|int| Leading With Precision: A Dive Into the Life, Lessons and Leadership of Marine Sniper Instructor Caylen Wojcik | Ep 90 - On Your Lead

Episode Transcript
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Thad David (00:00):
Welcome to another episode.
I'm here today with my formerMarine scout sniper school
instructor, Kailin Wojcik.
How's it going, Kailin?

Caylen Wojcik (00:09):
It's going good, man.
Thank you for the invite.
I'm happy to be here with you.

Thad David (00:14):
Man.
Well, I'm beyond excited.
I know that you can't possiblyknow this, because I've been out
for about 20 years now and Iknow you were in for longer, man
, but I have.
I share so many stories aboutyou and the lessons that you
taught me.
I mean, you are a huge mentorand I always tell people about
the lessons I learned after themilitary, because I feel like I
was a pretty immature kid in themilitary and I learned far more

(00:35):
afterwards reflecting, and alot of that is you, man.
I have so many huge lifelessons that you gave me, so I'm
thrilled to have you on here,man.
Thanks for jumping on.

Well, thank you, man.
It's funny that you bring thatup, because that's something
that I've been reflecting onquite a bit lately is just how
young we were at that point intime in our lives and the amount
of responsibility that we hadthat we, I feel like we managed

(01:05):
exponentially well in the grandscheme of things, given the
parameters that we have to workinside being inside the military
.
I was a young kid as well, Ithink.
I mean, I was in my early 20swhen I was teaching at the
schoolhouse, and so you look atkids now that are in their early

(01:26):
20s and you just go whoa,that's a mirror.
I think the mindset isdefinitely different.
But I think that when peopleare in the military, you
understand I think the vastmajority understands the gravity
of what they're choosing to doand the path that they're
choosing to take within themilitary and the seriousness of

(01:49):
that path and the consequences,because we both know that
choosing the path like you as areconnaissance marine and me as
an infantry sniper, we're bothinfantry marines at the end of
the day, but the risk that youtake that is exponentially

(02:13):
higher because of the nature ofour jobs that we chose to get
ourselves into.
And looking back at them, I'mjust like, yeah, man, I was like
22 years old making snipers.
It was crazy.
Just like, wow, you have thatpower over somebody's dreams at
that young age and you really do.

Thad David (02:35):
Well, it's one of the most impressive schools that
I've ever been through and Iknow there's definitely a lot of
recon versus scout snipers andthat just brotherly feud there.
But without a doubt, I wasalways blown away with the
professionalism that all of youguys brought to the table.
I mean, you guys were neverskipped a beat, just top notch,

(02:57):
and it really blew me away.
It was something that alwaysstuck with me is how
professional all of you guyswere at all times.
I thought it was absolutelyfantastic.
So even at a young age, y'allwere absolutely crushing it.

So I really appreciate it.
I had some really good mentors,people that set me on a better
path, because there are thedudes that show up at that
schoolhouse, in any schoolhouse,as protectors of that badge and
they show up as teachers orinstructors.
They're not teachers, because Ifeel like there's a delineation

(03:35):
between being an instructorversus a teacher.
Instructors are you haven't yetdeveloped into your own style,
your own method of deliveringinformation, and I think that's
that transition piece betweenbeing an instructor and a
teacher.

(03:55):
And there's those people thatshow up and they're like man,
I'm here to get mine.
Right, I'm here to get mine.
I had a rough go as a candidate.
We can talk about the whole pighog thing if that's something
that you want to discuss, butyou and I both know that there
are people out there that arelike man, I'm going to get mine,

(04:15):
and they show up at that schooland they're just there to lay
the pain, and that's unfortunate.
Now, does it lend to theexperience of the student in
some ways?
Yeah, it certainly does.
I would have felt robbed if Ihad an easy go.
I don't feel as though that Idid, but I would have felt

(04:37):
robbed.
Looking back on it, I've beenlike man.
That wasn't what I wanted,because that was my dream, that
was my goal when I looked at themilitary and said this is what
I want to do.
I have some lineage in my familythat is from the military.
My dad's father was aparatrooper with the 82nd

(05:01):
Airborne in World War II.
He jumped as well as flewgliders, which was really rad.
He participated in D-Day allthe way through to V-E Day.
He got a couple of purplehearts and did the whole thing
with the 82nd Airborne, whichwas just amazing.
I didn't realize how amazingthat was until I was much later

(05:23):
on in life, because we don'thave an appreciation for it
until we have some livedexperience under our belt.
My mom's father was a combatengineer in the army in Korea.
Then I would later find outthat my dad's mother okay, so
this is one of those dad'smother's sisters' brothers'

(05:44):
things my dad's mother's sister.
So my great aunt, her husband,john, fought with the Marine
Corps in the 7th Marine Divisionin the Pacific Theater.
He survived four of the majorisland hopping campaigns, to
include Ewo Jima.
He never spoke of it.

(06:06):
Nobody really understood.
My father's two brothers wereMarines as well, one was.
He got out for 21 years andthen, the younger brother of the
four, he did four years in theair wing as an avionics guy.
There was a long lineage ofmilitary history in my family.

(06:29):
What I decided to do was I justdecided that I wanted to be a
Marine number one.
If I was going to be a Marine,I wanted to go to the sniper
route because I was a voraciousreader as a kid and I read a lot
of books.
I was reading novels by thetime I was 12 or 13 years old,
like Tom Clancy, wb, griffin,dale Brown, all that stuff.

(06:52):
I was kind of a nerd when itcame to that, because you jump
into those books and youbasically go into another world.
Right, it's another world andit's a story that you're
consuming and living.
Tom Clancy was just so amazingat creating a story.

(07:14):
It was just phenomenal.
I loved it.
I also enjoyed hunting.
Being a sniper is just the waythat.
That's the path that I'm goingto take and that was exactly
what I did.

Thad David (07:31):
What do you still read a lot of those books today.

I haven't.
I wish that I would have morebandwidth to do so, and that's
just me that I need to that.
I probably need to reorganizeand restructure my life to be
able to do that.
But a lot of the books that Iread today are more centered
around leadership, development,productivity management, things
like that.

(07:56):
My wife studies psychology, andso that's something that we
discuss quite a bit in ourhousehold the books that she
consumes, and then all consumethe books.
She's kind of like the NorthStar when it comes to
understanding the self, and I'vegleaned a lot from that.
That's kind of where my focusis right now is more personal
development, leadershipdevelopment, stuff like that.

Thad David (08:19):
Yeah for sure.
Well then, I'm definitely onthat path every now and then and
I grab one of those books.
I used to read a lot of VinceFlynn books similar to Tom
Clancy, not as in-depth.
His are much shorter, I feellike with.
Tom Clancy tells a veryin-depth story with many
characters, whereas Vince Flynnhas always kept it to be a

(08:41):
little bit quicker of a read.
Yeah, great stories.
In any case, I definitely lovethe leadership books and I can
see why I mean a big with thisbackground that you have in your
family.
Is that really what drove youto join the military?

I think so More along the lines of I always
wanted, obviously, weirdlyenough, I mean, people look at
this and they're just like, wow,I never thought that, but I got
picked on a lot when I was akid.
I didn't really fit in, if youwill, and I know everybody has
their story about theirstruggles growing up, because

(09:19):
everybody has those struggles.
I have a 13-year-old boy rightnow and he's experienced in
those same struggles, and allthe other parents that I just
that I talked to their kidsexperience it as well.
So for me, where I found solacefrom that was hunting and
fishing and being outside.
That was something that Ireally enjoyed.

(09:39):
That was where I felt the mostat peace and that I could really
be myself.
And so I did spend.
I mean, I had a core group of acouple of friends that we
always did things together.
We would always go huntingtogether or go fishing together,
but largely I spent a lot oftime by myself in thinking and

(10:00):
sitting in a tree stand orsitting in a ground, blind, or
fishing, and so I was able tosort things out and say, well,
if I didn't have that great atime in school, I had an okay
time, I guess, but I didn't likeit.
It wasn't something that I waswaking up and being like, oh, I

(10:21):
can't wait to go do this today.
I was just like, well, I was ona swim team.
I started swimming in seventhgrade and I really enjoyed it,
because I wasn't super intobasketball, football or any of
that stuff in that realm ofathleticism, but I could swim my
ass off and that was somethingthat I really enjoyed to do

(10:42):
because it was hard and it wasnot easy and my skill set
allowed me to dabble betweensprinting as well as distance
and endurance, and so I had apretty decent mix in my training
.
So some days I'd be focusingmore on the short sprints versus
, and then some days I'd befocused more on developing my

(11:03):
long game for the longer races,like the 500 meter freestyle
things like that.
So that really allowed me totap into understood or just like
lean into understanding what mybody was capable of, along with
my mind, and that was kind oflike the start of the
understanding of the mental gamewhen it came to perseverance.

(11:25):
And I wanted to experience whatthat was like, because I read
all of these stories aboutpeople's experience in combat
and war, because I wanted toknow what that was.
I wanted to understand what mygrandfather's experienced.
I wanted to understand whatthey did and if I could do it,

(11:48):
and so that's why I chose thatpath.
It's funny because we look atthings like mathematics.
I stopped taking mathematics in10th grade because I could, and
I was just like well, I'm goingto join the infantry, so I
don't need all this stuff.
The path that I took in themilitary, with the realm of long

(12:10):
range shooting andunderstanding external
ballistics and internalballistics, it's all mathematics
.
Internal ballistics is allcalculus and statistics, and
external ballistics is alltrigonometry, physics and
geometry.
So I kind of shot myself in thefoot there, but I was able to

(12:32):
have some good peoplesurrounding me.
I don't do you remember OwenMulder?
Yeah, I do so Owen's big timecontributor to modern day sniper
and modern day rifleman as well, and we bring him out to teach.
He went into the realm ofphysics for a while because
external ballistics fascinatedhim, and then he decided that

(12:53):
after a couple of trips toAfghanistan as a Marsock
operator he started to realizethat the psychology of how all
of this works was morefascinating.
And so he decided to split offfrom physics and go into
psychology.
And he's brilliant.
He's a really, really sharpdude, brings a lot to the table

(13:16):
and he teaches a fantastic classthat he calls the psychology of
observation.
And he was also one of the guysthat stood up the Marine Corps
Combat Hunter Program.
So that combat hunter program,for your listeners, it's a
school that was teachinginterpretation of human
mannerisms through understandingpsychology, or the basic level

(13:42):
of psychology.
And so when you're trying tointerpret somebody's body
language, when you're trying tointerpret somebody's intentions
through optics a thousand metersaway, you have to understand
how does this particulardemographic of people or this
geographic region of people,their mannerisms, what are they

(14:05):
doing and what does that mean?
And it was allowing people tomake more intelligent and
responsible decisions aboutwhether or not they could make
an engagement if that was anenemy combatant or not, and so
that was really huge for him.
But so, yeah, I enjoyedlearning all of that stuff.

Thad David (14:31):
I love that and it just brought me back to because
I remember one of the thingsthat I do share that I loved
about being in sniper schoolthat and I don't remember how
often it was, but it seemed likeit was frequent enough that I
could recall it.
But I remember at the end ofsome long days y'all would pull

(14:52):
us into this room and give usthis scenario where we had to
split up across.
I mean, you had like 10, 15seconds, I don't remember the
timeframe, but basically shootor don't shoot, and then we
would unpack, kind of theramifications of it.
And that was one of the thingsI really respected about which I
brought to the table.
It wasn't only how do we dothis, but how do we live with
this after the fact, Becauseyou've got to live with this.

(15:14):
You know the bullet is ainstantaneous little pull of a
trigger, but then you live withthat for a long time.
And one of the many things Ireally respected about which I
brought to the table was that.
So it's no surprise that hewent into this realm of
observation and how to do that,because I remember y'all
bringing that.
So that was really cool to see.

Yeah, the tactical decision games, the
TDGs, right.
So you just say, hey, this isthe situation that's presented
to you, how are you going tohandle this?
Like, how would you if you were, if you were the only one
making decisions?
And these are your assets, thisis your left lateral limit,
your right lateral limit.
Here's the commander's intent.
Go, and that's the beauty of howour command structure is put in

(16:01):
place, that the lowest commondenominator, the lowest dude,
understands at least what thecommander's intention is and he
understands that missionstatement.
Well, he's been given themission statement doesn't
necessarily mean that heunderstands it, but he's been
given it and so that is, youknow, like witnessing what's
going on in current conflict andhow these organizations are

(16:27):
organized and how they executetheir plans.
It's very clear, like in theRussia-Ukraine conflict right
now, we can learn a tremendousamount of information about how
those two organizations arestructured and how their
leadership is structured ortheir lack of leadership is
structured.
And it's very, very clear andit's a great learning point,

(16:50):
especially on the very, on thelow end of the spectrum, from
the strategic to the tacticallevel.
We're learning a lot about thetactical level of things from
this conflict.

Thad David (17:02):
What stands out to you with that for, just let's
say, on the Russia side?
I mean what stands out to youas far as their leadership and
how that's being run?

It's all centralized command, so most of
the men have no idea where theyare.
Most of them don't have maps.
A lot of them didn't understandthat they were actually in
Ukraine after they had crossedthe line of departure and moved
into the country.
Nobody understood what theirmission was.
They still don't and it'sbasically like hey, you occupy

(17:36):
this, here's the front line,You're occupying this.
Okay, well then that just meansthat I have to kill the
invaders.
Okay, well, they don'tunderstand the bigger picture.
And that's where the separationoccurs with the United States
doctrine and other countriesthat follow our doctrine versus

(17:58):
the Russian doctrine of warfare.
It's all based upon attritionand the generals and the higher
up level officers are the onesthat have all of their
gatekeepers right.
They have all that informationand it all depends on whether or
not they're going todisseminate that down and how
low they disseminate that downon the chain of command.

Thad David (18:21):
And so just not sharing it, and you can see that
pretty clearly, that they haveno idea where they're going.
And, yeah, that makes a ton ofsense, yep.
So my buddy's over there right,go ahead please.
No, I was gonna say, my buddy'sover there Right now.
He's one of the guys I was withat first recon and hearing some

(18:43):
of the stories, the stuff thathe shares about it, is
absolutely incredible.
It's unbelievable to hear thisstuff, but hearing you say that
that's how he describes it islike these waves of people that
are just kind of like coming.
He said it's just an endlessamount of people and it's almost
like they don't care to.
They feel like they have thisendless amount of people and so
I wonder how much of that drivestheir lack of you know, because

(19:07):
they feel like they have thisendless resource of human bodies
to throw at it.
Yeah, absolutely, there's justwaves of people that just
rolling in.

That is their doctrine Historically that's
their doctrine.

Thad David (19:17):
Yeah, so getting back into your time in the
military, just so anybody canhear it.
What was your time you joinedthe Marine Corps?
When did you join?
What did your time in themilitary look like if you were
to have?

a short elevator pitch of it.
I joined when I was 17.
I wanted to get out, I wantedto get in as fast as possible,
so I spent.
I was a I'm a fall baby, so mybirthday is in October and I
probably should have been heldback a year.
That's what I did with my son.

(19:54):
He's a September baby.
But so I graduated very earlyand I had my 18th birthday when
I was in boot camp.
I shipped out to boot camp inSeptember of 1997.
And I went right into infantryschool in North Carolina.
I was I'm a Parris IslandMarine and I went to North
Carolina for infantry school andI enjoyed it big time because

(20:20):
you know, my infantry school wasin January.
I've graduated recruit trainingin December, so I had like two
weeks off and then you go rightinto infantry school and it was
cold, it was wet, we got snow,but I had already been taught
how to deal with all of thosethings.
And so all of the other dudesthat were like living in the
suck I was actually partnered up, my hooch mate, if you will.

(20:43):
We both understood like how dowe water?
Because we're still usingshelter halves at that point in
time and it's like how do wewaterproof this thing?
How do we make sure that westay dry?
How do we stay, how do we staywarm?
And you're living in the fieldfor a month, you know how that
works.
And I was just like this isbadass.

(21:04):
This is exactly what I wantedto do.
So I went to a West Coastbattalion, I went to First
Marine Division, which was a bigsurprise for me at the time.
When I got my orders, I wasonly like a 13 or 14 hour drive
away from home, being at CampLejeune, because I grew up in
Western New York outside ofNiagara Falls, and so I was like

(21:27):
, oh yeah, like you know, 18years old, I'm still thinking
about the high school girlfriendtype thing and this is going to
work out this way.
And then all of a sudden, bam,you open up your service record
book and you see Victor 2-1,first Marine Division, and
you're just like this is notsupposed to happen.
What do you mean?
I'm going to California and allthe instructor?

(21:50):
I got super nervous and all theinstructors were just like, hey
, man, check it out.
I would literally give my lefttesticle to you right now to get
off of Camp Lejeune and go toCamp Pendleton.
So be happy.
And they were not wrong, I wasable, I was fortunate enough to
get to maintain my short careerin the Marine Corps on Camp
Pendleton, so and I'm gratefulfor that.

(22:12):
Now, having been to all theMarine Corps bases, I'm like,
yeah, they weren't kidding.
So I went to Camp Pendleton andI was in the.
I was in the straight infantryas a as an 0351 anti tank
assaultman at that point and Iwas assigned to a weapons
company so I was firing dragonmissiles at that time.

(22:32):
It's kind of a it's a legacyweapon system and my job was as
an assaultman.
A tactical weapons company wasanti armor and we did do a
little bit of demolitions.
I got a chance to go throughsome really cool demolition
courses and that was awesome.
And then it was kind of like myfirst reintroduction to math
because there was somemathematics involved in doing

(22:55):
calculations for charge weightsand you know how to, how to
shape the charges to.
You know defeat whateverobstacle or barrier was that you
were trying to do or trying todefeat.
And that was a tough timebecause I wanted to go into the
sniper program and I didn'treally truly understand how it

(23:16):
all worked.
I kind of knew the theframework of it.
I was like everybody that Iasked said you got to go to the
infantry and then when you getto your infantry battalion you
got to find the sniper platoon,figure out when they're going to
do a selection.
And I was like, ok, well then,that's what I'm just going to do
, not understanding that once aninfantry battalion has you,

(23:36):
that company doesn't necessarilywant to let you go, right, and
so they have to let you go.
And I didn't understand that atall and I was like, well, I
want to go take this in dock.
And my squad leader was was justyoung man, you know, looking
back, really not greatleadership, that whole senior
Lance Corporal thing, and it wasjust a bunch of dudes running

(23:58):
amok right with with not a wholelot of leadership, and so they
were terrible infantry Marinesthey were.
They had no desire to betterthemselves, they were just
buying their time to get out.
Right, these guys are on their,on their second deployment,
right, they're salty and they'rejust, like you know, looking
back on that, the salty LanceCorporals type thing, and

(24:20):
they're just still.
You just don't know anything atthat point in time.
And so I didn't really have agreat experience in that realm
because the leadership wasn'twasn't that great.
And so when I did join thesnipers, the sniper community,
that was like, oh, thank God, Ican.
You know, I thank God I can getout of that and I can go, I can

(24:41):
better myself over in thisorganization.
And I immediately saw thatopportunity and it was fantastic
, went into the sniper section.
I did one Western Pacific floatas a, as an infantry Marine,
and that was a good thing.
And I think it was a good thingbecause it allowed me to learn
how the infantry worked andshowed me where, by learning how

(25:05):
the infantry worked, it showedme as a sniper how to best
support that operation and orthen that organization.
Because if you don't understandhow the infantry works, you
don't understand the basics ofhow attacks are formulated, how
these, how these things are like, what is a base of fire, what
is a maneuver element, what is asupport element.

(25:25):
You don't learn those things asa stay baby right, and we call
them stay babies for thelisteners a stay baby.
Stay stands for surveillanceand target acquisition, and that
was what sniper platoons were,were labeled as when I first got
into the mix, and a stay babywas a guy that just finished

(25:46):
infantry school shows up to aninfantry battalion as a drop
right.
So, like, infantry battalionswill receive, you know, 60 men
from a graduating infantryschool and they're like, hey,
you're going to the secondbattalion.
Okay, well that out of that 60men they're going to figure out
what men go to what differentcompanies and what organizations

(26:07):
.
Right, that's just manpoweraspects and things.
So sometimes stay babies wouldbe guys that would automatically
go from that drop straight intoa sniper platoon and then
they're going to go through theselection process when they get
in that organization.
But they they really miss outon understanding how the
infantry works, like range 400at 29 palms.

(26:31):
Whatever your feelings areabout that training evolution
neither here nor there.
But it lines out perfectly howan integrated company sized
attack on a defensive positionis supposed to run, and so if
you don't understand how thatworks, it's very difficult for
you to support that operation,if that makes sense.

(26:53):
So that was a good thing andgoing.
I went right into regimentalsniper school, which was
horrific.
That was a really, reallydifficult crucible to go through
, just because there was nostandardization and that that
school was six weeks long and itwas kind of like pre sniper and

(27:14):
we.
They just wanted to make sureif you were a Marine in the
first Marine regiment you werenot getting a slot to the
division level sniper schoolthat would offer you the
occupational specialty, thenumerical designator that says,
hey, you graduated.
Now you have attained thistitle.
They wouldn't let you go unlessyou went through the regimental

(27:34):
sniper school because they knewthat that regimental sniper
school is going to prepare youto pass the division level
course.
So it was very severe, sixweeks of again like they were
just senior snipers running thatprogram.
There's no curriculum, it's not, it's not monitored by anybody
and it was kind of like the WildWest over there, camp Horneau

(27:56):
in, you know, in 1999, it waspretty wild.
There were many nights that wedidn't get released back to our
barracks rooms until 1, 32o'clock in the morning with
weapons draw at zero five thenext day and an hour and a half
long of quizzes that if youdidn't pass with 70% you were
getting failed, you were gettingdropped.

(28:16):
So there's a tremendous amountof physical stress, a lot of
mental stress and you know thefear that it was more the fear
the unknown, because if you knowwhen something's going to end,
typically speaking you can kindof like get your mindset in a
way that you're like OK, I knowthat I have to deal with this up

(28:37):
until this point, but if youdon't know when it's going to
end, that's when the real gamegets played and you have to go.
How much am I willing to takeRight?
How much of this bullshit am Iwilling to take right now?
And so that was a big thing forus, because we didn't know they

(28:57):
would forget to feed ussometimes and be like, oh man, I
forgot to let the pigs go toChow.
And you know, behind the wall,locker wall, you know in the old
squad base, because you canhear everything the instructors
are saying and you're just likeman, they forgot to feed us,
like I guess we're like we arepigs, we're like we're farm
animals.
So, and that was, it was a goodexperience because moving into

(29:23):
combat operations, you don'tknow when anything is going to
end, you don't know there is nodefinitive to anything, and that
will prepare you forunderstanding or learning how to
deal with those circumstancesin the future.
Left that went into, I went tothe basic course.

(29:44):
I was actually the last scoutsniper school that graduated
from division schools at theFirst Marine Division level and
we actually moved all of theshit on.
My chill week ended up beingmoving all of the gear from the
Margarita schoolhouse over atdivision schools to School of

(30:04):
Infantry over at the 52 area.
So that was an interestingthing because that's a lot of
history that was getting movedfrom that schoolhouse to the new
one and it was a dramaticchange because I mean, you were
at Margarita, you were at CampMargarita, right, you're kind of
out in the middle of nowherethere and aside from it being

(30:26):
division headquarters, you knowyou can go behind the barracks
and get a lot of things done, soto speak, you know.
So, oh, yeah, yeah, there'splenty of training area out
there to take care of things.
But then being like having thesniper school right at the
flagpole of the School ofInfantry, like our office when I

(30:47):
taught there before we had theQuonset hut, I shared an office
wall with the battalioncommander of Advanced Infantry
Training Company or, I'm sorry,infantry Training Battalion
there at School of Infantry.
So we were under a lot ofscrutiny just out of where we

(31:08):
were right.
So you had to mind your P's andQ's.
But after I graduated thatcourse and went through the
basic course I was able to getinto what we would call the MEW
or the Marine Expeditionary Unit.
And when you're designated as aMarine Expeditionary Unit and
you get assigned to a MarineExpeditionary Unit as an

(31:30):
Infantry Battalion, you get achance to go through some pretty
cool training and some prettycool schools.
I got a chance to go throughurban reconnaissance and
surveillance school.
I got a chance to go throughthe urban sniper course,
participated in a lot of in allof the training events that
stemmed from those courses.
I did a lot of stuffReconnaissance missions out in,

(31:53):
off base, out in town, so tospeak.
We would go out and get missionassignments in like San Jose,
los Angeles.
Hey, you guys are going toinsert here, you're going to
link up with these people,you're going to load all your
crap in these vans, they'regoing to take you to an insert
point.
And they tried to make it asrealistic as they possibly could

(32:14):
with the resources they hadavailable.
And I thought at that point intime, the early 2000s, that was
some really realistic trainingand a bunch of white dudes
running around, big, tall,muscle bound white dudes running
around East LA you don't reallyfit in.

(32:34):
You don't really fit in, butthe nature of the training was
very impactful on us even thoughit wasn't super realistic.
So got a chance to do that oneon a deployment as a sniper team
leader.
Another Western Pacificdeployment had some really cool
opportunities on that trip aswell.

(32:55):
And then when I got back fromthat, that's when I decided that
I was going to go teach atsniper school.
It was either going to be theurban sniper course, working for
Special Operations TrainingGroup, or it was going to be the
basic sniper course at Schoolof Infantry, and at the time it
just seemed like the betterdecision to go teach at the

(33:16):
basic course, the SpecialOperations Training Group route.
It just didn't end upmaterializing and working out.
So great experience there.
I learned a lot about how theMarine Corps worked.
I learned a lot about how thebehind the scenes stuff like
range scheduling, training areascheduling, all of the

(33:37):
logistical aspects of thingsthat are kind of like you don't
really see them you don't reallysee unless you're the one doing
it type thing.
And so it definitely gave me abigger appreciation for the
leadership on the operationalside, like your platoon sergeant
, your operations chief, thethings that your platoon

(33:57):
commanders are dealing with justto get you the ability to train
, just to get you the ability toshoot your rifle.
These dudes are staying up late.
They're doing things afterhours because that's when they
have the opportunity to do them.
They're dealing with all ofthese bureaucratic little
entities within the militarythat make you want to freaking,

(34:19):
gouge your eyeballs out with apencil.
Those are the things that Ilearned work in at Sniper School
that I have now a newappreciation for, because it got
you to be able to see thebigger picture, and those are.
That's huge, being able to seethe bigger picture.
The faster you can see thebigger picture and the younger
that you can start to identifythe bigger picture, the better

(34:43):
off you're going to be inintegrating yourself into those
goals.

Thad David (34:51):
And how does that apply?
So tell me some more about that.
So it just caught me off guard.
I was thinking of somethingelse.
And then you I love what youjust said there, sort of the
faster you can, you can do that.
And and how does that apply?

So I guess I'll open it up with a little bit of
a story.
You know, we're all, at thatpoint in time, being young as a
young sergeant I was, you know,21 years old full of piss and
vinegar, thought that I kneweverything.
And we're getting ready to geton board a ship for a training

(35:25):
exercise and my team was goingto be assigned to the long-range
Hilo reconnaissance, a longrange Hilo raid reconnaissance.
So we were only going to spendmaybe like 36 hours on the boat
and then we were going to get onhelicopters and go, get
inserted for the six-day-longpatrol and and reconnaissance
mission, and so with that comesobviously a lot of planning.

(35:46):
You know this, right.
So you got a lot of things toaccomplish, a lot of things to
do, and While we're sitting Inthe company area, we got
everything staged out on thegrinder, which is the parade
deck, and you have the entirebattalion waiting to get on
school buses, white buses, andhead down to San Diego to embark
on ships.
So obviously there's a lot ofshit going on, right.

(36:08):
So I hear that we were taskedwith duty on board the boat and
Snipers are attached toheadquarters and service company
and that's where all the pokesare and again, this is that that
bigger picture thing, right,those pokes, that's where supply

(36:28):
is, that's where admin is.
So you have all your s shopsright.
So your s shops, your s1, isadmin.
They take care of your servicerecord book, they make sure that
you get paid, they take care ofall your leave.
You have s2, which is yourintelligence assets.
You need to work really, reallyclosely with those guys as as
snipers, and you are part ofthat in the s2 shop as snipers.

(36:51):
Then you have s3, which isoperations.
Those are the dudes that aremaking sure that you have beans,
bullets and band-aids andorganizing all of that and how
do you get it and how you andhow the grand scheme of things
works in terms of the operationson the, from the strategic
level down to the tactical level, as it would relate to an

(37:11):
infantry battalion.
And then you have the s4, whichis supply.
Those are the dudes that aregetting you that stuff, or, and
then the operations guys aredisseminating it out, type thing
.
And then you have s Calm, andthat's where the motor pool is
and that's where where chow is.
So these are all of the dudesthat Get you the stuff that you

(37:32):
need right in order for you todo your job, and I think we do a
really terrible job at Teachingthese young guys that this is
like how it all works right.
This is.
These are how these lines areall connected, and I think the
the younger you are that youunderstand that, the better of
an asset you're gonna become.

(37:52):
So I'm on the grinder and I hearthat we have duty and I get
pissed and I'm just like this isyou know?
I'm seeing all these expletives.
I'm just being an arrogant punk, right?
I'm a 21 year old arrogant punkat that point and my platoon
sergeant, robbie, reads them atthe time.

(38:14):
I still talk with Robbie Nowbecause we're both in the
firearms industry, but Very,very mild mannered guy Never
heard him raise his voice up tothat point anyways, and I'm sure
you can probably see where thisis going.
Robbie gets fed up a here andKailin run his mouth and Robbie

(38:35):
decides to go.
Staff Sergeant reads him on meand I completely deserved it.
I Got, I got fully dressed downin front of the entire infantry
battalion and Robbie did afantastic job.
Doing it Made me feel aboutthat big right and that was
exactly what I needed in thatmoment and because what I didn't

(38:55):
understand in the background,what Robbie was doing.
Robbie was an excellentdiplomat and what he was doing
was he was Breaking the cycle ofhow leadership viewed snipers
and recon Marines.
Leadership in the Marine Corpsalways looks at us in these

(39:15):
specialized Jobs as beingspecial.
Oh, you think you're special?
Now You're not special, you'reactually just a Marine still.
And us, being young andimmature, we're just like man.
I just went through all this BSover here to be special.
I am special, recognize me andrespect me for being special.
But that's not how it works.
Nobody cares, right?

(39:36):
So like we don't understandthat nobody cares.
So we show up with this levelof arrogance.
We're in a black, blu, wearingblack sweatshirt in the company
area.
It's like you as a platoonsergeant, now in a like older
with leadership.
You know, smack that dude upthe side of your head and just
be like you deserve what you get.
But shit rolls downhill in themilitary and so Everybody

(40:00):
suffers, right?
Because now you're grouped intothis conglomerate.
And what Robbie was doing was hewas trying to break that cycle
by saying no, man, my boys aregonna be different, my boys are
gonna integrate and and be beMarines before this, their job,
and I know a lot of people I'vesaid that before it at sniper

(40:22):
school Graduations being guestspeakers and stuff, and I've
seen you know gunnies rolledtheir eyes at me and it's just
like, hey, man, even if you're,if you're a gunny, you're
wearing all those stripes andyou're rolling your eyes at me.
With that, you got a lot tolearn some and those lessons are
gonna, they're gonna come.
You're gonna get smacked aroundby the universe until you learn
those lessons Because they'll,they will come.

(40:44):
So that whole be a Marine first, that was Robbie.
What Robbie was trying to doand he was trying to Get there.
He was trying to restructurethe level of respect that that
these upper echelon commandstructures would have for us
later and and it paid off, man,it really paid off.

(41:05):
Robbie really shifted things andI I couldn't see that until I
had that little, that microdeath of my ego right in that
moment, and I think that's gonnatie into other conversation.
You know more of theconversation later on that we've
discussed prior to the shit tous, you know, hitting the record
button.
But that was a really definingmoment in my career and it

(41:29):
showed me that, yeah, I don'tknow, I don't know anything.
Right, I have so much to learn.
And I took that to.
I took that to sniper schooland that was the big picture.
That was just the the.
That was like lifting, justlifting the veil.
A little bit of understandingwhat the bigger picture was and
Saying like, hey, man, this isbigger than you.
Buddy, like this is, this isway bigger than you.

(41:51):
And so teaching younger guys tosee that earlier on and embrace
that is only going to makethings more coherent.

Thad David (42:03):
And I love that story and where my mind went
with it as well as not onlyobviously, that's a very
powerful thing in the militaryand I saw that in the
schoolhouse and Kind of pullingback big picture of everything
that we are now as veterans.
And I think that one thing thatI've seen is a lot of people
don't know what they're doingbig picture in their own life

(42:24):
and it makes it really tough toknow what to do today because I
don't I haven't laid out bigpicture.
You know, I think a lot ofpeople struggle in life and
that's what I love, that ahathat I didn't have until you
shared it, but that Until youdefine what, what your goals are
in your life big picture, it'sgonna be a struggle to know what
to do day to day.
So I think it, yeah, reallyapplies to star.

You know, if you, my wife and I talk about this
all the time, my wife wentthrough a massive transition in
her life and she, you know, shecame to realize she's like I
don't have a North star anymore.
Like, now that I, and now thatshe's like I, I finally figured
out what my North star is, andit will totally reshape your

(43:06):
outlook when you wake up everyday, right, if you don't have a
North star, you wake up everyday and you're just like, well,
what should I do?
What do I have to do?
What should I do?
But when you have that Northstar, you can look at it and go,
this is what I get to do today,this is what I get to do to
reach my goals.

(43:27):
Right, this is get to wake upand do these things, and that's
a major shift.
That's a major, major shift andit can be just that, just that
simple right, and you cancompletely change your outlook
on things.

Thad David (43:42):
Why do you think so many people and and I I say this
not pointing fingers, because Iwas this way for a long time
why do you think so many peoplestruggle to get that North star
put out in front of them?

Oh man, I Think this, you know, starts to get
into like the psychology ofthings.
But I think that there are alot of societal structures in
place that say that we have todo certain things that don't
necessarily align with what oursoul wants and what our soul
needs.
You know, you see people.

(44:17):
You see people working jobs,you know, and it's not for
everybody, right.
So I could not go back to doingthe nine to five thing, no way.
I've worked for myself for 15years.
Well, I've worked autonomouslyfor 15 years, remotely.
I've worked for myself for thepast almost six years, but I had

(44:39):
a job that allowed me to workremotely with very little, if
any, management, and I was justlike, hey, you're gonna go teach
courses, and this is what youknow.
Whatever you got to do to teachyour courses, here's your
resources.
Go do that, be successful.
But the people that are workingthat nine to five every single

(45:00):
day and you're feeling likeYou're just unhappy, you have no
joy, you don't really want toget up and go to work Because it
doesn't fulfill you.
But society says that you haveto.
Society says that that's,that's what you have to do.
Right, you should just begrateful that you have a job

(45:20):
type thing and I think that aswe move more into, as our
society is continuing to expand,it can be a good thing, but it
can also be a bad thing, rightin the sense of like it's going
to shape.
I wouldn't say permanently, butit's going to temporarily shape
the, the direction of thenation and how it's and how it

(45:42):
moves in that direction.
We can see it now with, like,the creator culture.
The creator culture says thatif you have this thing right,
this little rectangle you havelike one of the most powerful
computers in your hand, youthere's literally nothing you
can't do with that thing.
So if you want to have yourside hustle, bring that thing to

(46:02):
fruition and chase after yourdreams, you can do that nowadays
.
You couldn't, it was verydifficult to do.
You could do it.
It's part of the American dream,but there was just a lot more
barriers for entry Years andyears ago and now that we know
those barriers of entry are, youknow, lessened, if you will, it

(46:22):
just makes it a lot easier Forpeople to roll into that.
And now is, like after like,take for take.
For example, does this wholepandemic if you I'll put it in
air quotes pandemic, right.
What did that show people?
That showed people that I don'thave to go to work.
I can actually work from home.
I can do what you and I aredoing right now, right, and I

(46:43):
can.
I can produce revenue from thatand it's it's definitely
shifting how everything Rolesright and so people are able to
pursue their own individualGoals and their own individual
joy with a little bit more easenowadays, I think hmm, that
makes it.

Thad David (47:02):
It makes a ton of sense and being able to put it
out in front.
Hopefully people can grab that,because I think that without
having that just as you pointedout that, north Star, you're not
gonna it's gonna be reallytough to find happiness in life.
Yeah, it's gonna be reallytough to find fulfillment,
happiness, mm-hmm, withoutknowing what direction that
you're headed.
You know, whereas you said, ifyou haven't, you wake up in the

(47:24):
morning and you know what youget to do.
It's not what I have to do,that's what I get to do.
Yeah and honestly.

My wife was a huge, huge driving factor with
that for me, like she helped meTo change my, to change my
thought process, to change thewords that I use to describe the
things.
You know she, she was.
You know my wife had thebusiness side of things.
I had the.
I had the niche side of things,meaning like I had the.

(47:51):
I had the ability to deliverthe information and be the
subject matter expert.
And she had the ability to, todo the business and establish
the tech to make it all work,and you know she calls it the
trifecta.
And so she was like, yeah, wegot the trifecta, so we're gonna
go ahead and give this thing ago.

(48:11):
But so I guess we kind of gotdiverged a little bit from the
military thing.
But I think it's all goodtalking points.
But so after my tour at school,at the schoolhouse I Got
solicited to be so I reallywanted to go over to first force
my.
My path at that point Was Iwanted to go to first force

(48:36):
recon, I wanted to take the,take the selection, and I wanted
to go be a dude, just a dude.
I didn't want to be in aleadership role, I didn't want
to be a team leader.
I didn't want to be anassistant team leader, I just
wanted to be a dude and I wantedto learn what that was like to
develop myself first withouthaving to worry about developing
others.
And I think that's reallyimportant for everybody to at

(48:58):
least have that opportunity todo, because I think sometimes in
the in the military, peoplethat display good leadership
traits and characteristics andthey can perform well, they're
constantly being moved in andput into those roles and they're
not able to develop themselvesfirst.
And that's something that Ireally wanted to do, and my

(49:20):
ultimate goal was to end up atAt the unit over at the Army's
soft D at Delta, and that waslike my ultimate goal.
So I wanted to spend a fewyears over at first force, learn
how to be an operator, get somemore combat experience and then
Apply for a package to be ableto go take selection and

(49:43):
assessment.
However, that didn't work outthat way.
I got solicited to be the chiefsniper of third battalion first
Marines to go on a trip to Iraqin 2004 and I decided that At
that point in time of my careerI was a senior sergeant and I
was getting ready to be in thezone my promotion zone for staff

(50:05):
sergeant and having a combatdeployment was pretty important
at that point.
And so I Was like, well, Icould go over to first force, go
through that training pipeline,and it will be another year and
a half Maybe until I getDeployed into into a combat zone

(50:26):
, right, maybe it wasn't theright thought process, but this
I'm describing the thoughtprocess that I had at that point
in time.
And so the sergeant major ofthird battalion used to be my
first sergeant at secondbattalion where Robbie lit me up
.
Guess what?
That sergeant major was myfirst sergeant in that H&S

(50:46):
company, sergeant Major sacks.
And so our major sacks was aman, he was a, he was a
formidable opponent, let's putit that way.
But the work, the work thatRobbie did is Sergeant Major
Sacks.
When he became a Sergeant Major, he had so much respect for

(51:08):
what we did and he knew that Iwas raised under Robbie's roof,
so to speak, and so he knew andhe saw how I was developing as a
young Sergeant and he was like,yeah, you need to come here,
like you need to come here.
And I sat down with him and Isaid, look, sergeant Major, you

(51:29):
know what I want to do.
He wanted me to go be a drillinstructor, because that's his
thing.
He was like you need to go be adrill instructor and I'm like
I'm not going to be a drillinstructor Not me.
It's just not in my freakingDNA, man, like I'm not doing it.
So, and for those of you guyswho are listening, you know, if
you guys are drill instructors,I love you guys, but it's just

(51:51):
not in my cup of tea.
So I told him.
I said, if I come here to dothis, you know what I want to do
.
I want to go to First Force andthis is my goal, right?
And I think because I was ableto tell him this was like I had
this all planned out in mythoughts, and I think because I
had a path and I had a direction, he was like, yeah, I'll help

(52:16):
you get there.
You come here, you give me onedeployment as a chief sniper,
pardon me, you give me onedeployment and I promise you
when we get back from this tripI will cut your orders and let
you go.
And I said, even if I getpromoted staff sergeant on this
trip, because I might.
And he said, even if you getpromoted staff sergeant.

(52:36):
I was like, okay, we shookhands and he made it all happen.
So I did the combat deploymentto Iraq in 2004.
And it was a big trip and Ididn't really realize how severe
that trip was later on in lifeuntil I listened to a couple of

(52:59):
podcasts.
I listened to Cody Alfred'spodcast on the Sean Ryan show.
Cody Alfred went over there andparticipated in the first, the
first Fallujah go around inApril of 2004.
And I would later come intocountry in June of 2004 and hear

(53:20):
about the experiences of.
That was Second Battalion,first Marines and First
Battalion Fifth Marines.
And so we did a kind of like ateam leader drop before those
guys left in July, go back home.
And we came on in June and thestories that I heard from those

(53:40):
guys and then what we wouldlater experience going into
Fallujah in November later thatfall, it was just I didn't
realize how much of that I hadblocked out and dismissed from
my mind Because you know,listening to Cody's experiences
in that podcast, I didn'trealize that he was.

(54:01):
We actually were in a tenttogether right when we had that
team leader drop.
We were maybe he was a pig inthat platoon and the team
leaders were having a chat andhe was there, so he had that
kind of like you're like, yeah,that trip really sucked.
That was we lost.
We lost a lot of Marines on KIA, on that infantry out of our

(54:22):
infantry battalion and I thinksomething like 260 Purple Hearts
were awarded.
My platoon alone had 26 ofthose Purple Hearts.
I'm sorry, 23 of those PurpleHearts.
Some of those were multipleawards and I was.
I was wounded on the first dayof the Operation Phantom Fury,

(54:43):
which was the attack on Fallujah, and I got hit with a piece of
fragmentation in my knee andtook me out of the fight and it
ended up being like a two yearlong recovery.
It was a pretty severe injury.
I'm lucky to have my leg.
If the piece would have hit me,you know, maybe a centimeter
posterior, they would have takenmy leg right above the joint of

(55:06):
the knee, because all thedamage that would have been done
so it would have beenirreparable.
So that dramatically changed mylife, obviously right.
So my progression, my careerprogression, my dreams, my hopes
, my desires were, boom gone,and hindsight is always 2020.

(55:30):
But I look at that and now theprognosis was pretty nasty.
The surgeons were basicallylike, hey, dude, you should be
just grateful that you're ableto walk right now, much less
pick up a rucksack and a rifleagain.
So your days of doing thatshould are over.
So just get that out of yourhead right now.
That was the messaging that Iwas getting from the medical

(55:54):
professionals and it definitelycorresponded with the amount of
pain that I was dealing with inthe recovery process.
So, very reluctantly, I electedto take a separation from the
Marine Corps, from a medicalboard, and it is what it is.

(56:14):
It wasn't very easy.
I know we talked about thediscussion of the transition.
I didn't realize how difficultthat transition was on me in my
early 20s until much later inlife, now that I'm in my early
40s.
That is a death of self andyour identification of self.

(56:38):
You're losing that and thetransition.
It's not post-traumatic stress.
I'm not saying that peopledon't deal with post-traumatic
stress.
I dealt with post-traumaticstress but the stigmatism that
goes along with that.
Everybody deals with that stuffin a different way.
You can have these clinicaldefinitions of well, if you have

(56:59):
PTSD, you're going toexperience this, this, this and
this according to the DSM, andit's just like man.
It doesn't work that way, man,it just doesn't.
Everybody experiences it in adifferent way.
Everybody copes with it in adifferent way, but I think the
majority of what guys like us inthe military that are
transitioning out of that dealwith it's a loss, it's a

(57:22):
grieving process and we don'tlook at it as a grieving process
.
We look at it as you have tore-assimilate into society.
It's like, okay, re-assimilate.
So how old were you when youjoined the Marine Corps?

Thad David (57:42):
I just turned 19.

So just turned 19 .
So were you assimilated intosociety at all?
At 19 years old, I had no idea.
No idea man?
I certainly wasn't at 17.
My only assimilation?
I assimilated into the military.
So I don't understand howanything else works.
I don't understand how societyworks.
I don't understand.

(58:05):
What am I supposed to integrateinto?
I'm not reintegrating, I'mintegrating fresh, and I'm also
dealing with a loss of anidentity that I held very, very
dear to me, and it was whatfueled me.
That was my North Star.
That got me up every day.

(58:27):
Do I want to get into the oceanat two o'clock in the morning
and fin 1000 meters?
No, not really, but I get to.
So that's that type too funthat we've all grown to
appreciate.
So that's what happens, I think, when people transition.

(58:51):
It's a loss, it's a grievingprocess, and we don't get taught
how to grieve and most dudeswill revert to whatever they
know Booze chasing women makingpoor life decisions, whatever it
is.
And really, too, the really,really crappy part about it was

(59:17):
when I went through that wholeMedevac process.
That was in 2004.
We had just started.
We were just scratching thesurface of what it was like to
be a nation at war.
We were at the fledgling stagesof that.
They didn't know what to do withus.
They had no idea there werevery, very few systems in place

(59:38):
and, honestly, I would go to thehospital and they would hand me
two bottles of Perkiset dude atthe counter.
I'm like 24 years old twobottles, here you go.
When these run out, come backand you're like dude.
That's no wonder people arelost, no wonder dudes don't have

(01:00:00):
a direction, no wonder so manypeople are getting hooked on
that stuff and wait, okay.
Well, I'm going to take somepain medication and I'm going to
go throw a few beers back withthe boys at the barracks.
That's people's existence andit's totally unmonitored, it's
totally unregulated and thereare very even today.

(01:00:21):
There are more resources outthere, for sure, and there's
more awareness, but man 20 yearsago, no, not even close.
And it wrecked a lot of dudes'lives.

Thad David (01:00:35):
And I remember, after getting back actually and
it just sparked up memories thatI didn't happen to you shared
it, but actually having buddiesthat had similar or similar but
different experiences where theywould have a ton of meds and it
would, like you said, just kickit back in the barracks with
there's no regulation, no,nothing.

(01:00:56):
I really appreciate though,because I think it's an
interesting perspective of it'snot reintegrating into society.
When you get out, you'reintegrating, because I think
most of us I know I joinedbecause I didn't know what to do
.
I know I didn't.
I grew up in a not a greatscenario.
We didn't have much growing upand I just knew I didn't want to
be where I was, and this was a.

(01:01:17):
You know, I joined up rightbefore 9, 11 happened, and so it
was.
That wasn't on my, my thoughtprocess, but for me it was I
don't know what to do.
So I'm going to go here, and Ilove how you pointed out just
that it's.
You still haven't figured outhow to integrate, you haven't
figured out what that looks like, and so you said you realized
after the fact how difficult itwas, and not so much during your

(01:01:41):
time of transition.

Caylen Wojcik (01:01:44):
I realized like there was a couple of defining
moments.
When I got out, I came here toWashington state to work for a
family business and a lot ofvisions of grandeur instilled a
lot of hope, and that ended upbeing an incredibly toxic
environment.
And what I quickly realized washow important was integrity to

(01:02:10):
us, thad, how important was thatto us in the organizations that
we, that we, lived inEverything.

Everything right, yeah, everything.

Now you might.
We never were exposed to likethat upper echelon, like that.
You know that.
You know that O five and abovetype echelon, right when you're
occupying those positions andyou and you are you have to
become a politician in certainsenses to be able to advance.
We didn't really see a lot ofthat stuff and the the you know,

(01:02:45):
what we saw was dudes that welooked up to and respected and
that we knew we're going tofrickin do the right thing right
.
I knew that.
I knew that my ops chief, if hesaid that that shit was going
to get done, it was going to getdone.
If my platoon commander saidthat it was going to get done,
it was.
You know what I mean.
Like we, we relied on that andwe took integrity very, very

(01:03:08):
seriously because lives dependedon it.
And I quickly realized, as soonas I got out, that integrity
didn't mean what it meant to mein the civilian world.
And I had people like blatantlylie in front of me and it was
people that I actually like thatwould disregard the things that

(01:03:29):
I had to say because it would,it would rock boats or it would
be a situation that had to beaddressed or handled.
And when I, when I realizedthat they would, that there was
a choice, we didn't have achoice, right, it was just like

(01:03:49):
you're going to do the rightthing, period, end of story.
But in that, like outside ofthat realm, that was just a
really rude awakening to me islike is this my existence?
Like, am I going to have tocontinuously navigate all of
this?
And it got way worse.
So it got way worse as I gotfarther into learning a little

(01:04:09):
bit more about business anddealing with those characters.
And it really helps to look atpeople through the lens of
archetypes.
I learned that for my wifeInstead of trying to make things
so personal, you look at themthrough the lens of that's an
archetypal structure and notnecessarily taking it personally
.
But I had to learn that.

(01:04:31):
I had to learn that throughtrial and error and through a
lot of universal slapback, ifyou will.

Tell us about that.
What is that?
The archetypes?
What do you mean by looking atpeople through that lens?

So the archetypal structure right, you're going
to test my knowledge here, andthat's good.
So the archetypal structure issomething that's kind of based
off of mythology, and so if welook back at Greek mythology,
roman mythology, things likethat, you have these figures,

(01:05:07):
and these figures representspecific models.
I guess, if you will, at thevery basic core level, we have a
father archetype and we have amother archetype.
The father archetype, thearchetype, is the
characteristics and traits thatwe would associate with that
person or with that character.

(01:05:29):
If that makes sense, then youcould have a trickster.
You could have an archetypethat's a trickster.
You could have an archetypethat's a dark archetype that
represents evil tendencies.
You could have an archetypethat represents kind of beat

(01:05:49):
around the bush, if you will.
And these archetypes, jungianpsychology Carl Jung focuses a
lot on archetypal discussionsand saying, hey, we shouldn't be
taking this personally, becauseevery one of us has these
archetypal structures within usand we pick and choose.

(01:06:10):
Our persona picks and chooseswhich ones we're going to put on
display to accomplish what itis that the psyche feels like it
needs to accomplish in thisgiven scenario.
And so with each of thosearchetypes, though, there's a
polar opposite, so you can havethe good side of an archetype
and then you can have the polaropposite side, the negative

(01:06:30):
aspect of it, and that's thatwhole Dr Jekyll, mr Hyde type
thing.
That's that good and evilaspect and that's something that
that depth psychology, jungianpsychology, focuses on.
And Jungian psychology focuseson really the self and
understanding, the understandingof individuation.

(01:06:51):
You are your own individualsoul and you need to learn what
that is by understanding thatyou have both a dark side and a
light side.
So you have an ego, you have apersona and you have a shadow.
The persona is what we show upLike.

(01:07:13):
When I'm talking to you rightnow, I'm putting forth a persona
and those personas we can havemany of them and we pick and
choose which ones that we feelas though, or that the ego feels
as though, that's going to getus through whatever scenario it
is that we're being faced with.
The ego's job is to keep us safe.
The ego's job is to protect usfrom having the shadow revealed,

(01:07:38):
and the shadow is all of thethings that we find, I guess,
repressive or undesirable.
But we have what we possess,those traits, so what I've
learned through this and it'slike oh man, we do that when we

(01:08:01):
look at an individual and wepass judgment on an individual,
that's literally because wepossess the trait that we're
witnessing in that individualand we just don't like it.
We possess it within ourselves.
We see it in somebody else andwe're like, oh, look at what
that guy's doing.
It's like no man.

(01:08:22):
You have it in yourself.
And so the saying my wife cameup with is what we project
outwards is what we rejectinwards.
So anything that we see outthere and we're pointing fingers
, those are all projections,because that's the ego doing its

(01:08:44):
job and keeping the shadow.
The shadow is like the ego's,like man, my sole purpose in
existence is to prevent thisshadow shit from coming out.
So the ego is then going totell the psyche hey, no, no, no,
you got to put this persona onto make sure that this shit over
here stays behind the curtain,right?
So that's where the projectionscome out, and that was huge.

(01:09:09):
That's like one of those thingswhere you're just like, oh man,
really I got to do with that nowtoo.
So that's that personaldevelopment part of things, and
as long as I think that you canbring it into your awareness,
it's a game of awareness, right.
It's saying, okay, I do thesethings and these are the traits

(01:09:30):
that I have.
This is the deck of cards thatI have in my pocket and this is
the hand that I got dealt thismorning.
How are you going to play thathand?
And that's learning how all ofthose three aspects of the
psyche work together.

I love that.
Have you read the book or heardof it?
That loving what is.
No, I'm going to write that downLoving so it sounds like it,
very similar and on the levelwith what you're talking about.
She describes it as a projectorand it's very much a buddy of
mine read it and it's she's outthere.

(01:10:06):
She's way, way out there.
So just as you listen to it,it's an interesting read.
But she describes it as a thelike we look at the world, it's
a big screen and we seeimperfections, just like as
you're pointing out there, andwe point it out and we say there
it is.
But what we don't realize isthat we're the projector and the

(01:10:28):
reason we see it so clearly isbecause it's not out there it's,
on our lens.
And it's our lens that's causingus to see it so clearly out
there is because it's on us, andso she takes everything and
turns it around and says whyneed to find this on me to fix?

I'll read that book.
I'm gonna say I'll tell my wifeabout it, she'll get a kick out
of it.
That's right up my wife's alley, by the way.
Yeah, like, and I learned thisstuff.
I learned this stuff from mywife, like that.
I have to give my wife,cassandra, credit for this,
because she was the one whoreally kind of like, structured

(01:11:02):
it and formulated it through herown trials and tribulations in
life.
And she was just like why isthis shit happening to me, like,
why do I?
And so she went on this path oftrying to figure this all out.
And it's deep, but it's within.
Every single one of us has todeal with it in one way, form or
another.
And it's weird because, you see, some things are just like what

(01:11:25):
doesn't bother you, that mightbother the shit out of me, and
what bothers the shit out of me,you might look at and be like
what's he getting all spun upabout?
That's because you're notunresolved in that area, or you
are resolved in that area andyou're just like that doesn't
bother me.

Well, and having the ability to look internally.
It's pretty fantastic becauseeverything I just did a big race
two weeks ago that I wanted totrain up for and do all the
stuff, and my wife was verysupportive she's the most
supportive and that's awesome,man.
We had a big conversation aboutit and I remember thinking like
I feel like she could be moresupportive with this, you know,

(01:12:08):
because she's tolerating.
You know, I got to go to 20mile run on the weekend, which
means she's got the kids for,you know, six extra hours on a
Saturday, and I rememberthinking about it, flipped it
back on myself.
I'm like, well, did I includeher?
Did I tell her I wanted to signup for this?
And like include her in theprep?
And the answer was no, I didn't.
And like, at the end of the day, went right back to me of I

(01:12:28):
could have done a better job ofcommunicating with her on my
game plan.
So it's pretty great, it's agreat topic.
So, yeah, sure, so you ended upgetting out you struggle with
getting out.

Just trying.
I moved up here and I became asteel fabricator and that was
kind of cool because I waslearning a new skill and I went
back to hunting and fishing.
I didn't really have any timeor opportunity to do that in the
Marine Corps, but it was.
You know, I didn't.

(01:13:04):
I realized I was pretty bitterabout leaving, leaving the
Marine Corps, and so I didn'treally.
I didn't really have a desireto get to go shoot.
I didn't really have a desireto continue to do that.
I thought in my mind.
I was like if, if I'm going todeal with this and I'm going to
navigate this, I need to.
What I thought I was going todo is like I need to pretend

(01:13:26):
like this is just another, thisis a chapter that I've closed
and I've moved on, and it justdoesn't work that way.
And so it just kept poking meand poking me and I was like man
, I don't really want to do this, I don't know what I want to do
.
I had met some friends thatwere like in sales and there was

(01:13:47):
just a little kind of schmuckyand I was like man, that's not,
I don't want to do that.
Like what is it that I want todo, and I know that I don't want
to.
I don't want to be a welder forthe rest of my life, and that
was kind of when I startedteaching.
People had found out like who Iwas, my background, and they're
like, hey, will you take me outto the range and take me

(01:14:09):
shooting?
Sure, yeah, no problem.
I got to the range and then Istarted to realize that I was
teaching people a lot more thanI would anticipate and it led
for it led to me starting areally small business just
teaching rifle classes on theside, and eventually that worked
into.

(01:14:29):
I posted a.
I posted up a class on sniperside that I was going to teach
and I got a phone call from thisguy from Surefire and his name
is Derek McDonald and he was the, the, the honcho for marketing
for Surefire, and he said hey, Isaw the class that you put up
on sniper side and you put upsome of your you know, some of

(01:14:53):
your job history and I saw thatyou worked for first special
operations training group and Ichecked up on you and I reached
out because the guy that used tobe my OIC there his name is
Andy Christian, and AndyChristian ended up being a
really, really well respectedcommander in Marsock, and Andy

(01:15:15):
was my last CEO and he wrote myfinal fit rep.
And so he was like hey, andysaid good things and I want to
give you an opportunity to helpyou with your business and I
would like to host a writers.
I would like you to host awriters event for Surefire,
pardon me.
And I was like I don't knowwhat.
I don't know what.
That is Sure, what do you?

(01:15:36):
So what do I need to do?
He's like Well, you need togive me like eight slots for
free to your class.
And I was like Okay, and I go.
What am I getting out of it?
And he said you're going to getI can't really put a finger on
it how much advertising you'regoing to get, but each of these
guys is going to write like twoto four articles and they're all

(01:15:57):
going to get tied back to doingwhat you're doing.
I was like All right, thatsounds like a, that sounds
pretty decent.
My, my ex wife at the time wasnot very happy about it and she
really couldn't see.
She just was like Well, you'regoing to work this weekend for
free.
And it's just like well, it'snot.
It's like I'm not working forfree and there's a lot of, you

(01:16:18):
know, residual that's going tocome from this, and well,
there's plenty of residual thatcame from it.
I think we ended up, you know,if I kind of added it all up, it
was probably upwards of$300,000.
And if I had to pay for thatnow as a company for marketing,
it is probably about 300 grandworth of marketing that I got
from just working for free forfour days and then that's really

(01:16:40):
what set me, that's what got myfoothold into the firearms
industry and it actually helpedme get my job at MagPool,
working at MagPool Dynamics asthe precision rifle guy, and
that's.
I started working at MagPool in2011.
And I've been doing thisprofessionally, full time ever
since.

It's incredible, I love.
One of the things that I talkabout often is just doing
something, even if you're notsure what it is doing something
because oftentimes the pathwaywe are going to take in life is
one that we don't see.
But the moment you step forwardand I always think of it as you
step forward the motion scent,lights, that brief morphete you

(01:17:23):
can see, and that is what I sawwith that is that you stepped
into this thing.
I'm just helping people out andthen all of a sudden, bam.
Then here you are doing whatyou do, and that's incredible to
see.

So it's been a fun journey, man.

That's amazing.
I love it.
And so that is I mean currently, right now, you're running.
I don't know the structure ofit, but you are running modern
day sniper, modern day rifleman.

Yep.
So we started, I had aconsultation, I left, I worked
for Magpul for almost sevenyears and Magpul went.
Magpul had a major shift inculture and that major shift in
culture occurred after thecompany was purchased by a
private equity firm.
Go Figure right.

(01:18:10):
That's just kind of the natureof the beast of some things.
And it took full hold in thissituation and the leadership
structure was drasticallychanging.
I started to witness a lot ofthings in the corporate world
that were new to me that just Idid not have a palette for and I
wasn't willing to tolerate it.

(01:18:30):
So I said I said my piece andrealized that in the corporate
world that doesn't go over verywell and so I was like, okay,
well, it's just time for me toleave.
And there was no way that I wasgoing to continue to allow my
whole existence to be poisonedbecause it was a machine that I

(01:18:52):
had no chance of even making animpact on.
So I decided I'm out of here.
So I started a smallconsultation company, worked for
several companies as aconsultant in the firearms
industry in the long rangeshooting side of things, and my
current business partner, philipBelayo he's a Marine Sniper as

(01:19:14):
well and I saw him receive theScout Sniper Instructor of the
Year Award and I want to say itwas 2017 at Shot Show and we
just kind of met in passing.
I shook his hand, saidcongratulations, man.
I mean, that's really, that'sawesome.
And I started following what hewas doing and I realized that

(01:19:37):
he had the same kind of he hadthe same kind of passions and he
had the same ability tocommunicate information and he
was a rock star on thecompetition scene and so he was
looking to get out of the MarineCorps and start doing what I
was doing and lo and like, whatI didn't realize is that he was
actually looking to me andsaying I want to do what that

(01:20:00):
dude does.
And so another guy, anotherfriend of ours, was like hey,
would you get on the phone andchat with Phil?
He's looking at getting out andstarting his own thing, and I
couldn't think of a better guyto talk to about it.
And when I got him on the phone, I was like, well, here's my
recommendations.
And if I could do it again andif I had a mentor, this is the

(01:20:22):
way that I would do it.
And so Phillip and I ended upstarting a podcast together and
I was a consultant for gunworksat the time and I brought
Phillip on as an instructor forgunworks and Phillip and I
decided that we wanted to starttalking about sniper stuff.
And so that is the genesis ofthe modern day sniper podcast.

(01:20:44):
And so that was the main brand.
That was what was just like,well, that's it.
Okay, well, this is it.
And then that podcast explodedwe're about to hit a million
downloads and like I think, yeah, we started it in January of
2020.
And so then Phillip was we justwe started running training

(01:21:08):
classes and Phillip was stillworking at gunworks and we just
got to a point, business wise,that it was like, okay, we can,
we can bring somebody on, we canstart expanding the team.
And and Phillip came on boardand modern day sniper was born,
and modern day rifleman isanother offshoot brand.

(01:21:29):
And what we started to realizewas that people would send us
messages and say I love yourbrand, but I don't feel
comfortable wearing the wordsniper.
I don't feel comfortable withthat and I didn't even, you know
, I wasn't thinking, I wasn'tthat forward thinking when we
set this up right, and I waslike, oh shit, that is

(01:21:50):
potentially a problem If we wantto expand into the civilian
market.
And so what we did was we held asummit and we called the summit
the modern day rifleman summit.
And that's that stuck.
Modern day rifleman stuck.
And now we have to.
We have modern day sniper andwe have modern day rifleman.
Modern day sniper is going tomove more into government

(01:22:14):
training contracts, professionalprofessional training, and then
modern day rifleman is going tofocus on the civilian aspect of
things the competition, thehunting and the enthusiasts.

Okay and you have and congratulate.
I mean I'd love to hear thepodcast.
A million downloads is.
I mean that's a very, veryimpressive feat that that not
many podcasts get to.
So that speaks volumes to bothof you guys, thank you.
And then your platform.
Here I also want to point outto the humility that because it

(01:22:48):
that you guys have with it,because you started it up just
as a you know we're going to dothis thing and and you were open
with with people sharing it andyou didn't see it it was.
It was cool that that peoplestepped up and said I don't
really feel comfortable with itand I respect that they did that
.
But also your humility and thatyou know you all weren't even
thinking on that level, which isyeah, it's course pretty cool.

Yeah, we were just.
You know, it's like man, that's, that's awesome.
So Philip actually Philip wascame up with a name and it's
been a fan.
It's been a great ride.
It's been.
It's been a lot of fun.
We've learned a lot.
We were the first to bring adigital master class, meaning

(01:23:31):
like a full fledged hey, this islike five hours long, five
hours of content and we're goingto cover all this information.
We were the first ones to bringthat to the table and we have a
monthly training subscriptionservice.
It's called modern day riflemanadvantage and we have a.
We have a community that wasbuilt grassroots.

(01:23:53):
I think there's over like 6,800people in there now and that's
it's essentially, it's our owncommunity.
That's behind a firewall.
It's not a social media platform, it's not a Facebook group,
it's not anything other than itsown thing and it's modern day
rifleman and you can find it atmoderndayreifermancom and in
there is where we host all ofour master classes.

(01:24:14):
It's where we host all of ourlive question and answer
sessions.
It's where we host our monthlysubscription service and it's
fantastic to just watch.
I mean, it literally turnedinto its own monster, right.
So we're in there and we'reseeing questions.
It's very kind of social media.
Ask the way that the structureis set up in terms of like, how

(01:24:38):
you view information, but it wasdesigned the platform was
designed with administeringinstruction at the forefront
Right, so it's really good forthat, and the byproduct is we
have a growing community ofshooters in there that are all
after one thing, and that is toimprove and further develop

(01:24:59):
themselves both, you know, withtheir skills as well as being
better human beings.

Well, I joined it recently and I've just really
been blown away.
I've been able to jump in asdeep as I want to, but I've
loved the content.
I got to jump into one of theheroes journey zoom meetings
where you brought somebody outJust a really cool, really cool
perspective.
I love it and I also challengeI've done several episodes a

(01:25:29):
good buddy of mine that I met,another Marine.
I met him out at just a localcompetition, a long range
competition match, and we endedup becoming good friends.
He's come on twice but I alwaysrecommend to people, any
veterans, that if you don't know, if you're kind of struggling
of what to do next, the longrange community is very, very
open.

(01:25:49):
I guess I guarantee, no matterwhere you're at a guarantee
you've got a local, a very basiclocal club match which you can
go jump into the sport and I saythat because I would definitely
go check out this website.
Jump on the modern day rifleman, get into the sport.
It's a great platform just tohave community, to have
something that's driving you agoal, and there's so many good

(01:26:11):
things with it.

Absolutely, man, absolutely.
And so the book that youbrought up, Lanny Bashams, with
Winning in Mind, we are going tobe doing a book club reading.
We have a book club insidethere.
I know people are just like abunch of nerds doing the book
club thing, but we're going todo.

(01:26:33):
I think the event is already inthere.
The exact date escapes me.
I think it's like late inDecember that we're going to do
it.
But we're going to go.
We just gave everybody anassignment.
You got three months to consumeLanny Bashams with Winning in
Mind and we're going to take itall apart and that's going to be
for me, anyways, like well, mygoals are.

(01:26:55):
I've always wanted to take ashot at a national title on the
competition side and I reallyI've dabbled in it and so far
I've been able to rely on talent.
But right now, with theshooting pool, the way it is,
talent ain't going to cut itanymore and that's great.
That's awesome.
There are some reallyphenomenal shooters out there

(01:27:18):
and it's amazing to see and thisnext year, 2024, I want to kind
of immerse myself into that andstructure my season so that I
can go chase after a nationalchampionship.
I think it'll be fun.
Oh man.

So that's going to be 2024?
.

Yep, yep, we'll see how 2024 shakes out.
So how will we?

be able to follow you on this journey, because I
personally would love to see youchase this down.

Well, I mean social media.
I have an Instagram account,it's Kaelin8541.
And I pretty much that's whereI post the majority of the
updates of what's going on atmodern day rifleman.
Modern day sniper has a YouTubechannel.
I don't have a personal YouTubechannel, I just use modern day
snipers, so we post up thingsthere.

(01:28:09):
And obviously, within the modernday rifleman network, we'll be
doing things like a lot ofpeople do match debriefs in
there that are verycomprehensive, very focused on
things that, like Lanny's bookfocuses on.
You know, trying to focus onthat mindset aspect of things,
because it's not something thatis at the forefront of

(01:28:29):
everybody's mind in this world.
A lot of people are chasinggear, they chase the gear, they
chase the gear and that's fair.
Like the saying is, you shouldbuy as many points as you can
afford, but there comes a hardstop where it's just like okay,
you can't buy any more points.
Now you actually have to putthe rubber to the road and apply

(01:28:51):
yourself and in this day andage, with the level of shooter
out there, you have to train andyou have to focus on training
in order for you to stay in thatmindset, because putting
together two days of upperechelon level.
Performance is where kind ofthings fall.

(01:29:11):
You can do it for a day, butbeing able to do it for two days
is another story, and sothere's a lot for us to learn
from Olympians such as Lanny inhis book.

I know you.
In our first phone call yourecommended it and I usually
have people recommend the book.
I put it in the list and it'llgo wherever it goes.
But that was then immediate.
I ordered it, I got the audibleand I had a big long run.
I started listening to it rightaway.
I absolutely loved it.
I digested it.
I mean I think I was done withit in two days.

It was just a fantastic reading.
Yeah, it's not a big one, it'seasy to get through.

Easy to get and it's just great content.
I was stopping.
I have a hole in my iPhone.
So many good takeaways.
What are your top takeawayswith it?
I know you're I don't want totake away from your book club
debrief that you all are goingto do, but what are your top
takeaways with winning in?

mind.
The top takeaways are having abulletproof mental structure
that you can fall back on, andthen the affirmations.
The affirmations are big.
I think that the affirmationsare.
There's more credit should begiven to those affirmations than

(01:30:23):
I think a lot of people do,because they work.
It absolutely works.
And the self-image aspect ofthings, because if your
self-image is not aligned withyour performance, then we're
going to have major problems.
I'm going to go shoot a matchtomorrow and I'm going to go
down and shoot the regionalfinale for the Precision Rifle

(01:30:46):
Series up here in the Northwest.
And if you need one or twostages to get warmed up and get
the jaders out, that's becauseyour mental program is either
kind of crappy or it doesn'texist at all.
So you can't afford to have twostages where you're just like

(01:31:07):
I'm going to take the first twostages and match and iron myself
out, get the bugs, get rid ofthose butterflies.
We shouldn't have butterflies.
We should be able to have astrong mental structure in place
that I can fall back on.
That takes me to visualizations.
The other thing that Lanny'sbig on is visualizations, and I

(01:31:28):
think in shooting, becauseshooting is such a visual
activity that visualizations arereally, really important for us
to do and obviously just thedry practice aspect of things.
He tells a story in there abouthow he had to go to school in
Texas and he didn't have a rangewithin a reasonable driving
distance and he had based uponhis schedule in order for him to

(01:31:50):
qualify.
He had to take nationals inorder to be able to qualify for
the Olympic team and he only hadlike three days to do it or
something like that.
He practiced dry fire in hisroom after his family went to
bed, for three to five hours anight, five days a week, and
boom, he goes in three days atthose matches and he takes them

(01:32:13):
all Because he was able tovisualize everything through dry
practice and have a rock solidmental plan in place to fall
back on.
And that's your only focus,right?
I'm not worried about anythingelse externally.
I'm solely focused on what'sgoing on internally, because my
skills have been committed tosubconscious competence and I'm

(01:32:34):
executing that with mysubconscious mind and I am able
to problem solve with the thingsthat are in front of me
externally with my consciousmind, and that's the ultimate
goal.

I loved his breakdown of getting these
actions that we take into thesubconscious mind and how he
sends us there and how muchdepth he has with it.
Well, I would share.
It's one thing that we talkabout just in my day-to-day work
that I do as I travel and train.
We talk about the mental sideof things and one example we

(01:33:08):
share, because people sometimesstruggle with how powerful your
mind is, your imagination andaffirmations, and I think that
one thing that can't beunderstated is how you have to
be really intentional about it.
Your mind is really powerful andI love the example of I stole
it from a buddy, but that ifeverybody's kind of had it,
where either you or your spouseor significant other woke up the

(01:33:30):
next morning having a dreamthat the other one cheated on
you or that you cheated on them,and how does that conversation
go?
You can tell them all day longand it is real and it's really
tough to shake that feeling andthat's how powerful our
imagination is.
And so when you do thedrive-thru, when you're having
this, you've got to beintentionally focused on not

(01:33:53):
thinking this is fake.
Not thinking it's not where youhave to be.
That's a real, vividwalkthrough.
It's powerful.

Well, because your mind, your psyche, doesn't
know the difference between whatyou tell it versus what
perceives as reality.
So my wife's been trying to getme to do this.
I'm thinking about it.
She's like let's go do adarkness retreat and let's go
spend three days in the darkalone.

(01:34:19):
And I'm like, damn, that's okay, all right, because your brain
doesn't know the difference.
What are you going to do?
And so that's pretty intense.
I mean, the longest I've spentby myself without any human
interaction is 10 days, and 10days in the mountains.

(01:34:41):
I was on a hunting trip andthat was a super powerful
experience, super powerful.
Not having any human contactfor 10 days is pretty.
It's pretty powerful becauseit's just you.

What did you take away from that?

Number one that I love mountains.
That's where I do all of my,that's where I work on myself
the majority of the time.
That's like the mountains aremy medicine and just
perseverance, like ultimateperseverance.
The weather on that trip wasgarbage.
It rained probably 80 to 90% ofthe time.

(01:35:19):
Everybody who spent that muchtime in the rain you know that
everything's wet, it'suncomfortable, it's cold and you
really you know it defines whoyou are in the sense of, like,
your level of discipline andcommitment, because there's
nobody else to get you up out ofthe tent in the morning, right?
So alarm goes off at 430.

(01:35:42):
It's freaking, 12 degreesoutside, the wind's blowing.
It's really easy to stay insidethat sleeping bag.
It's really easy to stay insidethat sleeping bag and say I'm
going to get up when the suncomes up, so I'm not freezing so
bad.
Or like, okay, I finished mybreakfast, I finished my morning
meal, so now I got to strip offall of these warm layers, go

(01:36:05):
down to, you know, just a coupleof layers, because I got a ruck
three or four miles to myglassing spot.
I know that's going to be super, super uncomfortable.
It's just having the disciplineto do these things without
being told to right.
That's all it has to come fromyou.
If you want anything in themountains, you got to go.
Do it yourself.
Everything's work.
If you want to eat, you got towork.

(01:36:25):
You want water, you got to work.
You kill a deer, okay.
Well, I got to go to where Ishot it and I have to cut it up
and I have to put it in bags andI have to put it on my back and
I have to get it where it needsto go.
So that's one of the reasonsthat I just love doing it, many
of the reasons I love it.

You said mountains are your medicine.

Yeah, mountains are medicine.

Really, really that's great.
Very, very powerful.
You said earlier and you shareda really really powerful.
I mean your time in themilitary was very impressive and
really powerful.
I mean you did a lot and I knowyou said you joined up with the
hopes of understanding a littlebit more about what your

(01:37:11):
grandfather did.
I really wanted to ask you ifyou felt like you got that.

You know it's interesting.
That's a good question to ask,because when I came back, when I
was able to finally get back tomy hometown after I got through
with the Medevac process, mygrandfather was still alive and
he was super emotional and Iremember him looking at me and
going I can't believe what youwent through because you're

(01:37:44):
watching it on TV, right,because they didn't have that
stuff back in his day.
They weren't watching the waron TV and it most certainly
isn't even like it is today.
I mean certain Instagram sitesyou can go to and Telegram sites
you can pretty much watchcombat all day long if you
wanted, which is new.
This is a new thing.

(01:38:05):
I remember thinking to myself mygrandfather fought at the
Battle of the Bulge.
Dude, there was never a pointin time where we were freezing
to death.
There was never a point in timewhere I was down to my last
magazine of ammunition.
There was never a point in timewhere we were getting shelled

(01:38:30):
to the point of driving men toinsanity.
We never experienced anythinglike that.
There were definitely intensemoments of combat and witnessing
really, really horrible thingsin terms of the effects of IED
blasts and indirect fire, butnothing on the scale that those

(01:38:53):
guys experienced and for thelength of it he would tell me
stories like, yeah, there weretimes where it was just hours of
being pummeled by artillery,and not little artillery either,
not like 82 millimeter mortars.
I mean an 82 millimeter mortaris you don't want that thing
landing next to you?
Let's think about 155millimeter artillery shell.

(01:39:15):
Those dudes went throughunspeakable, unfathomable
experiences and they totallypale.
I believe they pale incomparison to what I went
through.
I try to convince most, likegrandpa, like nah man, I love

(01:39:37):
you and I appreciate this, butit doesn't hold a candle to you,
man for sure.

I think I remember after my second deployment, the
0405, I was in Najaf and therewas a huge battle there at this
mosque and people were comparingit to some World War II battles
.
I'm not taking away from whatwe just went through.

(01:40:09):
There's no possible way thatthis compares to any of that
stuff.

Could you construct or compare it?
Yeah, yeah.

I completely agree.
I'm always grateful that for me.
I'm grateful I got to be a partof our generations war and for
whatever capacity, because itseems like every generation has
one.

I think what I learned also something that I've
been contemplating lately is wemight not always, as we grow
and as we start to learn andestablish our own points of view
and our own opinions when we'reoutside the constraints of the
military, we might not exactlyagree with how a particular

(01:40:55):
conflict started.
I think that's safe to say.
I think that's completely safeto say.
However, what we will neverstop is the flow of young men
that are eager to not only servetheir country but to seek
adventure and to gain throughexperience what that's like test

(01:41:24):
their metal.
Can I do this?
Can I put up with this?
Can I be within this?
Can I establish my own rankwithin this fraternity of savage
brotherhood?
We're never going to stop that,from the time of history, from

(01:41:45):
history's recordings, young menwere always and always have been
pursuing this call foradventure.
The way that I look at it is,it's our job, or where I'm at
and what I do, it's my job totrain those men to be as
effective as possible so that,hopefully, they can survive, to

(01:42:10):
continue on that transition,continue on that evolution of
understanding, because it's notgoing to stop, it's going to
continue to perpetuate.
They need it.
They certainly need it.

I know that's what drove me to it.
I had this, exactly what youwere saying.
I just felt this calling to godo it and I'm grateful I did.
It gave a lot to me.
It was a really good thing forme as a young man, not knowing
what to do.
You also mentioned somethingearlier and actually before I

(01:42:52):
even ask that.
I want to just make sure thatwhat are some ways that people
because I have one more questionI want to ask you about and
talk to you but what are someways that people can follow?
I know you mentioned Instagramobviously check out modern day
riflemen.
I definitely encourageeverybody to join that.
What are some ways people canget in touch with you or follow

(01:43:12):
you?

Yes, so the Instagram route again, and the
modern day riflemen and I dohave a YouTube channel.
Moderndaysnipercom is our mainwebsite.
Websites nowadays are more ofbrochures of what we do, but you
can come to an in-price,in-person class.
We teach in-person classes allover the country and now all

(01:43:36):
over the world.
If you want to check out aschedule and you want to come
hang out with us for a few daysand get some in-person
instruction, go tomoderndaysnipercom and look at
our events tab and you can seewhere we're going to be.
Our 2024 schedule is going to bereleased here shortly.
We're finalizing some otherranges that we're going to go to

(01:43:57):
.
Our time might be starting tobecome limited because we are
working on some militarycontracts, which is where we
want to direct the majority ofour efforts.
Anyways those contracts, shouldthey come to fruition our time
is going to be at a premium withregard to other activities.

(01:44:19):
So come check us out, see ifwe're coming to a range in your
region, in your area.
We'd love to spend some timewith you.
Our classes are not necessarilya class, so to speak.
It's more of an experience.
You're going to hang out withus and we're going to teach you
some of the things that we knowand you're going to have just a
great time.
You're going to have anexperience.

I thank you for sharing that and cannot
recommend it enough.
I would definitely recommend toanybody jump into it,
especially if you're new to thesport.
Jump into it.
If you're into the sport,definitely jump in and check out
everything they're doing,because it's fantastic With this

(01:45:03):
too and this just hit me, notthe question I was going to ask
you I know that the last time wetalked, you're really focusing
on the hero's journey.
As you've shared your entirearchway, I can't help but see
the hero's journey inside ofeverything that you're doing.
You talked about being this kidin high school, maybe picked on

(01:45:29):
a little bit, I don't want tomisquote you.

No, no, no.

You're going to military and then you had your
rebirth.
Have you pieced that togetherand looked at that and where
you're at now, absolutely 100%.
You can look at that fullcircle and see it as an amazing
thing.

The cool part about the hero's journey and
this is where you referred tohim earlier.
This was when Dr Chalkwist cameon as a guest speaker and
talked about it.
We're getting in and out likethe hero's journey.
You remember the Oodaloop right, observe, orient, decide, act.
The Oodaloop is something thatwe should be getting into.

(01:46:06):
We want to get into it asquickly as possible, process the
information, get out of it asquickly as possible and then get
into it again as quickly aspossible.
It's a constant, it's acontinuum.
I believe that the hero'sjourney, those 12 steps of the
hero's journey, and you canbreak them down into three parts
.
You have the normal world, youhave the darkness that you go

(01:46:32):
through and then you have thereturn.
The return is back to thenormal world, but as a new
version of you.
It's based upon the things thatyou've learned through your
darkness.
We're constantly in and out ofthis hero's journey loop with
every major aspect of our lives.
Every trial and tribulation isits own little miniature hero's

(01:46:56):
journey.
As we go through that continuum, you can look at it from a wide
, 30,000-foot view, or you caneven narrow it down to more
granular and say that these lastthree months I've been in this
loop or processing somethingYou're processing, something
that happened with a familymember, or something that

(01:47:17):
happened at work, or somethingthat happened in your personal
goals Any number of things wecan find ourselves in that
continuum.
I have learned a tremendousamount about myself as a result
of associating what myexperiences are with this

(01:47:37):
structure.
If you will, if your audiencehasn't heard of the hero's
journey, I would start in thisinterest you look up Joseph
Campbell in the hero's journey.
Joseph Campbell was pretty muchthe driving force behind

(01:47:57):
breaking apart the hero'sjourney and understanding what
it is.
It's very, very interesting,joseph Campbell.
He's a brilliant mind, or was abrilliant mind.
He's not listening anymore, butstill his work is.
Just listening to the man speakis impressive.

It's powerful stuff.
I love seeing everything thatyou're doing your entire pathway
.
I'm just happy and gratefulthat I've gotten to cross your
paths on this journey now toseparate times in my life.
One thing that we talked aboutin our previous conversation,
and you even referenced itearlier was the death of the ego

(01:48:39):
and leaving your ego at thedoor.
Why do you think that?
Just as a parting message, whydo you think that's so important
to leave your ego at the door?

I think that's a common term that people use is
leave your ego at the door.
It's more of a blanket term,but we have to understand that
the ego never leaves us.
The ego's always there.
We have to understand what theego's purpose is, because it
does have a purpose.
It's not always a bad thing.

(01:49:12):
The ego keeps us safe.
The ego keeps us in line withour morals and with our values,
but it can also be somethingthat can grow and evolve through
awareness of what it actuallydoes for us and the things that
it protects.
When you leave your ego at thedoor, like when you come to a

(01:49:33):
training class, that'sspecifically just being open to
learning, open to newinformation and not allowing the
shadow aspects of yourself toget in the way of that, because
that's all the ego's doing isprotecting the shadow aspects
from coming out.
The teacher might be tellingyou something that trips

(01:49:55):
something in your shadow and youget pissed and you're just like
.
I don't agree with that.
Being aware of how that allworks is going to allow you to
be aware of saying oh yeah, nowI'm getting tripped up, I know
what's going on, but I'm goingto redirect.
I'm going to do a redirect andI'm going to do an offset with

(01:50:20):
navigation.
We've come to this limitingtrain feature.
I know it's here.
I have to get around it, so I'mgoing to plot around it.
That's all you're doing, withleaving your ego at the door.
In order to learn that, you haveto have the experience.
You've got to get smackedaround a little bit For real.

(01:50:43):
You've got to get smackedaround a little bit, Even
smacked around.
What I mean is you're gettingthese life lessons and you're
going to continue to get thoselife lessons until you learn
them.
If you don't learn them,they're just going to keep on
coming.
It can get pretty old.
So I learned your lessons.

(01:51:04):
It gets pretty old.

It's one of my Somebody shared with me recently
that all the things, theproblems you have in your life,
they keep coming at you untilyou learn from them.
That's when you get to movepast them, then understanding
that you get another one that'sgoing to hit you right in the
face.

Yeah, it's a continuum.

It's not over Once you hit the next level.
You never stop with that.
John Maxwell obviously he's thegrandfather of leadership
always shares that he can tellwhere you're at in your life and
what level of leadership youhave based on how many problems
you're dealing with.
Because if you know leader,nobody gets to a high level and

(01:51:53):
is like I don't have any moreproblems.
It's like once you graduate tothe next one, your problems just
multiplied.
You don't get to go to thatnext level until you figure out
your current ones.
That's right.
Thank you so much.
It's been a pleasure taking thetime to jump on here.
You're welcome Absolutely.
I really appreciate it.

You're welcome, man.
This is a great conversation.
I'd love to continue it.

Yeah, man, I would love to deep dive into a lot of
this stuff.
Man, you're always welcome backon the show.
If I can do anything to helpout with you guys, just let me
know.

Thank you very much, Dad.
This is great.

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|int| Leading With Precision: A Dive Into the Life, Lessons and Leadership of Marine Sniper Instructor Caylen Wojcik | Ep 90

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}|int| Leading With Precision: A Dive Into the Life, Lessons and Leadership of Marine Sniper Instructor Caylen Wojcik | Ep 90