In recent years, many veterans, and people, look down on the trades as a career path.
That's misguided. People in the trades today are some of the most sought after workers in the workforce. Many are earning six-figure incomes or more and not dealing with the debt that college students are.
Chaunte Hall, a US Air Force Veteran, founded the Victory Trades Alliance to help veterans to find their path in the trades. She came on to discuss her organization and why the trades are such a great choice for veterans.
The world is crazy. If you're not careful, you can lose your mind in it. This episode discusses ways to keep it together.
When things go bad, we have a tendency to retreat within ourselves. That's the worst thing you can do. You need other people especially during the hard times.
John Mccarthy is a US Marine Corps veteran and the host of the Post-Modern Patriot Podcast.
According to John, many people in our society today have moved further and further away from collective organization, tending instead toward individualism.
Values for things like American ideals have fallen short of where they once were, and many have fallen into isolation.
For veterans, this isolation has been highly detrimental and has potentially led to the suicides of thousands.
John's message to his podcast listeners is that you can live a meaningful life in a post-modern society, and dedicate yourself to high ideals.
John and I had an excellent conversation about life, philosophy, and where we are today as a society and as a country.
When I first stepped onto a BJJ mat three years ago, I realized that I had a whole lot to learn very quickly. As a 210 pound man, who could deadlift 600 pounds, I got broken in half by a 14-year-old kid who was about 140 lbs.
That wasn't the last time I'd be humbled by Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I've been tapped out by boys, old men, and nearly tapped out by an 11-year-old girl.
Even though I've gotten my ass kicked more often than not, I've fallen in love with Jiu-Jitsu because of the lessons I've learned and the ways that these lessons have transferred over to the rest of my life.
In this episode, I talk about five lessons I've learned through BJJ.
At some point, anyone who does anything meaningful or difficult in their lives is going to experience self-doubt. Most people allow that doubt to overcome them and keep them from doing what they truly want in life.
Nevertheless, if you actually examine your self-doubt, and where it's coming from, you'll realize that it has nothing to do with your actual capabilities or talents.
Self-doubt is really just your mind trying to keep you where you are. That's because the human mind was never built for achievement. It was built to keep you alive and safe.
In this episode, I will show you:
If you like this episode, be sure to subscribe to the show and please think about leaving me an iTunes review!
Gary John Bishop is a New York Times Best-Selling Author, speaker, and urban philosopher.
Gary's books, UnF*ck Yourself, Do the Work, and Stop Doing That Sh*t highlight the ways in which our subconscious limits us and leads to self-sabotage.
Those of us in the veteran community are no strangers to self-sabotage. We do it through self-criticism, limiting beliefs, and extreme negativity.
In this conversation, Gary and I talk about how you can free yourself from this never-ending cycle of mental self-harm to be the person you need to be to move forward in your life.
I picked up Gary's first book at a time when I was going through some really difficult things in my own life with the loss of a friend to drugs and a really bad business failure that happened last year.
His no-nonsense style really got me to quit feeling sorry for myself and to take action to remedy the situation.
Gary is a personal development expert who's worked with professional athletes and Fortune 500 CEOs. He jumped at the chance to speak to the veteran community because he knows how much potential we have.
Pick up Gary's books by clicking any of the links below:
Unf*ck Yourself: https://amzn.to/2Qdcllu
Do the Work: https://amzn.to/2wUGsr7
Stop Doing that Sh*t: https://amzn.to/2wTtHwP
Fyodor Dostoyevsky is one of the greatest writers in history. His masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov, is a philosophical novel set in 19th century Russia that covers themes of morality, free will, and God. In this episode, we discuss one of the chapters of this book titled "The Grand Inquisitor."
This chapter is a poem that one of the characters Ivan recites for his brother Alexei. In the poem, Jesus Christ returns to Earth during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. Amidst the burning bodies, Christ begins performing miracles. The crowd recognizes him and begins worshipping him, but the Grand Inquisitor sees him and orders his guards to take Christ to a dungeon. The rest of the chapter is a one way dialogue between the Grand Inquisitor and Christ.
During the dialogue, the Grand Inquisitor chastizes Christ for denying the three temptations of Satan, and for giving his followers free will. His argument is that, because Christ gave his followers free will, the church now has to show miracle, mystery, and authority to enforce belief in him.
What we get from this dialogue is an understanding that freedom is not easy. It requires responsibility, action, and the ability to think. This is why human beings have willingly surrendered their freedom throughout history. Many find it far more comfortable to live with an authoritarian dictator running your life for you.
It also highlights the temptations we face in our own lives to submit to dictatorial rule, whether that be from governments or by submitting to our own hedonistic desires.
I highly suggest that you at least read The Grand Inquisitor, if not The Brothers Karamazov as a follow on to this episode.
I don't know many people who've ever truly failed in life.
That may sound optimistic, but I also don't know many people who've ever tried to succeed anything truly meaningful. Most people I know have taken the safe route in life.
That's understandable. The safe route means security, paychecks, and no struggle. Who wouldn't want that?
The flip side of the coin is that I also know a lot of unhappy people. People who hate their jobs and hate their lives because of it. I also know a lot of people who are unhappy with their bodies and with their health.
What good is it to be completely safe but extraordinarily unhappy?
The good news is that you don't need to risk it all to begin improving your life.
If you want to start a business, in the internet age you can start a side hustle with minimal overhead and a bit of extra work.
If you want to train but don't think you have the time, you could be doing pushups and squats in your own living room.
And if you're having doubts, ask yourself: what's the worst thing that could happen? The answer is probably nothing too bad.
The Warrior Soul Podcast is brought to you by FBomb nutrition, makers of delicious high fat-low carbohydrate snacks, like their amazing macadamia nut butter. Get 20% off of your first order of FBombs by using the code WARRIORSOUL at checkout at http://www.dropanfbomb.com.
The Warrior Soul Podcast is also brought to you by Save the Brave. Save the Brave brings Veterans and Gold Star Families together through outreach and comradery events. Their outstanding work helps Veterans to find their confidence and gain happiness through fishing, golf, and other activities. If you're interested in helping Save the Brave, head over to http://www.SavetheBrave.org and make your donation today.
Akshay Nanavati is an author, speaker, coach, and veteran of the United States Marine Corps who developed the concept of fearvana.
According to Akshay, Fearvana helps you to do three things::
1. find your worthy struggle
2. live your worthy struggle
3. fall in love with every minute of the journey
The main idea behind Fearvana is that, if you don't go out there and find your struggle, another struggle will find you anyway, but it will do so when you're unprepared and unwilling to face it.
Fearvana is based on hard-won wisdom that Akshay obtained after years of going down the wrong path. Like many veterans, Akshay returned from combat with many demons.
Those demons led him toward alcohol abuse and a severe downward spiral. After he hit the bottom of the barrel, he decided that he needed to do something. He put years into studying neuroscience, spirituality, and the depths of his own endurance.
Since embracing Fearvana, Akshay has become an ultra-endurance athlete. He's trekked across the arctic, climbed the world's highest mountains, and stretched what he thought were the boundaries of his own capabilities.
To learn more about Akshay and Fearvana, check out his web site at https://fearvana.com/.
The Warrior Soul Podcast is brought to you by FBOMB nutrition, makers of delicious low carbohydrate snacks. Their macadamia nut butters are absolutely awesome, as are their meat snacks and cheese crisps. Get 20% off of your first order of FBOMBS today by using the code WARRIORSOUL at checkout at http://www.dropanfbomb.com.
Every month I respond to audience questions from our free private Facebook group at HTTP://www.facebook.com/groups/warriorsoulagoge
This month, I answer the following:
What are the best low impact exercises for long term health?
What do I do if I lost faith in my government, my politicians, and my people?
If someone can make you angry, they own a piece of your soul. Anger is, in fact weakness, and the more you learn to control it, the stronger you will be.
Rachael Jackson is a former US Army Helicopter pilot and a co-founder of the Tribal App.
Tribal was built to help leaders build more inclusive and resilient communities. In the past year, Tribal has taken off.
Though it might seem like overnight success, no entrepreneurial journey is every easy. I got to sit down with Rachael to discuss her early challenges with Tribal and how she overcame them.
We also discussed her Army career and her time at West Point.
Through Tribal, Rachael is helping leaders to build teams and communities through the power of story. She is a true inspiration to the veteran community and you will get a lot out of this conversation.
Most of the problems that we face as a society have come to pass, not because of struggle, but due to a lack of struggle. If you're stuck, it's because you have not been tested.
I believe that black lives matter. It is a sentiment, I wholeheartedly agree with.
When it comes to the organization, on the other hand, I disagree heavily with their doctrine and their tactics.
If we are to handle the racial issues that have come to the fore over the last few years, we all need to be able to talk to each other and work together.
That will not come to pass if hopes for justice and peace are pinned to a Marxist doctrine with the aim of erasing history and destroying the idea of America.
I first learned about Nigel Guisinger after listening to his interview on the Bigger Pockets Business Podcast with Jay and Carol Scott.
Nigel paid for his college education by working construction for a local excavation company. This lead to him entering the equipment rental business where he worked with thousands of businesses to help with their project needs.
After the economic downturn and continually seeing businesses fail in his community, Nigel decided to do something about it. He bought an appliance store in 2013, and then grew it from $350,000 in annual sales to over $9 million in a four year period.
Nigel is passionate about American business, and he's on a quest to get other passionate people to save businesses in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis. He began www.yoursmallbusinesshub.com in an effort to help others to buy, sell, and save businesses.
Nigel came onto the Warrior Soul Podcast to encourage the veteran community to take up this fight. He is a very inspiring individual and you will be sure to get a lot out of this conversation.
Before you can move to improve your life and grow, you need to forgive yourself for where you fell short in the past, and then commit to working to do better.
2020 has been an insane year so far, and it doesn't look like there will be a return to normalcy any time soon. In this episode, I share what, in my opinion, you should be focusing on to maintain your footing while continuing your growth as the world descends into chaos.
Matt Simpson is the author of Worth the Fight, a book that details how he overcame his battles with trauma and the resultant self-destructive behavior that comes with trauma.
Matt thrives on showing people what's possible when they finally come to grips with the traumatic events that have happened in their lives.
This is not easy. It involves searching deep within one's soul, a journey that often involves confronting uncomfortable truths along the way. Yet through that discomfort, you can find forgiveness, compassion, kindness, and fulfillment through service to others.
Matt found help on his journey through the healing power of psychedelic plant medicines and has spent much of his time advocating for the study, de-stigmatization, and introduction of these therapies to communities in need, like the veteran community.
Matt and I had an excellent conversation about life, healing, trauma, and psychedelics.
To learn more about Matt and to access his excellent book visit: https://www.nltrans.org/
A college degree has, throughout history, been seen as the key to upward mobility in the United States. In recent years, however, it's been the worst mistake many students have ever made. Crippled by student loans, and unable to get jobs, many students find themselves in dire straits.
In this episode, I discuss three things to help you make your college degree an asset and not a liability.
Albert Carrasco has been a partner in Warrior Soul since the very beginning. His new venture, the Warrior Soul Youth Academy, aims to give kids focus and purpose through academics and physical training.
Colonel Bruce Hurd is a retired US Air Force Pilot, author, and creator of the program Make Your Book a Reality.
Colonel Hurd's first book Aim Point: An Air Force Pilot's Lessons for Navigating Life guided readers through the lessons he learned in his 30-plus years as an Air Force pilot and how he applied them to overcoming trauma in his life.
He wrote this book with the help of a writing retreat that his wife purchased for him. The experience of the retreat made a profound impact on Colonel Hurd, and he decided to improve upon the concept to create his own.
Today, Colonel Hurd is guiding other writers through the process of writing their own books, and he came on to talk about his life and his program: Make Your Book a Reality.
In this episode, I discuss the three key elements to living a great life and maintaining your freedom.
Last week, we spoke about the importance of "going pro." This week, I talk about the importance of committing 100% to everything you do.
This week I got together with a couple of veterans to discuss current events and the impact on the veteran community.