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From Special Forces to Fiction: Mike Adkins on Leadership, Writing & Resilience

• Deny Caballero • Season 7 • Episode 364

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In this episode, host Deny Caballero sits down with Mike Adkins, a former Green Beret turned fiction author, to discuss his powerful journey from military service to the literary world. Mike opens up about the challenges of Special Forces training, the critical role of mentorship, and how teamwork shaped both his military career and his writing style. Blending real-life experiences with storytelling, Mike shares how writing became a meaningful way to serve and inspire beyond the battlefield.

 

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SPEAKER_00:

I used to make the joke that if at the end of selection, if they'd have said you were an 18 echo, I'd have said, screw it, I'm going back to the infantry.

SPEAKER_02:

Man, I'm so glad I was an 18 Bravo and then became a warrant. So you know the running joke is a 180 Bravo.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Yeah, I was you know, I was a warrant too. I started off as a Charlie and then went to the Fox course, which I did not like. I'll tell you what, I I was a I was a I was the best 18 Charlie that I ever knew. And I was the worst. I was the worst 18 Fox I ever knew. I hated that job, man.

SPEAKER_02:

So glad. Chief Mike Atkins, welcome, Security On Podcast, brother. That's one hell of a way to start it, man. Yeah, man. I appreciate you. Dude, you're um you've done so much, and we're gonna we're gonna dive into your story. I mean, you've you've covered every job, you've done everything, and then when you got out, you've continued to give back to the force and other branches, and and now you're an author, and we gotta we gotta dive into this whole story of like, man, like where did it all begin? When did young Mike find that call to service?

SPEAKER_01:

Actually, I had gotten interested in the military actually uh at a very young age, and I had said, I don't know, I was probably 12 or 13, and uh I decided that I wanted to be a Green Beret, like literally at like 12 or 13 years old. Yeah. And um and then, you know, followed followed that through. Uh went to a uh military high school. I I was um I was going to the public high school here in West Virginia up and through up until my tenth grade year, and my family moved to Kentucky, which I didn't want to do because, you know, tenth grade, first love, you think that's the end of the world, all that high school stuff. And at the time, my folks were like, well, as a consolation prize, because they knew I was so interested in the military, they said, Well, as a consolation prize, if you want to go to this military school in Kentucky, which is where we were moving to, I said, Well, do that. So that's what I did. Um ended up going to Millersburg Military Institute uh down in Kentucky. And um that kind of started it. And then while I was in high school, I I ended up, you know, taking the same college preparatory class um test that everybody else else does, the ACT SAT. Come to find out I had pretty good scores, so I applied to the United States Military Academy at West Point and got into there. Wow. So I started that, just shot two years there, got in trouble. No, no, man. I was wide open. I tell you what, I started West Point at 17 years old. And and and in retrospect, it there was a there was a definitive lack of uh maturity there. And it uh it showed, it really did. So I I left West Point and immediately enlisted. So when I left West Point, they were like, Well, what are you gonna do? I said, Man, this didn't work out, but this is not gonna stop me from chasing what I wanted to do, you know? Yeah. So that's what I did.

SPEAKER_02:

What what happened? What was uh what was uh the situation that found young Mike in trouble?

SPEAKER_01:

I got in trouble over a girl. I'm gonna keep that one for uh keep this family friendly.

SPEAKER_00:

You were already the Green Beret mindset. That's you don't know how many times I've heard people say that. They said, man, you were acting like a Green Beret when you were 17, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh so I I I I went ahead and enlisted, man, and like worked my way, worked my way to where I wanted to be, you know. I was in the infantry, I was I was down at um uh Fort Polk, Louisiana. There was uh the the op four down there is yeah, Geronimo. Yeah, the Geronimos. I'd heard about this cool thing you could go do, this you know, special operations stuff, you know. And uh I tried out for for um for the greenside to go up, you know, go up to Fort uh Camp Dawson to go to that selection course at like twenty three years, twenty-two or twenty-three or something. You know. Uh and uh I was I was the only guy that finished it that was not either already in group or in regiment or had been in group or regiment. And I was just a you know, I was a junior E511 Bravo. There's only a handful of folks that finished that class, uh, I think about six of us. Yeah. And uh three of the six got selected. I didn't. They're like, well, you know, maybe you should try this again. Well, I didn't under s I again, it goes right back to the lack of maturity. I didn't know what I didn't know at the time, so I rolled right into the very next class, back-to-back selection classes. I had injured myself on the on the first time in. I had broken the uh my first metatarsal in both feet. That's the um like the ball of your foot, that bone. Yeah. Where that bone ties into the bone above that, there's a joint there. And I'd I had broken that. The last day of that course is a 40-mile movement through the mountains of West Virginia. That's your kind of your your land nav for the day. About mile 26 in, I broke my left foot. And the bone, the bone was kind of sticking out on the to the inside. So I it was rubbing real bad, you know, and you can't really get you know if you get blisters like you're screwed. So I just stopped and I um I took my boot off and I cut the side of my boot so that the bone could kind of have some have a way to have a way to go. Well the the problem with that is that I then started favoring my other foot, and about mile 32 or 33, I did the same thing to the other foot. So I had to I cut that boot to let that the bone kind of protrude there, you know. And then finished. Well, I'm I missed time barely. And um did not get selected. They're like, well, you know, again, like they said, they said, Well, you can come back. So I went right back in the next class, trained overly hard. I was in rip roaring shape, and um I I fell on one of the days about three weeks in and uh sustained some other injuries. Got dropped from that course for because once I got injured, I slowed down because of my injuries. So I got dropped for time, so strike two there, right? So um I waited until those injuries had healed and rolled right into SFAS. So I did I did the West Virginia selection twice and SFAS inside of a 13-month block. Holy shit.

SPEAKER_00:

I was like, I was like, one way or the other, man, I'm gonna get out of the infantry.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, the bad, the bad thing is, man, like when I was talking to the SF recruiter, like I told him all this crap. You know, he was like, man, you must really hate the infantry. You know, I was like, dude, I love the infantry. I did. It was it was a wonderful job, exceptionally good people. I was in 82nd. I'd moved between the two West Virginia selections, I moved to Fort Bragg to the 82nd. And this I was up there at the Fort Bragg, the Yusufic recruiter or whatever, whatever he was, you know. Man, you really hate, you really hate the infantry. I didn't, I loved it. I was, it was just before the war. Yeah. And I was bored. I was bored, I was doing very well there. And uh, so finally That's every paratrooper, man.

SPEAKER_02:

That's that's all of us. And where where were you at in the 82nd?

SPEAKER_01:

I was in third of the 05.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, I was 2504. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

We're negroes practically. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I absolutely, again, I loved it too. But after you've been there a few years, you kind of get the pattern. You kind of figure out, like, there's gotta be more to life. There's gotta be more to life.

SPEAKER_01:

And and like I liked the uh I liked the culture there. They have, you know, it's a high perf they're a high performing infantry unit. I have the greatest respect for the 82nd Airborne. I mean, obviously that's you know part of my heritage. I thought it was a very professional organization. I just I just wanted something more, you know, and I didn't know exactly what it was that I wanted, so that's why I was trying different things. Failing, clearly, a couple times there. Um, but finally got to where I I wanted to be. And I I think that where I ended up was was probably better for me anyhow, because back to my earlier statement of you don't know what you don't know, I didn't realize what um what special forces would become to me and what it means to you know to have that community. I'm glad that's where I ended up after all that. I'm glad that's where the cards fell.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, absolutely, man. Yeah, like life, being able to reflect back and and see how everything pans out, God's God's got a plan. And even if you don't believe in God, the big man, this big the the big unknown, they there's a plan for everything, even the the failures. Everything's in line.

SPEAKER_00:

Man.

SPEAKER_01:

Fuck. Both feet. Well that so that's what that's what messed me up, man, because I just let the bones heal in this in the broken position, you know? Yeah. So I went through that those second two of those on the feet healed in that position. Well, later that came back to bite me because it broke loose. So then I had to go in and get surgeries and get them all put back together. So it's it's fine. They screwed everything down.

SPEAKER_02:

Like I got some, you know, I got fancy hardware. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, well, I I tell you, it almost messed me up though, because we were getting ready to go to Afghanistan in uh in 04. And when when my my left foot kind of broke loose, so I had to go get the surgeries. And like I was racing the clock to be able to go, to be able to heal in time to go to the deployment. And I was going to the Fox Corps.

SPEAKER_02:

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SPEAKER_01:

There was a guy, okay. So check this out. No kidding, there we were, right? Venezuela in 2001. We were there for 9-11. And we didn't have an 18 Fox at the time, but we brought in a guy named Craig Archer. I don't know if you know Archie or you heard of Archie as a Fox. So he goes down to Venezuela with us. Now, fast forward to three years later, I'm going to the Fox force. He's now the NCOIC. And I had just had the surgery. I was supposed to be wearing the big, the big uh, you know, walking boot. Yeah. Well, you can't go to the fox horse if you're on profile. Well, I knew the NCOIC, so I pulled him aside and I was like, hey man, like here's what's going on. He's like, all right, check it out. We got the APFT tomorrow. Just don't show up. Okay. If you're in running for honor graduate at the end, then I'll give you an APFT because that counts, you know, as part of your part of your grade there. He said, I'll just meet you at the end, you know, towards the end, I'll go give you an APFT myself in case you know we need that for your honor graduate status. So, okay. So we finished the course, we're at the end of the course, we're doing our call X, and he pulls up out at our hide site, because we're doing uh the the colex on 185. If I don't know if it was the same as you, but it was um broken axle.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think it's changed now.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So he anyhow, he pulls up at our hide site, he comes over and he calls me over to the truck and he's like, hey man, you remember when I said if you're running for undergraduate, I gotta give you an APFT? I say, Yes. He goes, Don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_00:

You ain't even close. Nice. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So finish the Fox porse and ride off with ODA 733 to uh to Afghanistan. I went, man. Yeah. Hey. End of the day, you're an A Team Fox. That was it, man. Like it's like what they what do they call the the guy that graduates last day medical school? They call him doctor, you know. That's right. That was me and the AT Fox force. Like, well, he's an Intel guy, but is he, you know?

SPEAKER_02:

And now now you have to do it in uh the uh the real world in Afghanistan.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep. Had a had a great team. So that ended up um I went um from 04 over into 05 um with in um eastern Afghanistan, Paktika province. So uh had a great, great, absolutely great ODA and uh was very very fortunate on some of the some of the uh most of the ODAs that I that I was fortunate enough to serve in were just full of tremendous human beings, you know. So it was looking back, sometimes, you know, we've all heard that, you know, walking among giants, you know. Yeah. And some of those guys, man, they were they they were long-term standouts in the community, uh, in the community.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. It's you know, we have to really understand that the greatest, the greatest guys really amplify the rest of their teams. The good stand-up guys are always like it the culture is about uplifting and promoting that the greatness is not because of how amazing you are, it's because all the people around you. That's always like that's a good marker of an individual that understands the importance of like, dude, you're you're part of collective. Like it if you're a medal of honor, if you're if you're a silver star recipient, like that's different. Like you've you've got some you've got some things to be proud of and talk about. But for the vast majority of us, like it's about the guys to left and right of you. Like you're an ODA. You're you're not an OD me. It's not it's not about all the greatness you did, because you didn't do anything by yourself.

SPEAKER_01:

I'll tell you something, man. So so you know, you know that after after I I left, after I retired, I started working as a G chief for Robin Sage. And what you just said, I told every student that went through the Q course when I was there, well, that made it to Robin Sage at least. I gave them a very similar guidance to what you just said, because that's real.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

They have a precursor to Robin Sage, it's called a mission readiness exercise that they do now that they didn't do when I was when I was really and they it's like um they set up like these mock lanes, so you get to run through and meet the G chief, you get to run through a key leader engagement, you run through a medical scenario, etc. And when my ODA that I was about to be the G Chief for came through my lane for that, I would step away and somebody else would run my lane for that one so they wouldn't see me before actual Robin Sage. But because of that structure, I got to see every, all of us did, all the G Chiefs, got to see every single student that was going through in that class. Because all the ODAs would cycle through your lane. And then when you go to Robin Sage, you saw your actual ODA that you had. And I would tell, so every student, every student that went through while I was there got to hear that statement. It was you don't make yourself better by making others look worse. You make yourself better by improving your detachment and you'll be lifted up with that unit. And I said that over and over and over and over for all the years I was there. So everybody has that has had that has that was a stage when I was there, they got it. Yeah. Now whether they retained it or not, who knows, you know, but it's true.

SPEAKER_02:

It it it's I I think I don't think we have a soft culture problem. I think it's individuals. I know that because in this whole experiment of talking to Green Berets, fucking infantry guys, paratroopers, 88 mics, whoever I've been able to sit down and interview, I've yet to meet somebody. Even Earl Plumley, Medal of Honor winner, sat here and gave glory and gave recognition to everybody else that he worked with, everybody else that he served with, because that's the truth. If we're if we find ourselves in these moments of of sheer terror and fucking being met to met or being faced with some of the worst situations on earth, you rise above because of the training you have, because of the mentorship you have, not because of you being this godlike omnipotent being. No decades, years of of being coached, being mentored, being taught what to do in the moment gave you the opportunity and the ability to rise above your fear and meet the enemy face to face and do those great things. None of us ever did anything great because of who we were by ourselves. Like unless you were in the moment by yourself, secluded, which you shouldn't be. I don't know, like the vast majority of us, always around with a teammate. And it's really the ODA, it's it's the senior guys, it's the young guys, it's your team sergeant, the warrant. Everybody pours into you and it continues as you move forward in life. Like now you're on the other side, you get to mentor, you get to teach and coach, and and this G chief experience that so many of our guys get to experience on the backside, that's gonna be incredibly rewarding. That's gotta be something of like being able to pour back into the regiment.

SPEAKER_01:

That is the most rewarding job I ever had in my life, second only to being on an ODA. Um, I was you know, I keep I keep using the term fortunate, but that's just it's the best way to describe the way I feel about getting the opportunity to do that because I got to do it for the for the Q course in Robin Sage, but I also got to do it for the Marine Corps version of that. It's called Durham Bridge. And then and then the Canadians, they stood up their unconventional warfare program, which had been stood they stood it down at the end of World War II. So after a 72-year gap, they they brought it back, and I I got to go up there for the very first class, G Chief their class for the very first class.

SPEAKER_02:

What was that like? That is we have to pause and reflect and honor that history. Like the Canadians and Americans that put together that first unconventional fucking team, that's history, dude. That we don't we didn't, and when we look back to that first, like that first iteration of what would become special forces, it wasn't the very best. It wasn't it wasn't like they didn't pick the uh the Brock handsome guys, uh, the great individuals. No, they they threw a bunch of vagabonds and and fucking mean-spirited brothers and girls. Yeah, and it it gave birth to them what we have today. And people forget that that first iteration was Americans and Canadians. Like that is oh, what was that like? Take us through that.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, the they were provided with, I guess you saw it probably just went, here's the unconventional warfare manual, right, with all the stuff that was not Martin Oforn, right? And they gave them no help or no guidance, no mentorship. They just gave them the books. And so I get up there and they had built this elaborate, exceptionally, exceptionally well-funded exercise for one ODA and their version of ODA. And the instructors didn't actually have as good of a grasp, maybe as they would have had they gotten some actual instruction.

SPEAKER_02:

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SPEAKER_01:

So what happened was I was in the G base during the day running that, running that part of the exercise, was the actual exercise. And then in the uh in the evenings, I would go back and we'd we'd have our daily sync meetings. Well, I'd go back for the sync meeting and I'd go, Well, you know, hey, they didn't even know this. And then the cadre who had trained him would go, Well, what is that? I go, Well, now I know why the students didn't know it, because their instructors didn't know it, you know, because they had just read the manual but didn't understand it. So I was training the students during the day, and then in the evenings I was training the helping the cadre. I don't I I I wanted I don't want to um downplay how professional the cadre were. So I say training them, but with all respect, like helping them improve, you know. Yeah. Because those guys had got they got handed an incredibly difficult task and managed it for the situation they had very well. I was luckily I was there to help them improve on it. When I went back the second year, all the improvements and recommendations I had made, they had incorporated everything. So to their credit, I don't know of a U.S. unit that could have reacted that quickly and changed a major exercise. So, you know, hats off to them for those individuals. Because it was only a small group. The guy that was the unconventional warfare coordinator for the country was an East. Holy shit. Their national, their national, yeah, their national unconventional warfare director or coordinator was a freaking E7 enlisted guy, sharp as attack, passionate, and uh did exceptionally well. I mean, so so it was it was really unique. I had a G base, and I had only half of them spoke English, the other half spoke French. So I had to use a terp right inside my own G base sometimes, you know. Yeah. But now their their special forces is now keep in mind they're very small, their support network is over the top. It's over the top, and like, so they come out there and they set up a mess hall, like a field, a field mess hall in the G base, and they've got like legit chefs, like with the white hats and the whole bit in the G base. I'm like, man, this like we're eating like cham, like this ain't gonna work, man. They're like, what do you mean? Like, this is not unconventional warfare. We we're having steak and lobster in the G base, you know. I'm like, I'm like, you gotta get rid of this, I'm like, you gotta get rid of this food, you know, because it doesn't make sense. You know, we're behind enemy lines. What is that is the mechanism? The insurgency support network can't support, would not be able to support this, so this is illogical and unrealistic. And if you're trying to train them realistically, you need to get rid of this food. And they're like, dude, we spent, you know, fifteen thousand dollars on meat for this two-week exercise. Like, we got to use it. I'm like, get to starting some fires. I don't know what to tell you. There was a there was a freaking um there is a freaking uh refrigerator truck in the G base, uh refrigerator box truck in the G base with a camo net over it.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, if we can't overfind an assortment of wines and cheeses, then what good is war? I'm telling you, it was something else.

SPEAKER_02:

Bad. You you cannot write or script those cultural clashes. Yeah, bad. Yeah, but we did not have that at Robin Sage.

SPEAKER_01:

No, no. I told him they were like, What do you do for for me to Robin Sage? And I started telling the you know, explaining the insurgency support network as a plus. You know, we got locals down there support us. If they hit a deer with their truck or whatever, they'll drop it off, and he's like, Y'all are eating roadkill? Like, yeah, you eat roadkill, man. If you're if you're hungry, you know, we used to get you know deer dropped off regularly. Sometimes they were hunted, sometimes they were hunting them with their Chevy, you know, whatever. Like we would take it. Uh A Morton's dropped off a beaver one time in the game, you know, in a patrol base. We cooked it up, man. Like, whatever. It was uh it was a great experience. Uh when I when I went to do book one uh of this series, I wanted to give kind of the backstory of the main character. So this this book series is in the post-apocalyptic dystopian fiction genre. So it's like post-apocalypse type stuff, which I read in that genre. And I found myself kind of wanting a little bit more of something, even though I really like the authors. There's a bunch of really, really great authors in the genre, but I was wanting something a little bit, I don't even know if it's more, but maybe a little bit different. And that's and maybe it's tied to the military background, you know. But one thing that I had seen in some cases is you'd have a book where you got this very, very capable protagonist that he can just do everything, you know, like, man, that guy can run a 249 machine gun and he knows, you know, and he knows how to fill in the blanks here, right? On on whatever task it is. Man, what'd you do before the lights went out? Oh, I was a plumber, you know, or something. It's like, how does that guy know these all these survival skills, and how does he know the weapons handling? And I wanted to paint the picture for the reader for the main character, and I used book one to do that. I used the experiences from Robin Sage. About a third of book one is the main character's experience as he went through Robin Sage. So, how does he know how to do this? How does he know how to do that? Well, you get a clear picture of part of the training. Now, with that being said, this is not an instruction manual for a guy that's in the army that went to cheat sheet to go through Robin Sage, right? Clear disclaimer.

SPEAKER_02:

That is what will that give you G Right.

SPEAKER_01:

That would have been very poorly received from the community. Um, hey man, you're giving away all the secrets, you know. Um I was very I was very careful with that. Um because because I mean you need to earn it. You need to earn it. Um I'm not an advocate of of cheating your way through the Q course or for any course for that matter, but specifically in this instance, we're referring to the Q course. So it's very it is very informative, but it's nothing that's not really open source other than what the characters themselves are experiencing and doing, you know. So that's the takeaway from it, but it does give it, I think it paints a good picture of of the the challenges that the main character faced going through the Q course. Some of the reviews that I've gotten, and I've got so this is new to me. I get fan mail now. That is so wild. It's email, fan mail, but like I did not, it's not something you think about. You probably get it, right? Yeah. Yeah. And but one of one of the common comments that that I've been getting is the realism of the scenarios that the that the characters face in Robin Sage. So I'm I really appreciate the feedback that I've gotten from folks on that. It is not my exact Robin Sage experience, nor is it my exact Robin Sage experience when I was going through as a G-Tief. It is a hybrid, generic example of a Robin Sage experience without the cheat sheet notes included. It's the experience. It's the experience, not you have to do this, you have to do that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And when did you first like have this idea that you wanted to write this story? When did this first like creep into your mind? Was it always with you while you were serving and just didn't have the time, or when you finally made your way out, got out, did that voice finally find its way into the forefront of your mind?

SPEAKER_01:

You asked the perfect question. That is the perfect way because because that's good because that's the easiest answer for me. Because I started off uh um my you know, I speak Spanish, English and Spanish, and I also speak sarcasm. So my first book was political satire. And it was my for it, my my into writing. It was okay, but you can only read the whole book is written written in written tongue-in-cheek. So you're reading the whole book in sarcasm.

SPEAKER_02:

Only only a warrant could do that, ladies and gentlemen.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. So I wrote this book.

SPEAKER_01:

It's called The Playbook, A Conservative's Guide to Becoming a Liberal Elite. Complete sarcasm the whole time. But as I'm writing this thing, I was reading and listening to books in the other genre. I probably read 300 books in the other genre, uh, in the in the post-apocalyptic genre. So I decided I was going to uh to give it a shot. Uh the first book I got about three chapters in, reread it, and it was so bad I threw it away and said, uh, this is not for me. Immediately, no. Immediately. Immediately I was like, I was like, I would be too embarrassed, I would be too embarrassed to publish this, you know, even if even if someone would publish it. I'll give it bad. So I was well, I was I was on this writer's um Facebook page, like group writers, group of writers have this Facebook page, and uh I saw a funny meme, actually. This is I am answering your question. This is how I got there. The meme said, you know, uh therapist, what do you do when somebody makes you angry at work? Me. I write a character based on that person and then kill them in a violent way, right? And I thought, A, that's hilarious, right? But B, I was trying to create backstories, these all these elaborate characters and backstories and histories and family connections and stuff from scratch in my head, and I don't have the capacity for that. What I figured out was if you just look around you, people you know, people you're associated with, people you used to know 20 years ago. And use them as kind of a template in your head to help you build characters that are realistic and believable. And I started a new a new book, completely, completely different approach to the second one, and it worked. It worked well. And the the main character, hey, he's a retired Green Beret living in West Virginia. Clearly, I was my inspiration for that character, right? But that isn't characters not me. Anybody that knows me, if they read the book and they read about Paul Michaels, the main character, I like, well, he didn't do that. No kidding, I didn't do it. This is a work of fiction, right? So, you know, it's not me. I I just I just use, you know, I used uh I used ideas. Now, when Paul Michaels is doing things in the Q course, or Paul Michaels is um, you know, there there are there's a war story in each in each book. Some of them are very, very minor. Like the first book is a very minor. It's not even a war story so much, it's a KLE. I wrote those in a way that is very realistic because it's been based on my experience.

SPEAKER_02:

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SPEAKER_01:

I'm not saying that's my war story. I'm saying I learned how to write about this subject through my own combat experiences. So they should I I feel like they're very, very realistic because I base them on my experiences to give the reader an accurate picture of what it was like. For folks, I never went to Iraq. I did three tours in Afghanistan, but for folks that haven't been to one of those places, it's hard for us to convey what that's really like sometimes. Yeah. And I think using my real life experiences to paint those pictures in the book is the best way I know how to do that. And I've gotten really good feedback from the readers that they've enjoyed that that portion as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I think I'm always advocating for guys to share their stories, to tell their story. And often that's that's the biographical, the the real-world stuff you went through. But you can do it through sci-fi. You can do it through so many different ways. And I think the creative, there's a creative inside all of us. And if we just allow ourselves to explore and dive into that aspect of who we are, and just for you know an hour a day, write something, dive into this, explore a story, create a short story. You'll be amazed with what you can create. And when you were going in, when you first started writing, was that your approach? You just had, you know, maybe a short story here or there, or did you dive straight in to write the book and dive into this, like, you know, I'm gonna write a novel from start to finish.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm gonna go into this. I dove in. I went in feet feet first. Now, the first book took me two. It's so this is a series of books. It's called The Precipice Series. The first book took me two and a half years for the one book. The second book, four months. I finished the second book in four months. They came out back to back, and now I've found my stride. The third book, the second book released fourth of July. It's called Over the Precipice. The first was Edge of the Precipice, the second one's over the precipice. It dropped on the fourth of July, the third one will be out later this year. The planned release date is no later than Christmas. It should be should be able to make that that uh that planned timeline. Yeah. But yeah, but to your question, like I mean, I I had a an idea and I wrote uh essentially a an outline. Hey, this is what I want it to look like, and then just dove in and it it took on its life a life of its own. I will tell you something that I didn't expect to happen. You know that enjoyment you get when you get wrapped up into a really good book and you like you get lost and you're and you that there's those endorphins, and you know, you're you're taken away to another place in your brain when you're reading a good book. I experienced that same same thing when I was writing, and I didn't know that was gonna happen. So, you know how people say, Well, I started reading this book and I can't I couldn't put it down. I just it's a page turner duh, you know. That would happen to me. Hey, I'm gonna go in here and write for two hours. And next thing you know, it's 2 a.m. and I've been in there for for six hours because I'm I'm caught up in the story myself. Yeah. And it's been a tremendously um fulfilling experience to get to do this. But the only way I'm able to do it is if people keep buying the books. So far, man, like I've had an outpouring of support from, you know, of course, people that don't know me. You know, I mean they're buying the books and I'm just getting feedback. And like that's that's an awesome feeling, man. It really is.

SPEAKER_02:

You're tapping into flow, something that people rarely understand. Like when it's a component of things, something that you absolutely love. It's the right amount of difficulty with the the payout being something that's attainable. Like you're really tapping into something that you actually love, you enjoy doing, and it's just difficult enough that it's a hundred percent driving you and pulling you along. And so many people go throughout their entire life not understanding how to do it. They they take, you know, they they buy supplements for it, they go through coaching, and and really honestly, for you for those of you listening that want to do this, like all you have to do is think of something that you're passionate about, think of something that you enjoy and explore, like get into it and and stay, and uh know when you can pull away so you can get some sleep so you can so you don't burn out. Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Without giving it.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I was just gonna say I had to find a balance. Yeah, I found it now. I'm good.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. We tend to become addicted to things real fucking fast.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely, man. I I have not figured out how to half step on my hobbies, you know, everything's over the top. And I will tell you this this has become more than a hobby to me. You know, it's not I don't I don't want I'm not treating it like a side gig, like this is what I want to do. So I want to produce the kind of books that people at the level people expect from professional authors. So that's and I and I have it, I have a support team that is allowing me to do that. It's not it's yes, I'm the only writer, but I mean I've got I've got um I've got uh women that are helping me, I've got an illustrator, I have uh two different editors, I've got, you know, all all it's it's a it's a it's a a a team effort, even though it's my it's my story or my story that I'm writing. But in order to get that from point A to point B, like it's it's been um it's been more than just me. Yeah focus of mine for this was I I wanted to focus on realism. I wanted and believability. And I'm not a subject matter expert on everything that's in the book. I'm a subject matter expert on a lot of stuff, just like we all are, right? We're all the Swiss Army knife of the Army. Yeah. But when I when I breached a subject about something that I wanted it to be very realistic in the book, I brought in consultants. If I'm talking about a truck driver uh and something that a truck driver would do, I brought in a 30-year veteran truck driver, like he'd been driving trucks for 30 years, you know, and I said, Hey, I want you to look at this and see if am I missing anything. He goes, Yeah, this is stupid, you're wrong. You don't know what you're talking about. I said, Great, you know, uh, tell me how to fix this. So, you know, he said, Oh, well, this, you know. So, so the truck driver checks that part, you know, and and the the cops pick, you know, I've got bringing law enforcement to check my anytime the cops are doing something in the in the in the story. So the end result is meant to be very believable, first of all, and very realistic. So that if if you're a if you're a person who has a certain job and you read in the story, and that person in this in the story has your job also, it's believable. Because you know, it's just like us watching war movies, right? It drives you crazy. Absolutely. So everybody feels that way. If you're a doctor, you probably can't watch these doc fiction fictional doctor shows. And so I I wanted to give the readers a realistic experience down to that level of detail.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And and if you could, without giving too much weight, like set up the players in the world for us. That way we we can visualize you know the story.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, first of all, I always point out this is not a very realistic scenario, right? Imagine the United States has had an open border for years, right? Um totally unbelievable. Nobody would do that.

SPEAKER_00:

There's that sarcasm. There it is. It slips out, it slips out on me sometimes. That's not happening. We're not dealing with the repercussions of this.

SPEAKER_01:

So um during that time period, let's just say the open border was taken advantage of, right? So there's that going on. Let's let's also picture maybe a group of politicians that don't have America's best interest at heart. That's going on in the background. And then you have a group of people that are just trying to live their life. You know, it's everybody is just trying to do their thing. They're they're going to work, they're they're raising their kids, and the world starts, these, these out, these outside influences start to affect their life. And again, we've seen some aspects of this already, some negative aspects that are that are addressed in the book, like changes to the economy, immigration challenges, all these things that have an effect on everyday life for Americans. And eventually, I mean, it is a post-apocalyptic genre, right? So you know that something bad is going to happen. So once that event takes place, the remainder of the series is how do all these people, these everyday Americans, now there's some veterans involved in this, right? Because it's again, it's based. I am the main my I I did base the main character uh on my experiences, so there's that. So you've got this veteran in there, he's got some veteran buddies, um, and they're trying to figure out the best way to deal with a collapsing United States. And how do you do that? Well, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what I I I tell people at the uh when they say uh they ask me what is the one uh best way to you know to improve your preparedness, and I tell them that's uh that's a good team. Having good friends and like-minded people, friends and family that that are like-minded and want to uh focus on or they will focus on the same thing and the the the group, the safety of the group. If you've got that, uh if you've got that, you're much more likely to to survive than the lone wolf who's out there in the woods, you know, with his with his rucksack and uh e-tool, uh going at it alone. The book the book dives into the dynamics of the uh the group dynamics of them as they as they try to negotiate this eventually post-apocalyptic landscape.

SPEAKER_02:

Man, that need to get my hands on this because after after reading The Last Centurion, uh that genre has gotten become my favorite thing to dive into when I got time.

SPEAKER_01:

I I've had a few folks that um that have reached out to me and said that they they don't normally read in this genre, but they had read mine, it was recommended or whatever, and then gave really positive feedback. I had a guy from Michigan tell me that I'd never read fiction, I only read nonfiction, but I like military stuff. I gave this one a shot and now I'm hooked. You know, when is book three coming out? Like I said, it's like the fans out there are are very gracious for the most part. And they'll I love to hear back from them. And I I take I take I take feedback very seriously. I I know I can't nobody produces a perfect product, you know, but I I strive for that. And and uh I'm I'm pretty I'm pretty happy with with what we have so far on the on the in the series, and I know where this is going to end eventually, right? It's up here. I know where it's going. But that the series is all about the journey of how to get there, and it's got some twists and turns and some cliffs in the middle in the way. And I I think I think I think people are people are really enjoying it so far. And I'm hoping that, you know, I'm hoping this continues to do to do well as we can as we move forward, you know, in the series.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I I can't I can't wait to see where it goes. Where can people get the book today?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh it's available on Amazon, and it's um the first book again is Edge of the Precipice. Hey, you know what? Uh I've got one right here. You might step off camera, I'll grab it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, grab it. Grab that bad boy.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, I'm back. So this is the first one. Let me see if I can find the camera here. Yeah. Edge of the Precipice. So you can clearly see it's a dude in Robin Sage, right? Because that's about a third of the first book, is um Robin Sage and Edge of the Precipice. And then book two is Over the Precipice. And we can see by the cover that things are going sideways, right? There's burning trucks, there's bad guys with rifles. Like you get something's going on, man. So they're um they say they're available on on Amazon. If you search Edge of the Precipice book, it's typically the first hit. And same thing, over the precipice book, it's typically the first hit. I also have a Facebook page called The Precipice Series. So I put things on there like new release dates. Uh, right now I'm in the process of converting to ebook, like Kindle format, and we're interviewing narrators. So we're also going to move this over to the audiobook. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Awesome. Hell yes. I love seeing that. Uh, if you guys pause right now, go to the episode description. Those links are there. Do me a favor, click on those links, go support the book. I'll do you one better. For the first five people that send us a message through Spotify's text us feature, you'll get the book for free. So if you're listening on Spotify, press pause right now, send us a message using the text in feature, and I'll get you a copy. Don't have to buy it yourself. Just utilize that feature on Spotify. Again, I don't believe you can use it through Apple. And I mostly only like the metrics I get from Spotify. So do us a favor, send us a text message through that feature. You'll get a copy of the book. And then do me a favor, don't just stop right there. Leave us a rating, leave us a comment on there. Say we love the podcast, like the show. It helps me, helps the algorithm. And uh please visit that Facebook page, support Mike, and uh get his book, ASAP. So if you don't win one through me, just still go out there and buy it. Got to support our great veteran authors. Mike, I can't thank you for joining me today. I can't thank you enough for being here and sharing. Again, what's the name of the book?

SPEAKER_01:

First one is Edge of the Precipice. And uh the second one is Over the Precipice. If you like, if you buy from Amazon, you can leave reviews on Amazon. So if you like it, go on there and leave leave a review. If you don't like it, don't say anything.

SPEAKER_02:

And the third one's slated to come out in December?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we're aiming for we're aiming for a fourth quarter release on that one. So I don't have a hard date on it. As that date gets solidified, we'll put it on the Facebook, the Precipice Series Facebook page.

SPEAKER_02:

Awesome. And are you on Instagram or any uh any other places?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I've got somebody working on that for me right now. We will be. So once once those other social media uh platforms go hot, we'll we'll add that. We'll link that in with the Facebook to start trying to spread that out. I'm just not I'm not super savvy with those other with those uh platforms, so I had to I had to bring in a consultant, just like I do for everything else, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Too easy, man. Too easy. And when that when you're ready to drop that next book, please come on back. I'd love you to have you on, and uh we can dive deeper into all three of the books. And like I said, to everybody listening, please do me a favor, pause, go to the episode description, grab a copy or two copies of this great series and let us know what you think. Hit up the comments. And uh if you want to know more about the book, stand by because uh by December we should know more. Again, Mike, thank you so much for being here, brother. And to all y'all tuning in, thank you as well. We'll see you all next time. Till then, take care. Security Hub Podcast is proudly sponsored by Titan's Arms. Head for the episode description and check out Titan's Arms today.

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Deny Caballero

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