Welcome to The Recalibrated. I'm your
host, Meade Kincke, and
I'm here to take us through
the journey of being in the service,
transitioning out, and
what today looks like.
Our guest, Adam Peters, served over 13
years in the United
States Army as an infantryman
and has seen more than his fair share
with four combat
deployments to the Middle East.
Today, he is the founder of the Strategic
Veteran, a platform and
podcast focused on helping
service members and veterans navigate the
realities of life
after the military.
Adam, welcome to the show.
Meade, thanks for having me,
man. I'm excited to be here.
Absolutely lovely, sir. So, let's begin with
"The Why." So, what drew you to the Army,
especially given that you
hold a CPL or commercial pilot?
Well, one would think it would be driven
towards the Air Force in that.
Well, you know what's funny about that is I
actually was driven towards
the Air Force and the Navy,
so the commercial pilot's license
wouldn't come until after the
Army. So, I joined right out of
high school. And the truth is, it's
somewhere in the middle of all of this. I
had a buddy that was
a class ahead of me in high school. His
name's Alex Burkle. He is a
bigwig in the Air Force now,
but he went to basic training the summer
between our junior and
senior year. And I saw the changes
as a young man that that made in him. And
I actually kind of
wanted to do that. And then
you couple that with some stuff that was
going on at home. And the
fact that I grew up in kind of
small town Indiana, I just wanted out,
man. I didn't want to be
a farmer. I didn't want to
work for the farmers. The business, the
industry in Southern
Indiana, you could just tie it all
the way back to, I mean, it's just legacy
generational land and
businesses. And so, I just
kind of knew that there was more to the
world and I wanted out. So,
self-improvement, being mad at my
parents, and wanting out of small town
America, I ended up in
the Army as an infantry guy.
I love that. You're like, anywhere but
here. The smell of corn makes me
nauseated. I can't do this
anymore. And it's funny, man, because it
will always be home.
There's a certain way that I
feel when I go back and I'll even take
this a step further. I've
been back twice in 22 years.
It's not like I go back often, but it
will always be some element of home.
There will always be some
kind of grounding, energetic feeling in
my body when I go back to
my hometown. But there's just
nothing there for me anymore. You know,
if that makes sense. No, it
does. And, that's one of those
things where when you chat to people who
are worldly and you chat to
people that are definitely
not, there's a difference between the
two. You can kind of go like, well, the
Kathleen Madigan,
the comedian, has said it really well of
like, well, where would I go? And you go
like, there's a map.
You can throw a dart at it. You can go
anywhere you like. But not
everyone have the wanderlust.
And, it seems like you may have taken
their share as well.
Probably, man, because one of my favourite
things to do, I do this
frequently when I go to Peru,
and I go to Peru once a year. I love to
just go to a place with no plan and get
lost. Like, obviously,
there's like a process. You know what I
mean? Like, I know where
the hotel or the Airbnb is at.
Sure.
I know what direction I've walked. I also
have, you know, kind of,
it's 2026, so you should have
some kind of electronic map in your
pocket. You know what I mean?
But like, that's fun for me.
Like, I don't speak the language. I'm
terrible at learning
languages. I think that I have the
capacity to do it. But, I think the only
way I'm going to do that is
through immersion and being
in places like that. But it is true. It's
one of my absolute favourite
things is to just start walking
a direction and explore a foreign place.
I'm much the same. I love
that. And that's the thing is
that you end up like three o'clock in
someone's, you know, back
garden going like, "What do you
mean we're doing drunk ring toss?" And
you go like, "What do you mean you're
not? I'm over here living
life. Come on now. Let's do the thing."
Right. Yes. Yes. Yes. Just, I mean,
there's so much to see.
There's so much to experience. And,
I know the United States is a big place.
You could spend your whole
life here and not explore
everything, but also like, there's a
whole world out there, you know?
Definitely that.
So, let's get into the beginnings of it.
As far as, you know,
humble beginnings for you as an
infantryman, what did that
look like? How did that begin?
It was rough, man. It was rough. So, I
joined the Army. Technically, I joined
the Army July 3rd of
2002. So, I spent a year on the delayed
entry program, which is
nothing more than a year of
indoctrination before you go get
indoctrinated formally. Right? And look,
man, I did the things
to get the extra rank that you can get.
So, instead of, you know, being an E1
that came in as an E3
and would do that thing, right? Like,
just kind of just did the thing,
whatever. Originally, I joined
as an 11 X-Ray airborne ranger. So, I had
the whole contract. That
got screwed up. But back in
the day, there was like the way you would
get things was recruiters
had to do certain things
to make quotas. And then you could only
get certain contracts by
being... Anyway, long story short,
they paired me with a guy. My contract
was contingent on that guy
shipping to basic training.
That guy never shipped to basic training.
So, I lost my contract. I
just got to become an 11 X-ray,
lose the airborne, lose the ranger. So, I
get to family day at basic
training, and I didn't have
like a duty station to go to. And this is
kind of the first time in
my life where hindsight's 20/20.
I should have stayed as permanent
party at Fort Benning after
I graduated basic training.
This was the options that they gave me.
Okay. I should have
stayed because I would have got
all the schools and I would have
eventually kind of gotten to
go where I wanted to go in the
beginning. But I didn't know that. What I
knew is there was a
permanent party guy during my cycle
of basic training and they treated him
like shit. And I didn't want any part of
that. So, I opted to
just go to Fort Stewart. And I got to
Fort Stewart somewhere
between two weeks and a month after
those guys had come home from the
invasion. So, that should tell you enough
about what my life as
a private was like. Sure. And, now a
combat seasoned, if you will, infantry
unit. So, life sucked for me
as a private man. No combat patch, no
CIB. At the time, we were still in the
BDU and the DCU uniform.
So, the only way you would wear- This was
at the day, when they were introducing
Digitals, yeah? Yeah. So, this was about
four years before we
would go into the ACUs. Yeah.
Yeah. So, at the time, the way you wore
your flag on your shoulder
was you had to have a combat
patch. So, I literally had nothing, man.
Wow. And they were quick
to let you know about it.
You were ostracised. I wouldn't call it
hazing. I would just
call it paying your dues.
Looked down upon, I
think is a fair way to say it.
Absolutely. Yeah. But I think, look, man,
I participated in that
stuff throughout my career.
I would have been guilty of what they
call hazing now. I think it's all for a
reason. I think it all
makes sense. And I think it's just part
of it. It's the fucking
army. You know what I mean? Like,
deal with it. So, do I think it was
wrong? No. Did it suck?
Yeah, absolutely. Did I feel like
I was abused? No. Did I feel like I was
paying my dues and earning
my right to be there? Yeah,
kind of. Can I say all of that because I
lived through it and kind
of that was my experience?
Yeah, that probably has an effect on it.
But would I change any of
it? No. And I think it's-
Fair enough.
I wouldn't. I wouldn't change any of it
because it made me
the man that I am today.
So, basically, you're just saying
drink the Kool-Aid, go to the
frat with guns is the big-
That's it, man. Shut up and colour, dude.
You got yourself into this.
What did you think? You were
going to change a machine
that has been running since 1775?
It only has a few hands in
the cookie jar. Just a few.
Right. So-
Oh, goodness.
So, we kind of answered what it looks
like. Oh, pardon. I'm speaking of you.
No, I was just going to say that's what
it was like for me,
man. If you could dream it,
I was probably treated that way. I understand.
I also... There's a caveat
to that too. Yeah, they treated
me and ostracised me differently because
I didn't have all of those
things. But also, after work,
I was still invited to go to Savannah and
to drink and to party and
to go to the strip clubs.
Okay.
And to be a... Right, so, it was, I guess
for a young man, that can be kind of
confusing, but also,
I think as an older man now, I understand
what was going on. There was,
You kind of had to earn your place and
prove yourself during the
day and when you're working
into field problems and all of that. But
also, you are a part of this team,
whether we like it or not.
So, we are going to include you and we
are going to look out for
you and treat you the right way
after hours. You know what I mean?
Well, and see, that's where you really get
to know men anyway. I've said this a
thousand times over,
if you go to a conference, you go to this
and you go, "Yeah, do
you know where you actually
meet people, make really lifelong
friends, do business?"
Hotel lobby bar, three o'clock.
That's where you do it. You're like, "Oh,
let's go to the
conference." No one to go into the
conference. Right. Dude, I totally agree
with you. I've got a
four-day event coming up over in
Orlando next week. Three o'clock lobby
bar. That's the time.
It will be. And look, I'm intentionally
staying in the hotel when I
could drive home every night
because of what you just said, because of
the networking opportunity.
Bring your business cards. That's one of
those things where you go like, "Listen,
have you met John?" You're
like, "No, but I'm about to."
Yeah, for sure. I love that.
So, we've kind of touched on should have
been special forces, and
then because of, we can
only say bureaucracy and paperwork, that
fell by the wayside,
because as the army, well,
anything government is known to do, it
wouldn't be a good party
unless someone mucked up the
paperwork.
But. That's so true. That's so true.
Just saying. Let's say, through your
tenure, what's
something that you were just
absolutely delighted that smartphones
were not around to record?
Oh, man. Probably 20 stories.
That's a loaded question.
That's what I'm here to do.
Yeah. So... Probably, so, my roommate was a cook
when I lived in the barracks.
Danny Cassidy, one of my favorite
humans on the planet. I wish that I would
have stayed in better
touch with him after he got out
of the army. But as young, still teenage
men, he was older, so
he could buy the beer.
I was just a youngster. We played a game
where we would ride to
Savannah with everybody because
Savannah is about an hour drive away from
Fort Stewart, but that's
where you go for the night life.
But, we would play a game and we
would race. We would see who could get
back to the barracks
first. So we would go out, we would leave
the crowd, and then the
goal was to get women to
bring us back to the barracks. And man,
there's one night that I
remember very distinctly. We did
get women to bring us back to the
barracks. They were drinking and driving.
I'm not advocating for
drinking and driving, but at least we
weren't drinking and driving and
jeopardising our careers.
The one that he was sniffing after was
the one that was driving,
the one that I was sniffing
after, I ended up having to hold her hair
to puke behind an
electrical box somewhere. Really,
really close to the gate. And so, they get
us to the gate and they
don't want to drive on post
and honestly, I can't
blame them because they were...
Yeah, no.
You know?
It's like there's a guard post, there's a
man with a carbine, I
don't think this is for me.
This isn't where I'm supposed to be.
And so, Danny and I, we had to walk
through the front gate of Fort Stewart
right there. I forget
the name of the main road, but luckily
there's a class six just
inside the front gate. So, he stops
and he buys beer and now we walk. Our
barracks was the complete
opposite end of post. It's like a
four or five mile walk and we're
hammered. And so, I'm pretty
glad there was no smartphones
because there's no telling what we did on
that walk. But those
videos probably would have got
us in a lot of trouble.
You made it home though,
so at least that's that.
And we did. And I think it's funny
because in all the... It was probably a
good 10 or 11 months
that we would do this pretty much every
weekend. We never got stranded ever. We
never had not a ride
home. That was the only time that
somebody didn't drop us back off or stay
the night in our barracks.
You know what I mean?
So yeah. And like four miles is a decent
hump from the gate. Like that's...
Especially when you've
been drinking all night.
Yeah. You're like navigating by the North
Star going, "Where are we?"
There's another one would be probably...
So, St. Patrick's Day is
huge in Savannah. It's a giant
thing. Over a million people on River
Street. It's really cool.
They turn the whole river green.
So, my first year there, shortly after I
showed up to the unit, we all went to
party for St. Patrick's
Day. And there was a 12-mile ruck march
that started at four in
the morning the next morning.
But, we didn't get back from drinking
until three in the morning.
So we didn't even go to bed. We
just show up drunk on duty, just hammered
everybody. Everybody from... I mean from
at least the platoons
sarge down. They were all there. So
we're all hammered. And we
do the 12-mile ruck march.
And just, dude, if you would have had a
smartphone to film this, you'd be like,
"This is America's
fighting force. This is the cut."
All I can see is it's the beginning scene
of "Shaun Of The Dead" where
you go like, "Who died and made
you King Zombie?" Oooaaahhh. It was bad, man. It was
bad. That's the definition
of dead on the feet. Come on, now.
Yeah. And so, thank God we had just like a
DONSA after the ruck march
finished. And I think, dude,
that was truly... That was one of the
fastest times I ever had. I
finished it sub three hours,
which is kind of the standard, but I
don't know how. I don't
know how I finished it. And,
dude, as we're all finishing, we're all
throwing up. You can smell
the alcohol coming out of our
pores. Of course.
You know, it's just... It's in the bones.
I really am glad that there was no
smartphones for that stuff, man. And
you're right, probably
a hundred other stories that I
just can't think of right now.
No worries.
They should probably live in my memory
and never be talked about again.
And in puddles in Savannah.
Yes. Very much, yes.
I think those two will cover. So, nearing
the end of your service, what
drove your decision to retire?
It wasn't me, man. My body quit. Four
deployments, almost 50
months of combat time.
I had one, two, three, four, five
surgeries while I was still in. So I had
two shoulder surgeries.
I had a hernia repair and then I had my
entire left foot put back
together, which took three
surgeries. The decision, I guess you're
putting me on the spot. I have to be
honest, the decision
actually was mine. They gave me the
option to MMRB, which is a medical
reclass. So I would change
MOSs and then kind of finish my career in
a different job. I said no to that.
It was like a desk job
kind of thing at that point.
Oh yeah. A hundred percent would have
been probably a
non-deployable or kind of like a
FOBbit role, whatever. Obviously not
going to work for me
because I was never a fobbit.
That was not the role that I played. I
was an infantry guy. I
was in the fight always.
Some was more boring than others. I'm not
here to evangelise and make
it something that it wasn't.
I've seen it all. I've seen heavy combat
and firefights that last
a long time to an entire
deployment where I didn't fire a single
round because it was so
boring and ROE was that lame.
But for me, the fact that I was a senior
staff sergeant, so I'm about to be an E7,
that's a leadership issue. I cannot as a
senior non-commissioned
officer go to another MOS where
I'm supposed to be the subject matter
expert to mentor, to
lead, and to train these young
soldiers that are coming up. I just knew
that I wasn't going to fit
that mould. How am I going to
be a leader in an MOS that I don't know?
You know what I mean? I'm
only going to have as an E6 or an
E7, I'm only going to have whatever the
length of reclass training is.
I gonna go to... That's the other part of it.
I'm going to go to their AIT. I'm going
to be treated like shit as
a senior non-commissioned
officer with more combat time than most.
I don't know. I think, I think, if I
really think about it too,
I was just bitter. I was angry that my
career is over. I
can't do what I do anymore.
So I just kind of took the angry way out
and said, "Okay, well,
I guess I'm going to get
medically retired. Screw you guys."
Fair enough. There's a lot to be
said about when the body says
no, the body is done. It's a thing. But,
you go back and you can
play the, we've already kind of
touched on it, the hindsight being 20/20.
You go like, "Oh, well,
maybe I could have talked about
being an officer. Maybe I could have
talked about this. Maybe I
could have been a spaceship."
But it's done now. It's okay.
And honestly, it was probably the right
decision because I've had another five
surgeries since I've
been out, just putting myself back
together after destroying my body from
the age of 18 to 30.
So, what you're trying to tell the
audience is that you're just
very clumsy. Is that what I'm
understanding
correctly? Yeah, I think so.
That's fine.
I fucked around and found out.
He keeps talking about combat. All he
does is fall downstairs
all day long. It's just like,
"Come on now." I do
do that. I do do that.
Let's not have that be
true. That was a joke.
I actually trip over my own feet quite a
bit, which is, I just did it this
morning. I was walking
out of the bathroom at the gym on the way
to the leg press and
just my feet get in the way sometimes.
And then, it's one of those stumble, fall,
run forward. Did anybody
see that embarrassing
moments? Yeah. That happens to me more
often than I'd like to admit.
So, are you just trying to exhibit your
inner newly born gazelle
or something where they just
have to figure out the legs? Yeah. Maybe
that's what it is. It
was leg day today too,
so maybe I can blame
it on that. Fair enough.
Okay. So, at this point, you're out. What,
What was the moment you
realised civilian life was
going to be different? Probably the day I
got out, man. I think for me,
I may not have the same kind of vision of
what it was like that
other people do in that I was
medically retired, so I got a hundred
percent total and permanent.
So I know that I'm going to
get a significant amount of money into my
bank account and I'm not
really going to be pressured
to have to go and find that super
lucrative job. I don't have a family. I
was living in a really
cheap apartment at the time. So, it was
basically a lateral move for
me. I was making less money,
of course. However, it didn't really
affect me because I wasn't spending a
whole bunch of money.
So for me, just knowing that the day that
I got out, and I actually
am writing a book about my
transition story because that's what I
do. My brand is advocating
for a better veteran transition.
And now, obviously, some veteran policy
issues that we're dealing
with. But, in my transition,
as I'm writing this book, I realise that
first day I got out, it's like
one o'clock. I'm supposed to
be back at work call formation after
lunch and it's just deathly
silent. And I'm 30 years old.
I have, all my friends have jobs. All of my army
friends have to be back at
work. So, I'm just in this
between. What do I do now? And that's
when I realised the
phone's not ringing anymore. I'm
not putting out fires. I'm not a leader
anymore because I'm not in
the army anymore. And that's
when I realised it was going to be very
different, man. Very, very different.
How... I've spent 13 years of
somebody telling me where to be, when to
be there, what uniform
to... All day every day.
All day, multiple times a day. And I
don't think that's a bad
thing. I think that's why the army
works. Yeah. Being extremely regimented
to, and I've said this and
I'll repeat it for your benefit,
transitioning more often than not is like
a miniature death. You
just kind of go like,
well, what happened? You're on your own
big boy. Have fun. That's it.
Yeah. A thousand percent, man. And you're
absolutely right. It's just a complete...
You don't know how to create that
structure for yourself
because from the minute you join,
I mean, for me, my delayed entry, a year
of indoctrination before
the real indoctrination,
that is drilled into you from day one,
minute one. And so, what
they don't teach you is how do
you build that regimen for yourself?
Yeah. Of course, you go
to some leadership schools,
you learn about the five paragraphs of an
op-word and how to put
these things together. You learn
what WARNOs and FRAGOs and OPORDs
are. And that's largely what
drives the structure of the
military, but you don't understand how to
build that for yourself
when it's been given to you for
13 years. Yeah. Again, echoing that, when
you go, you know who you're reporting to,
you know who reports to you, you know
what time you're eating, you
know what time you do this,
and you go like, wait, hold on, I'm
supposed to do my... What? Hold on a
tick. This isn't the same.
What are you talking about? No, man. It's
strange. It's a very, very
uncomfortable, strange feeling.
Sure. So what did not translate well,
let's say it that way?
So much, man. I'm just going to poke the
bear. That's all I need to do.
Yeah, honestly, first of all, the
attitude, right? Like the... particularly
as a combat arms guy,
like as an infantry guy, I hate saying it
like this because it sounds so
egotistical. It's just
true. The infantry inside of the military
is a miniature military
inside of the military.
It's completely different than the rest
of the MOSs, the rest of
the regular army, the rest of
the Marine Corps. And I've got all the
conversations of infantry
guys who feel the exact same way.
Sure. I've got some soft skill MOS guys
who agree with me because they've been
attached to infantry
units. So it's very different. This
attitude, you know, we've had
professional athletes come and
train with us and they're like, dude, you
do more than we do. You
train as hard as we do. It's
incredible, right? So, none of it
translates, man. The civilian world is
all about mediocrity and
just showing up, doing the bare minimum
and going home at five
o'clock. So none of it translates
because in my role and what I was doing
for my career, it's very
much like I'm responsible for,
as a team leader, three other dudes'
lives. Sure. As a squad leader, nine
other people's lives. As
a platoon sergeant, 40 people's lives.
I'm responsible. The
decisions that I make, my
leadership is directly responsible for
whether they live or
die. Right? So that level of
responsibility, how could that translate
to the civilian world? You mean that doesn't
translate into who's getting
submarine sandwiches for lunch and why is
it a half hour late? That
doesn't translate. Come on,
I think you're having us on. You know,
to your point, like something
as stupid as in the civilian
world, they say that we're having a
meeting at nine o'clock. My experience is
like all the military
people are going to be there at 8:45
because that's what we're
taught. We're going to sit there
till 9:30 before the meeting starts. And Timeliness is not a thing.
then we're already
pissed off because we're
30 fucking minutes, man. What is going on
here, dude? It's hard to
say, dude. And it's been so long
since I got out to. So for me to
actually recall what all of
this feels like. No worries.
No worries at all. Particularly with
disqualifying myself from the corporate
world. I want nothing
to do with the corporate world because of
how much none of it
translates. I'm so much
better off just doing what I do now. I'm
way happier for
sure. I understand. So let's say it this way,
who or what, kind of, helped you adjust? Oh
yeah. I love that you're
asking this question because
I actually can articulate this is I've
had some time to sit
back and look at my journey.
When I first got out, I didn't have a
clue what I was going to do. I had no
idea. Like seriously,
and I mean this because flying has always
been a dream. Right. So,
aviation was a dream. I told
you, I tried to join the Navy and the Air
Force. I got laughed out of
the foyer at my high school
by them. They told me there was not a
shot, a snowball's chance
in hell that I would ever fly
for the military. I even put in two
warrant packets while I
was in the army to fly. And
And, hoping that the technology would get
better to fix my eyes. Well, spoiler
alert, the technology
is never going to get good enough to fix
my eyes because I'm
very, very, very far sided,
which means they need to build the curve
of my eye. My eye is flat.
Well, we can't really build
our eyes anymore than what we've already
been able to establish. So, I
digress on that. But I found
out that I could go to flight school. I
went to an orientation at Clover Park
Technical College in
Puyallup, Washington. It was like a win.
I went through the whole
two hour briefing that they
give the tour, all of that. And I went
straight to the assistant
chief and I was like, man,
what are the odds that I can actually
come to this school and
learn how to fly? And he's like,
what do you mean? I was like, I wear
glasses. I've been told no my
whole life. He's like, dude,
like this is civilian aviation. As long
as you can get corrected to
20/20, you can fly. And I was
like, I'm a pilot as well. And when you
talk about people and you go
like, well, hold on a moment.
Are you flying humans? Cargo? Are you
doing this as a
charter? There are different
questions to answer here. Yes. Yes.
My main concern was, are my eyes going to
disqualify me from flying?
Sure. The answer was no. And so, I
immediately started the process. While
all of that was going
on, I didn't, I'm like a guy that needs
to have something to do
always. It is not good for me to
sit around and do nothing. It's just
really bad for my physical,
my mental, my emotional health.
It's just not good for me. So I always
need to have something to
do. I didn't need a job when
I got out, but I was blessed enough to
meet Larry and Margo Perini
who owned or owned several vape
shops. Actually, they owned one at the
time in Olympia, Washington. They
eventually expanded to
three and a bar and really blessed to
know these people. And I'll
save you all the details on how
we met and why they're special to me and all No worries.
that. But Larry saw that
it's not good for me to sit
around and he called me out of the blue
one day and said, Hey, I
need an employee and I think you
should come do this. And I was like,
okay, cool. So, I started working at the
vape shop retail. And,
I started learning about how all of it
works and how things are ordered and
customer service and
how that makes a difference and point of
sale systems. And I
really started learning the
business. They weren't trying to teach me
the business. I wasn't
a manager. I just, I just
observe it. I see I pay attention to it all.
Learn by doing. So, while I was
going through flight school,
that's what it did. And I learned a tonne
and had a lot of fun and, of
course, made a little extra
spending cash. As I finished up flight
school, I wanted to go get
my bachelor's and I kind of
couldn't work out a schedule at the vape
shop. So, long story short,
I got an opportunity to go
manage a gun store. And that's where I
really learned about
business because former veteran
owned the gun store, needed a lot of
help. Didn't realise that he was a
terrible business owner.
Long story short, I turned his entire
business around and he
stopped showing up seven days a
week. So it was like my gun store. I was
doing literally everything
from ordering to background
checks, to NFA items, to taking in all of
the repair stuff, to
payroll, to you name it. I was,
I was the guy. I was doing all of it. So I
really, for about a year, I just learned
how to run a business
and I made a shit tonne of money for him. And,
that's when I had finished my
bachelor's. The reason I went
to go get the bachelor's is because in
the aviation world, I wanted to fly
internationally. That would
have made me more competitive. That's
neither here nor there
because I don't do any of that
shit anymore. But part of the voc-rehab
thing is when you graduate,
they give you three or four
months of extra money and it's a
significant chunk of change. As long as
you're looking for a new
career and you can show that you're
applying to jobs and the caveat is you
cannot refuse interviews.
So, I ended up applying to jobs just to get
the extra money. I had no idea what I
actually wanted to do.
COVID was going on. So everything in
Washington state was shut
down. So I knew I was going to be
a pilot for a while. Plus, you as a pilot,
know, there's like 1200
extra hours you got to go get.
Well, in the States, yeah. And that's one of those things
that people don't want to talk about either.
It's like that's only
in the States when you talk about the 12
and you talk about Europe
and you go, that doesn't exist.
And you get like, hold on a minute. What?
Yeah, well, it's a wild bunch.
That's Congress and their
infinite wisdom thinking that it's safer.
Well, let me tell you this.
The guy who sits in the left
seat of a jet, he's got like 20 years,
probably 10 at least. He's the one in
charge. So you don't
really need 1200 extra hours really
tooling around in a small airplane
because that's how most people
get their hours anyway. Yeah. Your
aerodynamics and your
stall knowledge is great. If you're getting
typed on something like, oh, how does
that, how does, how does, you know,
747 translate
to a 172 and you go, um, they
both have wings. They both
have wings. I think there's the
similarity. Like you do a spin in
one of those and you tell me how it
feels. Yeah, for sure,
man. And, and look, look, I'll digress on
all that because flying is
still to me, one of the greatest
things I've ever accomplished being a
pilot. I just realised that
the dream was to be a pilot
and fly for myself, not to do it for
somebody else. And I think
that's a really important
distinction because for me, that is now a
goal. Like my goal with
business is to make enough
money that I can buy a Cirrus Vision Jet
and just fly myself
wherever I want. And I, I don't
think that that's an unrealistic goal
because you can get one used for like
1.1, you know, that's really not much
Yeah, no, I will say we can, we can get
into, um, not a debate, but a suggestion
session, uh, as far as
thrust and everything else, the
Vision Jet, like they do a really good job of
saying like, this is
sexy and this is, it's one of the slowest
birds that exists, but this
is something we can, we can
discuss later. Meade, you know, I, like I'd be
okay even with like an SR 22 or a
HondaJet, you know, like... Sure.
HondaJet make a beautiful one. They really do. Dude, they are beautiful.
Have you had the opportunity
to like get in one? Uh, no,
I've been in, uh, uh, things like CJ's
and otherwise I haven't
actually been in a, uh,
a HondaJet though, but I've done Oh, they're awesome.
research on them. They really are cool.
Yeah, and, anyway, like, like the point is,
is I want to own my own airplane at some
point when it makes sense
and just, just enjoy aviation
for what it is. Like so, so freeing and
just so amazing to, you
know, I have a thing for like
doing things that like only one percent of
people can do, I guess. So, you know, so...
I understand. That is flying, right? And I
forget where I was
going with all of this. Oh, no worries.
When I learned, yeah, so, so working the
gun store, I... long story
short, I got a knack for business. I
ended up getting an opportunity to move
across the country and really start my
own insurance agency.
I didn't know that's what it was at the
time, but I got sold hook
line and sinker on selling
final expense insurance, uh, and, and
really kind of working for myself 1099,
like eat what you kill,
really lucrative. Um, and so that's how
it went for me. I moved all
the way across the country,
left Washington, uh, in November of 2020,
went out to South Carolina, started
selling final expense
to the poorest one third of Americans and
very quickly went broke
and learned that I had a lot
to learn from there. Uh, I pivoted to,
uh, health insurance sales, which was
work from home. That was
not a bad gig, not nearly as lucrative as
life insurance. However,
what I sold there would
actually stay on the books. I left that
because they turned my leads
off for 10 days. And anybody
who knows a sales cycle, like that's just
suicide. Um, from there I worked, uh,
property and casualty
insurance at an all state agency. I left
that after six months
because I got stiffed on $6,000
worth of commission. And also because,
um, I was the only agent in
the office doing anything,
including the owner. The owner wouldn't
talk to his book of
business. And so I just was like,
this is, I'm never going to be successful
here. Um, from there I went
to Medicare, Medicaid sales.
Um, that is, that is just as demoralising
as knocking doors,
selling final expenses to the
poorest one third of Americans. It's
really sad. And it made me
feel like a terrible human.
So, I actually left all of that. I let my
licenses and all that
expire. I went and decided I was
going to go back to flying. Um, so
finished CFI. Uh, that's when I tore my
bicep tendon and hit rock
bottom, and then found ayahuasca. And so
that's ayahuasca is truly
what freed me and allowed me to
take a journey. Like, and I'll pause you
for a moment, and then
you kind of answered this,
but, uh, just to poke the bear a little
bit more, were there any
things that you needed to unlearn?
I think you've said so. This is wild. So
bicep tendon, we went from that
to ayahuasca. Now quick question as far
as the medical did, did
the tendon pop off the bone?
Yeah. Yeah. So I actually had, so this is
how it went. So, um, I'm a pretty
miserable human being at this point,
right? Like I just given
you this long. So from,
I got out November of 2015, it is now,
um, when I tore my
bicep tendon, it's 2022.
So it's like November, December of 2022.
Okay. And so that, that was
my journey, right? So college,
uh, you know, managing other people's
businesses and making them a lot of
money, um, failing in
the insurance industry, because I was, I
was, I was just given the
sales pitch. I wasn't actually
educated on how to sell insurance, how to
get, uh, what chargebacks
are, how to get business to stay
on the books, et cetera, et cetera, et
cetera. Um, and so I just resigned
myself. Like I'm just
going to go back to flight school. I'll
finish CFI. I'll, I didn't
want to be a CFI at all. I don't
want to be dependent on a student for
paycheck. I don't know many
pilots that really want to be a
CFI. Usually it's always a CFI so they
can get to the airlines. And
that's it. I just, I fought it
and fought it. Didn't want to do it.
Resign myself to, you know, at least I'm
flying, right? At least
it's something that I do enjoy, even
though it's going to be miserable. Cause
I'm going to do five
of the same lesson with this, you know,
five different students
every single day for each
18 months to get these hours. Um, and long
story short, my log book,
when I finished commercial,
got stolen by a tweaker out of my garage
in my house in
Washington, uh, right before COVID
happened. I've completely forgot about
that. Needed those numbers, had to
petition the FAA to,
and send them a paper check for $2 and
then wait six months to get
those numbers so that I could
take the check ride for CFI. So to this
day, I'm about three days
worth of work away from the check
ride for CFI. I haven't, I just haven't
finished. Um, sure. Um, also
there was a bear that came and
clawed your leg and that woman started
shrieking. Are there any other weird
obstacles that you'd
like to throw into the mix, good sir?
I mean, we're here to entertain them. I spent, I spent
$10,000 to get my medical to even
go to flight school in the first place.
Sure. Because I'm
guessing none of the, the logbook
was digitised. This was all just paper.
No, what was funny
Meade, you'll appreciate this.
In IACRA. Sure. I go to, I go to the
IACRA website to do all
the paperwork for, you know,
the, the 8710 to take the check ride. And
my private pilot check
ride is, is digitally on
IACRA's website, but my commercial one
isn't. How would my private pilot one
from three years ago,
not be archived, but my commercial one
is. And it was only a
year ago. As it turns out,
one of those require a little bit more
flight knowledge, just
saying. As it turns out,
you know, so like why, so that, that was
actually why I had to write
the FAA. I did everything.
I went to the FSDO. I liked, I was
like, you guys are really
going to make me wait six months
to get this. And they said, yes. So
paperwork, we're finding a common thread
with your particular
stories, paperwork. That's why we don't
invite paperwork to
play. Yeah, we don't. We did
paperwork, the bane of my existence, but
yeah. So, so yeah, I
did. I tore the bicep tendon
down at the bend in your elbow, which is
kind of the most rare place to tear it.
Yeah. Usually it's up at
the top of the humerus.
I also tore it there.
Well done you. Well done you.
Yeah, that, that was fixed before I got
out of the army with the two
shoulder surgeries I had. So
that was part of the two shoulder
surgeries down here at the
bottom. Man, look, I was,
I'm telling you, I was at rock bottom. I
weighed 321 pounds. I was at
the fastest I had ever been.
I was just disgustingly out of shape.
It's a wonder that, you
know, it didn't happen sooner.
And the way I tore it is I had gone to my
Dad's, we were working on
my Harley and I was putting
the front sharing back on my Harley. And
as I pushed, it just
popped. It just snapped.
Literally, Dad heard it. He said, what the
fuck was that? I said, I
just took my bicep tendon.
I walked out the garage door. I threw up
in his landscape
because it hurt that bad.
Oh yeah.
And, and, and then walk back in the
garage and he's like, are
you serious? I was like, Dad,
I don't know how to tell you, like, I
know I'm not a doctor,
but I know I just tore this
completely, just completely tore it. So
this is where it gets really interesting.
Then why I had two surgeries. So I go
through the VA immediately,
like the next day, because I know
a bicep tendon, you got to get it
repaired quickly. Cause it's like leaving
a rubber band in the sun.
It just, it gets brittle and eventually
you can't fix it. So they
send me to community care
because they can't do it. I go to this
doctor. This doctor cuts me
open. He wakes me up to tell
me, oh, your MRI is wrong. Your bicep
tendon is not torn. I couldn't find it.
Couldn't find it. Oh, pardon. I left it
in the carpark. What do
you mean you couldn't find it?
So, now this is where I learn, I go back
to the VA. I'm like, Hey,
this isn't right. Like it's
definitely fucking torn. Like you can
visibly see that it's
torn. This surgeon, like it's,
it's an elective surgery. Like you don't
have to fix a bicep tendon.
Yeah, no, you don't need to be able to
bend the arm. Adam,
listen, listen, you and your
highfalutin ways in your
arms. Yeah, right. What do you want from me?!?
Yeah. So, so I, I get with the VA, I
fight back and forth
for like three weeks.
Goodness.
Turns out I have to go over to Orlando
because all the surgeons
in the network over here,
they have a hard and fast rule. They
won't see you if you've been cut on
within the last 90 days.
So it's like a, it's an insurance thing,
right? Like I, I respect
it. I understand it. Thank God
they sent me over to Orlando Health Jewett
Orthopedic Institute. And I
get with Dr. Zumsteg and, what an
amazing human being, because my first
appointment with him, he
agrees to see me. He walks in,
he says, I'm Dr. Zumsteg. First things
first, I don't think your
MRI was wrong. And I was like,
okay, we're in business now. Right? So
long story short, he agrees
to fix it. He does fix it. He
found the tendon, uh, have a really cool
scar. It's kind of like a,
it's like a 90, 90 degree
angle where he had to like peel the skin
back to actually get to
the tendon. It's really cool.
Kind of, I don't know. I like my scars, I
guess, but, but long
story, he, he fixed it. I have a
donor tendon in there. Um, and, uh, you
honestly can't even tell
that I actually tore it. I don't
have like the double peaks, like some
people do. I'm kind of blessed in that.
Um, but that actually
set my recovery back about nine months.
So I was in a cast for a lot
longer, uh, more scar tissue,
uh, just the whole left arm atrophies.
And you go like, great.
I have one, one big arm,
one small arm. Like, great. This is,
that's not natural at all.
Yeah. So the big kicker there is
the day I tore the bicep tendon is the
same day that I had
received the numbers from the FAA
in the mail. Oh, wow. So I was literally
scheduled to go back and
finish CFI that following week.
And, um, you know, I, that's, that's when
I, I mean, torn bicep
tendon, your left arm, right
seat is where you're taking the check
ride. Can't work a throttle pretty
important to be able to
work the throttle. Had I been doing any
other check ride from the
left seat, I still think
I could have flown and been fine. Um, but
let's just say, uh, I'm
glad you didn't, uh, you know,
if you can't move the arm up to the yoke,
uh, maybe, maybe let it ride for a bit.
So, so that was it, man. Um, that was
rock bottom for me. I, um, while I was
working a, a menial is
actually a really great job. I worked in
the sod farm, uh, while I was
waiting for those numbers to
come from the FAA, uh, really cool. No
responsibility show up,
mow grass from 7 to
5:30 every day. Listen to books,
podcasts, all of that good stuff, like
completely left alone,
like honestly, like and made a thousand
dollars a week after taxes, which is
really, that's really
good money. Um, and for not a lot of
work, dude, like I sat on my
ass in the hot Floriday sun, and I
mowed grass and listened to books. I
bettered myself for money.
That's a pretty cool. Um,
and that's, that's where I really, I
found The Shawn Ryan Show.
It's how I got introduced to,
to plant medicine. Ibogaine
and 5-MeO-DMT was his
story and his guest stories.
Then his wife interviewed him on her pod
on his podcast about his
journey. Then I started seeking
it out because you know, the bicep tendon
thing was pretty much rock
bottom for me. I was pretty
suicidal. I wanted to kill myself.
I didn't think that I
belonged anywhere in the world. Um,
got really even more discouraged as I
started looking for a
nonprofit that would pay for me
to go and have a plant medicine
experience because 95% of
them at the time were all,
they would all cater to special
operations. They didn't cater and still
don't really cater to
conventional guys like me. And then by
the grace of God, I got picked up by
Heroic Hearts Project
and July 2nd through the 7th of 2023 is
when my entire life changed
and, uh, it turned me into
the person that I am now. And I've built
literally everything, uh,
from, from the heels of that first
retreat. Well, I'm glad that you got
involved the way that you
did. I'll say it that way.
I think, uh, we all have a journey,
right? And mine, I'm learning that mine
is really interesting
and fascinating to people and can serve
as a really good example
for, you know, things that,
that we as vets getting out don't have to
go through. Sure.
Definitely that. Well, to all
of you listening at home, uh, if you love
what you're hearing as much
as we love what we're doing,
smash that subscribe button and, you
know, getting into the now,
what, what is your mission now?
I have several, um, the, the mission with
the brand, uh, is to, to
just be the guy I didn't have
when I transitioned out to, to be, you
know, that, that example of like, Hey,
um, you don't have to
make the same mistakes that I did. You
don't have to go through
eight and a half years of struggle
before you figure out, um, what, what,
what you should be doing or what's going to resonate
with you. And moreover, it's to push you into,
um, ignoring all of those
people who are telling you
when you get out, you should do this, you
should do that. It's to
encourage you to sit with yourself
in front of the mirror and truly ask
yourself what you want to be doing and
then help you find a way
to pursue that. Um, whether that's to
earn a living, um, or, I mean, obviously everybody needs
to earn a living. I'm of the belief that
everybody can earn a living doing
something that truly
resonates with them and makes them happy.
We don't need as much money
as we think that we do. Um,
we, we can live incredible lives, uh,
doing things that resonate
with us. And, um, that's kind of
the mission with, with TSV and the brand.
Um, then, you know, in business, my mission is to
obviously create generational wealth that
I don't come from. But the thing that
drives me is, is, uh,
I want to retire my Dad. My Dad is
constantly, it's in every year it goes
up. He, he says he'll be 72
years old before he can truly retire. My
Dad is one of the hardest
working people that I've ever
met in my entire life. And he does it at
such a level that, you
know, it's, it's no wonder I am
the way that I am. It's just, it's
always professional. It's always done the
right way. He doesn't cut
corners. And I would like to
see him enjoy his, his later years in
life and not have to work, you know, 40
hours a week till he's
72 years old. So, that's the mission
there. And then the mission with the
plant medicine stuff is to
obviously provide people the opportunity
to have a
transformational experience. Like I did.
I love that. Well, that actually rolls
into the kind of another
query. How do you feel your
identity has evolved
since leaving service?
Um, I don't know that it has, man. I
think a huge part of my
identity was, was being a leader. I
loved being a leader. I loved mentoring
soldiers and I was, look, I
have not been the nicest to
myself about this. I had a mediocre
career. I could have had
such a much better career. I
truly did have a mediocre career and I
carried over into, I
thought I was a shitty leader. I
really did think I was, I wasn't a great
leader. Um, hindsight is
20/20. I can see now that I was
actually kind of a phenomenal leader.
And, there've been guests on
my podcast that have said as
much that were my subordinates. I still
mentor several kids that
are, you know, at the end of
their careers now, but I still get to
mentor them and look now
because I built this platform and
I'm advocating for people to not make the
same mistakes. And not only
do I get to lead the army,
I get to lead all of the military again.
So, I don't think my
identity has changed that much at
all, man. I get to be a leader in
entrepreneurship and encouraging these
guys and girls that are
getting out, women, whatever, to, to, to
think outside the box, to,
to consider an avenue that
nobody turned me on to when I was getting
out, right? Like, like,
and it's, it's also 2026,
like the barrier to entry to becoming an
entrepreneur is it's
non-existent right now.
You have so many tools at your disposal
to shortcut so many
things. Um, so I get to be a
leader in that. And then in the plant
medicine space, I get to be
a leader in, in making sure
that it's done the right way, making sure
intentions are set
and, and, you know, um,
integration is, is pre and post and it's
being done. And, and, uh,
so I, I really don't think
that it's changed at all. It just looks
very different. Fair
enough. Fair enough. So what do
you think, let's say, um, strengths from
service that serve you
well, like things that you, you
wouldn't have had otherwise that, that
really are who you are now.
Oh, hands down discipline, um, uh, hands
down adaptability,
problem solving, leadership, um,
the same skills that do translate well to
the civilian world. If you
know how to translate them,
uh, they're the high leverage skills that
I talk about that the
military gives us. I mean, from day
one, whether you realise it or not,
they're grooming us to be the best
leaders that we can be.
Leadership, it is second to none
anywhere on the planet
than, you know, in the military,
like, like that is the standard of
leadership, I think. Right.
Um, so, so yeah, all of those
things I carry with me, but the biggest
one for sure is
discipline. Discipline for me is,
is my number one core value. Uh,
discipline is something that will never
abandon you. Discipline
is always there to show you the way. If
you just remain disciplined, you will
accomplish literally
everything that you set out to accomplish
in your life period, end of story. It's
all around discipline.
I love that. I absolutely adore that. Oh goodness.
So, this is something that you
probably won't have a whole
lot to offer on, but I'll ask it anyway.
What, what do you have to
offer veterans that are in
transition? Oh man. What advice can you
give them? What's something
they need to hear from you?
Stop listening to everybody else, and
start listening to yourself.
I'm serious, man. I see this all the
time. It's, it's, it's signal versus
noise. I know that's
cliché, but it's so true. Oh, you're
quoting me. I say that constantly. And
it's, but it's true,
man. The only signal that should be
coming in as you're getting out is from
yourself. And, you know,
to go more in depth on that, what does
that look like? How do I listen to
myself, Adam? I don't,
I don't know what that means. And well,
aren't you being kind of a
hypocrite? Because you're,
you're, you're, you're giving me this
advice and you're telling me not to
listen to you. Yeah.
That's, that is kind of hypocritical, I
guess, or catch 22 ish or
whatever that is. But you,
you have to sit in the mirror and have
the tough conversation with
yourself. You have to analyse
what are my core beliefs, my core values,
my passions, and, and
how can I live a life that
is in alignment with those? What does
that look like career wise?
Where can I spend less money?
Where can I sacrifice in the short term
to, you know, to, to reap
the rewards in the long term?
Like all of those questions have to be
answered. And the only way
to do that is to turn off the
noise that's coming from the outside and
to listen to the signals
that you're giving yourself.
I love that. Yeah. The, the Japanese have
a, a wonderful word that
kind of wraps all of that
up in one. It's, have you
heard the term "Ikigai" before?
Ikigai. Yes, of course. I
designed my life around it. There we go.
And look, man, you could take the
Ikigai even further. If you look at it,
there's a really good
Netflix documentary because like part of
my new obsession is, is the
Bible says we can live to 120.
I'm healthier. I've completely turned my,
my entire life around
from, from the first ayahuasca
ceremony. My new goal is to live to 120.
So I'm obsessed with
blue zones. And if you look,
Japan is a blue zone and the reason they
attribute the biggest reason those
centenarians, I think is what they call
them. Yeah. They attribute
it to the Ikigai. If they
didn't have the Ikigai, they wouldn't
have purpose and they
wouldn't live as long.
Well, I think it's also a big thing, like
something that I've
said a tonne of, especially
when you talk, you know, say agency or
military, otherwise, not everyone that
want you to do work
for them are kind hearted individuals.
Some of them are definitely
individuals that you should
not be involved in. And the concept in
the middle of like the four
square Ikigai where you say
like, well, these are the things I'm, I'm
great at. These are the
things society need. And then the
big one that no one really talk about for
me is the, and these are
the things I'm willing to be
paid for, because just because you can do
something, does not mean you should.
Exactly, man. I just so
good. I just did this last night with,
with another guy, he runs a community and
asked me to come speak
about networking to his community. And we
actually talked about kind
of along the same lines, but,
but as you join, you begin your
entrepreneurial journey, you're going to
experiment with a lot
of different things, right? And you're
going to start to understand
the things that you're good
at and the things that you're not good
at. And you should not ever
focus on the things that you're
not good at. You're never going to go
forward. If you're focusing
on it, you're not going to get
better at the things that you're not good
at. It's just, it just
really is like, yes, you in theory
could get better if you practice them.
However, you're wasting
time. Go, go focus on the things
that you are good at and practice those.
Yeah. The thing that I say
constantly and like any time I
ask anyone, they always go, I'd never
been asked this before. This happens
constantly with veterans.
And I go, what makes you happy? And they
go, Oh, don't ask big
questions like that. Like
instantaneously, like no one have ever
asked me like what I like.
And I'm like, well, I'm here
to do it. So, and then like all of a
sudden it just goes, I'm allowed to do
something that brings me
joy. And I go, well, not only allowed,
but required to. And to your point,
man, particularly in
veterans, because we're taught mission,
soldiers, then self, right?
So my whole life, I still am
guilty of this, Meade. I am not, I'm not
perfect at this. I still put a lot of
things that's, that's my,
in fact, that is, that is my 2026 that
I'm not a big goal setter. I
know that the self-help gurus
are going to fucking chastise me for
that. I just, I just don't believe in it.
I think it's bullshit.
Don't set a bunch of goals. Find like a
theme, a thing that you
want to change about yourself,
like something very deep seated. So for
me this year, that is the
letting go of the "I have to" and
the "I should", those feelings are
detrimental to my life. I'm not even
joking here and I'll cut you
off because I need you to hear from, like
I was on, like Reddit,
literally yesterday giving advice
to those in transition and things like
that. And they said, like, how do you
take care of you? And
I said, well, here's the thing. Guilt,
guilt is a poison pill. And if you feel
like you owe someone
something, if you feel like, oh, well, I
need to do this, then you're
not living like a pilot. And
you go, well, what's that mean? I'm like,
okay, what's the rule on a
jetliner? You're a pilot,
you know, we put your oxygen mask on
first. If you can't take care
of you, you can take care of no
one else. That's it. Yeah. No, it is
true. So that's, you know, I'm still
guilty of not putting
myself first, the carrying the guilt of I
have to do this because if
I don't do this, then I ruin
my reputation with the brand that I've
built or I kill the momentum in the
business or, you know,
insert whatever fucking excuse you want.
Nonsense reason. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Absolutely. So, you know,
saying all of that to say like, like,
you're absolutely right.
Like, nobody, we don't know
how to articulate what actually makes us
happy because we're so
focused on making other people
happy at the expense of our own
happiness. And I'm still wrestling with
that question. If you were to
point blank, ask me that question right
now, I wouldn't have an
answer for you because I still
don't know. It's some combination of
this, what we're doing right
now. This makes me genuinely
very happy. I enjoy podcasting a lot.
I love it. I enjoy the work
that I do. So, you know,
the plant medicine stuff, the AI stuff,
but that's not true
happiness. And I don't know
what my version of like true happiness is
outside of kind of work,
if you will. You know what I
mean? Maybe that's yet to be revealed,
but I think it'll show itself soon.
Oh yeah, I'm with you.
I really, I know a big part of it will be
travel. So, I think, you
know, this work has given me a
platform that now is allowing me to
travel. So, maybe like you're
saying that that's happiness
starting to reveal itself. I do know I am
very happy enjoying the
journey. I will say that.
Then there you go. I've said this a tonne.
If you're playing the
game, you're still winning.
That's the only way to really see it at
all. And I'm telling you,
this is such a fun game, man.
It's such a fun game because when you
win, oh man, do you
win. Yeah, no, that's true.
Well, let's do this. We've talked about
you. We've talked about that.
So, we've talked about this.
What about people? What about civilians?
What do you, if you can like
just like drop a thought in
something that they need to
know. What do they need to hear?
It's the same shit, man. It's the same
stuff. Like what I am,
everything that I talk about, all of my
philosophies, all of
the things that I preach
on LinkedIn, because that's really the
only place I'm at, and my podcast. I've
been blessed enough to
see this grow. My audience is 50-50,
veterans and civilian. It's
not, I mean, these are universal
things that civilians and military alike
can adopt and do these.
The things that I talk about
that have helped me, the mindfulness, the
breath work, the
grounding practices, the yoga, the
meditation, all of that stuff applies to
all of the things, to
sitting down in front of the mirror
having the conversation with yourself, to
cancelling out the noise, to
learning how to determine what
is noise. Yes, noise comes from your
kids. It comes from your spouse. It comes
from your parents. It
comes from your brother and your sister.
It comes from all of
those places. I do not care
what you think about that. When you tune
out the noise of what all
those other people want you to
be doing, and you start listening to
yourself and focusing on that, all of
those other things fall
into place where they're supposed to. I
promise you, it's not
bullshit. It's not made up. It's
very true. When I started focusing on
taking care of myself, all the other
piddly little bullshit
from the outside noise started to fall
into place. Everything. I've said this a
tonne, and you've nailed
it on the head of people can wait. It's
one of those things where
you go like, "Oh, this needs
to get done last week." My wife says this
constantly of, "Well, if
everything's important,
then nothing is important." So true.
You'll appreciate this
and I wish I could remember
where I heard it. I heard it on a
podcast. I know that for
sure, but they talk about the word
priority. It should never be plural. How
can you have more than one priority?
We have 13 things that are paramount.
By definition, you have one.
Yeah. I love it.
Obviously, the podcast I heard that on,
there was a lot longer explanation.
Sure.
It was way more articulated. However,
simplifying it still
carries a lot of weight. Priority
should not be plural. There's no such
thing as priorities
because by definition,
you cannot have more than one.
Well said. No, I love it.
So what is your priority and
it should be yourself always?
Yeah. Well, see, that's another thing
that people, I literally
said this yesterday as well,
is that people start feeling the whole
guilty thing when they
say, "Oh, I'm going to take
care of me, but isn't that selfish?" No.
And this is where people get it twisted.
Selfish means doing something at the
detriment of someone else. It's
benefiting you and taking away
from them. If you're doing something
great, that's not taking something away
from this guy or her
or this or whatever. That's just you
making yourself as big as
you should be. But, that's
the difference is that people think of it
like it gets conflated with being
parasitic where you go,
"Well, I'm doing this," but it's at the
pulling away from someone
else. That's not the case.
And if anything, you being bigger makes
everyone else bigger.
That's the only thing to live by.
Yeah. And with my goal for 2026, with
letting go of "I have to", "I'm supposed to",
the guilt that comes with that,
I actually think it will allow me to be
more productive and help
more people. It absolutely will. Because
again, you're not focused
on, "Oh, this little thread
and this thing," and you go like, "No,
we're making a tapestry. I don't care.
Let's just do the thing."
And I'll be honest, it is so hard. It is
so hard when I get that DM
like, "Hey, man, I'd love to
get 30 minutes of your time." And it's
like, "Okay, but now I have
to gatekeep my time because
I feel like I have to when somebody
reaches out to me." And it's
like, No, I need to know why
you want 30 minutes of my time. And I
will decide if that moves the needle
forward or if it's just
wasting. I hate saying it like this, but
wasting my time. And, I say
that because I've talked to so
many people over the last two years,
particularly last year. And
I actually pay attention and
analyse what I'm doing, how I'm spending
my time. And I go back and
look at a lot of those meetings
and I'm like, "What did this actually
help me do? It didn't help me do
anything." So then it becomes
a waste of my time. Well, why did I do
that? Because I felt like I
had to. Because I felt like
that's what got me this far. And if I
abandon that now, I'm going to lose
everything. And that's
simply not fucking true. It's just not
true. And so now I get to
protect my time and you can think
whatever you want of me because I tell
you, "No, you're not worthy
to be on my calendar." But in
the long run, it's going to make the
brand that much bigger, that
much more powerful and allow
me to help more people like you. You know?
No, I get it. So, let's get into
something a little bit more
lighthearted. And you can play it however
you like to, but what's
like a film or a telly show,
Something that is just so funny that you
can't even believe it or
it's so accurate that it's
just like, "Wow, they really nailed
this." Something like
that. What do you have that
relates to military life?
That relates to military life.
And again, this can be ridiculous. It can
be something funny. It can be something
that's heartbreaking. It's dealer's
choice. Man, that's tough.
What comes to mind? Just straight away?
Straight away when you
talk about a TV show,
there's a Cinemax TV show called,
"Strike Back". It's one of my
favourites. I don't know why.
I love the dynamic between the two
operators in that show.
And they're super secret,
super special forces, whatever guys.
Like, Delta this, blah.
Yeah. Wildly inaccurate. Lots of... I've
watched, I think there's
four seasons, three or four
seasons. I've watched that all the way
through three or four
times. And I don't know why I'm
drawn to it. I just really like it. I
like Sullivan Stapleton
and I forget the other guy.
They're both British guys that are in it.
And, it's just really
well done and I enjoyed it.
I thought it was great. I can relate to a
lot of it, the situations
they find themselves in or
whatever. Because, I don't know.
It's just, it's silly, and I like it.
Beyond that, I'm not sure I can
articulate what it is about it.
No worries. That's one of those
things where a lot of times
it's... I find it's the chemistry. Where
you go and you're like, "I just..."
Listening to them speak,
you go like there's something... It just
It has that flavour to it. It has
that like, "I could have
a whole bowl of this. This is wonderful."
Yeah. A thousand
percent. And thinking about it,
it's like from the very first episode,
the way Sullivan Stapleton's character
acts. It's just like,
"Yeah, I know characters like that that
I've served with. I can
picture his face and him doing
this." And then to... I mean, there's
some seriously emotional
moments in it where people
lose their lives that are main
characters. And you get the whole range
of it. And now that I'm
semi-healed or on the healing journey, I
actually get to express
those emotions in a healthy way
and purge those now through different TV
shows and things like
that. So I don't know. I just,
I love it. And about every three years,
it gives me enough time to
kind of forget the whole seasons
and all of that. And then I'll go back
and watch it. It's getting
harder and harder to find it
though. Cinemax is not really putting it
out there. You can't like
go on Apple TV and buy it.
So, I just got to kind of wait.
Maybe like a DVD box set or something.
It's probably what it's going to come
down to, to be completely
honest with you, which is...
That's strange, isn't it?
A little bit, but not really though,
because I've said this a
tonne about people get like,
"Oh, streaming service this." And I'm
going, "You just said it
yourself. You don't own it."
If you don't have the thing, it's not
yours. I've talked about this in security
and everything else,
like with cloud computing and otherwise,
and it's like, that's not
your server. That's just
someone else's imaginary box. And guess
what? If you don't
have it, it's not yours.
Yep. Yep. Yep. No, you're so right, man.
I love it.
I mean, that's part of
the reason I collect vinyls.
It's a real thing. And, that's something
that's kind of wild. I've
talked about this in music
chats and things recently, that cassettes
are kind of back on the rise.
Are they?
Yeah. Kids are getting into cassettes
again, because you can
make mix tapes. You can have
something tangible that you can put in
someone's hand. And, I think
that's the thing is that the
pendulum swings. And at this point, it's
like, "Oh, digitise
everything." And you go, "That's cute.
Can I hold it?"
Right. I don't know. I feel both ways,
right? I agree with you. If
it's digital and it's somebody
else's server, you don't own it, right?
But also, I'm all up to digital, so
convenient. It is. I can carry
so much with me. You know what I mean?
It's just catch-22. It's
like, "Well, digital is kind of
ruining everything, but
also digital is so great."
Yeah. The thing about it is, I think
there's a lot to be said
about the kind of loss of experts.
I've talked about this in film and
photography, where if you
said you were a photographer,
you knew what an iris was. You knew how
to pull focus. You
knew all of this stuff,
where now you have someone with an
iPhone, like, "I'm a
photographer." And I'm like, I think the
word has been muddied a bit. And the same
kind of thing goes
with owning things that,
you know, self-hosting, like when you
talk about computing and
otherwise, you can still do all of
the cool, like, "Oh, digitise stuff," but
still own the box. But yeah, that's a
whole other soapbox.
It's just like in aviation, right?
How did you, when you became
a private pilot, for me,
I was not allowed to use a digital flight
bag until after private
pilot was over. Nope. Exactly. So I had to
do the chart flip and all of that. I took
my checkride on a paper
chart with a Wizz Wheel.
Same kind of thing. Like, what do you
learn on? And it's changing a
bit now, but the predominant
amount of people, it's all six-pack, you
know? That's what you
have. And you have nice things
now where I think it's a wonderful thing
where you have things like,
you know, Garmin, like G1000s
and otherwise, because we have better
tools now. And I don't think it's a wise
thing to say, "Well,
this is how, we did it back in
aught-two." Like, no, let's please
stop. We have cooler things.
I am, as an instructor, I think it's
important that I will teach my students
and probably require
them to do quite a bit with the paper
chart. I think that that's just an
essential skill that
needs to be known as a good pilot
because- What happens
if the stuff goes black?
Well, and to your point, the first time I
ever flew with the G950,
the whole fucking thing went
blank. The whole thing, right? So it
just, one of those rare days in
Washington, it got overheated
and it just shut down. And now I have
nothing. I had no
instruments whatsoever, right?
You're like, "That field is looking nice.
Maybe we put this bird down."
Good thing that I had a paper chart with
me and I knew, obviously
knew the area and some
landmarks, knew how to do some dead
reckoning, but also it was
clear in a million that day,
so I could actually land the plane. But
what happens? If I
didn't have that skill,
what would I have done? I probably would
have panicked, and I probably would have
got me and my instructor killed.
I'm picturing something along the
lines of a hopeful emergency
descent, and a field somewhere. You're
like, "I don't feel
comfortable at all with this."
And you go, "Let's just
circle. Screw it." That's it.
Yeah, but even then, right? So because
the G950 is out, it took
out all the electronics.
Everything was done. No radios, no
nothing. It was all
contained inside of that one box.
And I'm just like, "This sucks, man. This
is not awesome at all."
It's quite the opposite, actually. And
you go like, "Hey, where are we?"
No clue. What's the
attitude? Nothing. Altitude, uh, guess.
Pitot tube working? No way of telling.
No, right. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So yeah, no.
You're right, man. Digital and analogue
still have purposes,
believe it or not.
I would say embrace the digital, but
always know the fallback.
Yeah. Yep.
Cool. Well, thank you so much for coming.
And for people that are
looking to connect you with
it with you, what are the
best ways for them to do that?
LinkedIn. LinkedIn, Adam Peters, that's
it. People ask me this all
the time. I have a website,
I have the other socials. LinkedIn is the
primary one. I answer all
the DMs there. I answer all the
connection requests. It's the one that I
can keep up with the most
because it's just most routine
for me. So straight to LinkedIn if you
want to get in touch with
me. And I do answer all of my
own DMs. I don't have a virtual
assistant. I am a one-man operation. So, I,
I will get to you, I promise.
I love it. Well, we have more brilliant
stories coming soon. And,
be sure to look at our Patreon
to support us and join the tribe there.
And absolutely,
absolutely come back because we
love having you. Cheers all.