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!
From Hell Week to CEO: Jeff Gum’s Journey from Navy SEAL to Entrepreneur
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In this powerful episode of Security Halt!, Jeff Gum opens up about his transformation from overcoming a high school injury to conquering Navy SEAL Hell Week and becoming a successful entrepreneur. He dives into the brutal realities of SEAL training, how he battled rhabdomyolysis, and what it takes to build true mental toughness.
Jeff shares his transition from military service to civilian life—launching a high-performance swimwear brand and founding the Operator Challenge, a movement designed to empower others through adversity. He also reflects on valuable lessons from his time in Korea, and how cultural awareness, grit, and purpose have shaped his post-military mission.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking inspiration, resilience, and tactical insight on turning obstacles into opportunities.
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Securepodcast is proudly sponsored by Titan's Arms. Head over to the episode description and check out Titan's Arms today. Jeff Gumm, welcome to Securepodcast. How's it going, brother? Hey, doing great. Thank you for having me, dude. Absolutely. I think it's important to share stories that show that we can have an amazing career, and then our second chapter can be just as impactful, if not more. Dude, what better way than to bring guys like yourself and highlight their journeys on this show? Because, dude, you've led quite a life. So today, my man, I want to break it down, not only what you're doing now and all your different missions, but let's start off from the very beginning. How did you become a Navy SEAL man?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it all pretty much started. I was a sophomore in high school and tore my ACL, got stuck in a brace, was absolutely miserable and went from like working out every day and doing whatever, whatever sports season it was, to just being stuck in an immobilizer brace not able to do anything, and I was just totally going crazy. I realized I needed the biggest challenge in order to be fulfilled. I was like, oh, what's the hardest thing I can do? And it's like, oh, be a Navy SEAL, do Hell Week. I just kind of became obsessed with it. And then, two years later, 9-11 happened and it just reaffirmed it a hundredfold. Okay, I don't want to become, become a seal to do hell week and challenge myself. I want to go hunt the most evil people in the world. And so it gave me a lot more of a like, real meaning, to go do it hell yeah, dude, yeah that's.
Speaker 1:Uh, I think that's something that I've realized a lot of people share from our age group. It's like that polarizing event of nine, 11 and a young man like having that tenacity. Like you know, there's, there's a lot to be said for our youth, but I think it's still. It's still alive. Today. You give a kid an idea and then, once it gets rooted in that brain, it's like that's going to be a tenacious thing to take on. And, dude, I have to imagine we've seen the tv shows, we've seen and heard the stories. But, bro, what was, what was it like for you going through that training?
Speaker 2:so, um, I got you know. I I said I wanted you know the challenge and to like do hell week and the hardest thing and the funny thing is like, be careful what you wish for because you might get it. Not only did I get to go do buds, do hell week, all this stuff, but I had everything. I was so prepared but I had everything go wrong. So friday before hell week, from the tijuana river and all the sewage just getting put out into into the ocean and different rainstorms wash all that out, all the sewage comes up to Coronado when guys are getting surf, tortured, doing boats, doing boats, going out Tons of people, viral gastroenteritis just runs rampant through SEAL training. So not only are you doing some of the hardest military training in the world, but you're doing it while throwing up nonstop, not being able to eat food or drink water, and so from getting this VGE, I was just throwing up, throwing up, I couldn't even drink water. Friday before Hell Week, I finally go to medical because I'm like all right, this could be a serious issue if I can't drink water and do Hell Week and everything. So I go to medical and you try to stay away from it, but I'm like I really need to go in and they try to put IVs in me and they all just keep missing. Because I was so dehydrated, finally got one in and next day I'm like keeping down Pedialyte and some different things. Finally Saturday night I can eat a little bit of food. Sunday I start Hell Week and it's all going fine the first day.
Speaker 2:But from all that dehydration and extreme like hypothermia, like we had people quitting, 30 people at like Steel Pier, 30 people at the first buoy swim, and so dehydrationration, extreme exertion from just running everywhere you go with boats on heads and doing log pt, I ended up developing rhabdomyolysis and my muscles broke down so much my blood became toxic with muscle waste. It never even been diagnosed in seal training before. So because everyone pretty much just quit, I'm sure tons of people got it. They just all quit when they got it and all of Tuesday I'm just falling out from under the boat. Super weak on the log, went from being pretty strong guy in my class to just being like the weakest and then everyone that had either quit or been dropped or whatever and I'm like that was not going to make it. An hour from Wednesday in Hell Week and a performance dropped me.
Speaker 2:They tell me you know you're going over to Extive all this stuff. And I'm like can you just take me out and surf, torture me the rest of the week? I'll do anything to stay here. And they're like what you can't? I'm like, all right, I need to go medical. Then because like something is wrong with me. I've been getting different shits for not performing and I'm like I need to find out what's wrong and I go to medical and I'm like I think I have swimmer induced pulmonary edemia, which people get PE from climbing the highest mountains in the world it's HAPE, high altitude. Or people get it in SEAL training, swimmer induced. And I'm like it's got to be this, because I felt like I couldn't breathe either and my blood ox was high enough. So it wasn't that I was. But yeah, so I I'm like, all right, start calling all the SEALs I know and have them start calling in vouching for me.
Speaker 2:I refused to put on like the X div uniform that people. I just wore my dress blues everywhere Cause I'm like that's a quitter uniform, I'm not wearing that. I went to the senior chief who was in charge of first phase and I'm like, hey, I'm 23. I have a college degree. I never failed anything this entire time, just got super sick Friday before hell week.
Speaker 2:I don't know what happened, but my body stopped working. You can go to medical and see them. You can take away all my pay, not. But my body stopped working. You can go to medical and see them. You can take away all my pay, not pay me the rest of SEAL training. You can take away the 40 grand bonus I'm going to get. This is all I want to do.
Speaker 2:And he's like. He looked at me like I was crazy too and he's like wow, you're the first person ever walk in here and want to do this again. We're not going to take away your pay, but I like the way you're like. I mean, it was hard to argue with that argument. So many people had never passed a swim, never passed a run, and they got another shot. I literally never failed anything, I just got sick. But then he started talking to other instructors and they just remembered me from dying during Hell Week on Monday and Tuesday, being super weak, and they're like he doesn't deserve another shot. But these really respected SEALs called in and vouched for me. Guys who had trained them put them through first phase. Guy named Mike Gecko was my mentor and he's, like Jeff's, one of the toughest guys I've trained. And so I got another shot. I went to the next class. I went from never failing anything to failing everything. Now I had Rhabdo and I just went straight from Hell Week into Indoc into first phase, never got it out of me and now I went from.
Speaker 2:I'm like what's happening? People always quit from Rhabdo because it affects them so much physically, it affects them mentally and they go and ring the bell. But I knew I would think of like my grandpa who had been a 20-year-old fighting in Korea with two purple hearts, shrapnel through the neck, shot in the chest, got patched up, went back out, kept fighting, never even told his parents he was hurt because he didn't want them to worry. I'm like that's way harder than having his friends die around him. That's way harder than whatever I'm going through. I would think of. You know, I'm like the seal creed. I'm never out of the fight, I will never quit. I'm like if I give up here, I feel like I'm never going to be able to come back and say the seal creed. And so I'm like fail. I'm like failing everything. I come in last place. It's the second second week of first phase Now I come in last place by like six minutes on a four mile time to run.
Speaker 2:I got first phase on one side, driving next to me, and then the second phase instructors, because the class I had been in originally they started like 10 minutes after us and all the guys came flying by me eventually and so second phase is on my right. First phase is telling. Second phase you're never going to meet this guy. He's going to be out there on the Navy ship. And I'm just like, wow, I have the worst life in the world right now.
Speaker 2:Finish the run, most miserable, slowest run of my life. It felt like I had like knives in my shins and and like concrete blocks on for boots. I'd gone, I'd been going to medical, all kinds of stuff, trying to find out what's wrong with me. I'm like maybe I have stress fractures. My legs hurt so bad, maybe I have like. I kept going trying to find out what's wrong with me and I'm like I cannot be this weak. Everything was just going really well before and so I go. Finally I go after that run I'm like hey, I need to go medical again. I tell the doctors. I'm like, hey, I don't know what's going on, but I never failed anything before. Now I literally can't pass anything. I just had the worst run of my life. Everything was going great till I got VGE before hell week and then got like, just got performance dropped and all this stuff. I went right, he goes. Wow, it sounds he goes. You've never gotten, you didn't get a break after hell week. It sounds like you might have this thing.
Speaker 2:Rabdomyolysis sent me to the hospital. I, I got blood work done and then my blood came back toxic with muscle waste. I've been doing everything with rhabdomyolysis for like two months at this point and so doing that made me really, really hard. So I I go and I get convalescent leave for like two weeks and the instructors you know now all the instructors are like on me, trying to get me like, and now I get convalescent leave again and they're like what or not? Again they ask get it. They're like what are you getting this for? Blah, blah, I go, I get healthy, I come back and then Ty Woods is like my instructor, the hero from Benghazi. Yeah, I don't. They actually don't make me do in doc this time. I just do all these workouts with the brown shirt rollbacks and I had actually still been in shape.
Speaker 2:It was just having rhabdo was keeping my body from really working and I got the rest. First I think maybe I was like light duty for another week. Then I was like some upper body because my legs were still really hurting and all of a sudden it was all out of my legs and everything felt great and all of a sudden I could run like the wind. I was super strong and I had already done first phase like multiple times once with my body not even working. So I go into this next class and I take 12 minutes off my four mile times run from the run before coming the top 10 out of 200 people and I'm just like come across the finish line, like look who's back, and I just, I just crush, I just crush everything in that class Me and the, me and the other rollbacks who were strong would always like you know, you get in the height line.
Speaker 2:Everybody under the boat is like it's all based on height line. We'd all kind of configure ourselves to pick our boat crew. We'd win. We kept winning everything and when you win you get a break. It pays to be a winner. So you just keep winning over and over.
Speaker 2:And I went through, graduated SQT with that class, went to SEAL, team 5. And it was really years later doing the Honor Foundation, which helps special operators transition in the private sector, and going through all this stuff and it was like what was like your biggest kind of like accomplishment. And you look back I was like, wow, doing going through hell week and having all these things go wrong and still accomplish it and like having that be my, my like big. That's why I want to be when I grew up. That was my dream, you know, and to still like push through and make it.
Speaker 2:And then it looked at like what was your strengths to what was? Because we did strength finder as well what were your five top strengths? And it was strategic communicator, woo, which is winning others over, like some maximizer, and I was like how did they make like that happen? It was like winning others over. I had to win over the like. The original mentor went over the. The senior chief that put me back in went over like the seals that all vouch for me.
Speaker 2:That can also be the strategy of like winning certain things, knowing when to you know, go super hard and achiever, just like never given up on my dreams and I was like, and so looking back and seeing like what it took to get through it was a lot more just than being tough. It was having having these strengths and knowing how to like, kind of use them. And then also like knowing that if I just made it through is like a pretty, you know, pretty, pretty mentally tough athlete. I never would have been challenged to my core the same way that having everything go wrong and having to dig down and like, push through and like have you know they talk about breaks you down and builds you back up. That was the ultimate break you down and build, build you back up.
Speaker 2:Because anytime something's been hard in my life, I think back to those moments and what I thought was like the worst thing happening to me in my life at the time being dropped from my dream, having my like dreams ripped away and like almost my first heartbreak of my life, and to still make it. Every time something happens to me, I'm like this is nothing, I've been through so much worse and don't worry about the problem, focus on the solution. And so every time something bad happens now, I just like push through it's going to make it worth so much more. Dude absolutely the, the.
Speaker 1:The ability to have that as part of your journey is such a gift and you know most people would say what are you fucking kidding me? That's a gift? Fucking nearly died and people have been seriously injured and died from rhabdo. That's not something to take lightly, but what, what people need to understand is like your worst moment, your rock bottom, can be the greatest gift you have in life. It truly can, because it gives you a reference, it gives you something to be like.
Speaker 1:Dude, I'm struggling, I'm having a hard time right now, but it is nothing compared to what I endured in the past. I can get over this, like a lot of people. They have great, wonderful lives, but they've never been tested and that's why I tell people like you gotta go out there and live. You gotta go into the places where it's uncomfortable, challenge yourself to do something hard like that. The, the people who have it really made out and are super well off, and they've never been challenged like, feel sorry for them. Like if you take everything away from them, they will absolutely fold and they won't know how to get back up. And you are very fortunate man myself, including everybody else out there that's gone through something difficult, and it's not just military. There's tons of different ways you can get that resilience and that's it. That's the key word for the day resilience. You can't have it unless you've gone through something difficult, and you mentioned the Honor Foundation, which is something great. I was a member of that club as well.
Speaker 1:Shout out to them. Great program, like it's an important step of like finishing that military career, finding a program that will help you figure it out in your journey. Did you always know that your time was going to be up? Or how did you approach that that moment in your career? Cause, I mean, you, you become a seal and I have to imagine, just like every other operator, a vast majority of us, you you think you're going to do it forever. At some point it's like I'm in, I'm done, nothing else yeah.
Speaker 2:So this was another great life lesson for me here. So there's a time to persevere, and that first story you heard was a time to persevere, and then there's a time to pivot as well to persevere, and then there's a time to pivot as well. So I had I had done. I was on my second deployment and it was in the Middle East. I was doing a hostage rescue training mission and we're going around training all over. I was with the crisis response elements, so if, like, something popped off, we'd be the guys to go in and do it. So we were just training all the time in case something would happen. And so it was a training mission and I fast roped down on the roof and something I had done hundreds of times and I herniated my L5 S1, didn't even, didn't even know it, went through the house, cleared everything, went back, went home, ate food and then overnight my disc swelled and woke up with crazy sciatica pain and my foot didn't work and I'm like, what's going on? And it was going over my IT band. So I'm like, oh, I must have some IT band issue. And if my IT bands were tight, I'd always like roll them. I tried rolling it and it wasn't getting anything. So I literally started rolling it on a barbell, trying to get deep in there and like took all the hair off my legs. I'm like this is not getting better. And I went to the. I went to the doctor there and was telling him I'm like hey, can an IT band make your like foot not work? I don't know what's going on. I can't lift it up and I just kept doing everything for a week. We were doing a bunch of boat stuff. I was like carrying big engines, putting them on the zodiac boats, driving around out. Then, uh, eventually they figured out what it was and they're like, oh, you have to fly to germany and have spine surgery. And I'm like what, whoa? I was like, wait, so you know how, like, every part of your spine works a different part of your body. It's your l5s1 that works the dorsal flexion on your foot, and so all the different injuries I've. I've like learned so much how the body works, flew, flew over to Germany, had that, had that surgery, uh.
Speaker 2:And then I went back, was doing physical therapy and my back seemed better and I got recruited. I'd been a fighter before. The teams did Muay Thai and Jiu-Jitsu, dean Lister and all these guys at a victory MMA, and then got recruited over to be a combats instructor and then I was at the arena MMA with all these guys they were like all our coaches and then my back started getting kind of you know. They told me it'd be all good, but then it just started getting worse and worse. Every like three months it would go out on me and then it was like every good, but then it just started getting worse and worse. Every like three months it would go out on me, and then it was like every two months and it was every month and it was like I had to be really careful. So I was like having to go to the doctor all the time and he's like man, you're back Like I'd had a bunch of surgeries at that point.
Speaker 2:I had had an ACL, I had a shoulder, I had an ankle reconstructed and everything I had surgery on mostly got like a lot better, except like the back I noticed was just never quite the same as, like you know, an operator, your back goes out on you in a mission and you're a liability for your platoon. So I kept trying to persevere through it and then eventually I realized it's time to pivot. During this time I had been going up to Los Angeles a lot. I had a lot of friends who had done their MBA at Wharton and had founded different companies and were founding companies with different celebrities and athletes and things like that and they were doing a lot of their business deals with guys they had done business school with. So I was like, maybe with this like door kind of closing here, maybe I'll do my MBA. It's kind of like a good way to transition and with that, with that transition, I do do, do business school, learn, learn about business and I can grow a company through that.
Speaker 2:And I've been going to Brazil many times with the family that created Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and UFC and I loved swimwear down there.
Speaker 2:The swimwear they had and I'd been wearing them all over the world and everyone's like asked me where they can get them and I was like, oh, maybe I'll take this swimwear, make it patriotic and all about freedom and bring it to the US. And then it ended up bringing it through the entrepreneurship pipeline at UCLA Anderson and it ended up being my master's thesis there, won UCLA Startup Day, did another Anderson, the Anderson Venture Accelerator, and so I was able to kind of scale. My company like one door closed with the SEAL teams, but I was able to transition into something else that was really meaningful and then use that with a because I think it's so important to stay we have, like you know, one of the best communities and brotherhoods in the world and to be able to. You know if, if you just leave, that that's when a lot of people can really struggle and if you lose, like, your mission, and you never really want your memories to be bigger than your dreams.
Speaker 1:So this episode is brought to you by Titan Sarms. Head on over to titansarmscom and buy a stack today. Use my code CDENNY10 to get your first stack. My code cdenny10 to get your first stack. I recommend the lean stack to start living your best life. Titan's arms.
Speaker 2:No junk, no bullshit, just results like, have a way to stay involved in the community, have a way to have another mission that's really important and be able to use and grow and scale my brand to do that. You, you know, just really putting myself out there doing all kinds of stuff. I had walked across Greece with a bunch of people who are a few SEALs and patriots, who were raising money for the Glendory Foundation Navy SEAL Foundation went from Sparta to Thermopylae I think we were the first people since King Leonidas and the 300 Spartans to do that and finish in the hot gates. Asked to be a part of the Hudson seal swim, which we're doing again for like the sixth time in New York City three and a half miles. My friend Bill Brown reached out, asked me to do it. I had a ton of my friends join. It was just like 30 seals to start and Pete Hegseth was me and Kaj's swim buddy for that, and then it's grown into this year.
Speaker 1:Is Pete a strong swimmer or is he a weak swimmer?
Speaker 2:He was not a good swimmer but I give him a lot of credit because he had never I don't think he had ever swam with fins before, or at least not far at all. And he's like on a day's notice. He's like, all right, I'll put on this little bathing suit that you have and go swim three and a half miles with Navy SEALs. And he had like he was like mic'd up and had a, had like a swim cap on and mic'd up and he's like so we're literally swimming together and this crazy current comes and we're just on the first leg. So the first leg is like, you know, maybe a mile. Next legs like a mile. First, what is getting around the statue of Liberty? You go into a bar. Do you do 22 pull-ups and a hundred pushups, but it's like being on a treadmill and I'm I'm there with Pete, kind of just like swimming nice and slow, and he's on his back at one point, kind of frog kicking, and I'm like, pete, you got to keep your legs straight or you're not gonna like get it, or first he's like hey, how far are we? And I'm like we're like five minutes away, but then we don't move at all because we're not swimming faster than the current and he's like 10 minutes go by, he's like, how far are we? I thought we're only five minutes. I'm like you got to kick a little harder. And then he's like on his back doing like a frog kick with fins. And I'm like, no, that's not, that's not gonna work. You gotta keep your legs straight. And he's like, but my legs are so tired. And I'm like, oh boy, we had him grab onto a jet ski then and took him in. And so I like finished the swim. I like come up on the barge and he's like halfway through an interview and he's like that was the craziest current blood. I like literally come out and like step into a fox and friends interview and it was just awesome. We're going. I'm like talking about swimming with them and everything. And then and they're like the girl that's doing the interview is like were you nervous out there? I'm like this is my nervous space, like careful. And then then he's like I don't know should I do, should I keep doing it? And I'm like, pete, you just keep doing it. That was a tough part of the current. The next, the next ones, we're gonna be swimming with the current a bit. We jumped in again and he and he totally and he totally crushed it. He did, he did awesome, you know. And then the next year he's like hey, what fins should I get? I like sent him the exact fins I had. I'm like just order these on Amazon and just like get your legs conditioned, because if you don't swim with fins, your legs are gonna your legs will get get tired swimming three and a half miles. But I give him a lot of credit jumping in and do it, doing that half miles. But I give him a lot of credit jumping in and doing that. He toughed it out and he championed us. And then, you know, we all became close with him.
Speaker 2:And then when he was nominated for secretary of defense, there was many people who were not supporting him originally and we let we really let the Senate know like, hey, the war fighters are here to back Pete, he is here to make the military lethal again. And we had like 100 special operators plus show up to do a whole thing and I was sitting in the hearing supporting him and he made it. He came in 50-50. Got a few last minute switches at the end. I like to think we had some help with that and now he's doing an amazing job rebuilding our military.
Speaker 2:It was, you know. You can look at the shameful Afghanistan withdrawal and everything that happened with that and people think, oh, we should just have retired generals and admirals be the secretary of defense or some. It's like no, we need a real war fighter. Pete's got more combat experience than all the secretary defenses of the last 30 years combined. None of them did any war themselves. They might have been like, hey, you troops go over here, you go and do that, but they were not there.
Speaker 2:He was. He was the second lieutenant in iraq, like leading and leading a infantry platoon, like he got to see it all firsthand. He was in afghanistan actually leading troops in battle. He was not just directing troops. It's a big difference so, and so he's really fixing what we need, what we needed over there. So it's kind of awesome that that Hudson seal swim you know, you know was able to, you know a lot of people that that were involved with that ended up being involved with helping him out. Now he's got a lot of top guys I know about helping him out in the office of secretary and everything.
Speaker 1:It's awesome, it's a. There's a lot of seventh group guys. I got to meet him briefly in Normandy for the 81st anniversary and what blew me away is his, his, his little entourage, his little cabinet and all his staff is thick with 7th Group guys. I was like holy shit, I know people that work with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and a lot of SEALs too, too, so he's got all the right guys, you know, given advising him the right way. I had a lot of friends who worked in the pentagon during the last administration um yeah, advising the joint chiefs and everything special ops related and they said it was just a shit show with this last administration and they never wanted to work in DC again until Pete, like there, and I'm like this is like your chance to. You took everything you learned from working with the bad people and now you know what needs to be fixed. And that's exactly what's happening now. They got the right people in there, not worried about dei and woke and putting trans people into positions, people that can't even deploy because they take all these medications and everything. They're putting people in that you know have have merit and actually know what they're doing.
Speaker 1:It's focusing on the things that really matter. Lethality, exactly, and I'll be all Lethality. Can it and will it make us more lethal If the answer is no, make America lethal again.
Speaker 1:New t-shirt idea 100%. But, dude, I want to dive into this because a lot of us get out and we immediately try to go to what's comfortable, what we know, and there's nothing wrong with that. There are some amazing guys out there with tactical companies doing amazing work, and that's great. But to get out of the military and dive into swimwear, dude, that is about as unconventional as fuck. Right there, you should have been a Green Beret. How did that start and where is it at now, and where do you see it growing into the future?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it started kind of because of my trips to Brazil and everything and being there with the Gracie family and I'm like hanging out on a beach in Rio de Janeiro with a bunch of the Gracies and girls these like hot Brazilian girls and I'm like the only guy in board shorts and I'm like, shoot, I'm like I I think I need to get some of these Tsungas. They look like they dry fast. You get better suntans, you know. I'm telling the girl like all these kind of you know reasons that make sense to me and she goes, yeah, and they look so sexy on men and I'm like that's it.
Speaker 2:I bought like 10 of them, started wearing them all over the world and I'd go to like Croatia yacht week or Vegas or Australia or wherever, and that's what I would wear. I wouldn't even have to go try to talk to girls. They just come up to me and compliment me on my swimwear and guys would be like, oh yeah, I could never wear that. And then they'd come up like an hour later and be, hey, where, where can I get one of them? Do you have any extra? I'm like, well, I'm not giving you my swim and so it's literally ranger panties.
Speaker 1:It's literally ranger panties.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a there's. There's like, yeah, ranger panties and silkies. So originally I had the Brazilian style Speedo. That's just a little like. It's kind of like a hybrid between silkies and a Speedo, and then I was like, all right, I need to. You know, silkies and Ranger panties were a big thing.
Speaker 2:I'm like all right, I'm need to make, I need to extend my product line. Started making silkies, but more like almost like a lululemon navy seal version. And then I was like in business school and I'm like, well, I can't wear, like you know, these, this like speedo type thing or silkies to class, but I can make some board shorts that have like functional pockets. I started making that and other people would be doing their business and venture like pitches wearing a suit and everything and I'd be like I'd go in and a peacock pair of board shorts and be like pitching all this stuff, talking about the things I'm doing. Talking about like being on Mike Tyson's podcast or doing the Hudson swim on Fox and friends, or doing a walking across, walking from Sparta to Thermopylae and having friends fight MMA in it and having, yeah, all different kinds of people and celebrities and things where and fight it. It was a yeah, it was really fun doing that and I learned a ton. The market has got it, got it gone up a lot, especially like 2020, 2021. Overall, I've done a few million in sales, but it has been a tough, a tough business as well, especially the last few years, the market more kind of veterans have gone into. It made similar shorts and swimwear and things like that. So it's gotten more of a congested market and so actually started going into some other ventures.
Speaker 2:I've been building a shooting range up in palm beach county as well and it's like a private member private member shooting range. Several soft guys are involved with that Drew Platus, kaj Larson, rob O'Neill and some business guys as well. It's on like 16 acres outdoors. We've got like a helicopter pad. Jake Paul flew in on a helicopter, took him shooting all kinds, all kinds of people. We had guys from NELC up there NELC boys a few weeks ago put them through like a day of SEAL training and yeah, and then we're actually just made a um. It's like a YouTube channel where it's going to be. It's called the operator challenge.
Speaker 2:So take guys, put them through all this like beach training, just kicking their butt on the beach. Have them do all these workouts and challenges. Then we bring them across to the Fort Lauderdale Hall of Fame pool. This big, crazy high dive is there. It's like a 90 foot high dive, amazing pool. We put them through all this underwater training, drown proofing, 50 meter underwater swim, the 500 meter swim as part of the physical screening test they do all this stuff. We beat them, have them run with weights underwater, have them try to run the 50 meter underwater with the weights, and then we leave there. We go up to the shooting range and then teach them pistol, teach them rifle, make sure they're safe, walking pistol, rifle transitions, and then we have them do a whole stress course where they have to run with a sandbag like 200 meters out around us, hammer, run back, do five pull-ups they're wearing body armor shoot all these shots, run back, do the same thing, shoot all these shots, run back, do the same thing, shoot with rifle and then finish with pistol on steel. So it's like a whole stress course and so we just launched that. That's been pretty fun. We're going to have some put some more people through it the first week of august. And then there's been a bunch of other crazy stuff too. Um, a bunch of yeah, different youtubers will have me and kaj and mitch and ian all put guys through like a day of seal training and stuff.
Speaker 2:And then we were on like beast games, like the amazon prime video. We had to jump out of the helicopter, swim in and hunt the contestants who are trying to win $10 million. So we got to ruin some dreams out there in Panama. People think they're like hiding in the mud, predator style, and we had to, we had to, we had to, we had to find them and snatch them. It was like a mile by mile jungle. It was like not easy to find people. We're like out there. They're like out there. They're like you're all navy seals, you're gonna find them in like 15 minutes. It's like well, if someone's out there in a mile by mile jungle and they're under mud, it's like kind of hard to find them. But it was, uh, it was a great time ended up being like a brocation as well. We're just like at the jw marriott, at the pool and taking jet skis all around and awesome time.
Speaker 2:And then last year I did a crazy TV show in Korea as well. So we went out and we competed against it was like a month long challenge competing against five different Korean special ops teams. They had the Korean seals, called UDT. They had the 707s, which is like their Delta force, their keg, and then they had, uh, the hid and they had special forces. So we literally had all this crazy stuff sniper, stress courses, mud wrestling. Well, we were like all, either nearly 40 or some guys were even two, guys were 46 and the guys who were competing against were all like 28. But we we definitely showed them what what the americans were all about. We we had a rough couple days because we got there and we were like jet lagged had just gotten in.
Speaker 2:The first thing we did was mud wrestling and then after that we started kind of winning everything for a while and and uh, yeah, it was pretty, it was pretty, it was pretty great. But we became super close with um. All the koreans were like super close friends with them. One of my friends from that just broke the pull-up world record. Yeah, I saw that guy yeah, 707 pull-ups and he could have done more. He's such a beast, but he wanted to finish with 707 pull-ups and he could have done more. He's such a beast but he wanted to finish with 707 because he's in the 707.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got that. One of the weirdest but coolest experiences I got to do as a Green Beret was way back during the first Trump administration, where we thought there might be something going on. I got to go down toorea do a soft liaison gig for like six bucks, yeah. So I got to partner up with the korean uh special forces guys and they're great, fucking dudes, man they are they are amazing dudes, dude, yeah how much do you? Love korean barbecue. Oh my god dude I I do it.
Speaker 1:I learned how to do it. Like I yeah, I love kimchi so much. It's such a healthy fermented food for you. Like my entire, like the the amount of traveling I got to do the Olympics there. Like there are so many frigging things I got to do and it's like one of the greatest kept secrets. Like I don't always give a lot of credit to first special forces group, but I will tell you, if you want to travel and go see some great places, first group not bad, not bad, they have it it. They kept it under wraps. I'm going to tell you, south america was pretty cool, peru's amazing. But uh, korea, uh, it was pretty fucking awesome that's, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was funny. They they were like for a bit some of the other korea, the korean teams were complaining a bit because we started saying sometimes they'd give them like random food or whatever and I'd be like, oh, I have dietary restrictions, I can't eat that. And they'd be like, oh yeah, jeff can't eat that kind of stuff. And then we'd all go to Korean barbecue and the producers would take us there and they'd be like, why are the Americans getting special treatment? But the other thing that was crazy they they're like, hey, do you mind sleeping on the? This was one thing I didn't realize. We get there Like, hey, do you mind sleeping on the floor? That's what everybody in Korea. I'm like, well, is there a good ground pad or anything? They're like, yeah, there's good ground. I'm like, all right, well, that's what they're doing. We yeah, there's good ground. I'm like, all right, well, that's what they're doing, we can do it. A ground pad to them was like a blanket. I'm like I literally get there first day.
Speaker 2:I like break my rib getting tackled in a mud pit and land on a rock hard sandbag. I feel my ribs pop out. So then we go back and they we lost and they basically interview us for an hour about why we suck so bad. And they told us to kind of talk shit as well. And we did. And then they're like why'd you say? And then we literally lost the mud wrestling thing. I'm like a grappler too. And I'm getting ready to grapple and all of a sudden, like my feet are. I'm like my feet are really stuck in that and God just goes for my leg right away. Damn, break my rib. My partner, it's two on two. My partner gets pushed out. So now I'm like have my rib popped out and I have two guys on. Now I'm like laying on the ground to sleep. I like try to get up, go to the bathroom. I can barely even get up and then, uh, one of the people from the crew from the korean seals, ended up winning like best individual soldier for like the first.
Speaker 2:It had a few events and then they got to choose a team they would compete against and because we had like kind of talked shit to them, they chose us. So now it's a whole boats on. I'm like boats on heads. My one buddy hadn't done boats on heads since before 9-11.
Speaker 2:Here we are getting ready to do boats on heads at the beach and against a team that just won, and we end up just totally smashing them. And so they literally went through this whole best soldier competition, won it, just to get beat by us. And then they go off and have to do the death match and we got to go back to our hotel and basically do a korean spa for a couple days while they were doing the death match and didn't sleep and we like have to go in for some like photos and all this stuff. They're like taking photos for the like billboards that go up in our time score about our TV show and we see the guys. I'm like, oh, what's up guys? How's it going to go? We come from hell. I'm like shouldn't have chose us.
Speaker 1:This episode is also brought to you by precision wellness group. Getting your hormones optimized shouldn't be a difficult task, and dr taylor bosley has changed the game. Head on over to precisionwellnessgroupcom. Enroll and become a patient today. Oh my god, yeah, I, I love korea. I cannot wait to go back and just a vacation and tour, because there's, like it's really honestly one of the best places that I've been able to like, experience culturally, like everything about it. My wife and I talk about all the time like we need to go back and just visit. This is really the food, the people. Yeah, if you don't know, gotta go, you gotta go.
Speaker 2:It was really special and we got a little bit of time off and stuff in the middle too. I got to go to their. So their civil war was a korean war, you know. Yeah, so I got to go to museum and there was like the first floor which was all their ancient.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing. That place is amazing they.
Speaker 2:They've been invaded. It was like 1,100 times in the last 800 years or something. They've been invaded. It was like Mongol invasion, one Mongol invasion, two Mongol invasions, song Dynasty invasions, the Japanese invasions, all this crazy stuff. They've had it rough and then see all that. Then there's like the second floor or third which was all their you know civil war stuff and I got to learn all the.
Speaker 2:My grandpa was in a unit, the baker bandits, and that's where he had his purple hearts and everything and I got to learn about all his places he went when he landed in Chin and had to go all the way up and then he had to retreat from the Chinese and just all the crazy stuff that was there. And we were up at the DMZ and there was the American Memorial up there. While I was there they had me FaceTime my grandma, who was 91. She was telling stories about grandpa and everything from when, when he was there and he was just a 20 year old. She didn't, she didn't even really know him yet, but uh, his, but she heard the stories from his parents and everything. So she got to tell the stories about him on facetime, literally at the memorial, on the TV show and stuff. So that was really cool. It was raining, it was very somber, but like a beautiful kind of experience and all the Koreans there really were. So I mean, I had so many Koreans reach out and they go. We just can't believe that. You know, some people think Americans shouldn't go and be the policeman of the world and all these things. It's like when has it ever been a positive thing? Well, I'll tell you, it was a positive thing in Korea. All of Korea would be like North Korea if the US didn't go with the Marines and the Army and support with the Navy and everything else and, like you know, in the army and support with the navy and everything else.
Speaker 2:And and like you know when, when back south korea it had all been taken over, my, my cousin, ended up marrying a korean girl, min, and she told me about her grandfather. He had to go and fight. I think he you know he was, I don't know if he was a farmer or what, but but he had to go and fight, like in the first wave, and they just never found him again and literally her grandpa left and just never to be seen again. It was finally in some DNA, I think in 2004 in a mass grave. They found him and she always she said she always looked up to my grandpa so much because of him going there and fighting and helping create that freedom for their whole country.
Speaker 2:They have such a beautiful, thriving, amazing country and you can look at the stark contrast in north korea, where people will literally just get put in a prison for three generations, their whole family. They'll think the whole world is a prison camp and they're starving. They're like a foot shorter than the Koreans and South Korea because they have so malnutrition and you can see what the positives with the U S had been and the Korean see that and they're just like in shock that America would go and do that and protect them and save them and help them create this thriving economy and country that they have now. So that was really awesome to see all that as well and see it personally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing to see it and that museum man, it's like one of the best, especially the outside, everything that they have, it's well designed, everything about it just leaves you walking away with like true understanding. Our education system doesn't do enough to really teach americans and young, young adults like the gravity of that conflict and what our young men and women like really sacrifice going there. And uh, I will tell you one thing, having been there in winter holy shit, yeah, korea, south korean, winter is fucking brutal. So just imagining our young service members going in there and and having to suffer and persevere through that is uh insane a million chinese show up out of nowhere and you don't even know.
Speaker 2:It's like where'd a million chinese come from. They're competing in the mountain and now you gotta fight a million Chinese like what Jeff dude, it's been a pleasure dude.
Speaker 1:I can't thank you enough for coming on here if people want to connect with you and check out what you got going on, where can they go?
Speaker 2:so at Jeff gum on Instagram, jeffgum. If you want to check out soon good life and get some of the best swimwear and athleisure, it is at soon Good Dot life. S U N G a dot L, I, f, e. Those are two of the two of the best ones right there and then on YouTube, once we launch it'll probably be cause we're filming a few episodes you can do the operator, the operator challenge and the operator challenge and yeah, that's uh, yeah, check, check all that out.
Speaker 1:You'll enjoy it. I can't wait and I'm gonna have to bring you back so we can talk about the operator challenge.
Speaker 2:Uh, dude, this can be fucking awesome, uh, especially if you get to put some more influencers through the rung yeah, yeah, it's always a good time and it's funny because we just like smash them on the beach and then they're like this is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. And I'm like, yeah, it's only 9am and you got 10 more hours. And they're like but at the end of it, like doing even better than they were in the beginning and it's like, yeah, it's because your whole mentality has shifted and changed. And they're like and then they're able to take that the same way I took you know, it's just a small little taste, it's not, you know, going through buds with rhabdo and everything but the same way I took that and applied it to the rest of my life. They can take that day and apply it to everything they're doing as well. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It'll inspire people to go out there and suck, cause that's honestly like. That's a big lesson in life that not enough people are hearing. We hear about all the great fun things you can do, but it's not about comfort and seeking pleasure. It's about getting dirty and going after something that's difficult, hard, arduous, failing, falling down and picking yourself back up Sorry. That's how you build resilience. So if we want people to be more resilient, if we want people to develop that grit, get out there, fucking, get after it and be willing to fail, fail fast.
Speaker 1:Jeff, thank you so much for being here. Everybody tuning in, thank you so much for being here with us. Do me a favor, hit up that like. Subscribe. Go to the comments section. Leave us a few words. Say hey, jeff's swimwear is fucking awesome. I'm wearing a pair today, I don't care. Leave something. It helps us, helps us grow and I appreciate you all for tuning in. We'll see you all next time. Until then, take care. Securepodcast is proudly sponsored by Titan's Arms. Head over to the episode description and check out Titan's Arms today.
