to get that feedback. And it's hard sometimes because I think a lot of times people are like, "Dude, I don't know where you guys are going sometimes. Like this is awesome, but some stuff is..." I'm not sure which is okay because what happens over time is people start going, "Oh, crap. Now the light bulb is going off." But for us, I know I've had ones where we've gotten done and I published it. I'm like, "Yeah, that episode was kind of like, all right." And we have people that are like, "Dude, that was absolutely incredible. That's my favorite one." I'm like, "Really?" And then I'll have one where I'm like, "Damn, that was so cool. We loved it!" And people were like, "Yeah." I'm like, "What? I love that one!" So it, you're always going to have that, I guess, what we think is going to be great, and then versus what I think is like, "Oh, that's all right," is you never really know what's going to hit sometimes.

Teaching, I'll tell you a funny one, Scotty, because I know you have a million. Brian and I were teaching with Shelley back East in a military base. And you never know what you're going to get into with the crowd. You never know what dynamic's going to work and you never know if you got to be serious or hit them with a joke or how to set the hook. So you've got to play the audience just as much as you play the material. And so we were doing this very semi-Socratic Bayesian way of getting the audience involved by questioning them on each thing that we're doing right up front. And there was one guy, no matter what we yelled out, everybody in the class, when we asked everybody in the class, would say the right thing. It's, you know, it's Colonel Mustard, he's in the study. Look out, he's got the pipe wrench. And this one guy would yell, "Shoehorn." You know what I'm saying? "Okay, what do you see?" He'd say, "Gumball." Or something. And he was so off base, we just completely had no idea. I feel like we're like walking through a video and, like, and so the guy, "Which guy is it that's going to pull the gun out?" And everyone'd be like, "Oh, orange sweatshirt." He'd be like, "The guy behind the counter." And you're like, "What? Where did you get this?" But you got to keep moving it forward.

Yeah, really good.

You can't, you can never say no when you're improv, right? And so we're like, "Hey, you got it, pal. Go with it." And I still wonder whatever happened to that guy because there's a lot of shell shock and battle damage. I'm sure you get an email from them.

Well, if I get somebody to say, "shoehorn," I'll know exactly. But, and so if I flip, if I flip it around, what if you reflect on what you were hoping to achieve initially and where it is now? Is there a disparity between those two things, or is it kind of doing what you set out for it to achieve?

So one, the original kind of thing was to, "All right, I want to get the message out," because I want basically like HBPR is SSS IV. So, but I want to get, it's almost free marketing, right? Like, "How do I get this out?" So because all we need is people to hear it and go, "I want people calling us for for work, right? I don't want to be calling people." And that happened relatively quickly once, actually, I went on that Mentors for Military podcast that you heard me on. People immediately were just like following us, "Hey, I want some of this." People reaching out, "We want training." So I'm like, "Okay, step one has been met."

And then from there, I wanted to continue this and just all it was was, "Let's talk about what these are conversations we have in the car." This is how I came up with it. We were a couple years ago driving from Los Angeles back down to Oceanside where spoke up at the, up at University of Southern California, their Institute for Creative Technologies. And we had to drive back down to Oceanside, California, for this course we were putting on for their school district, for the teachers. And we were just having those conversations in my truck because I'm driving Greg. And it just dawned on me. It was like, "This is a podcast. People would, people would listen to this conversation and they would be fascinated by it." So that's where the concept was born from. And then I just wanted to always talk about these issues or topics that are relevant from our perspective and give people a framework to maybe understand.

And I don't ever want someone to go where I don't, like, I don't want to say, "Hey, here's the answer," or, "Here's what I think you should do," or, "This is what it is." It should all be, "Hey, here's how you ask questions. Look, this is how you think critically. This is how you can, whatever situation that is." And if we can move the bubble on that to just get people to go, "Hey, you know what, this issue is a little bit more complicated than I thought," then, then now we're good, right? We're, we're moving that bubble. And so I kind of want to keep doing that. And then now as we hit the 100th episode, and then to go from here, it's I want to keep doing that, but I want to challenge us in a way, like, "Let's do something that we haven't done," or, "Let's cover it, but let's get really detailed," so that when you tune in, you're that hour podcast, you can sit down and, "Oh, I got to pause and take notes and then keep listening and take notes and go, 'Man, I wonder what they...'" Like, I want it to be that engagement. I want the value to be very, very high versus just us kind of discussing an issue. So there's different ways I want to approach that, but I want it to be like you listen to each episode and go, "Damn, they put a lot of thought into that." You know what I'm saying?

Well, it's not to say we haven't put thought into it. 99, I mean, but no, no, you're exactly right, Brian. And I don't think we really had more pretense than what Brian is talking about. But there was the third leg of that stool. I think, Scotty, Brian and I both said that, "Look, we want to monetize this at some point. But if it takes a few years of us doing it absolutely for free to get rid of the charlatans, because there's so many charlatans, you mail me a check, I'll send you a certificate, you put your name here and I'll put you on a..." Whatever. That's the other thing, they're doing crappy work. So we wanted to make sure that we drew a line in the sand and say, "We will expose our jugular. We'll step up to the stage and show you who we are and that we are the undisputed experts of this and let you keep swinging at us." That was the third thing and I think we've accomplished that in large part.

Yeah, that was another, another meaning that we've had a number of people reach out to us about other folks who are doing things and using whatever, and they're trying to pass something off and sell something. And we're going to go, "Oh." So I just said, "Oh, well, we'll just do all what they're doing. We'll just do it for free and just get people to listen to us and we'll do our free webinars and do stuff like this because our free stuff is better than what you're going to pay them for. So imagine if you actually hired us."

So that was kind of admirable. Admirable that it could have been, it was very easy to hear in your voices. You could easily have been drawn into wanting to debate what other people. And I didn't even know that territory, but I could, I could tell that you were very tempted to want to either defend yourself or poke fun at all or ridicule what other people are doing. And I could see that you, I could hear it in your voices that you were resisting that temptation, which I think is admirable that you just kept your your keel straight and thought, "Well, we'll just keep discussing what we're doing. We're acknowledging sometimes you say a word or two about what other people might be doing, but it's been really good to hear that you've just gone, 'You know what, we'll just, you won't be drawn into discussing that. This is, this is better than that. But we'll just stick to our...'"

And it's interesting at the beginning too, you use, when you think about syntax, you use the word "moderator" at the beginning too, Brian, which is interesting, where you positioned yourself as a sort of a quasi-neutral person. This is in terms of story writing, to help give the listener a POV into Greg's world. And then eventually you were able to step out of that role, which I think if you didn't, you wouldn't be able to have the kind of banter you did. So it was just really interesting, clever, whether you, whether it was a conscious moment to go, "I'm no longer going to use the word moderator." And so you really positioned yourself early so that people felt like they had a lens with which to listen to the content. And so that was just interesting watching that development too.

And I used to, I remember at the beginning, I think he said, "We'll call it Left of Greg." And then, and I think Greg's response was, "I'm sure there's a whole podcast just in the naming of it." And then I started thinking, "That's because you drive on the left side, which means if you're driving Greg, you must be left of Greg." So I figured that must have been actually what it was about.

Is, and both of us have hearing losses, right? So we'll be driving along and sometimes what I think he said or asked me, I'll be commenting on, and Brian will be getting laughing, and I'm like, "What's going on?" And then he'll ask me something and I won't respond. So we have a, we have a heck of a time. We've done that before and I'm driving and it's like maybe loud or whatever. And then I ask him something, he goes off, and I'm like, "No." And so we're basically each having two different conversations, seemingly talking to one another, both looking at each other like, "You're a complete idiot. Why, what are you talking about?" Because we didn't, we didn't hear it right.

I said, "No, it's that." And so we've done that. But yeah, that was, that's exactly it. It's not just the Left of Bang, but then I'm always, I'm sitting to the left of Greg because I'm always driving and he's... I figured you're always driving.

Yeah, and when we're going, you got to imagine this too, Scotty, when we're in a rental sled and we're driving around to get somewhere, we take the most circuitous route possible. We don't go directly at something. And we take a ton of pictures on the way in and we sample the environment. So what you're getting in the car, like that, that drive back from LA that Brian's talking about where we had that epiphany moment, Shelley was in the sled too. And so what we were doing is constantly, he's going, "The car at our six, it's coming up kind of fast. She's doing her makeup or something like that." And Shelley would take the picture and I'd say, "Yeah, the inattention creates a blindness." And so we were sitting in there just, and it's like that all the time. We're just talking about what we're seeing. And I think that's so therapeutic because, yeah, you get off the plane and you got to go meet new people. And so stress manifests itself in odd ways. So instead of eating poorly, we go and work out. We go into the neighborhoods, take a bunch of photos, we go do some street interviews, and then we're on the stage.

Yeah, no, it's, it's cool. It's really cool. And we, we really appreciate you. And not just coming on, but giving feedback. And I know I always can run stuff past you and, and it's really cool having that. And it's just so, so random. And we of course love everything that you have going on. And saying never, I got to meet Wolf too.

Yeah, and I got to meet Walt, you know, like that.

And you've never pulled a punch, Scotty. That's the other thing.

Yeah, we've always been absolutely transparent and brutally honest with us. And we appreciate that too. So I think that was cool. Well, hopefully you'll get to do another 100.

So yeah, that's we would be truly trying to... Yeah, we want to keep it going and keep getting better at it and keep refining the message and pushing ourselves and talking about different, getting comfortable being uncomfortable, I guess, as Andy would say. Really cool. So, I wanted to be thankful to everyone who's, who's tuning in and thanks for the guests that have come on because we've made these really cool connections and we've continued the thread in other conversations. Meaning, like, we'll bring something up and be like, "Well, it's like John McCaskill with mindfulness," or, "It's like Andy Reese said," or, "It's like..." So it's actually, so for our listeners, it's cool too because then they're like, "Yeah, I heard that episode." So it's like this, this thread going through where we're trying to keep it going versus just each one being in its own. Even though it's its own topic, having people like you and Andy, and it's allowing us to draw, then we just steal from you. We're like, "Well, it's like..." But at least we give credit. We're like, "It's like McCaskill says, you know," to be like, "We actually give credit to the person."

Oh, I, I've listened to a few episodes since I was on, and you know, I listened to Janelle McCauley.

Yeah, great episode. She was great.

Yeah, there's definitely all sorts of threads where there's crosstalk between your guests and what it is we're discussing. So it makes sense that you guys are doing this. I love the idea behind it. I may have to steal your idea.

No, no, we love it too, because listen, we think it's a community. And so what we're trying to do is create this community of experts that can come together for really hard problems. And if we said, "Hey, John McCaskill was one of our five top favorite guests," we'd lose a lot of people calling us back, so we can't say that. But the idea of the anniversary episode, to get what I'm trying to say, allows us to pull back, see what you're doing, and keep you relevant in our scope because we, we don't target the same audience, but sometimes there's overlap. And I think in that overlap, that's where we're going to save some lives.

Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. I love, I love everything you guys are doing. Thanks, and happy to support in any way that I can, man.

Appreciate that. So, we want to kind of start with, one, what have you, first of all, kind of like, it's a Thanksgiving episode, what you're thankful for, and kind of what you've been doing over this crazy year of 2020 to kind of like stay sane. And I know you're in mindfulness, is what you do, but even though that's what you do, I know you've had moments that are just like, "Oh, oh, heck this."

Man, so let's see. Since the last time we spoke, I uprooted my family, sold our house here in Virginia Beach, moved into an RV for six months. My two kids, my dog, my wife and I drove across the country, planted roots in Colorado Springs. Got a new house.

Cool place, man.

It's really cool. Thanks, man. Super excited about it. And that six months, funny enough, living in that RV, even though I'm a mindfulness and meditation teacher, that was stressful. One, the transition, just leaving the military, kind of leaving a brotherhood or a team that I've been a part of for so long, and then moving on to something new. Two, leaving an area that I was familiar with. I mean, for most of my military career I've lived in or around the Virginia Beach area. And then, three, piling all of us into an RV and moving across the country. That was a stressful time. And I'm very glad that I had mindfulness and meditation to lean back on and use regularly. And there were, there are a few times when I lost my composure. Yeah.

Right.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Most of the time with the dog, man. My dog, God bless her, she's a great dog, but she's cooped up in an RV, so she wants to bounce around. I'm like, "Dude." But anyway, yeah, so I'm thankful for a ton of things. I mean, heck, we could burn up a whole hour with the things that I've been thankful for. But recently I got an opportunity to participate in a Project Refit Grateful Challenge where we did 21 days of posting something online of what we're grateful for. And it really, it really changed the way that I see things throughout my day. It kind of made me, for as trite as it sounds, practice an attitude of gratitude. And as you practice that over and over, you start to see more things that you should be thankful for. Like, I mean, as as mundane as it may sound, I would go to the post office and I'm like, "Heck, I actually have an opportunity to go to a post office, send some stuff out, or receive some stuff that people are sending even during COVID. And as as crazy as this world is, there's still a semblance of normalcy there in being able to send and receive packages." Right? Again, that's super mundane, but because I was practicing this 21-day challenge, it made me aware of these things that were there. And the 21-day challenge in and of itself was something to bring awareness to veteran suicide, right? Because, plus or minus one, the veteran's suicide rate has been 21-22 per day for a while, and it's actually spiked during COVID. So we want to bring awareness to that so we can change it. So I was again thankful for the opportunity to be a part of that Project Refit Grateful Challenge. So yeah, those are some things that I've had going on since the last time we chatted. And yeah.

That's awesome. That's, that's crazy that you, that were, you had to, you did all that during this pandemic, right? Now going across country and the RV buying. I know how all that stuff is right now. It makes everything harder. But I like how you, you frame it, like, you know, but you then also can go, "Well, look at all the little things that I kind of took for granted before that." You know what I mean? That like, your post office example is perfect. It's just one of these like, "Yeah, you know what, the things are still moving along just fine. Like, we are still like, we're just inconvenienced and we haven't been inconvenienced in a long time." Or for guys like us, me and Greg, we're used to being inconvenienced during certain times where it's our job. So it's not a thing because that's just part of what you do. But it's when you're trying to do those everyday stuff when you're inconvenienced, that's actually much harder, right? Because now it's like, "This is when it's supposed to be easy. I've already done the hard stuff."

So, and then when you think of that too, you think of, you think of this, this despair, this desperation and, I hate the quote, but, "in times like these," you hear the announcers all the time. When you were talking, John, and I'm thankful for John McCaskill, folks, and that you're on the episode, but just thankful for all the great work that you do, and I hope our friendship endures. I thought immediately when you were talking about being inside of that, you know, a van coming across the country of September 11th. And September 11th occurred, we had hundreds of guests on the ranch. We had all this chaos that was going on around us. We are getting information very slowly because we are an hour from the closest town. And I remember watching humans, because that's what I do, and seeing them lose their composure in various degrees. And I had to actually, and thank God for Shelley, I had to actually stand up, supported by Shelley, on a soapbox, you know, like the old days. It was actually one of the Mason jar crates, and get order for a second and say, "Look, tomorrow morning Arby's is going to be open. Saturday Live is going to broadcast. The sun is going to come up. You're going to be hungry in a couple hours, and we're going to have food ready for you. The horses still need to get unsaddled from the last ride."

What happens is we so lose focus, and we think nothing can be worse than what we're facing right now. And, you know, it speaks directly to the suicide. I know that, we know that we've all had those manic episodes where we feel like, "Man, there's nothing we can do to change the situation we're in right now." But, you know, look at how long ago that was. Now look at how long ago your transition was from the SEALs, John. I mean, when you were doing it, days, right? Those days were like overwhelming. But now you look and you go, "Hey, I see light at the end of the tunnel. And for the first time in my life, it's not a train." You know, and then that's good to do that. I can see you kissing the ground when you got to Colorado Springs. And thank God, and you couldn't, for a SEAL, you couldn't be further from the ocean.

Yeah, I need to get as far away from the water as I can. Yeah, that's why they call it the Continental Divide.

Josh.

I mean, honestly, that's the first time since I've left home when I was 19 years old that I haven't lived by some major body of water. So yeah, it was good to get out there. But coming back to, you know, you're, you're talking about how things were after 9/11, how things are now. I mean, we still have so many things to be grateful for. And when I, when I find a lot of us complaining, it's we're complaining about what, and I'm sure you've heard this term before, "first-world problems," right?

Yeah.

Oh, heck, my internet's not buffering fast enough. Like, really, is that, is that something I'm complaining about? Oh, no, my coffee's not hot enough.

Yeah, let's, let's get this, this water is too wet.

Brings up a point too, like it also, we also can't just overlook something and say like, there are issues sometimes. That attitude of, "Hey, someone's got it worse than you," is true and it's good to remember. But you also don't want to go too far with that. I always do the opposite. Like if someone got like a promotion to head cashier at McDonald's and they were happy about it, you wouldn't say, "Don't celebrate, there's someone that has a, someone got a better promotion." I mean, it's like, you wouldn't do it the other way. So, but it's important to realize that too. And then I know you lost a buddy not long ago to suicide. And then right after that, like a week and a half later, so did I. And my buddy, Tyler. And I went to, it was this whole brutal thing. I did this great podcast. I ended up meeting one, his old platoon commander. His wife is head of psychology at the VA in Dallas, and she's a Navy veteran and she's a psychologist. And it's like, so it turned into this whole experience. It was really good.

But one of the things you talk about, "attitude of gratitude," is now that I've done, it's very simple, low calorie, as you know, on social media, like Facebook or wherever, or even LinkedIn does it, where it pops up and says, "Oh, it's so-and-so's birthday, help them celebrate." So instead of just doing like the happy birthday, I either call or send a text. And it's just a real quick, like, I have my standard like, "Hey, recently this happened to me, and what I learned at this funeral is if my friend Tyler had heard all of these amazing things about him, maybe he wouldn't have killed himself." So what I do is I go, "Hey, I appreciate you for this. This is why. I keep up the good work." Even if I don't know them that well, it's just like, because that on a birthday. And I actually did it to Andy Reese when it was his birthday not long ago. And he like...

There's nothing good to say to Andy.

No, that... Well, I, I phrased it as that. I said, "I just want you to understand that, like, you know, you would have made a very average Marine. And that's something you should be, something you should be really proud of, dude." He left me like a great voice, voice message. He was like, "Dude, like, that was the best birthday message besides my family that I got." He's like, "And I just said, like, hey, just pay it forward because, you know, a little thing like that versus just a happy birthday, man. You know, you celebrated this. It's just like, hey, this is how you, this is what I appreciate about what you're doing." And, man, like, if you just heard that, like, it's just a little, "Hey, you know what, hey there, I'm, I'm having a positive effect on the world." And I think that's one thing I started doing. So it's like something real low calorie that anyone can do.

And I, and you, man, I like that. Yeah, feel free to steal it. But what I like about you do social media is funny, Greg, because you're, you know, you're always posting this great stuff and it's like about mindfulness and, hey, this and meditation and, look, having gratitude. And then, Greg, what happens on, on like Instagram and different accounts? You have like these different almost like bot accounts that'll like comment and stuff and say like, "Hey, follow me for more likes," or, "Follow," you know what I mean? Like it's like, "Dude!" And John goes right for the jugular. Like, "Oh, yeah, I bet you paid for those followers." I was like, "Jesus!" Like, because it's a joke, it's a junkie. So there's a look on the end of that.

Yeah, so I love it because it's this, "Hey, man, you got to do this," but then if you're, because they're coming in with some scam or something, and he goes right for the jugular on them. He's like, "Oh, get out of here!" Like, "You're not well." Like, it's like what, it's, I love it because it's so, I mean, it's hilarious that you have both. But I like, appreciate that, which is why I appreciate what you do with the, you're doing this mindfulness meditation, but you're also a SEAL. So it's like, and I think that, like, that's, yeah, but, but that's how it should be, right? It should be this like, "Look, I'm either going to be your best friend or if you get out of line and you're being an ass, I'm going to deal with you." And it's just, it's just real binary choice of just, "Well, why don't I just discuss this?"

Yeah, when I came on your show, the trouble that I had gotten in with my then brother-in-law, and, you know, the the heck that he pulled with my sister. And, you know, like any good brother, I, I took it upon myself to put him in check. And I think, I think that's important.

You know, yeah, we can practice mindfulness and meditation, but we're, there's, there's still a human aspect that we are all living in this life together. And, and we have to, we have to, I don't know, embrace the humanity side. And, yeah, sometimes that that calls for a harsh reality check and, hey, put somebody in their place.

Give us, if you, if you've got any good tips for the holidays, especially on Thanksgiving, of that practicing that mindfulness, because it can be stressful either stressful because you're not with your family, or in my case, sometimes stressful because I'm with my family around the holidays. So I, I feel you, brother. So it's like, what do you, what do, what does John McCaskill do, right? What do you do in those situations or, or when you're one pre right before you get there and during a maybe a heated debate during dinner or just that stress of, you know, traveling during the holidays and seeing family and you got that annoying uncle that always wants to mouth off about stuff, you know, how do you, how do you deal with it?

Oh, well, first off, we lay some ground rules for if we are getting together as a family. I mean, not my wife and kids so much, but, can you guys still hear me, okay? You got a little bit of, all right, all right. Just so you know, if I'm getting together with my parents, my sisters, my brother, or my wife's family, we lay some ground rules. "Hey, no talk of politics, no talk of religion." That's off the table completely. Because as soon as you do, the cortisol starts getting injected and [you] start getting amped up, and then it's just out of control. So establish some ground rules first off.

Second, and second off, is just realize again how good we have it. And Brian, you mentioned, "Hey, looking at things with one perspective," or "flipping the coin and looking at it from the other." It depends on how you look at it, negative, positive, right? But we still need to realize how good we have it. And not just in living here in America and having the first-world problems, if you will, but in just being surrounded by people who can support us, whether it's friends, whether it's family, whether it's platoon mates. And if we're not physically surrounded by them, we, we can virtually be surrounded by them. Here we are chatting on Zoom today, but we could chat by a Zoom on Thanksgiving or on Christmas if you are in fact physically alone, physically isolated, due to COVID, due to deployment, due to whatever. We still have the ability to connect with others and that's something that we need to be hugely thankful for and we need to leverage that. We can't say, "Well, you know what, I'm alone, I'm physically alone, I'm going to shut off, I'm going to shut down." Because as soon as you start doing that, that negativity bias, like you mentioned before, it kicks in and you start telling yourself this negative self-talk. You start believing it and you just go down this downward spiral. You flip that upside down, kind of imagine the upward spiral and walking up that upward ladder. You can get to the top of that and and come back up. So I think those are some tools: lay some ground rules and two, just realize that there are things to be thankful for and you're surrounded whether it's physically or virtually by people that love you and support you and you just have to reach out more than others.

But, you know, if you have nothing but praise, don't feel free to share that too. There's absolutely praise for what it is you guys are doing. But I think I've already given you enough praise. Yes, you rascals. But no, I mean, I just love, love this show and the chemistry, Brian and Greg, that you guys have between one another and then how you just roll naturally with your guests. I think it's amazing. You know, when we spoke last time, you mentioned you had listened to one or two of my podcasts, Veterans Path.

Yep.

That they're, they're somewhat formulaic. I think that was the term that you'd used and I, I took that on board. I'm like, "Damn, yeah." I don't think you meant that as offensive, but I was like, you know what, it was my, my stuff is somewhat formulaic. So I try, I try to start modeling after you guys in that I don't have a script anymore. I have like a couple of bullet points off to the side that I want to make sure I mention. But overall, it's just organic conversation. And I think that's what you guys do so well is, and it's not just myself and a guest, it's both of you and a guest, right? And the fact that you're able to do that as a as a duo with a guest is phenomenal, are incredible.

And John, I think one of the things that you do well, and we have to, listen, folks, if you're listening or watching this, know that we answer every bit of email, text message, phone calls, every one of you. And John, you say, "We," I still haven't figured out which one to click. Brian has to actually nurse me onto the Zoom message and then wean me off of it. But no, John, I think that if people know that you're approachable and that you're actually at the other end of a phone call or an email message, it gives them some, some hope. And I think you're doing great work. Please don't, please don't stop.

Thanks, brother, I appreciate that. And I do, I do notice that Brian's always the one sending and receiving the email and you're just there in the CC line.

Okay, honestly, I tell him not to. Sometimes I have a really nice mouse and I still haven't been able to, how long have I had this new computer, Brian, and I'm still working on pairing the mouse to the computer so I can use it. So Zoom is about as far as I'm going to get. I'm like Gilligan pedaling the coconut bike to get the radio.

And we, we appreciate you coming on here, man. Yeah, Steve travels all love, and let's do something together in the future, buddy. I don't want to lose you.

Oh yeah, absolutely. No doubt. And congrats on your 100th episode. Look forward to sharing it and and seeing it with all the guests on there. And, and learning from you guys and from them. So yeah, so definitely let's stay connected, guys.

Appreciate it, man. Good one. Take care. Bye, guys.

There he is, gentlemen. Hey, be careful with the "gentleman." That's wonderful, Walt. I see the family resemblance already. Look, look, he's got the pen, man, and the jacket. This is great. He's got the jacket, the pen, the poop emoji. I know that I do not own a white shirt, you rascal.

I had the headset, but the headset doesn't work very well, but oh my god, I'm working on that. I'm working on a new project. The Royal Order of Gregorian Homophily.

[Music]

[Laughter]

Marren, I don't deserve this abuse. This is great. Could you please expound on that?

Oh my gosh. Walt, thank you for joining us. Continue. Tell us about the Royal Order of the Greg Homophily. Oh my God, that's too funny. Let me just go to full screen here. I want, I want to encapsulate this. So it's a little startup I've done. So we're working on a couple of things. So far, it's just me, right? But it isn't, so we have a thing after we say anything, we just say, "Hell, Greg. Let's go back to that."

I'm good with that. I, I'm actually in support of this plan so far, Walt.

Just, we're working with a couple of mottos. Let me run a few by you, see what you think.

Oh my God. Go ahead.

"Oh, Greg, who art in Gunnison, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom, Rogue Manner, WestCom. Your teaching shall be done unless Shelley tells us otherwise." Now, that's what I've got so far on that one, right?

That's great. So good. You're so good.

Here's what I'm also working on. I'm going to run this up the flagpole, see who salutes. "Never above you, never below you, always to the left of you." Now, I know Greg, I know, Brian, I don't appreciate that one.

Oh yeah, that is perfect. That one's getting, that one's getting traction with certain, certain Devil Dog types.

Of course, of course. I have one more. And one more I've been working on, see what you think. "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I ponder weak and weary over some quaint tale of coppers and capers, a forgotten lore. There came a rapping as if someone gently tapping, tapping at our chamber door. Quote, 'Our supreme leader, Greg, evermore.'" Now, that one got a little weird with the supreme leader thing. People got weird about that, so I feel a little weird about that, but I'm not opposed to that one. Let me tell you, Love loves that one.

I love all of this. This is amazing.

So we're going to meet up every the third Thursday of every month, right? Much like the Masons. And, yeah, dogs, dogs. Yeah, it's part of my cheering section if you notice right there. That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is. So it's this little thing I'm working on. We're going to go, just be called "Greggy's." That was a thing for a while.

Oh my God.

When I say "we," I mean still, it's pretty much me.

Yeah, no, but you got to refer to it as "we." You, in your basement with the stockpiled booze and, gosh.

Okay, so, you know what was amazing, Marren, is looking at the original distinguished savage, Walt Settlemeyer, and having it like looking in a mirror. If I had been wearing a white shirt, which I don't, too funny. Looking in a flipping mirror. This is perfect. Oh my God.

I am, well, this is, I, I really appreciate the effort you put into this, Walt. This is so good. Exceeded our expectations. Greggy's. Oh my God. This is so funny. This is hilarious. And you're, you're feeding Greg's ego so bad right now.

Oh my God. Yeah, enough of Walt talking about me. Let me talk. I felt like The Royal Gregorian Order of Homophily was getting a little more of a, of a stately kind of a feel, right?

Yeah, that's so funny. Project the correct image because, well, you got to answer me one question and absolutely, Marren's never faced this. Oh my God. Because Marren's the hero of his family unit. And Brian, just so you know, that won't last. This is called the honeymoon period. The thing is, you go out and you do great things. And, you know, like, what was that at the end of The Wizard of Oz where he says, "Here you get this because you're a great thing doer." And you work all day long. You think, "Wow, I really, I moved the dial. I changed the world." And they come home, you're not a hero at home. Your family doesn't give a damn. You're not wearing a cape anymore. It's very simple: "Off your shoes. How much are you depositing into the bank account?" That's it.

Well, with Shelley, with Shelley, and that's like living with another hero. So you've got like the alpha and alpha. Yeah. And so the apex predator comes home, which is Shelley, and she's like, "What have you done all day?" And I'm like, "But I talked on the radio."

We really appreciate you coming on for this 100th episode reunion/roast/Thanksgiving episode because it is airing around the time of Thanksgiving. And so we can kind of recap things that, well, normally we could have people talking about how we've, how they've handled things in 2020, as chaotic as has been, and what we're thankful for and all that. But you have outdone everyone with the, the Greg get-up, including the the poop emoji hat and the tan for which, and for those of you who only listen, Greg is his, is a tan jacket that he usually wears on all of them. So this is amazing. I don't even know where to start, Walt. This is so awesome.

Well, big shout-out to Amazon for getting my poop emoji hat to me in time. There we go.

Gosh, that's great.

I already had a brown jacket, interestingly enough. I tried to find one closer to Greg's because we want to emulate our great leader, right? And so I felt like the homage, right?

What are the requirements for, for, for getting into, for, for, you know, having, you know, being allowed into the Royal Gregorian Order of Homophily? What are the other requirements? Is there a passage or is there some sort of ceremony? Is there, you know, you have to prove yourself in some way?

It is an extensive, there's an extensive background search for, square upon, I... Well, it's actually me asking you a couple questions, right? So there's, that's pretty extensive, right? And so I also, one of the questions is, "Do you want a brown jacket?" Right? How do you feel?

Got to have at least one 5XL piece of clothing.

Yeah, at least one. Exactly. Also, also, I have, I, I say, "Have you ever read the book Left of Bang? If so, let me tell you the real story." And we have a couple other weird questions. I just want to gauge personality. Things like, "How do you feel about something called Naked Tuesdays?" That's always a big one, right? I haven't got anybody on board with that one yet.

I don't know. We just come in, sit down, maybe listen to a podcast and surrounded naked. You leave your clothes and inhibitions at the door. That's true. That was optional.

Yeah, well the, what, the poop emoji had, obviously, I mean, let's be honest. Oh my God, this is too funny. It's still a vetting process. Yeah, we like to, we like to, and I say "we," I mean so far it's just me. But, hey, hey, look, we're working on it. I'm trying to get the girlfriend on board. Yeah, she's a little leery still. She's like, "I don't quite know what you're up to." And I'm like, "Hey, let's just let it happen."

Yeah, here's the thing. I'm, I'm in that, just go audio only because I'm never going to be able to cover up that video. And I'll tell you another thing, you've got Marren at a disadvantage because over your right shoulder you got all that booze. So he hasn't been, he forgot to even turn on the recording.

Yeah. He's going like, "Damn, I can name every one of those labels from here. Is it too early for a drink?"

I don't think. No, it's not, actually. And that's one of the great things about Brian. What's up? What's our, what's our drug policy on the...

Very, very strict. Very strict. No drug testing policy.

[Laughter]

Never in case, never drug test anyone at Arcadia. We do not, we will not stand for that.

We don't name names. I love you so much for that right now. And also, as a side note, Brian has the very best answer to my question, "What's your favorite guilty pleasure?" And Brian's answer was, "I don't feel guilty about any of my pleasures." It was such a bravado of confidence that I've mentioned, I'm like, "Let me tell you the best answer I ever got."

Yeah, yeah. I, I so occasionally have a self-confidence that borderlines complete stupidity. So I don't really...

We embrace stupidity.

Yeah, it's, it's a, it's that thin line between being hard and being stupid. I like to say I like to walk that line real carefully. So I'm familiar with that line, unfortunately. And that's one of those, yeah, it's like, I'm not going to feel bad about something that I'm doing. Nope. I love that. Too late in the game, by the way.

Well, listen, Brian, now that Walt has set the bar this high, and I mean bar in both ways, bar and Brian's way, which is something he called the standard. And the, and the bar. Then we have the podcast. We're at 100 podcasts. We're thankful for guys like Walt on the podcast. And you've got to understand, Brian calls me minutes before the podcast, he goes, "Hey, we're going to do a podcast on," and then he gives the title. "It's going to be annoying biases that are only shared by the whatever." And so I've got no preparation time. I think he does that on purpose, Walt. I think he wants to just catch me.

Yeah, but Greg forgets sometimes is he'll send me an idea for a podcast. Like, "Hey, I want to cover this, this, or this." And I literally move it to the email folder of podcast topics. These are different ones, like him or Sean Clemens will like submit and be like, "Hey, like, sure, let's do something like this," or, "Let's, hey, you guys should talk about this." And just, I always just, "Oh, hey, that's good." And I reference it so I can go back at a later time, just right through. So that it was like this morning, I texted him. I was like, "Hey, yeah, let's do the one on this cryptids and this." And he's like, "Oh, okay. Like, hang on, hang on." I was like, "You sent me that idea like two weeks ago or a week ago, whatever. I don't remember."

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, that's right. That's right. Yeah, yeah, no, I know. Anyways, but I want to talk about this. I'm like, "Okay, that's nothing." That's something my vitriol comes through and I, I typed in, "Marren," and he goes, "What are your butt hurt about?" And I go, "Marren, you set me up with that question. Why did you do that?" And then all of a sudden he'll send back and it was my question that I sent him. And I go, "Hey, make sure you weave this one in." And I'm like, "Wow, I really say that. I have no, look at me!"

Yeah, I still have to, I still have to remind Greg that this is just a conversation. We're just having a conversation. You know, they're like, I love that I have to ambush like that's something I would ask you if we were having this conversation. So it's not very bright.

But, I mean, well, that's amazing. I love it. I love it. I mean, I, you guys come up. You come up on a lot of podcasts for me, right? But I also, and I think I posted a picture on Instagram because I, I've woven in some of the stuff that I've learned from you guys. It's just the rudimentary stuff, man. I reference, I, I reference your podcast. I reference you guys at reference Arcadia. I talk about it in the, the, I want to talk about you guys when I'm doing, I'm going to do a for two other systems close to us, one large metropolitan fire department and another EMS system close to us. And I just talked about, "Hey, this is where you can get this information, man. And you guys put out stellar work, man. You got it's such amazing content." I first discovered you guys, I think we talked about this when you guys were on my podcast, man. I binge those episodes. I like take notes like a big nerd that I am, and I just go bananas with it.

I know. I know you have to understand, like when, when we teach in person's way to go, and we still do in person, there's a lot of other great ways of transferring messages, but human behavior is best taught fresh, in the moment, on the stage of teaching in person. So Brian and I will never get potty breaks. We use the universal American sign language, "I got to take a body break," and we're up there. And we've got general guidelines, a left and right lateral limit and what we're going to talk about. And Brian, you'll take this, I'll take this, and then boom, boom, boom. It goes from firehose on the very first beginning of it because you don't know what you don't know. And then pretty soon the audience doesn't understand, man, they're answering all the questions. So what happens is there's a whole bunch of stuff that happens in the hallway. Brian and I will be heading for the bathroom or passing each other to go to the bathroom. And all of a sudden somebody will go with their notepad in hand going, "Hey, you talked about this. And what about this guy? And we knew this guy. And this happened with..."

Well, the podcast literally gives us the chance to go down some of those rabbit holes and discuss some of those spirals and never get a chance to go back to. So I'm thankful for it because most of the stuff that I, I reach out to Brian, I go, "Hey, do you remember that kid that hit us up and said, 'Hey, my girlfriend?'" Or the guy that yelled out "shoehorn" at every one of the things. And, you know, we have some very interesting people that show up for the course sometime. And, yeah. And so this gives us a forum to discuss those things. And it also gives us the chance to meet some really unique people and you include.

But yeah, man, like we, we, we appreciate that you are, it's good to hear that like, "Hey, you're getting that value out of it," right? Because that's the last thing. Like we don't want to, like, we want you to get this takeaway and there's a lot we can do. And it's really to get people to ask more questions, right? If I can get you to ask the right questions, then we're good. Like, I don't know what that answer is going to be. And some people get that and some people don't. But it's all about you. It's on you. You, you have to be the, the user end here. Like, you can't refer back to the notes. You have to go, "All right, how do I take that material and then look at the world and go, 'Oh, man, bang, bang, bang, bang. I see what they're talking about.'" Now I can lay in whatever my job is, whatever my role is. And that's hopefully it's coming across. And, and so we try to kind of push it. So, so now it's like, I always try to get feedback from people about like, "Well, what do you want to hear? What would be a cool thing?" Because like engaging that listener audience of getting like, "You know, I've always wondered," because this the one we did on the OODA Loop came from a while back. I had posted something about the OODA Loop and we talked about Boyd and stuff and always different stuff all the time. And then someone had literally asked and there was like, "Hey, have you guys ever done a specific episode on it?" And I went like, "Damn, no, we haven't." So I was like, "Hey, that would actually be really good." And then it turned out to, I mean, it's only been out two days now while we're recording this, and it's gotten more, it's the fastest of a two days in terms of downloads that we've had of any other episode. And so it hit home. And so we're like, "Okay, cool," because I, we don't always know what's going to hit home because most of the time you don't know.

Yeah, I mean, you know how that is.

Or, or, you know, where like I walk away from one, I'm like, "Yeah, that I don't think that one was that great." And then we get feedback, everyone's like, "Oh my God, that's awesome!" I was like, "Oh, okay." Or we'll have one, I was like, "Damn, that was, Greg and I are high-fiving. He was like, that was a great conversation. We went right, right." And then people are like, "Hey, man, I didn't even get that." It's like, "Oh, maybe that was a little too internal to us. Like, you weren't explaining it."

Because it makes me sit in a corner with the poop hat. Yeah, I do. He does too. Most people, again, most people don't understand, we're actually in the same room. We have connex (shipping containers), and Marren's on top and I'm on the bottom. It's very austere, it's very spartan, but it keeps us honest.

That's amazing. One of the best things that I have honestly taken away from you guys, and also one of the things that I talk about the most because it, when you hear something and it, like, it's a paradigm shift in your thinking, and it's, "Training changes behaviors," and the "training versus education" that you guys always talk about, man, and I the first time you said it, it was like, like Colonel Kurtz said in Apocalypse Now, it's like a crystal bullet piercing my brain, right? Like I was like, "That makes all those things in the world." Training the hands-on, the learning, that in-person learning versus like, "Well, you can read a book or I know I can put something out on this all day long, but it's not going to be the same. It's not going to be the same take-home points." And man, that was a paradigm shift for me and the stuff that I teach, whether it's defensive tactics or the tactical medicine stuff, man, it's, it, that was probably the biggest thing that I have shamelessly stolen, yet give you credit for on. It's amazing.

We appreciate that. And that's, that's like, you know, even just that tagline of the, "Hey, there's a difference between education and training." You know, that, that alone is if you can come to that epiphany moment like you did and realize like, "Oh, damn, I see what you're saying." There's in skill development, especially with something that you have to learn and apply in an applied setting. Like that's, that's a different skill set that you have to learn. Like, yeah, all the background, explicit knowledge on it, and the books you can read on is great and it informs you, but it's all about the application of it. And when you can distinct between those two and what you need to focus on during that, I mean, you know that as a medic, you're giving training. There's some stuff that's great to know, but realistically, what do you need? I got to learn how to put on a tourniquet and pack a wound and get into it. You know what I mean? Like, let's focus on those and then also get into, "Here's why you need to do that." But you don't need to go over their that situation. You're not talking about different types of blood pressure readings and what that means and pulse ox stuff because they don't need to know that right there. That's great. That's education. That's great. But the training part, if you focus on that and then it allows you to kind of get like almost sharpen that blade a little bit. Meaning, yeah, instead of focusing on, "I got to get all this content out," it's like, "Well, no, I just need to focus on these three key takeaways and then really good and get really good again." And then, and then like Greg was talking about, then those hallway conversations come up and that allows you to go into a further discussion.

Exactly, right. So, absolutely. Well, we do small group all the time. And the reason we do small group is there's so many questions that come up because we're on transmit. We're on transmit almost all of the class. And then by the time we get to the part task in the prac app, you have to have that little gap for them to fill in. And we always know, I hate such a strong word, but I love using it sometime. You can tell when we get sniped. Like there's a, there's always going to be a contrary audience. There's always going to be somebody that, that doesn't like it. And I, I remember, you know, two decades, the combat rule of threes. So it's called the combat rule of threes. I came up with it. When things start to cluster, this is, and you can see it in science. And so I get hit up in Florida and a guy comes up and goes, "Well, don't you mean the combat rules of three?" And I said, "If that's all you took out of this course, then kiss the fattest part of my butt and have a good day. Here's your diploma."

Yeah, and I know you get that too. There's people that are focused on the wrong thing and they don't get that what we're trying to do is we're trying to create this, this out of the galaxy. We're trying to create one star you can take home with you today.

Oh, absolutely. Some people are so pedantic, man. They just want to focus on this one little weird thing. I'm like, "Hey, man, that's not even, that's what's important to you. Okay, but I feel like you're missing the bigger point."

Yeah, I was that same thing. I had one where I was, you know, deconstructing the elements of an IED to understand where they come from, how to get them, what, you know, it wasn't about bombs, it was about access and it was about organization level and how to determine the human behind it. And the guy came, one guy came up at the end and it's like, "Well, you know, you said that Russian red dead cord burns at, you know, 38,000 feet per second and it's 32." And I'm like, "That, that was your, that was your takeaway? That's what, that's what you're like?" I was like, "Get the heck out of here! Just leave."

Yeah, like exactly. Of all of those, all the notes that everyone took down and said, "Hey, wow, that's, I never looked at it that way." But you're going to come up with that? Like, "All right, dude, like that, you missed the point."

So, yeah, we spent, we spent an afternoon talking about Gestalt psychology and cognitive dissonance and you were fine with all of that. Yeah, but when you got to slide 32, you have to put the logo on, you lost it. You know what I'm saying? You lost your mind and couldn't take it.

I, I was, that was the best. There was one guy who was, Greg was on it, going on about, you know, this and telling the story. And we had just talked about kind of a little bit of symbolism and iconography and different flags of different Gulf countries, different Arab countries. Or like one was Iran and talking about the different meanings through it. And then Greg's then telling a story. And the story was where he was in Iraq, but he had literally just got done talking about Iran, so he, he said Iran instead of Iraq. Yeah, and like, but you could tell in the context of watching it, it was just a slip. He meant Iraq. And someone literally came up afterwards like, "That's a, that's a BS story. He wasn't doing that stuff in Iran." And I was like, "What?" He's like, "Greg didn't do that in Iran. That's not like..." And I'm like, "What? No, he was in Iraq." "Yeah, but he said this." I was like, "No!" Oh my God. Like, "Wow, you, you figure out from the context of that story, right? What had happened? Maybe you don't belong here."

Yeah, they don't want to. And you know the funny thing, like for example, it's 10:30 Mountain when we're recording this on my side. And Brian and I literally have been on the air with one project or the other since 7:30 my time. And so when you're up doing interviews and teaching, we don't take breaks. If you need to go to the bathroom, get up and go because Brian and I won't stop. And when there's three of us, it's even worse when Shelley's there. And so you're dehydrated and it's late in the day and it's the third day of training and you soak through all your clothes. And all of a sudden you, you know, you, you get the 32 instead of the 38 or you say 1776. And it doesn't matter because that's what you're not doing is, you know what you're doing is you're sharing through storytelling and experience that the person can have a member and emotional link with in their own mind, in their own life. You know, but it's funny how that works. Yeah, we're an acquired taste. I get it. But, but I would tell the people that are watching the formulaic podcasts that are out there that do nothing to move the dial, "Hey, enjoy yourself, but that's, that's not my milieu." I, I still when I need to cleanse a palette, I, I'm immediately going to the distinguished students.

Yeah, yeah. You got a good one, man. You always have, I appreciate that conversations. And I like how you kind of approach some of them because you're, you're your passion and sincerity comes through. I mean, it comes straight through where you're just like, "Walt is really interested about this right now." I wasn't that interested. It was like kind of cool to me, but now because of you, because you're so excited and passionate, now I am. And that's true, that's how it works, right? You know, like if you're passionate about that and you're excited, I'm like, "You know, you're, you don't, you're not meaning to, but you're, you're making the show more exciting and getting like more interest in that guest." And especially the ones that, yeah, I, I forget her, her name who did the all the anti-money laundering.

Yeah, yeah, she's coming back on, Bell.

Yeah. And it was really cool because like you were really excited about it. And then like, I'm like, "Heck, Walt, start asking questions! Let's go! I'm excited!" I was like, "Come on, man, like me too! Like, let's hear about it." It was a really cool episode, but it was probably like our Dale Dye episode, Marren, where...

Oh, yeah. We were so starstruck with Dale. And he admitted it right from the beginning, "This is going to get weird because I'm actually kind of like, this is so cool." And I don't have that with other guests.

Yeah, I don't know, man. When you guys came on, I somehow scheduled you and Tony Blauer in the same days. And I was just like, "Oh, okay, I'm so nervous, man." You can hear it too much because I talk fast, because I'm trying to keep up. Yeah, I mean, I, I was so super stoked to talk to you guys. I mean, I still am obviously, right? I'm a, I'm a ridiculous fan. And I'm like, "That's why I started the cult, quite honestly."

Yeah, yeah. I just keep referring to yourself as, "We do this and we do that." Don't ever tell anyone how many people there actually are. Yeah, yeah, our numbers are, see, we keep it a secret what our numbers are. Yeah.

First and safety. And I think I talked to you, Brian, I do have a Peter Griffin beach towel on order as a prayer rug. And I'm prayer towards, pray towards Gunnison. You know what, the time, maybe 2:00, 3:00 in the afternoon, I got to kind of work out a certain time. But we're going to get a little premiere. I wonder what time that would be.

Yeah, Marren has this advertising campaign, a Kickstarter to try to get us back down to Texas because they love us in Dallas and Houston and Austin. And the problem is that they're all so busy that, yeah, we'll get to it. We're going to call you back. And they never do. So, so Marren's got this campaign where it's a photo of me wearing nothing but a bath towel, and it says, "Get us back to Texas because Greg is big like Texas." And the enormity, I've got my own gravity field. So I love that if for nothing else, just to get some shade. Invite me down, right? I think that would work.

All right, if I could, if I could go ahead and get you guys down here. Yeah, man, I would, if I was independently wealthy, I would like just, well, first off, I'll just follow you around. You would become my like a Grateful Dead type situation where I was flying around from class to class. And you're like, "Jesus, this guy..."

He'll probably just be like, "All right, hey, man, Walt's here!" Like, "All right, Texans love Gunnison. Come up to Gunnison. Gunnison is full of Texans. I got to wade through him like pushing pokers to get through to go shopping."

I love that. I love that, man.

I don't, I don't want to take too much more your time and we got stuff, you got stuff today. We, I, we really appreciate you coming back on to do this. And yours is hilarious and just right off the bat.

Oh, definitely. I was recording right off the bat to capture our initial reaction to that. I love it. I love it. Because I ran it by you initially. I didn't want to tell you at first. I just want to surprise both of you.

Yeah, I was so shocked I didn't catch on immediately. That's how brilliant I am. I did not tell Greg. It was perfect.

Well, let's keep this friendship going. Let's keep this interaction going. Absolutely.

Absolutely, man. I love you guys. You're incredible, man. I would recommend you. I cite my sources on you guys because you, you guys are the gold standard for being that, man. And I've talked to Brian about that in the past, because I've texted him for advice, man. And, you know, I'm like, "Hey, man, about this guy," or whatever. And then you guys are, I've been huge for me in so many ways, man. I'm a Patreon subscriber, and I mean, I know it's not much a month, you guys, but, man, I'm going to support you guys. And I get more information. And it's just incredible, man. I can't rush in the website and the Patreon enough because it's incredible.

Awesome, man. I appreciate it. We always big, big props to The Distinguished Savage Podcast. We, we love it and we love what you're doing, man. And we'll, we'll get down there eventually. And we'll, we'll have to record one live at, in your studio there. And we'll finish, finish off all those bottles behind you and see what...

Yeah, it's bad luck to have partially full, so we'll clearly just clear them all out for you. And cigars.

There we go. Oh, good. All right, man. We, we appreciate it, brother. Thank you.

Absolutely. My pleasure. I'll let you know when it all comes out and tagging everything and all that stuff. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it, boys.

All right, man. Thanks a lot. Thanks. Thank you. Bye, guys.