Security Halt!
Welcome to Security Halt! Podcast, the show dedicated to Veterans, Active Duty Service Members, and First Responders. Hosted by retired Green Beret Deny Caballero, this podcast dives deep into the stories of resilience, triumph, and the unique challenges faced by those who serve.
Through powerful interviews and candid discussions, Security Halt! Podcast highlights vital resources, celebrates success stories, and offers actionable tools to navigate mental health, career transitions, and personal growth.
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Security Halt!
18 Good Guy on Military Mindset, Personal Growth & Leadership
In this inspiring episode of Security Halt!, Deny Caballero sits down with Lee from “18 Good Guy” to explore the transformative power of mindset, vulnerability, and cultural influences in shaping a fulfilling life—both inside and outside the military.
🔹 Why Vulnerability is Strength – Breaking down the stigma of weakness and embracing openness to inspire and mentor others.
🔹 Personal Transformation & Lifestyle Choices – How the right mindset and daily habits can lead to lasting change and personal success.
🔹 The Role of Food & Culture in Growth – Exploring how food connects people, influences behavior, and breaks cultural barriers.
🔹 Mentorship & Social Media Influence – How authentic guidance and humility can shape the next generation of leaders and warriors.
🔹 Failure, Ego & the Path to Greatness – Why setbacks are essential lessons, and how embracing failure leads to personal and professional success.
This episode is a must-listen for military personnel, veterans, and anyone looking for motivation, self-improvement, and leadership insights.
Tune in now and be part of the movement for growth! Subscribe, like, and share on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts to help inspire more warriors on their journey.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Positivity in the Military
03:12 Vulnerability and Personal Growth
05:48 The Journey of Transformation
09:05 Catalysts for Change
11:55 Overcoming Barriers and Embracing Choices
15:03 The Role of Food and Family in Lifestyle Choices
17:59 Cultural Influences on Personal Development
22:50 Culinary Adventures and Cultural Connections
24:51 Mentorship in the Social Media Age
30:20 Empathetic Tough Love in Guidance
35:41 The Value of Experience and Humility
40:45 Learning Through Failure and Ego Management
46:36 Striving for Greatness Every Day
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18goodguy
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Website:18goodguy.com
Produced by Security Halt Media
Security Odd Podcast. Let's go. The only podcast that's purpose-built from the ground up to support you Not just you, but the wider audience, everybody. Authentic, impactful and insightful conversations that serve a purpose to help you. And the quality has gone up. It's decent. It's hosted by me, danny Caballero. We'll do the Green Beret thing. Absolutely Fuck it. We'll do it live. Exactly, dude, you got to do a lot with a little bit. Oh yeah, dude Lee, welcome man, it's a pleasure to have you. Thank you for having me, danny. I really appreciate you having me on here. Absolutely welcome man. It's a pleasure to have you. Thank you for having me, dan. I really appreciate you having me on here. Absolutely the uh, the.
Speaker 1:The world of social media is filled with just absolute fucking negativity, and imagining myself as a young green beret being bombarded by messages of your greatest days are over, there's's no hope in. Serving Afghanistan was the greatest thing you could have ever achieved. Why even try? Or even worse, if I was serving as a young paratrooper and those are the messages that I was hearing why would I go to selection? Why would I want to try to achieve the impossible dream of becoming a Green Beret when everything is telling me that I'm a piece of shit for trying.
Speaker 1:And then I stumble upon your page and I'm like this is what we need Simplicity, positivity, and it's still humorous and I want to dive into that. I want to dive into like you're not somebody, you, you are vulnerable with some of the things you've gone through and you've you've allowed yourself to say, look where I'm at now, but, more importantly, look where I was. And you can do this too. So I want to dive into this. Lee, how did you build this? How like? It's an anomaly to me, because I grew up in in a, in a military, where no one would ever in a million years would want to show that vulnerability in hopes of inspiring somebody. Well, I I think it.
Speaker 2:I guess I was compelled to be able to do so. Um, there's a lot of contemporaries in the non-military sphere that are showing in incredible amounts of for lack of a better term bravery, you know, bearing themselves to the world, and I don't think my story is in any way proprietary or unique. I've met a ton of guys who have come from similar backgrounds as I have, have had similar failures and similar successes, similar failures and similar successes, and, um, it occurred to me along the way that perhaps victory was sweeter for me because it had taken so much to get there. Um, you know, america was the underdog. We were founded by illiterate farmers and yet overcame, and so I, I think people kind of gravitate towards that. Um, oddly enough, like when I, you know, growing up and stuff, I I never, I guess, felt like an underdog, and so I think people kind of gravitate towards that.
Speaker 2:Like when I, you know, growing up and stuff, I never, I guess, felt like an underdog. I never felt like things were going to work out or anything like that no-transcript. But I absolutely made a ton of mistakes, most of the mistakes of inaction, which I think are equally as grave, especially in the modern day where most people don't feel they receive the call to action. And in those mistakes I was going down a very specific path, or I guess you could say an unspecific path, where it it felt like it was leading to nowhere, it was drifting. It was, you know, it was directionless not lost, but directionless and um, so I was actually, uh, I used to do some, uh, some small time acting um for for um, uh, online commercials and the company that I was doing these really small gigs for I mean really small, getting $500 a gig right.
Speaker 2:So nothing prolific by any stretch. I was about 300 pounds. I was sitting at a table, I was writing an episode of a food show that I wanted to do. I was a big guy, chubby guy, loved food and I love different cultures and different languages. And I wanted to write a food show, with me as the host, of course being biased towards myself. Or I wanted to travel the world and try these new foods in the spirit of, um, you know, cultural discovery of things, something along the lines of, like, bizarre foods, yeah, um, but I really wanted to hammer down on a cultural piece of it.
Speaker 2:I'm sitting there, uh, writing a pilot episode for this company, and I got to thinking I was like man, I'm hungry. And then I thought, ah, man, I really would love a steak right now. And then I thought, well, when was the last time I had that and my leadership? So I was in the reserves as a preface. My first sergeant and his wife was my detachment sergeant at the time Took me out for steak during drill weekend when poor little private skags didn't have any money to pay for his own steak, and they took me out. And I got to thinking to myself, like man, those people really care about me. And then it dawned on me like man, there's not, you know, outside of my family, there's not a whole lot of other people that care about me like that. I can't leave that.
Speaker 2:And I was the guy that was oh, I'm going to get out. I hate this. This is stupid. It's this, this is stupid. I was like man. I really got to stay. I was unhappy with myself and where I was going I was like what's the hardest thing I can think of to do? Sf was it? Set my mind to it, lost about 80 pounds in the better part of a year, still waited two more years before I actually made the decision to go and cross over back to the inside and sign the 18X-rated contract.
Speaker 2:But I think the long and long of it is that the whole page was based on it's all a decision. Every single thing we do, I believe, is based on decision Decision to act or not act, again having equally great effects at certain times. Every single action I took from that moment put me on the path to being the man that I was telling myself that I was. Then, at some point, you keep telling yourself I'm this guy, I'm this guy that can do it and all you're doing is trying to prove it to yourself. It's not about the title you get. It's not about winning, it's not about making it in whatever. It's about being the guy that shows up and trying your best to aim up and be the guy that you told people you were going to be, especially if you're public about it. So I know that was a bit of a lambo but no, not at all.
Speaker 1:You're hitting on some things that are relatable to not just the senior guy on a team, because we find ourselves falling in these pitfalls and look through, no fault of your own. You've been doing this job for how many years You're a senior on the team? Biological clock is ticking, not to you know. Neglect the fact that you've been exposed to how many freaking chemicals You've been exposed to how many blasts. Your metabolism slows down, your endocrine system slows down. You start putting on some weight and you start accepting that. Okay, well, I'm not the 20-year-old guy, I'm going to settle for these few extra pounds. And all that weighs on you physically and mentally, absolutely. How do you get back to the person you were?
Speaker 1:And for the younger guys that are wanting to get into this career field, there are wanting to become Green Berets and they let themselves go. They didn't have the best upbringing. They were raised by TV and a culture of fast food. How do I achieve the impossible?
Speaker 1:And for the longest time, our own recruitment, our own messaging and themes were like we don't want you. Yeah, heavy set kid, we don't want you, we don't need you. We want the athlete, we want the water polo guy. But there's a fight, there's a drive, there's a will inside everyone. I think so, and I think it just needs somebody like you to show like, hey, I know where you've been. I was there. Maybe I didn't have a healthy relationship with nutrition and dieting, maybe I didn't have, but what I did have is like this idea that just started festering in my head that I had to move, I had to lose this weight because I wanted to be something greater, and it comes through in everything that you're sharing right now, thank you, but I want to ask you, like it's one thing to dream and it's one thing to have an idea, but how did you first start putting that action to actually physical emotion? What was like the, the final catalyst, and how did you go about attacking this?
Speaker 2:first I want to say I'm I'm honored by your words, so thank you for that. So there are myriad factors that contributed to the, I guess, the final straw, the straw that broke Campbell's back, but there were three, I guess, kind of major events in this particular summer. I just turned 21 years old and I wanted to go skydiving. It was one of my life goals. I said I'm going to do it. I recruited my best friend. He was going to go with me. I told my family. Everyone was like, yeah, it's going to be this day, it's going to be at this time. You guys can watch me jump out of an airplane. It's going to be great.
Speaker 2:I'm a grown man now and I have the fortunate, or unfortunate, personality flaw of being ridiculously early to everything. So I showed up to the skydiving center about 45 minutes before everyone else, just beaming, vibrating with energy, and walk inside and said I'm here, I'm ready to jump out of one of your airplanes. All right, step on this scale. I said perfect, you know, they need to know how to balance this plane. It makes sense. I stepped on and they said sir, you're 40 pounds over the weight limit. I said Graham, he's got a weight limit. I didn't know what. Oh man, it was so embarrassing. I called my friend, I called my family. I said guys, the winds are too high, they're not jumping today. I was embarrassed, you know I was. I was oh yeah, and I don't like lying like that, but I was so stricken by embarrassment I can't believe that I'm this big that they literally won't let me jump out of a plane. Then, later on that summer, the reserves told me that they were going to chapter me out. So I actually I got flagged my very first day of my unit. Oh shit, I got flagged that very first day because I was, I think, three pounds over the weight limit and they flagged me for PT, flagged me for height, weight, and I didn't change for three and a half years. By the regulation I should have been kicked out probably three or four times over.
Speaker 2:Granted, the reserves has the reputation of being a little more lax on standards and I think there's some merit to that, because I do believe that where the reserves don't necessarily bring the lethality element, they do bring at least in the PSYOP and CA realms that's what I was before they bring other experience. They bring other experience. They bring not just I am a soldier I have 18. Smash and kill and break. They bring real life to the battle. And in those truly human domains, I believe that that's absolutely necessary.
Speaker 2:If you have a guy, granted, I don't think you should be a liability. But if you have a guy who perhaps struggles and isn't necessarily crushing it, but has a really high acumen in a very specific area, say engineering or policing, or something that can actually contribute to the human domain, then there are certain provisions that can be made. Yeah, maybe not to the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law. For certain and they 100% did that for me, and I think that that really has played into the angle that I try to attack things with is to your point earlier where this we would say oh, we don't want you if you're not the athlete. I fully agree with that. We don't want you as you are, but there is a reality in the future where you can become that. It is a choice in many. And if it's not a choice you say it's a medical condition or something like that then you know we, we thank you for having had the guts to inquire, having the guts, but by and large, if, if, if, it's just being out of shape or not necessarily being the physical specimen which I still am not. There are still heights you can reach and you can be shoulder to shoulder giants and I truly believe that. And they allowed me that kind of grace in a culture.
Speaker 2:So I joined in 2013, mid GWAT, like I said, grand, it was the reserves but my first sergeant was on the mission to hunt Saddam as a reservist and my death sergeant had been in a lot of ticks as a reservist and there was this wealth of experience with the senior NCOs and they showed me grace and I'll be forever thankful to them for that. And I think that that kind of grace can be applied in a tough love and I always say I wish they would have been meaner to me. I wish they were like hey, fatty, get yourself straight man. But they were always so supportive hey man, you got this Next month. I know you said this time, but this next time you have to have it and that continued. So they said we can't sweep this under the rug any longer, we're going to chapter you, and that obviously weighed on me. But even that wasn't enough. The final nail in the coffin was, of course, a girl.
Speaker 1:A tale as old as time and funny you say it in that accent, the irony.
Speaker 2:So I've had a million jobs and that was one of the last summers that I worked at a Renaissance fair, nice.
Speaker 1:Extra money yeah very cool.
Speaker 2:I didn't do the accents, I didn't, so actually I pushed a Good day, milady. Yeah, exactly, gosh, I couldn't stand those guys.
Speaker 1:With the fedora hat.
Speaker 2:I saw things that people are not meant to see, like dark web level content. These people are allowed to be on public. So I actually pushed a kid's ride we called it the flying carousel and it had these hammocks that would spin around when they cranked it by hand. It was actually a very physical job. I really enjoyed it. We got to kind of mess with people all day, decent pay under the table, tax-free, just like it.
Speaker 2:And there was a girl from my high school that I was hey, you should come work for this company, make some extra money this summer while you're home, and it'll be great. She lived in the hometown during summer, so I was like you could ride with me, it'd be cool. And, of course, silly, silly little Lee fell for her over the course of a summer and at the end of the work season we were at a party and I've never been much of a drinker. The work season, we were at a party and I've never been much of a drinker. But this is one of those reasons why this evening I happened to be drinking and I went in for that lovely kiss and she gave me the Drake hand.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh no. And my stomach just turned and she said, no, I'm so sorry, I don't. And I said no, you know, I knew it right there. I said there's nothing to be sorry about. No, you can't help. And I knew why. I said you can't help what I am. And the next morning I started running. I hauled my rear end of the gym and I was like dude. It didn't ever happen to me again. It was a Rocky music montage. I was serious. I was so embarrassed, yeah. And it was not long after that that the coffee shop incident happened, where I got hungry and decided to realize that it is good a reason as any.
Speaker 1:I figure it as good a reason as any, I figure you said so, relatable though you, you ask any green beret or hell, any, any paratrooper, infantryman or service member that deployed and had to endure a long distance relationship that you know turned into heartbreak, and for the rest of that deployment it's nothing but caffeine, hate, nicotine and workouts, because you were damned if you were going to show back up home not looking like a million bucks.
Speaker 2:And there was actually this. What are the blogs called? I can't remember what, not Tumblr. It was one of the old school blogs Again, I'm dating myself here with this but it was called how to Lose Weight in Four Easy Steps and for anyone listening I highly recommend going and reading it and it's written a little softer than current me likes.
Speaker 2:But it was like step one cut carbs. Step two no beer, alcohol is bad for you. And step three have your heart shattered into a million tiny little pieces. And then he goes into the story about his heart getting shattered and it was like hot. It's actually really a beautiful tale, very descriptive, and I would read that every single morning and just work myself up and get so mad.
Speaker 2:And not at her, it was not, I'll be clear, it was not her fault. You can't help not being attracted to the chubby girl and I fueled myself with not a hatred of it wasn't a self-loathing, because I don't think that that's very productive, but it was a hatred of circumstance and I knew that that circumstance was my own fault. But with the knowledge that your bad circumstances are your fault comes the knowledge that the good circumstances can also be your fault, and that, to me is one of the most freeing revelations ever. This is all within my control. You know my it's cliche, it's it's, it's as old as writing itself, but your path is, you know, you can't. You can't determine where you start.
Speaker 2:People start at varying places and there are people who start way behind and people who start way ahead, and all walks of life. But I genuinely, especially in this walks of life, but I genuinely, especially in this day and age, do not believe in barriers. Everyone has obstacles, but barriers really genuinely do not exist, uh, in the modern west, um in in such an open and unbelievably free and um opportunistic society, and that's, that's one of the most beautiful things ever, because about 99 billion out of 100 billion humans that have ever lived have not had that chance. So the fact that we have it and Allah Al-Kubba Al-Harith it I think it's a tragedy and I feel I owe it to myself, to my ancestors, to my family, to the philosophy of it, the notion of why endeavor, because I should, because I can relationship with food was just like not wanting to be active.
Speaker 1:We always have this idea that it's just one single thing, but it for all of us. Like this can happen to any young kid, that's, you know, living in america today. Yeah, like it's important to identify, like all the little factors that add up to a complete lifestyle.
Speaker 2:That just fucking takes hold of you, absolutely so. I mean it started in childhood and I will never, ever ever be upset at how I was raised. I was shown a ridiculous amount of love, a ridiculous amount of care. But you go two generations back and my family barely eked out survival in the Great Depression.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so when you don't have anything, what's the quickest way you can show you're having children, that you love them? It's food, food, oh. And then those kids learned oh, what's the way I can show my family I love them Food. And then my parents' generation learned oh, food is the way to the heart, it is yeah. Even at Rome a woman cooks a good meal for you. You're like, oh my gosh, this is it man.
Speaker 2:But so I was shown love through food and I have tried to analyze it as much, as much as I can probably overthink it. But it wasn't so much a need for satiation. I was greedy with the sensation, the flavor. I'm my my team makes fun of me all the time. I'm a huge foodie. I, I, I absolutely obsessed with finding new fruits, find the best fruits. Um, I'm definitely, uh, a snob about it and I accepted that and I think, as long as you're self-aware, it's admissible, bro. You should in this career field exactly I have an opportunity yeah, dude, I've
Speaker 1:gotten to eat at places. Let me ask you this, and I already know the answer Anthony Bourdain? Where does he rank in your list of heroes?
Speaker 2:Funny enough, I never got into Anthony Bourdain. I really liked Andrew Zimmer when I was young. For some reason I found him just more relatable. As bad as it sounds, Anthony Bourdain struck me as the I bought a Corvette, divorced my wife listened to Disturbed he was my foodie.
Speaker 1:We would one of our trips I remember me and another teammate we were like hunting down all the places that he had gone to in Peru and we're like dude, this is it like travel the world, friggin, drink, great friggin wine, allegedly smoke, cigarettes just living life and food. Is that gateway to adventure? If you allow yourself to explore culture, like having beef hearts in the middle of nowhere in Peru, like just frigging with the people, you're like dude, this is five star meal in the frigging jungles of Peru and we get to do this for a living exactly I.
Speaker 2:I genuinely believe the two quickest ways to understanding and, you know, breaking cultural barriers is through food and speech. You know language. Um me, I will go to the ends of the earth for the next good. But as far as Anthony Bourdain, I never I haven't read his books. I did see his documentary and I gained a new respect for the guy. Yeah, I've been. You know, it's one of those things where I I hate to say I don't have time. I haven't prioritized reading his books. Yeah, hate to say a lot of time. I haven't prioritized reading his books. Yeah, getting into his show, um, it just has not been high on my priority list.
Speaker 1:But I like all things, I have good intentions dude, how do you, um, how do you find yourself mentoring others through this social media space? It's like, I think, that one of the unique things about people that have done hard things uh, especially in the world of soft, I have run into so many guys that have challenged, have overcome challenges, rough upbringings, difficulty, you know, maybe with a disability after service, and you don't want to just hold on to their recovery on their own or their journey of recovery on their own. They want to reach into the void and help others find whether it's a civilian or somebody that serves along them or somebody within the veteran community to try to help and inspire the same sort of growth in others. How do you do that through social media?
Speaker 2:I specifically say on my profile not a soft mentor. I, I don't believe I'm at the point where I can even be considered a mentor, um, so I spent seven and a half years in reserves and I've only been in regiment for about two years. So I'm I'm not a senior guy. Yeah, I have all this combat experience. I don't I. I I don't have the resume to be considered a mentor, um, what I do try my best to do is just talk to people how I wish I was talked to.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, I'm sure as you came up, you hired some green berets or you know, maybe some people in a cool unit or just someone you looked up to, and they were the other two cool for school. You're like, yeah, you know you'll, you'll find out when you get there. Kid, it's all a mystery. Um and I. I didn't think that was right, um, because I did. I did work with some GBs, uh, as a little side preservers, and they were so cool. I'll never forget Bob. He was this spitting image of Alex Jones, had every tab and badge ever, he was a master sergeant and he just had this smirk that was so cool all the time. And PB2 Lee said Good morning Bob. Hey morning Lee. I couldn't believe that this master sergeant was letting me call him by his first name and, uh, I was like I gotta be like that guy. He's so cool, um.
Speaker 2:And then you know, going through the course, uh, there are a lot of really, really just phenomenal instructors that I had, um I, whom I wish I could name so badly just to give them their due Um, but they'll they a couple of them, will listen to this and they'll know I'm talking about them. And they, they just made the learning process so enjoyable. You know, I came into it expecting it to just be a sleigh fest all the time. At times it absolutely was by design. But the best instructors that I had, the ones that made me want to work the hardest to break my back to prove to them that I was good enough, were the guys who were personable, the guys who were genuine.
Speaker 2:When I was in the small unit tactics phase, I had one cadre who I did not like, and so I had a buddy who had an incident in the field that wasn't even a real incident and somebody drew up an incident report about it Again, I'm not being specifically vague and he was going to go to a board and they were, uh, removal board from the Q course, and I was like, whoa, you know, this is uh, this is unbelievable. This guy's too good. I've been with him for two years now. He he's he's a jujitsu guy. He was prior MSRT in the Coast Guard. He was a phenomenal, phenomenal guy and I was like there was no way I could let him take this bullet and so I went to the cadre, came in, anybody got any questions? I said yeah, so I can talk to you offline. He said, yeah, what's up, man?
Speaker 2:Well, I would like to write a letter of character for my friend because I want to help him. I know it's just a pretty big deal and I don't want him getting kicked out. I don't think he deserves to. And he goes. You think I don't see what you're doing. I was like what All military bearing laws I would work. And he's like you think I don't see through your facade.
Speaker 2:I know what you're trying to do, dude. Dude, you're trying to sigh at me because you knew I was saw out before. I was like, oh what? And he goes. You think you can make yourself look good by helping others? No, I see right through it. And I went to the other, the cadger, who was really personal. I said so there. Do you guys really believe this about me? Is this what you guys think he's like? No, absolutely not, dude, that guy sucks. I was like, oh, thank god. I was like because I don't know what he thought I got taught in the reserves but if I was that good, I would be at a different organization right now.
Speaker 1:You, you're not getting rid of my friend.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah exactly he will stay. What, come on, man, and that guy that you know just dogged me for genuinely wanting to help. I hated that guy and anything he said. You know you can do your little resistance, yeah, but the guy that was super cool, he's a hero. I'm a Sergeant after after this. I'm just your bro and he still is my bro.
Speaker 2:Um, that guy, I man, he gave us like critical feedback and a negative feedback, yeah, crushed my soul. I said there's no way he thinks that about us there. I cannot let this guy down. And so again I'm rambling like at this point. But that that's what I try to do as far as the, the mentorship piece is, just tell dudes what I would have wanted to have been told, which is, in my opinion, it is again that empathetic, tough love. Yeah, you know, as I'm sure you have your, you know young aspirants will be, they'll message me and, hey, you know, now I really uh, got this relationship, I've got this thing, I've got this. You know, there's all. They give me a laundry list of the factors of their entire life that are going into their decision of whether they should go to selection or what they should. What the past? I say, dude I, I can't read all that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So much context. You are living your life, man. You need to make this decision. You're either going to do it or you're not. I, in a no amount of enthusiastic words I give you no amount of encouragement, is going to make you sign that line, is going to make you step into the gauntlet. You are either going to do it or you're not. Of course, you're afraid of failure. All of us are the toughest guy out there, the Captain America that you see in line at selection, the guy that you're like whoa man, that guy's got it. He's afraid too. He might be confident, but he knows that there are holes out of camp I can't recall that you can snap your ankle in. He knows that there are copperheads waiting in the little swamps in Scuba Road, which I never crossed Hallelujah.
Speaker 1:I did that bitch twice.
Speaker 2:I'll be honest. I'm a diva. When I land nab, I do not cross draws. I'm 6'3", so I got a long stride. I will walk 12K extra to not cross a draw. I'm the other way around. I pay it for myself. Oh, you're a dead reckoner.
Speaker 1:I'm the other way around man, I will get naked to get across water and then dress on the other side and then go through. I'm a true 18-brow. I might have gotten out as a warp, but I'm a true 18-brow. What's? The closest route there that you've got to go through hell. All right, I'll see you on the other side.
Speaker 2:We should take a casual stroll along the side so we don't have to tip our feet in the mucky pool.
Speaker 1:Where's Denny? He's trying to float through the other side of the lake.
Speaker 2:Seriously, yeah, yeah, he built himself a raft. It's actually pretty good. But so, yeah, you know, I, I try to give guys advice that's real, that is encouraging in a way that it leaves decisions and power in their hands. Yeah, like, oh, I had this setback. Okay, what are you doing to fix it? What steps are you taking? Has every door closed to you? And if it hasn't, then keep knocking. Yeah, and if that door closes, knock on the next one.
Speaker 2:And I think I don't know I could be off base, but I think people gravitate towards that because we live in an age where people they're either so under-encouraged it's ridiculous there is such a distinct lack of support. Everyone acts like we're all adversarial to each other and they just tear each other down. And so they've never had especially a lot of people who come from broken homes, which is a soft market type. These guys never, especially had never had fatherly encouragement. They never had male teachers that told them hey, man, you could be worth something If and I mean if you decide you can. You know, the decisions are obviously moment to moment, but it's you know, know, it's either that or it's the coddling. You're the greatest thing that's ever happened there's. You're so perfect. There's nothing wrong with you. You should be accepted exactly as you are, and those guys make the worst green berets oh man
Speaker 2:um, and I think? Well, I think that those kinds of people make the worst citizens because they think that they're supposed to be placated to and they believe that everyone is supposed to adapt to them. So everyone says treat others how you want to be treated. What? Why would I do that? Not everyone wants to be treated like I want to be treated. Maybe I should treat them how I think they feel they deserve they should be treated.
Speaker 2:I'm the same for everyone these big aphorisms. You're the same for everyone. So you kiss your grandmother on the lips? Oh no, you reserve that side of you for your wife, okay, oh. You scream and yell at your boss? Oh no, you reserve that for your Xbox friends. It's like you're not the same for everyone.
Speaker 2:So A don't lie, and B you probably shouldn't be, because everyone that you come into contact with, especially the ones you care about, deserves the parts of you that are most advantageous for them. And when you start offering bits of yourself that benefit others, you're going to find benefit out of them as well, and I wholeheartedly believe that. So that's also one of the things I try to get across to guys is like you might think you are all that. You might think that you're this, you're so good, and that you're owed things, but you're really not. It's the inverse. You owe people, you owe it to everyone that you claim to care about, to be the best, and if that doesn't motivate you, I have no idea what hospital. I don't like the title mentor. I don't feel like one. I don't feel I have enough experience or tenure or anything like that. Maybe someday, but I, uh, I guess that's how I, that's how I try to help out no, now I will push back on that just a little bit and hear me out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that when I started helping a lot of people, I reached out to one of my mentors and I asked him like hey, how do you, how do you know that you're ready to be a coach and and help out people? And like, not just one or two, but like in groups, and like do I have that experience? And and he told me straight up he's like you just need to be a little bit better than what you're the person you're helping at something. If you're helping somebody with meditation and mindfulness, they're a beginner and you're proficient and you're still learning and you're still getting more knowledge. Like you don't have to have the answers to every question and every problem, you just have to be willing to help and guide somebody on their journey. And I think what we forget as young men is we are a powerful force for good when we're walking a good path. You don't have to walk a righteous path. We're all sinners, we're all trying to figure it out. But if you know that what you're doing is working and you're seeing success and you have proof and there's proof in what you're doing day to day. Then, yeah, I think you have enough to look back and the line of men that are waiting to come in and say, hey, like I don't know the entirety of this journey I'm still on it myself but I know what it takes to get here and, if you want, we can have a cup of coffee.
Speaker 1:Because one thing that I always had was these chance encounters with older. Had these chance encounters with older, ragged green berets. Maybe they were a little bit, you know, rough around the edges and the conversation didn't start as well as one would have thought it should have as a young 82nd paratrooper. But at the very end of the conversation there was that, hey, you should try it, give it a try, go for it. I was no, I was about your age when I went through it, but I didn't have that commonality of a young green beret saying, yeah, man, dude selection, you can do it.
Speaker 1:It was a lot of us at the unit level that were just scared and and wanting something greater. We're like, fuck it, let's try it, let's try it. But I think if we would have had that younger green beret that just just graduated the q course, had a couple years in on a team that was humble enough to say hey, man, I was just like you a few years ago. I was in two, five, four, or yeah, man, I was, I was 173rd dude. You can do this like that. That's huge for the regiment Because, let's face it, nobody wants to talk to fucking CW3 or CW4.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got it. I think one of the how do I phrase it? One of the issues I believe we face is that we start to believe in the facade that we give to others because we I mean we have to have it. You know, I, I have to be big, strong man all the time. I have to be. You know, when partners see me, they have to be confident that this guy can all himself anywhere. He can comport himself anywhere, he can do anything. I'm a UCOM guy, so I'm in situations all the time where my partners, especially in more niche areas, are as or way more capable than I am.
Speaker 2:I was working with some EOD guys from a couple different countries last year and these guys have forgotten more about demolitions than I will ever know. And yet I'm the one get instructing the course. I'm the one, you know, making the course material. And, um, we there. There was a moment where we were just shadowing this, uh, this foreign hosted course and it was a wreck. It was a mess organizationally. The content was phenomenal. I could not believe. I was like this is more than I've ever learned. You know, I'm going to be a student in this, but the organization left some something to be desired, namely there was no base foundation for our students. And I raised my hand, I said, well, I think I could really contribute and change some things and I don't know nearly as much as these guys do but I had to be able to exude the confidence that I'm here on behalf of the United States and I do know what I'm talking about. And luckily the changes were well received, because're not content based, we're format based. But being able to have that frame is very important, but with that, a lot of and I won't even just say green braids a lot of special operations, and really I don't even want to paint with that brush any high performing sector, any high-performing sector, any high-performing job. You know people are going to build their own ego, yeah, especially when they don't fail. And that, in my opinion, is one of the great successes that I had early in my career, not on my part, but on behalf of the people who instructed me was they gave me the bandwidth to fail safely. And those failures, oh my God, they humbled me. I'll never forget.
Speaker 2:The first one that I had was during a training mission for PSYOP. I realize I didn't say psychological operations, for anyone who doesn't know. We were instructed to meet with this village leader and I was the guy in charge. I was the taskman leader, student private sergeant Lee. I was like I'm the guy, I'm going to talk to this guy, we're going to get him on the US's side and everything's going to be on the door. And that was mission focused Laser focused on the mission and we rolled up in very typical new training fashion with no semblance of order, and I started talking to the role player and he's like put your guns away, like you don't need guns. I'm like, okay, so I hand him off my gun, easy money. Now we can talk. Now we're gentlemen with each other. And he's like we don't like your women being around here. Make them go with our women. I was like, okay, he's not comfortable with you guys being here. You got to go elsewhere. And I will never forget the look of betrayal on my friend's face. She said are you serious? I said, yeah, you gotta go. I gotta talk to this guy. And so the female role player sequestered them away, even saying I'm embarrassed, I was so focused. I was like the mission is everything. I have to get this done.
Speaker 2:And the scenario ended up with every single person in my squad was, you know, emotionally killed, except for me. And you know, unbelievable fail, like they specifically spared my life in this scenario. And that instructor, you know, ripped me to pieces. He said you're going to write a letter to every single one of your squad mates families and tell them why you got their kid killed and tell them what you did wrong and why it was your fault. And I said, you know, 18 years old, emotionally I'm going to start bawling my eyes out. But what? And I asked him. I said what does a leader do in this kind of situation? He said exactly what we're doing. You think I could live with myself if I allowed some mistake like that to happen. Hit me. You're right, I can never put anything above these people, ever again.
Speaker 2:But so to circle that back it's, you know you have to be able to fail and I think a lot of that's what selection is, that's what parts of the Q course are. They give you unwinnable situations and I think that's a distinct privilege that we have in the military that I don't think a lot of people acknowledge is we are thrust in these situations that are designed to make us fail, to see how we'll react to it. And if you don't do that early and you don't continue to do it, you don't do it often, you just end up believing in your own ego. The hubris consumes you and then you think that anybody who hasn't achieved what you've achieved, that doesn't have the accolade, that doesn't have the title, is beneath you. What kind of reality is that you don't know what opportunities people have gotten and haven't gotten have the accolade that doesn't have the titles beneath you? What kind of reality is that you don't know what opportunities people have gotten and haven't gotten, or what opportunities they might have.
Speaker 2:Yet Circling way back, I think that that's probably one of the biggest cultural problems with special operations as a whole is we believe in our own mythology. Our mythology is cool, man. I'm I'm obsessed with it. It's awesome. Uh, you know we walk in the shadows of giants every day, but there is so much more to be done. There's so many more. There's summits and peaks and it never ends, you know, and, and I think that that attitude has to be at the forefront. And I think that that attitude has to be at the forefront.
Speaker 2:I write a little section every morning. I guess you could say a little reflection piece on the page and what people realize is that every day I'm writing to myself. They pertain usually directly to what I'm experiencing, to what I'm feeling, what I'm going through, and it's me talking to me. So, again, I'm just trying to tell people what I would like here. Yeah, again, I'm honored by your words.
Speaker 2:I don't think that necessarily makes me a mentor, but, in addendum, I don't think that the Green Beret makes me valuable as someone to listen to.
Speaker 2:What I believe is that in some way, I was able to display value and that's what allowed me to win the Green Beret. And that is a mindset that can be adopted in so many spheres not just special operations, but applying to colleges, applying to jobs acquiring skills not just special operations, but applying to colleges, applying to jobs acquiring skills is that these titles that we're seeking, the labels that we want selfishly, our ego wants others to give us, that's not what breeds the value you being the person worthy of that label, worthy of that title, that's the value itself. In the same vein, that label worthy of that title, that's the value itself. In the same vein that everyone wants to be in good shape and look really good and like, oh, it's so valuable. Well, it's not just because of how it looks, but it's because of what it says about the person who had the discipline, the gumption of a goal to suffer and put themselves through that willingly to achieve a certain goal. And it's visually palpable.
Speaker 1:Yep, Absolutely brother.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And Lee, I can't thank you enough for being here today. It's great to connect with you and have a conversation with somebody that's still there with the right mentality. And I will tell you right now I've been doing this for a little bit now and I've talked with a lot of friends that have already out or on their way out and they always say, man, I wish I would have been able to do this a little different. You know hindsight's 20-20.
Speaker 1:But when we all reflect and we sit back and we talk about the way we wish we would have been and the things we wish we would have been and the things we wish we would have done, it reflects back to a lot of the things that you are doing now with individuals such as yourself, to understand that, yeah, the Green Beret is something that we earn each and every single day and we're never going to forget that lesson. And it's a wonderful thing to see somebody that understands that and is continuing to champion that ideology, especially in a new age, and putting it out there for the world to see, because it's not about just graduating one day and you're just the greatest thing in the world. No, you're striving for that greatness each and every day, man, and your content's great, but what you bring to the regiment's even better. Um, if people want to look at your positive memes and the culture that you're trying to promote, where can they go?
Speaker 2:uh, so instagram it's 18, as in the number one, eight good guy, all one word. Um, I do a website, 18 good guycom it's usually. I have merchandise on there from time to time. Uh, I don't take any profit from it. Every bit I make above the actual cost of the item either goes into new stuff or gets donated charity. So if they're interested in that, they can check that out. And if you're one of those guys that's listening and you don't know where to start with, like fitness or anything like that, I've got a free workout program on there to help people get started. It's definitely not the workout program that's going to be selected, but if you don't know where to start, it's a jumping off point and I encourage people to send me a message. You know, whether through the website or the page or whatever, I answer every single message that comes through, much to the chagrin of my schedule sometimes, but it it's something that selfishly enlivens me. I really enjoy it and I want to keep doing it for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah, brother and Lee, it's. It's absolute pleasure. You guys tune in uh, go to the episode description, click on the links, uh go hang out with uh lee on social media and follow him along his journey and uh get some of those knowledge bombs that he drops from time to time. But uh, even more importantly, you, sons of bitches, head on over to apple podcast and leave me a five-star review. Write a few words. Doesn't have to be anything long. I'm not asking for a five page or five paragraph op order. I'm just one word bananas or fucking dude's cool, that's cool people on the show. Anything. Five stars, it's all I'm fucking asking you people.
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Speaker 1:Thank you all for tuning in. I really appreciate it if you left some reviews on there to tell him how much you like his work. Thank you all for tuning in. I really appreciate it and take care of yourself and each other. Until then, take care. Bye Boom. Thanks for tuning in and don't forget to like, follow, share, subscribe and review us on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to support us, head on over to buymeacoffeecom. Forward slash set, call podcast, buy us a coffee, connect with us on Instagram X or TikTok and share your thoughts or questions about today's episode. You can also visit securityhawkcom for exclusive content, resources and updates. And remember we get through this together. If you're still listening, the episode's over. Yeah, there's no more Tune in tomorrow or next week.
