May 19, 2025 • 44 mins
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In this powerful episode of Security Halt!, host Deny Caballero welcomes Kevin Smith, a former Green Beret and endurance coach, for a candid conversation about what it takes to thrive both in uniform and in the civilian world.
Kevin opens up about his journey from an athletic upbringing to enduring the rigors of Special Forces selection and the Operator Training Course. He shares insights into the mental and physical challenges of military life, and the values that shaped his success: discipline, perseverance, and self-belief.
Now an entrepreneur and coach, Kevin discusses the transition from the military to building a business, how endurance events became a tool for personal development, and why community support is vital for lasting growth. This episode is packed with wisdom for veterans, athletes, and anyone looking to level up in life.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Personal Updates
02:53 Education and Career Development
05:59 Fitness Journey and Alcohol Awareness
09:03 Overcoming Injuries and Physical Therapy
11:56 The Importance of Community and Support
15:09 Nutrition and Training Strategies
18:08 Mental Health and Self-Reflection
20:47 Navigating Transition Challenges
25:23 Building Community and Connection
30:30 The Importance of Humor and Support
35:14 Embracing the Journey of Fitness
41:51 Future Aspirations and Collaborations
Instagram: @securityhalt
Tik Tok: @security.halt.pod
LinkedIn: Deny Caballero
Follow Kevin on social media and check out his podcast too!
Instagram: terminator_training
Website: terminatortraiing.com
Produced by Security Halt Media
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Security On Podcast.
Let's go.
The only podcast that'spurpose-built from the ground up
to support you Not just you,but the wider audience,
everybody.
Authentic, impactful andinsightful conversations that
serve a purpose to help you.
And the quality has gone up.
It's decent and it's hosted byme, denny Caballero.
(00:24):
Kevin Smith welcome to SecurityHall.
How you doing, man?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Doing great.
Denny, Great to be on the show.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Absolutely, dude.
Thank you for coming on.
I love seeing guys that get outand they forge their mission
purely based on what they'repassionate about and giving back
to others.
And one thing that I realized,just like many of our brothers
find out, when they get out oneof the most important things to
focus on is your mentalwell-being and physical
well-being, and the two go handin hand, and I love your message
(00:54):
.
I love what you're doing withyour platform, but I want to
break down your journey, man,from start to finish how you
came up with this idea ofreaching for one of the hardest
things to do in the military andwhen you decided to walk away
from it.
What led you to go out on yourown?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah.
So to rewind back to my earlyyears where I decided to kind of
take the route to try and testmy mettle as becoming a Green
Beret, I grew up very active,very into sports.
I have two parents that bothplayed not super high level
sports, but my dad playeddivision one, double A football
at the university of Maine.
(01:31):
My mom was a college basketballplayer division three.
So, needless to say, I was thefirst born kid and I've got two
younger sisters.
I actually have five sisters,but two of them are real sisters
, the other ones are stepsisters.
I'm the only guy, so, as thefirstborn, my dad of course was
also a coach and a teacher, sohe was very, very much into
hopefully getting me to try in abunch of different sports and
(01:53):
test and see what I was good at.
I grew up in Maine, so thecompetition up there is not
great.
So for me if I say I was a goodplayer, I'm speaking relatively
, not necessarily likenationally, compared to national
good players, but anyway, Ibasically tried my hand at
pretty much every single sportyou could possibly imagine.
So I had a very athleticupbringing.
I never really got into theactual strength and conditioning
(02:15):
part of it until I was likemaybe a sophomore in high school
.
My dad really wanted me to do alot more strength and
conditioning and we would go outon runs and we would do some
hill sprints, we'd do somecalisthenics, but I never really
got into the actual strengthand conditioning portion.
But essentially when I did so,high school I settled on
football.
Basketball and baseball were mymain sports and I was kind of a
(02:37):
little bit delusional, thinkinglike I might be able to.
Basketball was kind of the oneI focused on the most, so much
so that I quit baseball later inmy high school career to focus
on, like spring, basketball as asix foot one, very not super
athletic guy like white, likewe're looking back.
Of course I had no chance, butthat's what I really enjoyed.
But I got into strength andconditioning.
Probably like sophomore year Igot really serious about it.
(02:59):
I say serious in quotationmarks because there wasn't a lot
of information back then.
So most of my strength andconditioning work came from
football bigger, faster,stronger, bfs A lot of people
may be familiar with that backin the probably early to mid two
thousands up to like 2010.
That was like the high schoolfootball training modality,
training method and then also acombination of that with
(03:21):
bodybuilding magazines andArnold Schwarzenegger's
Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding.
I was also really into running.
I never really was big intolearning a lot about
conditioning.
I just kind of went out and ranhard all the time and you know.
Obviously we can talk about whythat's not a great idea later.
But I realized that I wasstarting to enjoy the strength
and conditioning portion of it alittle bit more than the actual
(03:41):
sport.
Like I would rather go to thegym and lift or go out for a run
than actually show up and playmy sports.
Not not so much that it reallydetracted from my performance.
Obviously, strength andconditioning will generally,
unless you do dumb stuff, willmake you a better performer on
the field or on the court,whatever it was.
But I just started to realizethat I enjoy that more and flash
(04:02):
forward to like my senior yearno-transcript do.
(04:27):
I was like no, I'm not going toplay college sports, but I'm
still going to go to college.
One of my best buddies and Iwere going to be roommates at
the University of New Hampshire,which is about an hour from my
house.
It's not a state school I grewup in Maine so more expensive
but closer anyway.
I lasted about.
I had no idea what I wanted todo and also I lasted about a
(04:48):
month there before I dropped out.
I pretty much showed up.
I pretty much showed up and Iwas just.
I knew for pretty much the day,the first day, that I was in the
wrong place.
I just did not fit in withpeople.
I had very, very bad anxiety.
It was almost like I justdecided to do something that I
was not prepared for at all.
And then I showed up and Irealized I was even less
prepared for it than I thought Iwas.
So, although my parents werenot happy about this, I decided
(05:08):
to drop out and not try and dragit on any longer than it should
have been dragged on, droppedout, worked a bunch of odd jobs
Meanwhile this entire time.
I'm still very into fitness, soI'm doing a bunch of learning
about fitness, strength andconditioning on the side, doing
a bunch of training.
One thing that's basicallynever really fallen off for me
is being consistent with mytraining to varying different
(05:28):
degrees and with varyingdifferent goals.
But throughout this time Ireally had to determine what the
hell I wanted to do with myselfand worked a bunch of odd jobs,
kind of just spun my wheels,lived in my parents' house.
You know one of those oldcliche sayings like living in
your parents' basement justtrying to figure out what the
hell you're meant for in thisworld.
And so finally although thisdidn't work out either, but I
(05:51):
decided I'm going to go back tocollege, this time to University
of Maine.
My sister's going there, a lotmore of my friends go there.
I feel like I've gained theability to go and really put my
best foot forward and put thework in and be successful in
college.
And, needless to say, that didnot occur either.
This time.
I made it a little bit longer.
I made it till I was abouthalfway through the year, give
(06:12):
or take, and that was on paper.
I had really quit on it likesilent quit well before that and
I just didn't want, I didn'thave it in me to like tell my
parents, but eventually I had to, so they didn't keep wasting
money on me not showing up toclass and me basically flunking
out.
So I dropped out again andagain, still maintaining my
fitness.
Still, I was very, very muchinto after high school I was
(06:34):
very much into running.
That was my main modality oftraining and I genetically kind
of have decent ability to runmore so than get strong jacked,
have decent ability to run moreso than get strong jacked, be
super fast and quick andexplosive.
I am more of a slow twitch guyand so naturally I enjoy doing
things that I'm pretty good at,and running was one of them.
So that was a pretty good, Iguess, baseline thing to do a
(06:58):
lot of before joining themilitary.
But either way, this time isprobably six months or so
between when I dropped out forthat second time, working random
jobs, running into people frommy hometown that are like what
the hell are you doing with yourlife, and I was just kind of
sick of just being there and tryto explain to people.
I cared a lot more about whatother people thought about me
back then than I do now and Ialso.
It was kind of the time of yourlife where being different and
(07:20):
being kind of not normal and notdoing what everyone else does
is thought of as like a badthing.
Now I think it's a great thing,but I just didn't really know
that at the time.
But anyway, I finally started toconsider the military and I was
reading all about it.
I'm not really that big intoswimming or boats although I was
on a dive team that we can talkabout that later.
But I kind of ruled out theSEALs, even though Stu Smith,
(07:42):
who's like one of the OG fitnessguys in this space, was making
a lot of content about SEALs.
He was also making contentabout various other soft and I
kind of had my sights on Ranger,dropping an option 40 contract,
which, for those who don't know, that's when you basically sign
your contract and you get ashot at going to Ranger Regiment
.
You go through RASP and allthat jazz Went to the recruiter.
(08:03):
They did not have a RASPcontract, or at least that's
what they told me and they saidwe do have an 18 x-ray contract.
If you do want to go in RBSOF,that is another option.
I had not heard of that beforebecause, like the internet was
not that prominent back then,like all this information wasn't
available like it is today.
So anyway, it was availableenough and with some good
research and a little bit ofGoogling, I read all about it.
(08:26):
I was like kind of obsessive Iget very, very obsessive about
things, especially when theyreally spark my interest and so
I spent like a few days, maybeup to a week or so, just reading
about it, watching videos.
That was back when, like thetwo weeks in hell video I don't
know if you've seen that yeah,it was out.
So that's the friends that werein that video.
(08:48):
Yeah, yep, back when it washard.
But anyway, last hard class,exactly, but that a lot of
people watch that and be like,uh, you know, that looks
terrible, I have no interest.
And I thought the exactopposite.
I'm like wow, that looksfreaking amazing and that's you
know most, most of us knowthat's not exactly what
selection looks like.
It's not what it looks liketoday, but it also wasn't.
They put on a little bit of ashow for TV.
But anyway, I was verymotivated.
I was like that looks amazing.
(09:08):
So I went and signed mycontract and probably about four
or five months after signingthat contract I went and entered
the army as a 21 year old, soonto be 22 year old, green Beret,
hopeful, and then kind of wentfrom there.
I don't know if you want me toget into the rest of that yeah.
And so yeah, so so went to OSITagain.
This was back during there.
(09:29):
There was no Reddit back then,there was no YouTube, there was
no Instagram about all thisstuff, so I had no idea how my.
Of course I knew I had to befit, especially endurance, but I
had no idea how my fitnesslevels matched up compared to
like high school runners.
In my high school I was prettyslow, but I wasn't that much
slower than them because Ididn't really do any competitive
running, I just ran.
So I thought I was like prettygood at running, pretty decent
(09:52):
at rucking.
I did some rucks to train upbefore I actually left with my
JanSport backpack and a 50 pounddumbbell just hanging out in
the bottom of it, because Ididn't know any better.
I'm like man.
I hope rucking does not feellike this forever.
Sure enough, once you put aruck on and you pack it properly
.
Yeah, I remember just my trapswere just destroyed after every
(10:12):
single session, needless to say.
But anyway, flash forward, wentto OSIT not really all that
remarkable.
There went to airborne schooland then we had pretty much
between airborne and when Istarted, sopsi.
Sopsi, for those who are notaware, is the 18 x-ray prep
course that they send you to tomake sure that you're actually
prepared to go to selection,because you're not coming from
the regular army, you're comingfrom airborne school pretty much
(10:34):
and you have no experience.
So they want to make sureyou're ready to go.
So I went to SOPSI in.
This was after Christmas of2012.
So we went to the January SOPSIclass.
My SOPSI class, believe it ornot, had a higher dropout rate
than my selection class.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, I believe it.
I believe it.
What timeframe were you in?
It was January of 2012.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
It was the very first class of the new year, not the
fiscal year, but the new yearofficially.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
It was still like cadre there.
They still have Fight Club.
They still have Fight Club inthe pit.
No, we didn't do Fight Club.
We're still like I don't.
They still have fight club.
They still have fight club inthe pit.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
No, we didn't do fight club.
We didn't do fight club.
It was basically just threeweeks of very similar to
selection, except you get morefood and more sleep and they,
they smoke you a lot more.
So you selection is more of agentleman's course where you
don't really know if you'redoing well or bad, which is part
of the difficulty of it, of it.
(11:26):
But sopsy you know, at least asa class.
At least as a class you knowwhether you're doing well or not
well and you know when you'renot doing well you do extra shit
and basically just build a lotof fatigue going into selection.
But if you can get throughsopsy, they get, you get.
You had like 10 days off backthen and, by the way, sopsy is
not like that anymore.
For those who have not gonegone and are considering it,
it's not quite as bad anymore.
It's actually probably Ihaven't been or seen it, but
it's probably a lot better.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
But back then it was yeah, it's more professional.
It used to be the wild wildwest and some of the things it's
like.
When I went through I was I wasalready an nco going through
the q course but I had a goodfriend of mine that had just
pinned I and they're like, no,you're going to sopsy.
And the stories that I wouldhear.
It's like they got us fightingin pits man.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, yeah.
So anyway, after passing SOPSIand after going to SOPSI and I
kind of started realizing thisat BASIC as well I realized I
was one of the higher performersas far as calisthenics, running
, rucking which, coincidentally,are very important parts of
being successful at SOPSI,selection and all that, and so I
was kind of gaining confidence.
I made it through SOPSI.
(12:27):
I didn't really think it waslike all that terrible.
There were some bad times andthey almost like fed on the fact
that we had like 10 guys justin the layout quit that day
because every time someonedidn't have an item the entire
class would get smoked.
This is like before the PT teston day one of SOPSI, literally
coming back from Christmas break.
So everyone's head was still onChristmas leave and I think
(12:47):
that was a big factor.
But anyway, they kind of fedoff it and they were just trying
to drop guys that couldn'tbelong.
So I think it was like 34% passrate in my SOPSI class.
Needless to say, the guys whopassed SOPSI with me and went to
selection, most, if not all, ofus crushed.
So I mean that's kind of common.
Usually guys who passed SOPSIdo well at selection, but not
always.
But anyway, finished SOPSI hadthat 10 day break and then went
(13:09):
to selection and my selectionclass.
Nothing crazy remarkable.
I don't know how much you guystalk about selection on this
podcast, but essentially thefirst week is gate week, where
you do all of your physicalevents.
You do your timed rucks, you doyour timed runs, you do your
time drugs, you do your timeruns, you do your PT test, of
course you do an obstacle courseand now they do a CFA.
Back when I went it was loggingrifle PT AKA washout Wednesday.
(13:31):
They kind of went away withthat just because guys who
typically guys who got droppedfrom that, got dropped because
they were getting hurt insteadof like, not really it wasn't a
big like quit or attrition ratething.
So they kind of went away withthat.
And then the second week you getinto purely land nav and I was
pretty confident going to landnav because, although I didn't
(13:52):
have any experience prior to thearmy in land nav or really
anything other than like goingout and camping, quote, unquote,
I had done well at Topsy duringland nav.
I found all my points and Ikind of felt like I picked it up
pretty well and, sure enough,went out, did the star course,
star courses back to back nightswhere you start at around
midnight, give or take.
You do basically half of yourstar course at nighttime, you do
half once the sun comes up andyour goal is to find four points
(14:13):
each day or an eight, eightpoint total.
So I found all four of my firstday with quite a bit to spare.
And then we thought at thistime this was right between
where they're going like backand forth, between if you find
all your points the first day,you don't have to go out the
second day, versus no matterwhat, you have to go out the
second day.
So we were all pretty excitedbecause the class before us got
to not go out if they found allfour.
(14:34):
Anyway, we did not go, we didnot get that privilege, so we
had to go out for the second day.
Anyway, found my four points.
Team week was the.
Basically it's four days.
You're on one team for thefirst two days, you're on
another team for the second twodays.
My first team was a little bitrough.
We were not doing all that well, I did not really do anything
remarkable there.
I didn't get any pink slips,but I also didn't really get any
(14:56):
blue slips, maybe one or two.
By the way, pink slips arenegative your team gives you
kind of a negative spot report.
Blue slips your team gives youa positive spot report.
This could be for any number ofthings.
It could be physical, it couldbe just leadership capabilities,
it could be just taking shittyvolunteer positions, taking one
for the team, any number ofdifferent things, just being a
good dude being a good teamplayer.
(15:16):
So my first team veryunremarkable.
Second team I was on a muchstronger team.
We got done first on both daysand that's kind of when I like
fell into my own.
I was like kind of havingflashbacks to when I was in
leadership positions in highschool for sports.
That really kind of helped mebe a little bit more of a leader
, especially considering thefact that I had like officers on
(15:37):
my team.
I had enlisted older guys and Iwas this 22 year old, 18 x-ray
with zero experience.
And during my exit interviewyou know one of the comments
from the cadre that I actuallygot my exit interview from he
was like yeah, I could havesworn you were probably like an
officer or whatever.
I'm like well, thanks, I guessI did pretty well.
So I had a pretty strongperformance across the board for
(15:57):
selection and, like most guys,no matter what, you don't
believe that you got selecteduntil they actually tell you
Like I still thought, eventhough I had done well during
gate week, well during land navand well during team week, I
still was like I really hope Idid well enough, like I'm not
sure, sure enough, I made it.
I got assigned 18 Delta andpretty much when you're an x-ray
you go, you start the Q coursepretty quickly.
(16:19):
So the first, the actual, thefirst thing I did was SOCM, and
SOCM, for those who are notaware, is the additional
training that medics have to do.
It's nine months long and it'sprobably the most difficult part
of the Q course for really anyMOS.
Academically Not necessarilyphysically or mentally, but just
academics are pretty intense,especially if you're not really
(16:41):
super into that stuff, like Iwasn't, and I of course had
terrible study habits that I had, basically non-existent study
habits that I had neverdeveloped before.
So I was drinking from a firehose, at least for the first bit
.
And then the second part ofSACIM I started to do a little
bit better.
It's more hands-on stuff.
So instead of sitting andtaking tests and getting tested
on the small details in clinicalmedicine, all that stuff.
It's more hands-on trauma,which is more fun.
Some guys struggle with theopposite.
(17:02):
They're better at test taking,not great at hands-on.
I was definitely the opposite.
I was better at the hands-onstuff and I enjoyed it, more
more confident with it, thenwent through the regular rest of
the Q course.
That is pretty similar to whateveryone else is.
That's kind of the reason thatdeltas take so long is just
because there's there's such adelay.
I don't know the exact order ofthe Q course these days but
(17:27):
yeah, usually for 18 deltas it'sabout two and a half years if
you don't recycle.
So went through and then I gotsent to 10th group at.
My language was French and thatwas back when 10th group was
doing more stuff in Africa atthe time, before switching over
to third group, which was alater group that I went to and
from there went to 10th groupand we can get into that if you
want or yeah, man, it's yourstory, my man, we got all the
time.
(17:53):
All right.
So I went to 10th group and dida few.
So my first deployment was toAfrica.
I was a brand new 18 Delta andI showed up right before
Christmas time and I was one offour guys that showed up to my
company.
The whole company was gone inNiger, africa, and they I was
the only one who was a Delta andbe not married.
So what'd they do?
They sent me new year's day.
I flew over to Niger.
The mountain team had a mediccoming back from Africa to go to
(18:14):
the mountain warfare school,like the highest level mountain
warfare school, so they only hadone medic.
So I went over and took overfrom him.
I did left seat, right seat fora bit.
That was, you know, back beforethe Niger incident that a lot
of people are probably aware of.
But we were in the exact sameplace doing a very, very similar
mission set and anyway, thatwas right before 10th group gave
(18:35):
Africa to third group.
So the rest of my trips with10th group, unfortunately we're
just to Europe, multipledifferent places in Europe and
right when I so.
So I got a little bit.
I almost didn't get sick of it,but I wanted to just test my
metal at something different andI'd always kind of had dreams
of going to the big leagues AKADelta force, cag and finally I
(18:56):
said, screw it, I'm going to puta packet in.
I went to ranger school duringthis time, mff, I was on a free
fall team, all that jazz.
But long story short, put apacket in in 2017 to go to the
spring 2018 CAG selection, gotpicked up, made it through that
fully, and so I PCS to FortBragg in the summer of 2018.
(19:16):
And unfortunately, otc did notgo as well.
For me, otc is their operatortraining course.
Yeah, it's a beast, it's anabsolute beast.
And when you fall behind thepower curve just by a little bit
, a everyone watches you like ahawk and B you better not mess
up with everyone watching youagain.
And I went a long time betweenmess ups.
There's a lot that I'mintentionally kind of leaving
(19:36):
out here, but just for respectto the unit, I don't talk
specific details, but I went along time between mess ups.
You basically get a dropwarning and then they watch you
a little bit more intensely.
They put more guys, moreinstructors watching your every
move, pretty much, and I got.
I had another bad day with acouple of just really dumb
decisions that you have to makevery fast decisions.
You're doing CQB and that's thepart of that course that gets
(19:59):
most guys and that is what gotme, and so I got dropped in.
That was probably one of thelow points, if not the low point
of my life, definitelysomething I am very grateful for
today.
But it was very hard to see thesilver lining back then.
I honestly probably wouldn't behere doing what I do right now.
I'd probably still be in andmaybe serving in the unit, who
knows.
But that was a big turningpoint and fortunately they are
(20:22):
very accommodating.
So my wife had just gotten ajob at NC State, so about an
hour way up in Raleigh, and wehad already we hadn't bought a
house yet, but we wanted to kindof stay there because she had
just gotten the job.
It took her a while and I hadbeen making her move around in
various parts of the countrybefore and so they were very
accommodating.
They're like yeah, sure we canhave you stay here.
Do you want to go to SWCC or doyou want to go to third group?
(20:42):
And I had not gotten a combatdeployment at that time yet.
So I was like I really want togo to third group because I knew
third group was about to go toAfghanistan.
I did not know COVID was aboutto happen, but I did know third
group was about to go and so Isaid, yeah, I went to third
group.
I ended up doing a little whileon the B team and then I got
sent to the dive team.
Now, the way third group doesdive teams, or all teams
(21:03):
actually, there's like in ineach battalion there's one
company that has, like the, adive team.
The other five number teams arelike backup dive teams.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
So we were more of a maritime team than an underwater
team.
That's weird.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, yeah.
So I had like, on my dive teamI had like three combat divers,
maybe four, so not a full diveteam and I ended up going to DMT
to be a combat or dive medic,which is nowhere near as
difficult as actual dive school.
I'm not a combat diver.
That would have been a strugglefor me, but anyway did my time
there Ended up going toAfghanistan in 2020, pretty much
(21:45):
it was July of 2020.
So four or five months afterCOVID really kicked off.
So, needless to say, that tripwas, although it was a combat
deployment and it was enjoyable,we got to do some fun stuff.
I wouldn't really even considerit necessarily a serious combat
deployment just because therewere so many restrictions and we
were winding down.
I was the last team on theground, we were like the last
people Americans on the groundat Camp Dahlke, formerly known
(22:05):
as Fobshank, and so we kind ofretrograded that, closed it out,
came back, and then I did onemore trip to Africa and then
towards the later stages of mycareer.
That I didn't know was going tobe the later stages of my career
until a little bit after this.
But I went to the Fox course,the 18 Fox course, to be an
Intel sergeant with about a yearleft on what my career was, but
I thought I was going topotentially stay in.
Anyway, I had started thisbusiness on the side, this
(22:27):
Terminator training business onthe side, and I was not talking
to the same audience that I amnow.
I was not making content aboutthe job I was being.
I never even mentioned likewhat I did.
I was just making regularfitness content.
That was really it.
I was writing articles.
I started an Instagram page.
I started a podcast.
If you go back and listen tosome of my first episodes,
(22:48):
pretty terrible, but we all haveto get better somehow.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Yeah, dude, reps man Just like anything else.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yep.
And then I started to think,like, do I really want to do?
I pretty much had to decidebetween I was coming up on my
12th year and my enlistment wasgoing to be up.
I had to decide between goingin-depth and retiring, or
getting out or going NationalGuard.
That was not really one of mypotential options, just my
choice.
I was either going to get outor stay in and I had just become
(23:13):
a Fox.
Didn't really get to do much asa Fox, but as I was nearing the
end of what my enlistmentperiod was, I kind of made a
last minute decision, which Idon't recommend, by the way.
If you make a last minutedecision, it's a really a
nightmare to get out of the armyin like two, three months.
But that's what I did and I gotout and here I am today.
I got out and started to reallyfocus my attention.
I had a business coach at thetime.
(23:34):
He's like dude, you'd be crazynot to start talking to the guys
who want to basically do whatyou did.
You've been there and you havethe knowledge.
Throughout that entire time Iwas like obsessively studying
strength and conditioningnutrition.
I was helping guys prep forvarious different selections.
I was helping support guys prepfor our selection.
I was writing programs forbuddies as well as like in
(23:56):
charge of my team's PT programs.
I was helping guys prep fordive school.
Even as a non-diver, I was justkind of giving them programming
to get better.
And yeah, so I I just kind ofslowly over time realized that I
had a more of a passion forthat and more of a drive to that
.
I was more excited to wake upeven on a work day where I had
to go in and do my job.
On an ODA, I would wake upsuper early, work on like, write
an article, work on thebusiness, whatever it was.
(24:18):
I wasn't really making anymoney.
I had some PDF programs that Iwould sell, maybe like one or
two a week, so it was a.
It was definitely a risk to getout because I literally had no
income coming from that, likealmost literally, and so I said
you know what, screw it, I'mgoing to get out and put my all
into it.
And I did, and then flashforward.
It's been about two years sinceI've been out and flash forward
(24:38):
.
I've been doing that ever since.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Hell yeah, dude, you gotta take it.
It's a gamble, man.
It's a gamble like anythingelse in your.
But your career has shown you,man Like it's a big fucking
gamble to go in and choose 18Delta.
That's a big fucking gamble.
It's a big fucking gamble tosay I'm going to go punch the
ticket and go to CAG selection.
It's a big fucking gamble tosay, okay, fuck, I made it
(25:03):
through that.
I'm going to sit here and fightthrough the operator course.
And then it's a fucking evenbigger gamble when you don't
make it and decide to still sayyou know what I'm going to
gamble?
I'm going to move here to abrand new fucking group.
People, if you've never been insoft, it's not like moving to
like from back into 173rd, it isnot the same.
There is some prejudice whetherwe want to say there isn't
(25:23):
there.
There is when you get a new guyfrom a different group, because
immediately you're like whoa,what this?
Because if you're not a SARmajor and you're not an officer,
you're just a fucking dude in aline company.
Motherfuckers are always goingto say like, yeah, what'd you do
?
Well, what would you fuck up?
How'd you get all the way overhere?
Speaker 2 (25:39):
yeah, like that's a big.
You still gotta prove yourselfyeah, exactly, dude.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
but like, yeah, and that that's exactly the same
thing.
When you start putting togetheryour business plan and decide
you're going to be anentrepreneur, it's another big,
scary gamble.
But if you look back at yourhistory and this to every, every
soft guy out there, everybodythat's thinking of doing this
like dude proof is in yourfucking LES and your DD214.
(26:09):
Like, you've maintained thisdrive to go into the unknown.
You've constantly gone into theunknown.
Bet on yourself.
Be willing to say I don't knowhow it's going to pan out, but I
know I'm going to work hardevery single fucking day.
I'm going to get up and I'mgoing to put the same focus and
attention that I did when I wason a detachment into this
business.
And I can do it.
Bro, you're crushing it andthat's what I want people from
our background, and even anybodyany veteran out there that's
(26:29):
thinking about doing this, torealize that all it takes is
everything you got, and you'vealready been doing it.
You're in military career.
So why not bet on yourself,dude, and to think that you did
it in two to three months, yeah,that's not the best approach.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
No, not recommended at all.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
I'm pretty sure you probably signed out the way I
did.
I just filled out everybodyelse's signature on that sheet.
That wasn't available.
There was a lot of that goingon yeah there was a lot of that
going on.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I thought I was going to have to go in.
I basically outed on a.
My last out was on a fridayafternoon and I thought I was
gonna have to go in on monday asa civilian and do the last of
it, but luckily got it done justlike 4 pm on friday yeah, same
here.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
I I'm sorry, I'm sorry group, but uh, that
definitely it.
Yeah, nobody.
If you weren't in your officewhen I stopped by, it was, I
remember, asking guy, thefucking E4 sitting there.
I'm like, who's in charge ofthis section?
That's our first class Smith,okay.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Got it All right.
That's an easy one.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Oh man, being on this side of it, man, like how has
it been trying to scale, tryingto grow?
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, great question.
I originally was doing prettymuch everything myself, and I
think that's a very common thing, depending on what kind of
business you're starting.
My business is very solopreneurfriendly.
If I I could really start ornot even try to scale from where
I am right now and kind of justmaintain what I have and I'd be
comfortable, I'd be happy withit.
But at the same time, just I'mnot wired that way, so I want to
(28:00):
continue growing and so a lotof stuff DIY at first, learning
a lot of things have always been, like I said, obsessed with
strength and conditioning.
I've always been what I considerlike a capable coach and a
capable presenter of informationin that field.
However, I know well I do now,but I knew absolutely nothing
about running a businesswhatsoever, especially a virtual
(28:20):
business, but just a businessin general.
So a lot of my early educationwas, you know, hiring people
that I thought could help mewith the business development
aspect of it, creating systemsand all that jazz and maybe
video editing, all that.
After a little while of doingthat I'm like, okay, well, I
need a little bit of help.
Luckily, my wife is very, verygood at everything that involves
(28:42):
technology, computers,marketing, making things look
pretty.
So if you go to my website, Iwill take zero credit for the
aesthetics of my website.
That is purely my wife and shedoes have a full-time job.
She has a different job now butshe works full-time for a
different company.
She works virtually, so we bothwork from home, but she helps
me with a lot behind the scenes.
Right now.
I would consider her like mypersonal assistant and also,
(29:03):
luckily, here soon.
She has not told her employersthis, but her employers aren't
going to listen to this.
She's actually going to stopdoing what her current job is
and join TTM Terminator Training, which is my company, full-time
, so that I'm really lookingforward to that's going to be in
(29:24):
a couple of weeks or a coupleof months and that's going to
take a lot off my plate,especially the things that I
just suck at and or don't like,which usually coincide.
I really like to create.
I really like to help people.
I like to talk to my clients.
I like to create programs.
I like to make YouTube videos,podcasts, write.
I do not like to do all thestuff that occurs behind the
scenes to make that stuff likepresentable and good to go, all
the admin stuff.
I never liked this in my careertoo, like I absolutely despised
(29:44):
sitting on my computer andchecking emails, like I just
couldn't do it and I suck at itnow too.
It gives me anxiety to open myinbox, generally speaking, super
excited for that.
And then also I'm kind of doingsome behind the scenes stuff
where I have certain ideas.
In the future I'm going to tryand really launch my YouTube a
little bit more.
I started to put podcasts onYouTube a while ago.
I have a lot of exercise demosfrom all my programs on YouTube,
(30:06):
but probably three, four monthsago I actually started making
organic YouTube videos and,needless to say, there's a lot
of behind the scenes stuff notjust sitting down and creating
your video and actually filmingit.
That's like the easy part,that's the quick part.
I can do that in an hour orless.
It's all the stuff behind thescenes and these days anyone
who's been on YouTube there's abig difference between if you go
(30:28):
watch my videos right now, youcan tell that no one really is
doing much editing behind thescenes.
I'm kind of cutting parts out,but I'm not making them very
visually aesthetic.
I really pride myself on beinginformative and explaining
things well, not necessarily theaesthetics and the production
quality of the videos.
However, in order to continuegrowing that, I know I need to
do that and instead of DIYingthat and just pretty much
(30:51):
running myself insane and tryingto figure out that stuff
because I eventually could butdo I really want to spend my
time on that and energy on that,or can I hire someone virtually
to work on that for me?
Who literally just wants to dothat?
And so I'm kind of in theprocess of vetting a couple of
different people to help withsome behind the scenes stuff for
editing my podcasts, creatingInstagram reels and stuff like
(31:12):
that, just making them a littlebit more presentable, a little
bit less like a third grader didit like they currently are.
But again, I think the mostvaluable part of at least the
way I try to be most valuable isto give people the information,
not necessarily entertainAlthough you know, some some of
the things I do are entertainingto some but I'm definitely more
on the information side andcutting, helping people cut
(31:34):
through the bullshit, helpingpeople take the guesswork out
and helping people not to makethe mistakes that I made and
guys are still continuing tomake, either because they just
don't know any better or theyjust know too many things.
There's too much information outthere and they can't determine
which one it is.
I'm trying to like kind of beatthe voice of reason.
So that's kind of where I'm atright now.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, you're.
You're on to something that alot of people don't understand,
and see the amount of time andeffort that goes into
post-production for a YouTubechannel.
It's insane.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah, it's like everything else, like there's.
I've been able to find a lot ofparallels and a lot of the
tools and assets that you buildover your time in the military.
There's a lot of things thattranslate attention to detail.
All all the systems andoperations like dude, dude, even
one of the worst things, and Iwill I'm throwing this out there
right now do not get a pmpcertification or scrum
(32:25):
certification if you don't knowwhat the fuck you you want to do
.
That seems to be like the easything.
A lot of people sell you and Ihaven't used it in any any of
the jobs or any of the things Idid like as soon as I got out.
But I find myself using some ofthose tools in my whole like
post-production thing now andI'm just like fuck, like yes,
this was by and large, worthlessto me, but damn it if I'm not
(32:49):
using it right now exactly it'slike god damn it.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
But but at the same time.
At the same time, you can today.
The great thing about today isyou can either a teach yourself,
even if it's kind of painful,or, b you can hire someone
virtually from wherever thePhilippines to do it for
relatively cheap and do a waybetter job than what you can do,
and it would take them way lesstime and they actually enjoy
doing it.
That's like what their.
Their main goal is is to helppeople with their or their stuff
(33:14):
and get paid for it and forthem.
Whatever you pay them eventhough it seems, at least for me
, like I'm not paying thisperson very much for them it's,
you know, a living, or at leastpartially a living.
So you either learn it or yououtsource it, and I struggled
early on to try it, to reallycommit to outsourcing things
just because, like you said,attention to detail and building
(33:34):
.
I want my reputation to bestrong and not tarnished, and
everyone thinks that if someoneelse helps them, it's
potentially not going to be doneto their standard they want.
But at some point you just kindof got to bite the bullet and
be like, hey, this just needs tohappen.
I need this time and energyback and also this person's way
better at it.
And also, you know, a reallytiny little mistake.
(33:57):
Even though I notice it, a lotof people probably don't notice
it or they forget about it, andjust kind of reminding yourself
of those things is superimportant as you go.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Yeah, that's so fucking true, man, I do want to.
You know, I want to take sometime to focus on something that
I've started to get a lot moreinterested in.
That's ultra marathons,endurance events.
And you were training for onebut you got injured.
Like, and you were training forone but you got injured.
How did you approach yourtraining?
And you were trying to do a50-miler right, 50k 31 miles.
Yeah, how did that take usthrough that programming, take
(34:27):
us through that mindset?
And then, of course, how did itfeel when you're like, because
I had the same thing happen.
I had an injury, so I went fromtraining for the Savage Loop
and like methodical withtraining to being like fuck, now
I can't train at all.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
I still, I'm still gonna run this event and just
having the raw dog yeah, hey,man, good on you for for
toughing it out, because I didnot tough it out, my ego wanted
me really badly to do it, but Iliterally went for a.
I was gonna go for a 10 minuterun two days out just to see how
it felt, and I got like 30steps in and it was already six
(35:02):
or seven out of 10 paid it.
By the way, this is my lowerleg.
It's kind of where my soleus orlower calf connects to my
gastroc slash, which is theupper calf, that area where they
connect to the shin.
So I'm not exactly sure whatthe injury was.
It's getting much better overtime because I haven't ran in
almost three weeks.
But anyway, first word ofwisdom is to, even if you are a
(35:24):
coach, and even if you're areally good coach to other
people, being your own coach isespecially for something that is
performance driven and thatreally requires meticulousness
and also requires unbiasedopinions and unbiased viewpoints
.
I highly would recommend hiringa coach and that's what I'm
going to do next time when Iprepare for it instead of
(35:46):
coaching myself, because theproblem basically long story
short of the reason I gotinjured, is a couple different
things, but one is I did what Ilike doing and did what I was
good at, which is running.
I really enjoy running.
I would much rather run thansit on a bike or sit on a rower
or go on the Stairmaster, akacross train, which is a really
good idea to do when you'reprepping for an ultra marathon,
(36:06):
especially when you're a biggerindividual.
Every single other time I'vetrained for any sort of
endurance event, mostly throughthe military, various selections
, all that stuff.
I've been 180, 175, 180 poundsand now I'm almost 200 pounds.
So that didn't necessarily help.
Looking back, I would have Ahired a coach B lost some weight
(36:26):
along the way.
One of my goals was to maintain190 plus.
I started at like 197.
Also to maintain a 500 pluspound deadlift.
Both of those I did.
But looking back, I should haveallowed myself to drop close to
those seven pounds and getcloser to that 190.
Just, it's less stressful.
Running is easier when you'relighter to an extent, and that
would have been a pretty goodidea.
(36:47):
Also, I I listen more to my egothan I listen to my body, so I
probably should have dialed backthe running way earlier than I
did as soon as I started feelinga little bit of a hint of
discomfort down there or pain,not necessarily just stopped
running, but at least been moremindful of it.
And I think if I had told thecoach that, hey, man, like my,
my legs bother me, whatever.
What do you think I should do?
(37:07):
He would have said hey, I wouldtake a week off and just do
cross training for a week.
It's not going to affect youall that much, if at all.
If anything, it's just going tohelp because you're going to
allow that inflammation to goaway and you're not going to
make it any worse by continuingto run.
But, needless to say, Icontinued to run.
I got up to my last full week ofrunning before I decided that I
really need to take some timeoff, which unfortunately was not
(37:29):
good timing.
It was about two weeks beforethe actual race.
The race was supposed to bethis last weekend, but I got up
to like 64 miles that week.
I had worked up.
I usually maintain a 20 to 25mile per week year round.
Just I enjoy running.
That's nowhere near enough toprep for an ultra marathon, but
I worked that up to 63, 64 miles.
(37:49):
The last few weeks before I gotinjured, I was up in the high
50s, low 60s.
The last few weeks before I gotinjured I was up in the high
fifties, low sixties and Idropped because I wanted to
maintain my deadlift.
But I also knew that doing toomuch lifting would interfere and
I spent a really long timebuilding strength, size, muscle,
and so I figured I'm going todial this frequency back, I'm
going to dial the volume back,I'm going to basically dial
everything back other than theintensity.
I still trained hard but Idropped it down to.
(38:11):
I was pretty much lifting twice, twice a week to every eight
days give or take, and one ofthose days was a heavily
deadlift focused day, so I wouldhit like a top deadlift single
and a couple of back offsets andthen I'd hit kind of a full
body lift.
After that, the other one wasjust a full body lift with no
deadlifts, and so I actuallygained deadlift strength.
A lot of people think you know,when you're doing all this
(38:38):
running, you're going to getweak, you're going to get small,
and my goal was to kind ofprove that wrong, like actually,
because I already knew it wasthe case.
But I was actually like lookingto create something that
something tactile that peoplecould say see and be like you
know you didn't get skinny, hedidn't lose a bunch of strength.
I did lose some strength onsome lifts just because I wasn't
training those lifts as much onsome lifts, just because I
wasn't training those lifts asmuch and I was really focused on
the deadlift as well as running.
But I ended up gaining.
Probably I didn't max outbefore, but I maxed out this
weekend or on Friday at 555.
(39:00):
And I was probably around 540,535, 540 before I started.
So gain deadlift strength,actually somehow gain weight.
And that really just goes toshow that running is not the
best thing to do for weight lossunless you're also eating a lot
less.
And I clearly, because I gainedweight, I ate in a calorie
surplus.
There's no other way to gainweight.
Over that period of time I onlygained a pound, but still like
(39:22):
I thought I was just going tonaturally lose weight, because
that's usually what my body doeswhen I do a lot of endurance
training.
But that just goes to show thatthe nutrition aspect is very
important and I wasn'tcompletely reckless with my
nutrition, but I could have paidmore attention to it and kind
of allowed my body to naturallylose weight instead of just
trying to eat everything back.
So unfortunate.
I definitely am going to pursueanother one, I don't know
(39:43):
exactly when.
I don't think they have a lothere in North Carolina in the
summertime, probably due toweather just a little bit
dangerous, but maybe in the fall, or potentially the same race
next spring and looking forwardto it, looking forward to
getting a coach and doing itright next time.
But it was a really goodlearning experience because I
can also teach.
I can use it as even though itwasn't the way I wanted to go, I
can use it as content and I aman open book.
(40:04):
I don't try to hide things frompeople.
I like to tell people my thingsthat I do right, as well as the
things I do wrong, things myclients do well, things my
clients struggle with.
That's pretty much the wholeidea of the content that I
create.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
It gave me some good pieces of content to make, even
if it was a little bithumiliating and a little bit
frustrating.
Yeah, I don't think it was ahumiliating at all, man, I think
it.
Um, it definitely connectedwith me, it resonated with me,
it gave me like that uhconnection from another soft guy
.
That's like okay, we're allstupid, we're all crazy, we're
all one and one to do the samefucking shit.
And it's great to have this.
Even though we're just nowconnecting, it's great to see
(40:43):
that we are so as individuals.
We all have our things thatwe're after, but seeing the same
passions align across so manyof our members of our community,
but seeing the same passionsalign across so many of our
members of our community, it'sfucking awesome.
That's why I'm trying to getand build a security hall team
to run the Savage Loop, becauseI feel like doing hard things
with friends, with peers, peoplefrom our community, helps
(41:06):
inspire and motivate others todo the same thing.
Dude, we're not immune from thesame things that affect the
rest of our veteran community100%.
We can all fall into that lull.
I certainly fucking did.
You get out of the military.
You're like oh, I've got someinjuries, I can't do the same
things.
I guess I'll just sit on thecouch.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
It's like no dude you can get up Dude, you can do
something you can do something.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Finishing and at least getting to the marathon
point of the savage loop washuge for me.
Like it sucked.
I definitely was not healed andwas not ready to run that that
that injury was very still there.
But I finished a marathon andfor me that only galvanized my
decision to come back and do itagain the following year.
So we're doing it.
Uh, we got three guys.
We're going to continue doingit, trying to bring in at least
(41:53):
five more to do it because it'sall.
It's all SF people around thatcommunity and civilians and
everybody that supports themilitary and it's a great cause.
If you're listening and you'relooking for a challenge, next
year, check out Savage Loop.
I'm trying to bring a robustcrew of individuals to go run it
together because there issomething to doing hard things
with individuals from thecommunity together to inspire
(42:14):
and bring fucking more peoplealong to do it, because the last
thing I want to see is morepeople fall by the wayside to
suicide and addiction, and it'san easy thing to get into when
you're static, when you're notmoving.
So guys like you that are outthere championing this and
showing individuals that, like A, you can become an entrepreneur
(42:35):
doing something that you loveand B.
Being a mentor and a coach issomething that's deeply, deeply
rooted in being a Green Beret.
So if you don't know where togo, think about this pathway.
For a vast amount of your career, you have to stay in shape and
you probably have a passion forit.
And if you don't know where tostart, reach out to Kevin man
For sure.
Like it's time for everybody tolook at their strengths and
(43:00):
what they're good at and bewilling to bet on themselves.
So, kevin, I can't thank youenough for being here today.
If people want to get in touchwith you and check out your
program, where can they go?
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram at Terminator
underscore training.
That's a pretty solid place tofind me.
I also have a podcast, theTerminator training show.
That's can be found on Spotify,apple podcasts, as well as
YouTube, and then I again havestarted to make some organic
YouTube videos too.
So Terminator training is myYouTube channel.
You can check that out, or thewebsite, terminator training doc
(43:27):
.
Any of those places.
You'll see programs, you'll seecontent and there, of course,
you can shoot me a DM onInstagram and I will do my very
best to get back to you.
They do get backlogged a littlebit because I try not to spend
as much time as I used to onInstagram, because it kind of
just zaps me.
But yeah, those are.
Those are some good spots tofind me.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Heck, yeah, man.
If you pause right now, head onover to the episode description
, click on those links, connectwith Kevin and if you're looking
for a coach, hit him up.
Man, especially if you're ayoung man thinking about going
after that wild endeavor ofbecoming a Green Beret.
We need more people in theforce, we need more people in
the regiment, and I couldn'tthink of a better coach to help
you get there.
Kevin, again, thank you forbeing here To everybody
(44:08):
listening and tuning in.
Thank you for checking us outand we'll see you all next time.
Until then, take care.
Thanks for tuning in and don'tforget to like, follow, share,
subscribe and review us on yourfavorite podcast platform.
If you want to support us, headon over to buymeacoffeecom,
forward slash SecHawk podcastand buy us a coffee.
Connect with us on Instagram Xor TikTok and share your
thoughts or questions abouttoday's episode.
(44:30):
You can also visitsecurityhawkcom for exclusive
content, resources and updates.
And remember we get throughthis together.
If you're still listening, theepisode's over.
Yeah, there's no more Tune intomorrow or next week.
Security On Podcast.
Let's go.
The only podcast that'spurpose-built from the ground up
to support you Not just you,but the wider audience,
everybody.
Authentic, impactful andinsightful conversations that
serve a purpose to help you.
And the quality has gone up.
It's decent and it's hosted byme, denny Caballero.
(00:24):
Kevin Smith welcome to SecurityHall.
How you doing, man?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Doing great.
Denny, Great to be on the show.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Absolutely, dude.
Thank you for coming on.
I love seeing guys that get outand they forge their mission
purely based on what they'repassionate about and giving back
to others.
And one thing that I realized,just like many of our brothers
find out, when they get out oneof the most important things to
focus on is your mentalwell-being and physical
well-being, and the two go handin hand, and I love your message
(00:54):
.
I love what you're doing withyour platform, but I want to
break down your journey, man,from start to finish how you
came up with this idea ofreaching for one of the hardest
things to do in the military andwhen you decided to walk away
from it.
What led you to go out on yourown?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah.
So to rewind back to my earlyyears where I decided to kind of
take the route to try and testmy mettle as becoming a Green
Beret, I grew up very active,very into sports.
I have two parents that bothplayed not super high level
sports, but my dad playeddivision one, double A football
at the university of Maine.
(01:31):
My mom was a college basketballplayer division three.
So, needless to say, I was thefirst born kid and I've got two
younger sisters.
I actually have five sisters,but two of them are real sisters
, the other ones are stepsisters.
I'm the only guy, so, as thefirstborn, my dad of course was
also a coach and a teacher, sohe was very, very much into
hopefully getting me to try in abunch of different sports and
(01:53):
test and see what I was good at.
I grew up in Maine, so thecompetition up there is not
great.
So for me if I say I was a goodplayer, I'm speaking relatively
, not necessarily likenationally, compared to national
good players, but anyway, Ibasically tried my hand at
pretty much every single sportyou could possibly imagine.
So I had a very athleticupbringing.
I never really got into theactual strength and conditioning
(02:15):
part of it until I was likemaybe a sophomore in high school
.
My dad really wanted me to do alot more strength and
conditioning and we would go outon runs and we would do some
hill sprints, we'd do somecalisthenics, but I never really
got into the actual strengthand conditioning portion.
But essentially when I did so,high school I settled on
football.
Basketball and baseball were mymain sports and I was kind of a
(02:37):
little bit delusional, thinkinglike I might be able to.
Basketball was kind of the oneI focused on the most, so much
so that I quit baseball later inmy high school career to focus
on, like spring, basketball as asix foot one, very not super
athletic guy like white, likewe're looking back.
Of course I had no chance, butthat's what I really enjoyed.
But I got into strength andconditioning.
Probably like sophomore year Igot really serious about it.
(02:59):
I say serious in quotationmarks because there wasn't a lot
of information back then.
So most of my strength andconditioning work came from
football bigger, faster,stronger, bfs A lot of people
may be familiar with that backin the probably early to mid two
thousands up to like 2010.
That was like the high schoolfootball training modality,
training method and then also acombination of that with
(03:21):
bodybuilding magazines andArnold Schwarzenegger's
Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding.
I was also really into running.
I never really was big intolearning a lot about
conditioning.
I just kind of went out and ranhard all the time and you know.
Obviously we can talk about whythat's not a great idea later.
But I realized that I wasstarting to enjoy the strength
and conditioning portion of it alittle bit more than the actual
(03:41):
sport.
Like I would rather go to thegym and lift or go out for a run
than actually show up and playmy sports.
Not not so much that it reallydetracted from my performance.
Obviously, strength andconditioning will generally,
unless you do dumb stuff, willmake you a better performer on
the field or on the court,whatever it was.
But I just started to realizethat I enjoy that more and flash
(04:02):
forward to like my senior yearno-transcript do.
(04:27):
I was like no, I'm not going toplay college sports, but I'm
still going to go to college.
One of my best buddies and Iwere going to be roommates at
the University of New Hampshire,which is about an hour from my
house.
It's not a state school I grewup in Maine so more expensive
but closer anyway.
I lasted about.
I had no idea what I wanted todo and also I lasted about a
(04:48):
month there before I dropped out.
I pretty much showed up.
I pretty much showed up and Iwas just.
I knew for pretty much the day,the first day, that I was in the
wrong place.
I just did not fit in withpeople.
I had very, very bad anxiety.
It was almost like I justdecided to do something that I
was not prepared for at all.
And then I showed up and Irealized I was even less
prepared for it than I thought Iwas.
So, although my parents werenot happy about this, I decided
(05:08):
to drop out and not try and dragit on any longer than it should
have been dragged on, droppedout, worked a bunch of odd jobs
Meanwhile this entire time.
I'm still very into fitness, soI'm doing a bunch of learning
about fitness, strength andconditioning on the side, doing
a bunch of training.
One thing that's basicallynever really fallen off for me
is being consistent with mytraining to varying different
(05:28):
degrees and with varyingdifferent goals.
But throughout this time Ireally had to determine what the
hell I wanted to do with myselfand worked a bunch of odd jobs,
kind of just spun my wheels,lived in my parents' house.
You know one of those oldcliche sayings like living in
your parents' basement justtrying to figure out what the
hell you're meant for in thisworld.
And so finally although thisdidn't work out either, but I
(05:51):
decided I'm going to go back tocollege, this time to University
of Maine.
My sister's going there, a lotmore of my friends go there.
I feel like I've gained theability to go and really put my
best foot forward and put thework in and be successful in
college.
And, needless to say, that didnot occur either.
This time.
I made it a little bit longer.
I made it till I was abouthalfway through the year, give
(06:12):
or take, and that was on paper.
I had really quit on it likesilent quit well before that and
I just didn't want, I didn'thave it in me to like tell my
parents, but eventually I had to, so they didn't keep wasting
money on me not showing up toclass and me basically flunking
out.
So I dropped out again andagain, still maintaining my
fitness.
Still, I was very, very muchinto after high school I was
(06:34):
very much into running.
That was my main modality oftraining and I genetically kind
of have decent ability to runmore so than get strong jacked,
have decent ability to run moreso than get strong jacked, be
super fast and quick andexplosive.
I am more of a slow twitch guyand so naturally I enjoy doing
things that I'm pretty good at,and running was one of them.
So that was a pretty good, Iguess, baseline thing to do a
(06:58):
lot of before joining themilitary.
But either way, this time isprobably six months or so
between when I dropped out forthat second time, working random
jobs, running into people frommy hometown that are like what
the hell are you doing with yourlife, and I was just kind of
sick of just being there and tryto explain to people.
I cared a lot more about whatother people thought about me
back then than I do now and Ialso.
It was kind of the time of yourlife where being different and
(07:20):
being kind of not normal and notdoing what everyone else does
is thought of as like a badthing.
Now I think it's a great thing,but I just didn't really know
that at the time.
But anyway, I finally started toconsider the military and I was
reading all about it.
I'm not really that big intoswimming or boats although I was
on a dive team that we can talkabout that later.
But I kind of ruled out theSEALs, even though Stu Smith,
(07:42):
who's like one of the OG fitnessguys in this space, was making
a lot of content about SEALs.
He was also making contentabout various other soft and I
kind of had my sights on Ranger,dropping an option 40 contract,
which, for those who don't know, that's when you basically sign
your contract and you get ashot at going to Ranger Regiment
.
You go through RASP and allthat jazz Went to the recruiter.
(08:03):
They did not have a RASPcontract, or at least that's
what they told me and they saidwe do have an 18 x-ray contract.
If you do want to go in RBSOF,that is another option.
I had not heard of that beforebecause, like the internet was
not that prominent back then,like all this information wasn't
available like it is today.
So anyway, it was availableenough and with some good
research and a little bit ofGoogling, I read all about it.
(08:26):
I was like kind of obsessive Iget very, very obsessive about
things, especially when theyreally spark my interest and so
I spent like a few days, maybeup to a week or so, just reading
about it, watching videos.
That was back when, like thetwo weeks in hell video I don't
know if you've seen that yeah,it was out.
So that's the friends that werein that video.
(08:48):
Yeah, yep, back when it washard.
But anyway, last hard class,exactly, but that a lot of
people watch that and be like,uh, you know, that looks
terrible, I have no interest.
And I thought the exactopposite.
I'm like wow, that looksfreaking amazing and that's you
know most, most of us knowthat's not exactly what
selection looks like.
It's not what it looks liketoday, but it also wasn't.
They put on a little bit of ashow for TV.
But anyway, I was verymotivated.
I was like that looks amazing.
(09:08):
So I went and signed mycontract and probably about four
or five months after signingthat contract I went and entered
the army as a 21 year old, soonto be 22 year old, green Beret,
hopeful, and then kind of wentfrom there.
I don't know if you want me toget into the rest of that yeah.
And so yeah, so so went to OSITagain.
This was back during there.
(09:29):
There was no Reddit back then,there was no YouTube, there was
no Instagram about all thisstuff, so I had no idea how my.
Of course I knew I had to befit, especially endurance, but I
had no idea how my fitnesslevels matched up compared to
like high school runners.
In my high school I was prettyslow, but I wasn't that much
slower than them because Ididn't really do any competitive
running, I just ran.
So I thought I was like prettygood at running, pretty decent
(09:52):
at rucking.
I did some rucks to train upbefore I actually left with my
JanSport backpack and a 50 pounddumbbell just hanging out in
the bottom of it, because Ididn't know any better.
I'm like man.
I hope rucking does not feellike this forever.
Sure enough, once you put aruck on and you pack it properly
.
Yeah, I remember just my trapswere just destroyed after every
(10:12):
single session, needless to say.
But anyway, flash forward, wentto OSIT not really all that
remarkable.
There went to airborne schooland then we had pretty much
between airborne and when Istarted, sopsi.
Sopsi, for those who are notaware, is the 18 x-ray prep
course that they send you to tomake sure that you're actually
prepared to go to selection,because you're not coming from
the regular army, you're comingfrom airborne school pretty much
(10:34):
and you have no experience.
So they want to make sureyou're ready to go.
So I went to SOPSI in.
This was after Christmas of2012.
So we went to the January SOPSIclass.
My SOPSI class, believe it ornot, had a higher dropout rate
than my selection class.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, I believe it.
I believe it.
What timeframe were you in?
It was January of 2012.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
It was the very first class of the new year, not the
fiscal year, but the new yearofficially.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
It was still like cadre there.
They still have Fight Club.
They still have Fight Club inthe pit.
No, we didn't do Fight Club.
We're still like I don't.
They still have fight club.
They still have fight club inthe pit.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
No, we didn't do fight club.
We didn't do fight club.
It was basically just threeweeks of very similar to
selection, except you get morefood and more sleep and they,
they smoke you a lot more.
So you selection is more of agentleman's course where you
don't really know if you'redoing well or bad, which is part
of the difficulty of it, of it.
(11:26):
But sopsy you know, at least asa class.
At least as a class you knowwhether you're doing well or not
well and you know when you'renot doing well you do extra shit
and basically just build a lotof fatigue going into selection.
But if you can get throughsopsy, they get, you get.
You had like 10 days off backthen and, by the way, sopsy is
not like that anymore.
For those who have not gonegone and are considering it,
it's not quite as bad anymore.
It's actually probably Ihaven't been or seen it, but
it's probably a lot better.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
But back then it was yeah, it's more professional.
It used to be the wild wildwest and some of the things it's
like.
When I went through I was I wasalready an nco going through
the q course but I had a goodfriend of mine that had just
pinned I and they're like, no,you're going to sopsy.
And the stories that I wouldhear.
It's like they got us fightingin pits man.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, yeah.
So anyway, after passing SOPSIand after going to SOPSI and I
kind of started realizing thisat BASIC as well I realized I
was one of the higher performersas far as calisthenics, running
, rucking which, coincidentally,are very important parts of
being successful at SOPSI,selection and all that, and so I
was kind of gaining confidence.
I made it through SOPSI.
(12:27):
I didn't really think it waslike all that terrible.
There were some bad times andthey almost like fed on the fact
that we had like 10 guys justin the layout quit that day
because every time someonedidn't have an item the entire
class would get smoked.
This is like before the PT teston day one of SOPSI, literally
coming back from Christmas break.
So everyone's head was still onChristmas leave and I think
(12:47):
that was a big factor.
But anyway, they kind of fedoff it and they were just trying
to drop guys that couldn'tbelong.
So I think it was like 34% passrate in my SOPSI class.
Needless to say, the guys whopassed SOPSI with me and went to
selection, most, if not all, ofus crushed.
So I mean that's kind of common.
Usually guys who passed SOPSIdo well at selection, but not
always.
But anyway, finished SOPSI hadthat 10 day break and then went
(13:09):
to selection and my selectionclass.
Nothing crazy remarkable.
I don't know how much you guystalk about selection on this
podcast, but essentially thefirst week is gate week, where
you do all of your physicalevents.
You do your timed rucks, you doyour timed runs, you do your
time drugs, you do your timeruns, you do your PT test, of
course you do an obstacle courseand now they do a CFA.
Back when I went it was loggingrifle PT AKA washout Wednesday.
(13:31):
They kind of went away withthat just because guys who
typically guys who got droppedfrom that, got dropped because
they were getting hurt insteadof like, not really it wasn't a
big like quit or attrition ratething.
So they kind of went away withthat.
And then the second week you getinto purely land nav and I was
pretty confident going to landnav because, although I didn't
(13:52):
have any experience prior to thearmy in land nav or really
anything other than like goingout and camping, quote, unquote,
I had done well at Topsy duringland nav.
I found all my points and Ikind of felt like I picked it up
pretty well and, sure enough,went out, did the star course,
star courses back to back nightswhere you start at around
midnight, give or take.
You do basically half of yourstar course at nighttime, you do
half once the sun comes up andyour goal is to find four points
(14:13):
each day or an eight, eightpoint total.
So I found all four of my firstday with quite a bit to spare.
And then we thought at thistime this was right between
where they're going like backand forth, between if you find
all your points the first day,you don't have to go out the
second day, versus no matterwhat, you have to go out the
second day.
So we were all pretty excitedbecause the class before us got
to not go out if they found allfour.
(14:34):
Anyway, we did not go, we didnot get that privilege, so we
had to go out for the second day.
Anyway, found my four points.
Team week was the.
Basically it's four days.
You're on one team for thefirst two days, you're on
another team for the second twodays.
My first team was a little bitrough.
We were not doing all that well, I did not really do anything
remarkable there.
I didn't get any pink slips,but I also didn't really get any
(14:56):
blue slips, maybe one or two.
By the way, pink slips arenegative your team gives you
kind of a negative spot report.
Blue slips your team gives youa positive spot report.
This could be for any number ofthings.
It could be physical, it couldbe just leadership capabilities,
it could be just taking shittyvolunteer positions, taking one
for the team, any number ofdifferent things, just being a
good dude being a good teamplayer.
(15:16):
So my first team veryunremarkable.
Second team I was on a muchstronger team.
We got done first on both daysand that's kind of when I like
fell into my own.
I was like kind of havingflashbacks to when I was in
leadership positions in highschool for sports.
That really kind of helped mebe a little bit more of a leader
, especially considering thefact that I had like officers on
(15:37):
my team.
I had enlisted older guys and Iwas this 22 year old, 18 x-ray
with zero experience.
And during my exit interviewyou know one of the comments
from the cadre that I actuallygot my exit interview from he
was like yeah, I could havesworn you were probably like an
officer or whatever.
I'm like well, thanks, I guessI did pretty well.
So I had a pretty strongperformance across the board for
(15:57):
selection and, like most guys,no matter what, you don't
believe that you got selecteduntil they actually tell you
Like I still thought, eventhough I had done well during
gate week, well during land navand well during team week, I
still was like I really hope Idid well enough, like I'm not
sure, sure enough, I made it.
I got assigned 18 Delta andpretty much when you're an x-ray
you go, you start the Q coursepretty quickly.
(16:19):
So the first, the actual, thefirst thing I did was SOCM, and
SOCM, for those who are notaware, is the additional
training that medics have to do.
It's nine months long and it'sprobably the most difficult part
of the Q course for really anyMOS.
Academically Not necessarilyphysically or mentally, but just
academics are pretty intense,especially if you're not really
(16:41):
super into that stuff, like Iwasn't, and I of course had
terrible study habits that I had, basically non-existent study
habits that I had neverdeveloped before.
So I was drinking from a firehose, at least for the first bit
.
And then the second part ofSACIM I started to do a little
bit better.
It's more hands-on stuff.
So instead of sitting andtaking tests and getting tested
on the small details in clinicalmedicine, all that stuff.
It's more hands-on trauma,which is more fun.
Some guys struggle with theopposite.
(17:02):
They're better at test taking,not great at hands-on.
I was definitely the opposite.
I was better at the hands-onstuff and I enjoyed it, more
more confident with it, thenwent through the regular rest of
the Q course.
That is pretty similar to whateveryone else is.
That's kind of the reason thatdeltas take so long is just
because there's there's such adelay.
I don't know the exact order ofthe Q course these days but
(17:27):
yeah, usually for 18 deltas it'sabout two and a half years if
you don't recycle.
So went through and then I gotsent to 10th group at.
My language was French and thatwas back when 10th group was
doing more stuff in Africa atthe time, before switching over
to third group, which was alater group that I went to and
from there went to 10th groupand we can get into that if you
want or yeah, man, it's yourstory, my man, we got all the
time.
(17:53):
All right.
So I went to 10th group and dida few.
So my first deployment was toAfrica.
I was a brand new 18 Delta andI showed up right before
Christmas time and I was one offour guys that showed up to my
company.
The whole company was gone inNiger, africa, and they I was
the only one who was a Delta andbe not married.
So what'd they do?
They sent me new year's day.
I flew over to Niger.
The mountain team had a mediccoming back from Africa to go to
(18:14):
the mountain warfare school,like the highest level mountain
warfare school, so they only hadone medic.
So I went over and took overfrom him.
I did left seat, right seat fora bit.
That was, you know, back beforethe Niger incident that a lot
of people are probably aware of.
But we were in the exact sameplace doing a very, very similar
mission set and anyway, thatwas right before 10th group gave
(18:35):
Africa to third group.
So the rest of my trips with10th group, unfortunately we're
just to Europe, multipledifferent places in Europe and
right when I so.
So I got a little bit.
I almost didn't get sick of it,but I wanted to just test my
metal at something different andI'd always kind of had dreams
of going to the big leagues AKADelta force, cag and finally I
(18:56):
said, screw it, I'm going to puta packet in.
I went to ranger school duringthis time, mff, I was on a free
fall team, all that jazz.
But long story short, put apacket in in 2017 to go to the
spring 2018 CAG selection, gotpicked up, made it through that
fully, and so I PCS to FortBragg in the summer of 2018.
(19:16):
And unfortunately, otc did notgo as well.
For me, otc is their operatortraining course.
Yeah, it's a beast, it's anabsolute beast.
And when you fall behind thepower curve just by a little bit
, a everyone watches you like ahawk and B you better not mess
up with everyone watching youagain.
And I went a long time betweenmess ups.
There's a lot that I'mintentionally kind of leaving
(19:36):
out here, but just for respectto the unit, I don't talk
specific details, but I went along time between mess ups.
You basically get a dropwarning and then they watch you
a little bit more intensely.
They put more guys, moreinstructors watching your every
move, pretty much, and I got.
I had another bad day with acouple of just really dumb
decisions that you have to makevery fast decisions.
You're doing CQB and that's thepart of that course that gets
(19:59):
most guys and that is what gotme, and so I got dropped in.
That was probably one of thelow points, if not the low point
of my life, definitelysomething I am very grateful for
today.
But it was very hard to see thesilver lining back then.
I honestly probably wouldn't behere doing what I do right now.
I'd probably still be in andmaybe serving in the unit, who
knows.
But that was a big turningpoint and fortunately they are
(20:22):
very accommodating.
So my wife had just gotten ajob at NC State, so about an
hour way up in Raleigh, and wehad already we hadn't bought a
house yet, but we wanted to kindof stay there because she had
just gotten the job.
It took her a while and I hadbeen making her move around in
various parts of the countrybefore and so they were very
accommodating.
They're like yeah, sure we canhave you stay here.
Do you want to go to SWCC or doyou want to go to third group?
(20:42):
And I had not gotten a combatdeployment at that time yet.
So I was like I really want togo to third group because I knew
third group was about to go toAfghanistan.
I did not know COVID was aboutto happen, but I did know third
group was about to go and so Isaid, yeah, I went to third
group.
I ended up doing a little whileon the B team and then I got
sent to the dive team.
Now, the way third group doesdive teams, or all teams
(21:03):
actually, there's like in ineach battalion there's one
company that has, like the, adive team.
The other five number teams arelike backup dive teams.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
So we were more of a maritime team than an underwater
team.
That's weird.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, yeah.
So I had like, on my dive teamI had like three combat divers,
maybe four, so not a full diveteam and I ended up going to DMT
to be a combat or dive medic,which is nowhere near as
difficult as actual dive school.
I'm not a combat diver.
That would have been a strugglefor me, but anyway did my time
there Ended up going toAfghanistan in 2020, pretty much
(21:45):
it was July of 2020.
So four or five months afterCOVID really kicked off.
So, needless to say, that tripwas, although it was a combat
deployment and it was enjoyable,we got to do some fun stuff.
I wouldn't really even considerit necessarily a serious combat
deployment just because therewere so many restrictions and we
were winding down.
I was the last team on theground, we were like the last
people Americans on the groundat Camp Dahlke, formerly known
(22:05):
as Fobshank, and so we kind ofretrograded that, closed it out,
came back, and then I did onemore trip to Africa and then
towards the later stages of mycareer.
That I didn't know was going tobe the later stages of my career
until a little bit after this.
But I went to the Fox course,the 18 Fox course, to be an
Intel sergeant with about a yearleft on what my career was, but
I thought I was going topotentially stay in.
Anyway, I had started thisbusiness on the side, this
(22:27):
Terminator training business onthe side, and I was not talking
to the same audience that I amnow.
I was not making content aboutthe job I was being.
I never even mentioned likewhat I did.
I was just making regularfitness content.
That was really it.
I was writing articles.
I started an Instagram page.
I started a podcast.
If you go back and listen tosome of my first episodes,
(22:48):
pretty terrible, but we all haveto get better somehow.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Yeah, dude, reps man Just like anything else.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yep.
And then I started to think,like, do I really want to do?
I pretty much had to decidebetween I was coming up on my
12th year and my enlistment wasgoing to be up.
I had to decide between goingin-depth and retiring, or
getting out or going NationalGuard.
That was not really one of mypotential options, just my
choice.
I was either going to get outor stay in and I had just become
(23:13):
a Fox.
Didn't really get to do much asa Fox, but as I was nearing the
end of what my enlistmentperiod was, I kind of made a
last minute decision, which Idon't recommend, by the way.
If you make a last minutedecision, it's a really a
nightmare to get out of the armyin like two, three months.
But that's what I did and I gotout and here I am today.
I got out and started to reallyfocus my attention.
I had a business coach at thetime.
(23:34):
He's like dude, you'd be crazynot to start talking to the guys
who want to basically do whatyou did.
You've been there and you havethe knowledge.
Throughout that entire time Iwas like obsessively studying
strength and conditioningnutrition.
I was helping guys prep forvarious different selections.
I was helping support guys prepfor our selection.
I was writing programs forbuddies as well as like in
(23:56):
charge of my team's PT programs.
I was helping guys prep fordive school.
Even as a non-diver, I was justkind of giving them programming
to get better.
And yeah, so I I just kind ofslowly over time realized that I
had a more of a passion forthat and more of a drive to that
.
I was more excited to wake upeven on a work day where I had
to go in and do my job.
On an ODA, I would wake upsuper early, work on like, write
an article, work on thebusiness, whatever it was.
(24:18):
I wasn't really making anymoney.
I had some PDF programs that Iwould sell, maybe like one or
two a week, so it was a.
It was definitely a risk to getout because I literally had no
income coming from that, likealmost literally, and so I said
you know what, screw it, I'mgoing to get out and put my all
into it.
And I did, and then flashforward.
It's been about two years sinceI've been out and flash forward
(24:38):
.
I've been doing that ever since.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Hell yeah, dude, you gotta take it.
It's a gamble, man.
It's a gamble like anythingelse in your.
But your career has shown you,man Like it's a big fucking
gamble to go in and choose 18Delta.
That's a big fucking gamble.
It's a big fucking gamble tosay I'm going to go punch the
ticket and go to CAG selection.
It's a big fucking gamble tosay, okay, fuck, I made it
(25:03):
through that.
I'm going to sit here and fightthrough the operator course.
And then it's a fucking evenbigger gamble when you don't
make it and decide to still sayyou know what I'm going to
gamble?
I'm going to move here to abrand new fucking group.
People, if you've never been insoft, it's not like moving to
like from back into 173rd, it isnot the same.
There is some prejudice whetherwe want to say there isn't
(25:23):
there.
There is when you get a new guyfrom a different group, because
immediately you're like whoa,what this?
Because if you're not a SARmajor and you're not an officer,
you're just a fucking dude in aline company.
Motherfuckers are always goingto say like, yeah, what'd you do
?
Well, what would you fuck up?
How'd you get all the way overhere?
Speaker 2 (25:39):
yeah, like that's a big.
You still gotta prove yourselfyeah, exactly, dude.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
but like, yeah, and that that's exactly the same
thing.
When you start putting togetheryour business plan and decide
you're going to be anentrepreneur, it's another big,
scary gamble.
But if you look back at yourhistory and this to every, every
soft guy out there, everybodythat's thinking of doing this
like dude proof is in yourfucking LES and your DD214.
(26:09):
Like, you've maintained thisdrive to go into the unknown.
You've constantly gone into theunknown.
Bet on yourself.
Be willing to say I don't knowhow it's going to pan out, but I
know I'm going to work hardevery single fucking day.
I'm going to get up and I'mgoing to put the same focus and
attention that I did when I wason a detachment into this
business.
And I can do it.
Bro, you're crushing it andthat's what I want people from
our background, and even anybodyany veteran out there that's
(26:29):
thinking about doing this, torealize that all it takes is
everything you got, and you'vealready been doing it.
You're in military career.
So why not bet on yourself,dude, and to think that you did
it in two to three months, yeah,that's not the best approach.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
No, not recommended at all.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
I'm pretty sure you probably signed out the way I
did.
I just filled out everybodyelse's signature on that sheet.
That wasn't available.
There was a lot of that goingon yeah there was a lot of that
going on.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I thought I was going to have to go in.
I basically outed on a.
My last out was on a fridayafternoon and I thought I was
gonna have to go in on monday asa civilian and do the last of
it, but luckily got it done justlike 4 pm on friday yeah, same
here.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
I I'm sorry, I'm sorry group, but uh, that
definitely it.
Yeah, nobody.
If you weren't in your officewhen I stopped by, it was, I
remember, asking guy, thefucking E4 sitting there.
I'm like, who's in charge ofthis section?
That's our first class Smith,okay.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Got it All right.
That's an easy one.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Oh man, being on this side of it, man, like how has
it been trying to scale, tryingto grow?
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, great question.
I originally was doing prettymuch everything myself, and I
think that's a very common thing, depending on what kind of
business you're starting.
My business is very solopreneurfriendly.
If I I could really start ornot even try to scale from where
I am right now and kind of justmaintain what I have and I'd be
comfortable, I'd be happy withit.
But at the same time, just I'mnot wired that way, so I want to
(28:00):
continue growing and so a lotof stuff DIY at first, learning
a lot of things have always been, like I said, obsessed with
strength and conditioning.
I've always been what I considerlike a capable coach and a
capable presenter of informationin that field.
However, I know well I do now,but I knew absolutely nothing
about running a businesswhatsoever, especially a virtual
(28:20):
business, but just a businessin general.
So a lot of my early educationwas, you know, hiring people
that I thought could help mewith the business development
aspect of it, creating systemsand all that jazz and maybe
video editing, all that.
After a little while of doingthat I'm like, okay, well, I
need a little bit of help.
Luckily, my wife is very, verygood at everything that involves
(28:42):
technology, computers,marketing, making things look
pretty.
So if you go to my website, Iwill take zero credit for the
aesthetics of my website.
That is purely my wife and shedoes have a full-time job.
She has a different job now butshe works full-time for a
different company.
She works virtually, so we bothwork from home, but she helps
me with a lot behind the scenes.
Right now.
I would consider her like mypersonal assistant and also,
(29:03):
luckily, here soon.
She has not told her employersthis, but her employers aren't
going to listen to this.
She's actually going to stopdoing what her current job is
and join TTM Terminator Training, which is my company, full-time
, so that I'm really lookingforward to that's going to be in
(29:24):
a couple of weeks or a coupleof months and that's going to
take a lot off my plate,especially the things that I
just suck at and or don't like,which usually coincide.
I really like to create.
I really like to help people.
I like to talk to my clients.
I like to create programs.
I like to make YouTube videos,podcasts, write.
I do not like to do all thestuff that occurs behind the
scenes to make that stuff likepresentable and good to go, all
the admin stuff.
I never liked this in my careertoo, like I absolutely despised
(29:44):
sitting on my computer andchecking emails, like I just
couldn't do it and I suck at itnow too.
It gives me anxiety to open myinbox, generally speaking, super
excited for that.
And then also I'm kind of doingsome behind the scenes stuff
where I have certain ideas.
In the future I'm going to tryand really launch my YouTube a
little bit more.
I started to put podcasts onYouTube a while ago.
I have a lot of exercise demosfrom all my programs on YouTube,
(30:06):
but probably three, four monthsago I actually started making
organic YouTube videos and,needless to say, there's a lot
of behind the scenes stuff notjust sitting down and creating
your video and actually filmingit.
That's like the easy part,that's the quick part.
I can do that in an hour orless.
It's all the stuff behind thescenes and these days anyone
who's been on YouTube there's abig difference between if you go
(30:28):
watch my videos right now, youcan tell that no one really is
doing much editing behind thescenes.
I'm kind of cutting parts out,but I'm not making them very
visually aesthetic.
I really pride myself on beinginformative and explaining
things well, not necessarily theaesthetics and the production
quality of the videos.
However, in order to continuegrowing that, I know I need to
do that and instead of DIYingthat and just pretty much
(30:51):
running myself insane and tryingto figure out that stuff
because I eventually could butdo I really want to spend my
time on that and energy on that,or can I hire someone virtually
to work on that for me?
Who literally just wants to dothat?
And so I'm kind of in theprocess of vetting a couple of
different people to help withsome behind the scenes stuff for
editing my podcasts, creatingInstagram reels and stuff like
(31:12):
that, just making them a littlebit more presentable, a little
bit less like a third grader didit like they currently are.
But again, I think the mostvaluable part of at least the
way I try to be most valuable isto give people the information,
not necessarily entertainAlthough you know, some some of
the things I do are entertainingto some but I'm definitely more
on the information side andcutting, helping people cut
(31:34):
through the bullshit, helpingpeople take the guesswork out
and helping people not to makethe mistakes that I made and
guys are still continuing tomake, either because they just
don't know any better or theyjust know too many things.
There's too much information outthere and they can't determine
which one it is.
I'm trying to like kind of beatthe voice of reason.
So that's kind of where I'm atright now.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, you're.
You're on to something that alot of people don't understand,
and see the amount of time andeffort that goes into
post-production for a YouTubechannel.
It's insane.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah, it's like everything else, like there's.
I've been able to find a lot ofparallels and a lot of the
tools and assets that you buildover your time in the military.
There's a lot of things thattranslate attention to detail.
All all the systems andoperations like dude, dude, even
one of the worst things, and Iwill I'm throwing this out there
right now do not get a pmpcertification or scrum
(32:25):
certification if you don't knowwhat the fuck you you want to do
.
That seems to be like the easything.
A lot of people sell you and Ihaven't used it in any any of
the jobs or any of the things Idid like as soon as I got out.
But I find myself using some ofthose tools in my whole like
post-production thing now andI'm just like fuck, like yes,
this was by and large, worthlessto me, but damn it if I'm not
(32:49):
using it right now exactly it'slike god damn it.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
But but at the same time.
At the same time, you can today.
The great thing about today isyou can either a teach yourself,
even if it's kind of painful,or, b you can hire someone
virtually from wherever thePhilippines to do it for
relatively cheap and do a waybetter job than what you can do,
and it would take them way lesstime and they actually enjoy
doing it.
That's like what their.
Their main goal is is to helppeople with their or their stuff
(33:14):
and get paid for it and forthem.
Whatever you pay them eventhough it seems, at least for me
, like I'm not paying thisperson very much for them it's,
you know, a living, or at leastpartially a living.
So you either learn it or yououtsource it, and I struggled
early on to try it, to reallycommit to outsourcing things
just because, like you said,attention to detail and building
(33:34):
.
I want my reputation to bestrong and not tarnished, and
everyone thinks that if someoneelse helps them, it's
potentially not going to be doneto their standard they want.
But at some point you just kindof got to bite the bullet and
be like, hey, this just needs tohappen.
I need this time and energyback and also this person's way
better at it.
And also, you know, a reallytiny little mistake.
(33:57):
Even though I notice it, a lotof people probably don't notice
it or they forget about it, andjust kind of reminding yourself
of those things is superimportant as you go.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Yeah, that's so fucking true, man, I do want to.
You know, I want to take sometime to focus on something that
I've started to get a lot moreinterested in.
That's ultra marathons,endurance events.
And you were training for onebut you got injured.
Like, and you were training forone but you got injured.
How did you approach yourtraining?
And you were trying to do a50-miler right, 50k 31 miles.
Yeah, how did that take usthrough that programming, take
(34:27):
us through that mindset?
And then, of course, how did itfeel when you're like, because
I had the same thing happen.
I had an injury, so I went fromtraining for the Savage Loop
and like methodical withtraining to being like fuck, now
I can't train at all.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
I still, I'm still gonna run this event and just
having the raw dog yeah, hey,man, good on you for for
toughing it out, because I didnot tough it out, my ego wanted
me really badly to do it, but Iliterally went for a.
I was gonna go for a 10 minuterun two days out just to see how
it felt, and I got like 30steps in and it was already six
(35:02):
or seven out of 10 paid it.
By the way, this is my lowerleg.
It's kind of where my soleus orlower calf connects to my
gastroc slash, which is theupper calf, that area where they
connect to the shin.
So I'm not exactly sure whatthe injury was.
It's getting much better overtime because I haven't ran in
almost three weeks.
But anyway, first word ofwisdom is to, even if you are a
(35:24):
coach, and even if you're areally good coach to other
people, being your own coach isespecially for something that is
performance driven and thatreally requires meticulousness
and also requires unbiasedopinions and unbiased viewpoints
.
I highly would recommend hiringa coach and that's what I'm
going to do next time when Iprepare for it instead of
(35:46):
coaching myself, because theproblem basically long story
short of the reason I gotinjured, is a couple different
things, but one is I did what Ilike doing and did what I was
good at, which is running.
I really enjoy running.
I would much rather run thansit on a bike or sit on a rower
or go on the Stairmaster, akacross train, which is a really
good idea to do when you'reprepping for an ultra marathon,
(36:06):
especially when you're a biggerindividual.
Every single other time I'vetrained for any sort of
endurance event, mostly throughthe military, various selections
, all that stuff.
I've been 180, 175, 180 poundsand now I'm almost 200 pounds.
So that didn't necessarily help.
Looking back, I would have Ahired a coach B lost some weight
(36:26):
along the way.
One of my goals was to maintain190 plus.
I started at like 197.
Also to maintain a 500 pluspound deadlift.
Both of those I did.
But looking back, I should haveallowed myself to drop close to
those seven pounds and getcloser to that 190.
Just, it's less stressful.
Running is easier when you'relighter to an extent, and that
would have been a pretty goodidea.
(36:47):
Also, I I listen more to my egothan I listen to my body, so I
probably should have dialed backthe running way earlier than I
did as soon as I started feelinga little bit of a hint of
discomfort down there or pain,not necessarily just stopped
running, but at least been moremindful of it.
And I think if I had told thecoach that, hey, man, like my,
my legs bother me, whatever.
What do you think I should do?
(37:07):
He would have said hey, I wouldtake a week off and just do
cross training for a week.
It's not going to affect youall that much, if at all.
If anything, it's just going tohelp because you're going to
allow that inflammation to goaway and you're not going to
make it any worse by continuingto run.
But, needless to say, Icontinued to run.
I got up to my last full week ofrunning before I decided that I
really need to take some timeoff, which unfortunately was not
(37:29):
good timing.
It was about two weeks beforethe actual race.
The race was supposed to bethis last weekend, but I got up
to like 64 miles that week.
I had worked up.
I usually maintain a 20 to 25mile per week year round.
Just I enjoy running.
That's nowhere near enough toprep for an ultra marathon, but
I worked that up to 63, 64 miles.
(37:49):
The last few weeks before I gotinjured, I was up in the high
50s, low 60s.
The last few weeks before I gotinjured I was up in the high
fifties, low sixties and Idropped because I wanted to
maintain my deadlift.
But I also knew that doing toomuch lifting would interfere and
I spent a really long timebuilding strength, size, muscle,
and so I figured I'm going todial this frequency back, I'm
going to dial the volume back,I'm going to basically dial
everything back other than theintensity.
I still trained hard but Idropped it down to.
(38:11):
I was pretty much lifting twice, twice a week to every eight
days give or take, and one ofthose days was a heavily
deadlift focused day, so I wouldhit like a top deadlift single
and a couple of back offsets andthen I'd hit kind of a full
body lift.
After that, the other one wasjust a full body lift with no
deadlifts, and so I actuallygained deadlift strength.
A lot of people think you know,when you're doing all this
(38:38):
running, you're going to getweak, you're going to get small,
and my goal was to kind ofprove that wrong, like actually,
because I already knew it wasthe case.
But I was actually like lookingto create something that
something tactile that peoplecould say see and be like you
know you didn't get skinny, hedidn't lose a bunch of strength.
I did lose some strength onsome lifts just because I wasn't
training those lifts as much onsome lifts, just because I
wasn't training those lifts asmuch and I was really focused on
the deadlift as well as running.
But I ended up gaining.
Probably I didn't max outbefore, but I maxed out this
weekend or on Friday at 555.
(39:00):
And I was probably around 540,535, 540 before I started.
So gain deadlift strength,actually somehow gain weight.
And that really just goes toshow that running is not the
best thing to do for weight lossunless you're also eating a lot
less.
And I clearly, because I gainedweight, I ate in a calorie
surplus.
There's no other way to gainweight.
Over that period of time I onlygained a pound, but still like
(39:22):
I thought I was just going tonaturally lose weight, because
that's usually what my body doeswhen I do a lot of endurance
training.
But that just goes to show thatthe nutrition aspect is very
important and I wasn'tcompletely reckless with my
nutrition, but I could have paidmore attention to it and kind
of allowed my body to naturallylose weight instead of just
trying to eat everything back.
So unfortunate.
I definitely am going to pursueanother one, I don't know
(39:43):
exactly when.
I don't think they have a lothere in North Carolina in the
summertime, probably due toweather just a little bit
dangerous, but maybe in the fall, or potentially the same race
next spring and looking forwardto it, looking forward to
getting a coach and doing itright next time.
But it was a really goodlearning experience because I
can also teach.
I can use it as even though itwasn't the way I wanted to go, I
can use it as content and I aman open book.
(40:04):
I don't try to hide things frompeople.
I like to tell people my thingsthat I do right, as well as the
things I do wrong, things myclients do well, things my
clients struggle with.
That's pretty much the wholeidea of the content that I
create.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
It gave me some good pieces of content to make, even
if it was a little bithumiliating and a little bit
frustrating.
Yeah, I don't think it was ahumiliating at all, man, I think
it.
Um, it definitely connectedwith me, it resonated with me,
it gave me like that uhconnection from another soft guy
.
That's like okay, we're allstupid, we're all crazy, we're
all one and one to do the samefucking shit.
And it's great to have this.
Even though we're just nowconnecting, it's great to see
(40:43):
that we are so as individuals.
We all have our things thatwe're after, but seeing the same
passions align across so manyof our members of our community,
but seeing the same passionsalign across so many of our
members of our community, it'sfucking awesome.
That's why I'm trying to getand build a security hall team
to run the Savage Loop, becauseI feel like doing hard things
with friends, with peers, peoplefrom our community, helps
(41:06):
inspire and motivate others todo the same thing.
Dude, we're not immune from thesame things that affect the
rest of our veteran community100%.
We can all fall into that lull.
I certainly fucking did.
You get out of the military.
You're like oh, I've got someinjuries, I can't do the same
things.
I guess I'll just sit on thecouch.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
It's like no dude you can get up Dude, you can do
something you can do something.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Finishing and at least getting to the marathon
point of the savage loop washuge for me.
Like it sucked.
I definitely was not healed andwas not ready to run that that
that injury was very still there.
But I finished a marathon andfor me that only galvanized my
decision to come back and do itagain the following year.
So we're doing it.
Uh, we got three guys.
We're going to continue doingit, trying to bring in at least
(41:53):
five more to do it because it'sall.
It's all SF people around thatcommunity and civilians and
everybody that supports themilitary and it's a great cause.
If you're listening and you'relooking for a challenge, next
year, check out Savage Loop.
I'm trying to bring a robustcrew of individuals to go run it
together because there issomething to doing hard things
with individuals from thecommunity together to inspire
(42:14):
and bring fucking more peoplealong to do it, because the last
thing I want to see is morepeople fall by the wayside to
suicide and addiction, and it'san easy thing to get into when
you're static, when you're notmoving.
So guys like you that are outthere championing this and
showing individuals that, like A, you can become an entrepreneur
(42:35):
doing something that you loveand B.
Being a mentor and a coach issomething that's deeply, deeply
rooted in being a Green Beret.
So if you don't know where togo, think about this pathway.
For a vast amount of your career, you have to stay in shape and
you probably have a passion forit.
And if you don't know where tostart, reach out to Kevin man
For sure.
Like it's time for everybody tolook at their strengths and
(43:00):
what they're good at and bewilling to bet on themselves.
So, kevin, I can't thank youenough for being here today.
If people want to get in touchwith you and check out your
program, where can they go?
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram at Terminator
underscore training.
That's a pretty solid place tofind me.
I also have a podcast, theTerminator training show.
That's can be found on Spotify,apple podcasts, as well as
YouTube, and then I again havestarted to make some organic
YouTube videos too.
So Terminator training is myYouTube channel.
You can check that out, or thewebsite, terminator training doc
(43:27):
.
Any of those places.
You'll see programs, you'll seecontent and there, of course,
you can shoot me a DM onInstagram and I will do my very
best to get back to you.
They do get backlogged a littlebit because I try not to spend
as much time as I used to onInstagram, because it kind of
just zaps me.
But yeah, those are.
Those are some good spots tofind me.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Heck, yeah, man.
If you pause right now, head onover to the episode description
, click on those links, connectwith Kevin and if you're looking
for a coach, hit him up.
Man, especially if you're ayoung man thinking about going
after that wild endeavor ofbecoming a Green Beret.
We need more people in theforce, we need more people in
the regiment, and I couldn'tthink of a better coach to help
you get there.
Kevin, again, thank you forbeing here To everybody
(44:08):
listening and tuning in.
Thank you for checking us outand we'll see you all next time.
Until then, take care.
Thanks for tuning in and don'tforget to like, follow, share,
subscribe and review us on yourfavorite podcast platform.
If you want to support us, headon over to buymeacoffeecom,
forward slash SecHawk podcastand buy us a coffee.
Connect with us on Instagram Xor TikTok and share your
thoughts or questions abouttoday's episode.
(44:30):
You can also visitsecurityhawkcom for exclusive
content, resources and updates.
And remember we get throughthis together.
If you're still listening, theepisode's over.
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