I've been appearing as a guest on a number of podcasts lately, and one of the questions I get often is "what would you tell your 20-year-old self."
Being 40, and running a podcast where most of the audience is in their 20s, I think about this a lot because I don't want you all to make some of the same mistakes I made:
So I decided to put together a list. This episode gives you five things you can start doing in your 20s so that you can dominate your 30s and beyond.
Every couple of weeks, I take questions from the Warrior Soul audience and I give you my take on everything from fitness to relationships and self improvement.
This week we cover:
Check out the show notes for this week's episode to get the resources at http://www.warriorsoulagoge.com/podcast-show-notes/ama-january-2020
In 2014, Matt Litrell decided that he needed to make a change. Since he'd gotten out of the Marine Corps, he hadn't been doing much except for drinking and sitting on his couch. Staring at his 9mm pistol, his demons started putting ideas in his head.
Then he got an idea. Matt decided that he was going to ride his horse across the country from Camp Lejeune, NC to Camp Pendelton, CA. In addition to that, he was going to use the ride to raise money for the Semper Fi Fund.
Matt Litrell started a Facebook page called The Long Trail Home to raise awareness about what he was doing, and to his surprise, thousands joined.
He began his journey, along with his riding partner Ray by wetting his black mustang's feet in the Atlantic coast of North Carolina. Then he and Ray headed south toward Georgia and then turned west. Seven months later, he wet his horse's feet on the beach near Camp Pendelton.
Along the way, Matt met many amazing people, including his future wife and many fellow veterans. This episode details his story and the work he's currently doing with veterans at the Valhalla Ranch in Colorado.
Corporal Jason Dunham sacrificed his life to save the lives of his fellow Marines by throwing himself onto a live grenade. That act of heroism led to him posthumously receiving the Medal of Honor, the first Marine to be given the nation's highest military award since the Vietnam War.
Jason Dunham's story of sacrifice and bravery is a story that will go down as legend in Marine Corps history. Generations of Marine recruits will learn Dunham's name as an example of physical and moral courage.
Jason Dunham will also be remembered through the men he saved. PFC Kelly Miller and Lance Corporal Bill Hampton were with him that day and would have likely been killed by the blast that Dunham's body absorbed.
Both of them, wracked with survivor's guilt, still go through their own battles, but have come to see Jason Dunham's sacrifice as a gift.
Today, filmmaker David Kneiss is working to bring Corporal Jason Dunham's story to film in a documentary called The Gift. This project originally started shortly after Corporal Dunham's death, but the pain was too much to bear so close to the tragedy.
Kneiss, who had a chance meeting with Dunham on a flight prior to his death, kept in touch with the Marines from Jason Dunham's unit. He decided that 2020 was the year to bring the project to life.
Now Kneiss is raising money to continue filming and hopes to bring the documentary to the screen within the next two years.
I brought David onto the show to talk about Corporal Jason Dunham's life, the Marines he saved, and this amazing project.
If you would like to contribute to the Gift Documentary, click here.
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.
Forrest Munden is a US Army Veteran who served with the 101st Airborne. He created the Salty Soldier as a comedy page on Instagram as a satire on Army life and has since built it into a hugely popular social media platform.
Since leaving the Army, Forrest has taken himself on a personal exploration of ideas surrounding masculinity, strength, and life. His podcast, BackBuilders, is designed for individuals interested in seeking personal development, discipline, and sovereignty.
Forrest's goal is to harden his listeners to better bear the burdens of life and he does an outstanding job of that with his commentary.
This was an outstanding conversation about the state of the veteran community, and potential solutions to the problems veterans face in this modern world.
We discuss several books that you'll want to check out including:
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Douglas Gilette
He: Understanding Masculine Psychology by Robert A. Johnson
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Finding the time to exercise is one of the biggest problems plaguing Americans today. Work, family, and other obligations often keep people from finding the time to work out and eat right.
Here's the thing, there are only two assets that truly matter in life, your mind and your body. Money, possessions, and property are important, but you cannot survive or thrive without being in good mental and physical shape. If you aren't finding the time to exercise, you are selling yourself short in other areas of your life.
In this episode, I give you 5 easy things you can do to find the time to exercise in 2020. These are practical things that you can begin implementing immediately after the show that will cost you little to no money to do.
Small actions can change your life and the more you find the time to exercise, the more you'll be able to find confidence, capability, and determination in other areas of your life.
Pat McNamara is a former special forces operator, trainer, and author of the book Sentinal: Be the Agent in Charge of Your Own Personal Protection Detail. Pat has dedicated himself to helping others to become more aware, more capable, and more tough. His Instagram page, TMACSINC, is one of the best fitness pages out there and it also offers segments on becoming a more effective Sentinal and becoming a more effective man (basic dude stuff). Pat is also a great guy. He came on to talk about his story, and to to deliver his advice on how you can become tougher and more effective in your daily life.
Every New Year, millions of people set goals that they will never reach. While many commentators say New Years resolutions are useless, the real problem has nothing to do with setting resolutions. The problem is that we often set goals that don't carry a great enough meaning to follow through on. Even if a goal is set up perfectly under the SMART goal criteria, you won't get far with it if there isn't enough meaning behind it. Change is difficult and to create the change you need, you'll need to set a goal that motivtes you everyday for the long term. This video will help you to create a process to set meaningful goals for yourself in 2020
Walt Gragg is a United States Army Veteran, former lawyer, and military fiction writer.
His latest book, The Chosen One, follows the story of an unassuming holy man who gives rise to a worldwide Islamic fundamentalist movement that takes over the world and leads to a battle of epic proportions. The storyline also follows several characters in different theaters of the battle, including a Marine Force Recon officer who is tasked with delaying the Chosen One's forces until US reinforcements can arrive.
This is Walt Gragg's second time being on the show. Last time, he came on to speak about his first book The Red Line.
The Chosen One is action packed, enormously detailed, and captivating. It's characters, particularly the Mahdi, an Algerian cleric named Mohammed Mourad, and Marine 1st Lt. Sam Erickson, are enthralling.
Walt Gragg's books not only bring entertainment, but lessons for the avid military reader. There are many leadership lessons through it's pages and the detailed descriptions of the weaponry and tactics used are outstanding.
In this conversation, Walt Gragg discusses his writing process. He delivers solid advice to aspiring authors, and he gives us some insight as to his next project.
You can purchase The Chosen One here: https://amzn.to/2PZxOxe
I had someone ask me a few weeks ago, "looking out at a world with so much evil and so much bad, how could you believe in God and how can you get excited for something like Christmas? How could you put so much effort into your ideals"
This is a tough question. I've been in this person's position before and shared the same mindset.
I am by no means the wisest man in the world, but I have lived a good amount of life and this is my best answer:
It is precisely because this world is an imperfect place, because I know that evil exists, and because I know that there are things like suffering in this world that I hold onto my beliefs and ideals.
This is why I joined the Marine Corps in the first place, and why I run this podcast. It's why I pray everyday, why I take care of my body, and why I work so hard to spread this message. It's why I believe God put me on the path to do all of these things.
It's easy to become negative. It's easy to tell someone off, exact revenge, and it's easy to try to make this world more worse off than it is. The harder thing is to work on building this world into a better place, to lift people up, and to free yourself from negativity by forgiving.
We all need to hold ourselves to higher standards because the world is the way it is, especially within the warrior class. That's because we know that evil exists.
We're the ones who need to be strong because, paraphrasing Travis Manion, if not us, then who?
That is why I choose to believe in God. That is why choose to hold myself to higher ideals, and that is why I love the Christmas holiday.
It's a time when, in the face of evil, we can remember ideals like goodwill to all and peace on earth, even if they are ideals that might never be reached.
Wherever you are, and whatever you believe, my prayer for you is that you see a deeper meaning for you being here. Not an easy life, but a life that allows you to see all the good you might do if you open your eyes and your heart and dedicate yourself to something bigger than you.
Not just during this Christmas season, not just for a period, but through your life.
Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season to all of you.
Like many stories we bring to you on the Warrior Soul Podcast, the story of Craig and Fred begins on a battlefield. Battlefields are known to be places of horror, sacrifice, and death. They are also the sources of some of the greatest stories ever created.
Craig and Fred have a great story. It's the story of a US Marine, named Craig Grossi, who found a little dog in Afghanistan whom he named Fred. That dog worked his way into Craig's heart, and into the heart of his fellow Marines. Then Craig decided to bring Fred home to the United States.
The book, Craig and Fred has inspired thousands of people from across the country and across the globe.
I've been lucky enough to befriend Craig and Fred the Afghan, and to get to know both of them. I can say that both have huge hearts and a desire to help others gain the same stubborn positivity that made their story so great.
This is why I bring Craig Grossi onto the show each year around Christmas time. It's a story that can unite us in such divisive times and it's a story that can lift us up.
Brian Tally woke up one day with near paralyzing pain in his back. Brian is a Marine Corps Veteran, and like many veterans, he was in the VA System.
He went to the emergency room in excruciating pain, where he was given a cocktail of painkillers and then sent home.
The pain got worse, and Brian Tally found himself back at the hospital. Eventually, he underwent surgery and doctors found that he had a staff infection in his spine.
Brian's situation was worsened by the neglect of the VA Emergency room, and he was told that the VA would give him damages.
Then, they broke the news to him that the VA was not liable because one of the doctors who worked on him was an independent contractor. He had to sue them under state law, but they didn't give him this information until the statute of limitations for California was up.
Brian was left high and dry, but he's not going down without a fight. Now, Brian Tally is working to save other veterans from this loophole with the Tally Bill.
Kevin Meier is back on the show this week. Kevin is the creator of the very popular Pure Bullfit channel on YouTube.
Kevin's channel is centered on calling out bad actors in the fitness industry, while simultaneously giving his followers valuable advice for their own fitness journies.
Kevin is also a fellow veteran of the United States Marine Corps, and he is a man of the utmost integrity when it comes to bringing the best to his audience and his clients.
In this conversation, we discuss fitness as we head into our 40s, SARMs, steroids, and holding the fitness industry accountable for bad advice.
Human beings have been using psychedelic plant medicines for thousands of years. Often, those medicines were used as a way of helping the subject to reconcile experiences he or she had gone through.
But over the past century, psychedelics became stigmatized and prohibited. Seen as a major threat to society, the US Government took them off the table for anyone seeking to use them as medicine by making them a schedule one drug.
Recently, however, many are seeing psychedelic plant medicines like ayahuasca and dmt as a viable therapy for those dealing with trauma.
Jesse Gould of the Heroic Hearts Project is a US Army Veteran and former investment banker. He started the Heroic Hearts Foundation after having his own transformative experience with ayahuasca in Peru.
The Heroic Hearts Project takes veterans to Peru after extensive preparation to partake in their own healing psychedelic ceremonies.
To learn more about Heroic Hearts, visit https://www.heroicheartsproject.org
In 2016, Brandon Straka felt like the world was ending. President Donald Trump had just been elected, and as a gay man, he believed that the United States had just elected a regime that would oppress him and his values of tolerance and equality for all.
As the viral video he released nearly a year later explains, Brandon identified as a "liberal" because he rejects racism, the marginalization of any human being based off of gender or sexual preference, and tyrannical group think.
But as he looked around, he didn't see tolerance amongst the left. What he saw was a growing hatred for middle America, consistent attempts to marginalize people because they had white skin, and an irrational demonization of heteronormativity. Some on the left were even turning their sights against black men and gay men who didn't tow the line.
Increasingly disillusioned with what he once considered his tribe, Brandon decided to walk away from his identity as a leftist and the Democratic party. With it, he created the #walkaway movement, made up of those increasingly disillusioned with the direction that the political left in the United States is taking.
If you are a regular listener of this podcast, you're probably wondering "why is Chris going political?" Let me explain.
The mission of this podcast is to empower US Military Veterans to live their best lives. Many amongst our audience are headed to University campuses around the country, where they will continually have the values that they've fought for demonized. My fear is that as these young men and women go forth to continue their educations, they will be marginalized and told to sit at the back of the class and shut up, as many leftists have advocated.
If you disagree with me politically, that is fine and completely encouraged. I don't hate you. Like you, I reject racism, bigotry, and marginalization of anyone based on their sexual preference.
But I also believe in America, in religion, and on the value of equality regardless of race.
And for those reasons, I believe that it is my duty to bring Brandon's story to this community. If that causes me to lose listeners, then so be it.
If there is one thing that will determine whether or not you can be successful at anything, it's this: your ability to delay pleasure in favor of pain.
It's impossible to know what life has in store for us. Keith Murphy, US Army Veteran, certainly did not know what life had in store for him when he went out riding on his motorcycle one day.
He was hit by a woman who wasn't paying attention to her driving. He lost a leg, and his life was changed forever. At that moment, Keith had a choice: to allow the situation to break him or to allow the obstacles in front of him to make him stronger.
Luckily, Keith came in contact with the Adaptive Training Foundation, an organization started by former NFL Linebacker David Vobora after he was inspired by US Army Staff Sergeant Travis Mills, a quadruple amputee who lost his limbs in the war in Afghanistan.
The foundation runs a 9 week course that's built to empower those with physical disabilities through exercise. In that 9 weeks, Keith was rebuilt and transformed.
Today, Keith is not only continuing his career as a truck driver. He's running Spartan Races and climbing mountains because of this amazing organization.
In this interview, we discuss Keith's transformation with himself and his trainer, Alex Barham, a US Marine Corps veteran who works with athletes at the Adaptive Training Foundation.
You can donate to this amazing cause by heating over to http://www.adaptivetrainingfoundation.org.
Nick Bare is used to "embracing the suck." Completing US Army Ranger School can drive anyone to the ends of their endurance, but Nick rose to the task as a young Army infantry officer.
While he was in the Army, Nick Bare started Bare Performance Nutrition, a supplement company.
Entering as saturated market, Nick had to figure out a way to differentiate his brand. He did that with the Nick Bare YouTube Channel, which detailed his life as an Army Officer.
Soon his brand started taking off, and Nick and his brother had to begin scaling things up.
In this interview, Nick Bare reveals how he started BPN during his Army career and what he's doing now to grow.
Nick also discusses his new foray into endurance training, and how he deals with the wear and tear on his body.
To learn more about Nick, head over to his website: https://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/
And be sure to check out his YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/barelifenutrition
Pain, emotional or physical, drifts finds it's way into all of our lives at one time or another.
Regardless of how pain enters our lives, it leaves its impact. That impact can be devastating.
Pain can drive you to the ends of your sanity and to the edge of your strength, but pain can also make you stronger.
In this episode, Chris talks about how he deals with his chronic physical and emotional pain in his life.
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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.
Matt Hesse is the founder and CEO of Performix, a high-performance supplement company.
Recently, Matt also founded the Fit Ops Foundation. This is a charity that is dedicated to helping veterans become elite personal trainers.
Through a three-week boot camp, Fit Ops candidates go through the necessary course work and training they need to secure a personal training certification, free of cost. In addition to that, Fit Ops candidates get priceless mental training in the company of their fellow veterans.
Once Fit Ops candidates are through the bootcamp, Fit Ops continues to provide aftercare to ensure that graduates get jobs and stay on the path to success.
Recently, WWE star John Cena donated $1 million to Fit Ops, and he's matching any donations that come in prior to the holidays.
To donate to Fit Ops or apply for your spot, head over to http://www.fitops.org.
Justin Stenstrom is the founder and host of Elite Man Magazine and the Elite Man Podcast.
He started Elite Man originally as a blog to help give young men more confidence as they navigated through life.
Since then Justin Stenstrom has grown Elite Man into a successful media and nutrition company. He's interviewed some of the most accomplished men in the world and has developed a world wide following.
We brought Justin on to discuss his business, life, and his advice for veterans as they strive for success in their own lives.
You'll learn:
Be sure to check out Justin's show the Elite Man Podcast at http://elitemanmagazine.com/.
In this "Ask Me Anything" edition of the Warrior Soul Podcast, Chris examines three question ranging from the practical to the very serious:
Get your questions answered by posting them in the Warrior Soul Agoge: Empowerment and Resilience Facebook Group here: http://www.facebook.com/groups/warriorsoulagoge
Grant Cardone is an internationally renowned author, speaker, sales expert, and real estate expert.
The Grant Cardone empire spreads across five publicly held companies, hundreds of employees, and reaches millions of people via social media content marketing every single day.
But things weren't always so good for Grant Cardone. Until the age of 25, Grant had a drug habit. That habit got him disowned by his mother and it landed him in rehab.
When he got out of rehab, Grant Cardone became a man on a mission. He got a job as a car salesman, which he hated, but he dedicated himself to learning everything he could about sales. He got so good that companies hired him to train their sales teams.
In the process, Grant Cardone also began investing in real estate, securing apartment complexes and rental properties into his portfolio. Today he owns over a billion dollars in real estate and is working to grow that number each year.
Over the past few years, Mr. Cardone has dedicated himself to creating the Cardone Academy, where he teaches sales and investment strategies to students and fans from across the world.
Grant has deep admiration and respect for the Veteran Community, and he's worked with American Dream U to create a sales training program free to all Veterans.
He has made that training program available to our listeners at http://www.cardoneuniversity.com/vets. You can access it for free by clicking on that link
In this episode, you'll learn: