119 - PAT MCNAMARA | Beyond Basic Dude Stuff

0:00 (upbeat music)

0:02 - This is Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.

0:13 I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.

0:15 All right guys, we have not had an interview in a while

0:18 and guys, it better late than ever,

0:20 'cause this is one of my favorite interviews

0:21 I've ever done in any context.

0:23 I just love this guy and the guy that we got

0:25 on today's episode is Pat McNamara.

0:27 So if you're not familiar with who Pat McNamara is,

0:29 my name should sound familiar

0:31 'cause I've talked about him here on the podcast.

0:32 I've talked about his Instagram.

0:34 I've shared some of his Instagram stuff

0:35 on our Instagram page, but here's the deal.

0:37 He's retired United States Army.

0:40 He served for 22 years and the entire time

0:42 he was in service, he was in special operations.

0:44 So he was in special operations units

0:46 and special missions units and he retired

0:48 from the Army's premier hostage rescue unit

0:51 as a sergeant major.

0:52 And here's the thing about this guy

0:53 is he's an incredible marksman.

0:54 Okay, so some guys say they're a good shot.

0:56 This guy's a marksman and he's amazing at it.

0:58 This guy has trained and really continues

1:00 to train all levels of marksmanship

1:03 using a training methodology that he himself has developed.

1:07 In addition to that, he runs a website

1:08 and really a movement called combat strength training.

1:12 And so this has a lot to do with how you move your body

1:14 and how you need to be able to move your body

1:16 in different training mechanisms.

1:18 But it's all kind of around

1:20 and I won't get too much into what we talked about

1:22 in the podcast, but it's around really being prepared,

1:24 being ready to act, being able to use your combat chassis,

1:27 which is your body to be able to react to a situation.

1:31 He's also an author.

1:32 So he's got several books out there.

1:33 He wrote one book called Taps,

1:34 that's tactical application, a practical shooting

1:37 that was released back in '08.

1:39 He's got another one called Sentinel.

1:40 It's called Becoming the Agent in Charge

1:42 of Your Own Protection Detail.

1:44 If you listen to him at all,

1:45 our view of heard is Instagram stuff on Sundays,

1:47 that should sound familiar to you.

1:49 And then he's got a new ebook

1:50 that kind of gives you a little bit more

1:51 of an inside look at the combat strength training.

1:53 So it's a combat strength training ebook.

1:55 And if that still hasn't reminded you as to who this guy was,

1:58 if you listen to the Joe Rogan experience

2:00 back in March of 2019,

2:02 that's when he appeared on that show.

2:04 And so we go into that here in this episode.

2:06 We talk a lot about his experience with Joe

2:08 and what that was like.

2:09 And that's where I first heard about the guy.

2:11 I'm sure I would have stumbled upon him eventually,

2:13 but that is the first time where I actually saw him.

2:16 And that has increased his profile

2:18 and increased his popularity a lot.

2:19 He has an incredibly popular Instagram account

2:22 where he shows his workouts

2:23 and his marksmanship training, his preparedness drills,

2:26 and a lot more of what we'll just kind of get into here

2:28 in just a second.

2:29 So guys, this is a great interview.

2:31 I literally just hit end on the interview recording with him.

2:35 I just let him go.

2:36 I mean, it's a great treat to have a guy like this

2:38 on the podcast.

2:39 So without further ado, let's get into it.

2:41 Pat McNamara, welcome to Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.

2:46 - Great on.

2:47 Thank you very much for having me.

2:48 - Man, I just got to tell you, I'm so excited.

2:50 Like I'm giddy to have you on the podcast today.

2:52 I've been wanting to get you on here for a long time.

2:53 I'm glad we finally made it work out.

2:55 But the thing about it is, man,

2:56 as I've told the listeners of this podcast,

2:58 you're one of my favorite follows on Instagram.

3:00 I mean, your stuff isn't just, you know,

3:02 motivational and inspirational.

3:04 Like it's very instructional.

3:06 There's a lot of practicality for the things that you say.

3:08 You're very, very entertaining.

3:09 And I guess I feel like I know you, you know what I mean?

3:12 'Cause I've watched your workouts

3:14 and I've watched your shooting instructionals.

3:15 I've watched all the advice that you give on everything.

3:18 It's just awesome.

3:19 And I guess that's a good place as any

3:20 to start the podcast interview.

3:22 So why did you pick Instagram?

3:23 You know, what is it about Instagram

3:25 that made you get started and putting content out there?

3:27 And how do you decide what you put out there

3:30 for all of us to take a look at?

3:32 - You know, it's a funny world that we live in.

3:34 You know, the world of social media and stuff like that.

3:37 And how you mentioned, you know,

3:40 you get to sort of know somebody.

3:43 I think you could get a pretty good feel

3:45 for who somebody is based on the content that they put out.

3:48 'Cause I've met a lot of really good people.

3:51 You know, on or through social media.

3:55 And when I meet them in real life,

3:57 they're pretty much the guy that I figured they would be

4:01 based on what they put out

4:03 and who they represent on their platforms.

4:07 So I'm kind of new to the whole social media thing.

4:12 I mean, I didn't get on Facebook until six years ago.

4:16 I'm a YouTuber, but I didn't get on Facebook

4:20 until six years ago.

4:21 And that's only because somebody was posing as me.

4:23 And then my wife said, "Hey, you need to get on Instagram too."

4:27 And I was like, "All right, we'll try it."

4:29 And initially, it was just fun.

4:31 But I realized that I started getting followers,

4:33 boom, boom, boom, boom, you know, left and right.

4:36 And so I cleaned it up a bunch.

4:40 I made sure that I kept it rated G

4:42 because looking at demographics,

4:43 I had a lot of young people following me.

4:46 And then I kind of filtered through

4:49 and figured out what people wanted.

4:53 And for me, it was, you know, the physical stuff,

4:55 the shooting, you know, basically guy stuff, cars,

4:59 rock and roll.

5:00 And then I started with the Sunday Sentinel Sermons

5:05 and then it blew up even more.

5:07 And then from the Sunday Sentinel Sermons

5:09 into the basic food stuff.

5:12 - Well, in addition to that,

5:13 I feel like you're really authentic

5:15 'cause there's nothing worse than, you know,

5:17 I feel like you know somebody on social media

5:19 and then you meet them in person.

5:20 You feel like you know them,

5:21 but then they're just not that way in person

5:24 and they're just rude or maybe they don't have

5:26 as much personality.

5:27 It's just very disappointing.

5:28 But you mentioned basic dude stuff there.

5:30 And I just got to tell you, that is my favorite.

5:32 Then you do on all of your Instagram

5:34 is every Wednesday you do basic dude stuff.

5:37 So, I mean, it's everything from woodworking

5:40 to time knots, cleaning weapons,

5:42 sharpening a knife with a wet stone,

5:44 training dogs and even cooking a soft boiled egg.

5:46 And I just got to tell you,

5:47 I cooked a soft boiled egg for the first time today.

5:50 It was a little weird,

5:51 but you know, I you inspired me to do that.

5:53 But how did you decide you wanted to start doing basic dude stuff?

5:56 - All right.

5:57 So the story behind that is we had three appliances

6:02 go down at once or in my kitchen.

6:05 And my wife said, hey, let's order, you know,

6:07 this set and there were four of them.

6:09 And I said, oh yeah, sounds good.

6:11 So, you know, complete set, a refrigerator, a dishwasher,

6:14 a oven and a microwave.

6:16 And she said, well, we could have so and so help install them.

6:19 And I went, Rebecca, are you kidding me?

6:21 I am a dude, man.

6:23 I could put all this stuff in myself.

6:25 And I started thinking about it.

6:27 And I was like, you know what?

6:29 There's a lot of guys who can't do like guy stuff.

6:32 And I, as per usual, I have a lot of ideas.

6:37 And I run it by my wife.

6:39 She's like my executive assistant.

6:40 And, you know, 90% of the time she'll she'll get my thumbs down.

6:44 But everyone saw I should go, you know what?

6:46 That's a good idea.

6:47 And I said, and it was an epiphany, boom.

6:50 I said, I'm gonna start jotting down basic dude stuff ideas.

6:55 And it just happened.

6:57 I mean, it was in like a span of five minutes

6:59 in our conversation.

7:01 And I started writing stuff down, you know, in a notebook.

7:04 And I had two pages in about 10 minutes

7:08 of things that I think guys should know how to do.

7:13 And not only that, but it's kind of an instructional

7:17 for, let's say, generation ziers.

7:19 Not so many millennials got to get a bad rap.

7:22 You know, millennials go up to what age?

7:23 35 or something like that.

7:26 But it's a generation ziers that I worry about

7:28 'cause I have two of them.

7:29 I have a 16 and 18 year old.

7:31 And they've never been bored.

7:33 You know, they've always been able to swipe right.

7:35 So there's a lack of creativity and imagination

7:39 with these, they rely solely on technology

7:44 to get them through the day.

7:48 Even if it's napping to the grocery store,

7:50 which is a mile and a half away.

7:52 So I figured, you know what, let me see how this goes.

7:56 And I put the first one up and it exploded,

8:00 the very first one.

8:02 And when I had four of them,

8:04 I lumped them together and put it on my YouTube channel

8:07 and it detonated.

8:09 I was supposed to go, all right,

8:10 I have something here with this basic dude stuff.

8:13 So the notes and the responses have been overwhelming.

8:18 95% positive.

8:22 You know, there's that 5% of [inaudible] bags who say,

8:24 well, you should use this tool or that.

8:27 You're missing the point, man.

8:28 You know, it's not about me upgrading my tools

8:31 or doing something a better way.

8:36 It's just, I know how to do all of the things.

8:39 I can't build a house and I don't have an arc welder,

8:43 but I know how to do all of the guy stuff, you know, all of it.

8:46 And that includes like, you know,

8:49 chivalry and stuff like that.

8:50 When I put in, there was one of them

8:52 where I said, buying your wife flowers,

8:54 I know a special occasion needed is basic dude stuff

8:58 'cause that's just something I do out of habit

9:02 because I love my wife and not just on Valentine's Day,

9:04 but all days of the year.

9:07 The next day after that posted,

9:09 I saw so many guys walking out of my local hairs

9:11 to do with bouquets of flowers and two of them nodded.

9:14 Two of them nodded to me.

9:16 Two of them like, yeah, bro, look, I got my flowers.

9:18 I'm like, good for you, bro.

9:20 - So with that and one of the things

9:21 that I really like about the basic dude stuff,

9:23 is it it points out the stuff in your life

9:25 that you don't exactly have completely squared away

9:29 and it kind of motivates you to try to learn how to fix it.

9:31 And that's one of the things I tried to tell guys

9:33 and encourage guys to do in 2020,

9:34 which is to not just replace it,

9:36 but to learn how to fix it.

9:38 But I just gotta be honest, for me personally,

9:40 I didn't grow up in a household

9:41 where we were constantly fixing things.

9:44 And I had a great dad, I still have a great dad,

9:46 but I wasn't around when he was fixing stuff.

9:49 I was either playing sports or doing stuff for school,

9:51 which I did well in sports and in school.

9:53 And it's just, I wasn't around when a lot of that was happening.

9:55 So I feel like to a certain degree I'm behind.

9:57 So what would you suggest to guys

9:59 that feel like maybe they're a little bit behind,

10:02 they're not caught up on how to do all that stuff

10:05 and how they could get caught up?

10:07 - Well, I think that Wednesday chunk

10:11 is kind of a kick in the pants

10:15 because I have buds who are studs,

10:18 they're men's men and they say, man,

10:21 I don't know any of those knots.

10:22 And they will research it online

10:25 and they've got some lengths of rope

10:26 where they're actually tying knots

10:29 and know the importance of why they should know

10:32 certain anchoring systems

10:33 or why they should be able to cultivate a garden

10:36 or why they should be able to treat their wives

10:41 with their respect and be able to iron their own shirt

10:43 and stuff like that.

10:44 So I think that's the kick in the pants in itself

10:49 is just that one minute of six snippets

10:53 I put out on every Wednesday.

10:55 I think that's, it'll help

11:01 kind of energize those guys who don't know

11:04 all of the basic dude stuff.

11:07 And it's working, it's working

11:11 because people tell me that, hey, man, this is working.

11:15 - Yeah, totally, it's not surprising at all

11:16 that you're getting such positive feedback.

11:18 To be honest, when you said the 5%,

11:19 I thought for a second you were gonna say

11:21 that people were like, oh, this is toxic masculinity.

11:23 What are you saying women can't do this stuff either?

11:26 I mean, I guess I'm assuming you're not really getting

11:27 a lot of feedback like that.

11:28 - Right, no, not the toxic masculinity.

11:31 I get guys who are over, over the top.

11:34 Guys who are beyond basic dude

11:36 and they'll pick one thing out

11:38 and they're, you know, these guys are electricians

11:40 or they're, you know, they're general contractors

11:43 and they say, hey, there's a better way to do that.

11:45 I say, yeah, but do you know how to orient a map?

11:48 I mean, look at the whole segment.

11:51 Don't just pick one thing out and nickel and die me.

11:53 I mean, I'm still getting my point across, aren't I?

11:57 And, you know, I don't even respond to them.

11:59 I just let the inner web take care of it.

12:01 - Fair enough.

12:02 And another thing that you mentioned is that every Sunday

12:04 you do something called the Sunday Sentinel Sermon.

12:07 And I thought that that's had a tremendous impact

12:09 on a lot of guys that certainly has for me,

12:10 but explain to some of the guys listening to this

12:12 that maybe don't know exactly

12:13 what the Sunday Sentinel Sermon is and where it came from.

12:16 - So I wrote a book called Sentinel within the subtitle

12:19 is be the 18 in charge of your own executive protection

12:22 detail and it's a good toilet bowl read.

12:26 You know, it's chock full of little snippets

12:28 and essentially what it does is it takes what an executive

12:33 protection detail does like State Department

12:36 or Secret Service and you whittle it down to a micro level.

12:41 What can I do?

12:43 What can you do to help, you know, protect yourself,

12:47 your family or loved ones at a micro level,

12:51 sort of like what an executive protection detail does,

12:55 but in a more, you know, finite type of or the minutiae

13:00 'cause you can't do what they do on a day-by-day basis

13:05 because it's exhausting.

13:06 So my podcast buddy, CJ Ortiz,

13:11 he's a metal motivator on IG.

13:14 We do the University of Badassery podcast together.

13:17 He's the one who came up with the idea.

13:18 He goes, you know what, man, that Sentinel,

13:20 that dog has hunt and you need to do more of that stuff.

13:24 You need to put some notes out on the interwebs.

13:28 And it was an epiphany moment again.

13:30 I said, I'll call them Sunday Sentinel sermons.

13:33 I mean, it came out that fast.

13:35 So they're just little PSAs.

13:38 They're about, I keep them right at about 30 seconds

13:41 'cause I understand that the attention level

13:43 of human being nowadays is less of that than a goldfish.

13:48 So I try to keep them, you know, short, clear and concise

13:52 and they're just small snippets taken from that book

13:57 on how to make you and your family or your loved ones

14:04 or if you live by yourself

14:07 just a little more secure in today's world.

14:10 - Yeah, every time I watch your Sunday Sentinel sermons,

14:12 I always feel like you bring something up

14:14 that I thought I had nailed down

14:15 or that people, most people think they have nailed down

14:17 that they actually don't.

14:18 And the thing is, is that's just an outworking

14:21 of your level of experience

14:22 and we'll get more into your preparedness

14:24 and military experience and all that stuff

14:25 that kind of gave you that foundation here in just a second.

14:28 But you always bring stuff up that I think I have nailed.

14:31 You brought one thing up, I remember from one of your videos

14:33 on YouTube where you're talking to somebody

14:35 about in your active shooter bag,

14:37 you've actually got an orange vest

14:38 that says security on it.

14:40 - Right.

14:41 - And that's an amazing idea

14:42 because I've always thought about it.

14:43 There was an active shooter situation

14:45 and I'm being engaged by the perpetrator.

14:48 I'm engaging back.

14:49 If the police roll in or swat or something like that,

14:52 how do they know who the good guy and the bad guy is?

14:54 And for that rookie cop,

14:55 that may be a little bit nervous on the trigger,

14:58 that orange vest that says security on it

15:00 is gonna at least make him stop,

15:02 consider a situation,

15:03 run through his personal oodle loop

15:04 and figure out who the threat is.

15:06 So I think that's an incredible asset

15:08 to be able to teach people how to do stuff like that.

15:10 - Yeah, I mean, I'm not telling people anything

15:15 that they don't know,

15:16 but for the most part, it's the refresher.

15:20 You know, it's like, "Oh man, I knew that one time."

15:22 Or, "Oh, I thought about that at this point."

15:25 You know, in most cases,

15:28 I think the guys who follow me,

15:30 it's just a refresher or just a little,

15:34 you know, a reboot

15:35 and they have that realization that,

15:37 "Oh, you know what?

15:39 Why haven't I been doing this?"

15:40 'Cause I know better.

15:42 - Well, we'll go ahead and move into really the reason

15:44 why I know who you are

15:45 and why a lot of the listeners here know who you are.

15:47 And that's because about a year ago,

15:48 a little under a year ago,

15:49 you were actually a guest on the Joe Rogan experience.

15:51 And so I've actually been able to talk to a few people

15:54 that have been interviewed on that podcast before,

15:57 the biggest podcast in the world.

15:58 And so kind of give all the listeners a peek behind the curtain,

16:01 kind of let us know,

16:02 how did you get introduced to Joe?

16:04 Like, what was it like going to the studio?

16:06 What was it like doing the interview afterwards?

16:08 Just kind of give us an idea of your entire experience.

16:11 - So it was probably about a year prior

16:13 to my appearing on his podcast, which was last March.

16:18 I realized that he was following me on social media.

16:25 And not soon after that, he pinged me and said,

16:29 "Hey, would you be a guest?"

16:31 And at the time, my schedule was jam-packed

16:34 and I had to tell him no, which is horrible

16:38 because I was traveling every weekend.

16:42 So we've pinged each other a couple times during that year.

16:47 And then a year ago, right about now, I pinged him back

16:52 and I said, "Hey, I've got some time

16:55 if you'd had me on your podcast."

16:57 And he got right back to me.

16:59 And he said, "Absolutely."

17:00 He threw out a couple of dates and I said, "I'll be there."

17:03 So it was about a year ago now or a year ago March.

17:06 And I had just enough time to go out,

17:11 do the interview and come back.

17:12 It was like in a day and a half span.

17:15 Flew out there, went to his office,

17:20 which is just north of LA.

17:22 Nice industrial type of area.

17:26 And his building's real benign

17:28 and introduced by one of his,

17:32 or one of his assistants met me,

17:35 walked into his office, which you walk right into this gym,

17:39 which is a really cool gym.

17:41 And then what captivated me is the next room I went into.

17:44 He had this '70s vintage pool table, nine footer,

17:48 and it was a beautiful pool table.

17:50 And you could tell it was old,

17:51 but we felt it and just beautiful in my wife

17:54 and I shoot pool a lot.

17:56 And we're no slubs, we're pretty good.

17:59 She's better than I am, by the way.

18:01 But anyway, but we shoot well.

18:05 So he comes out and because of the interweb once again,

18:11 it's like we've already known each other.

18:12 So we gave each other a big man hug and chatted about,

18:17 we exchanged about four words, and he goes, do you shoot?

18:21 And I go, yeah, he goes, you want to shoot a game?

18:23 I said, yeah.

18:25 And now Joe is an aspiring pro, a pool player.

18:29 - Right.

18:30 - I mean, he's good.

18:31 So we shot a game and I was, he kicked my ass,

18:37 but what I was happy about is that he saw

18:39 that I was able to play 'cause I made a couple of good shots.

18:42 So we shot that game of pool,

18:45 and then we just got right down the business,

18:48 went into his little recording studio.

18:54 And the cool thing about him is that he is,

18:58 he's a great moderator.

18:59 I do a bunch, I do a lot of podcasts.

19:02 He is interested and interesting.

19:05 He knows something about everything.

19:08 And I liked how the flow went because it wasn't typical

19:13 'cause a lot of times when I do a podcast,

19:16 it's sort of typical, but he was all over the map.

19:20 And man, that time, SLU was like two and a half hours,

19:23 I think, it was pretty long, but it flew by.

19:27 But it was a great experience.

19:30 He was a great guy, when we were done,

19:34 I basically just said, see you later and walked out

19:37 'cause he hasn't got the one to go right after me.

19:40 'Cause he just backs to back and he'll do three a day sometime.

19:44 - Man, that's awesome.

19:45 I really appreciate you sharing that with us.

19:47 I mean, I remember last year when I was kind of recapping

19:49 my favorite episodes of any podcast that I listened to that year,

19:52 and that was one of my favorite episodes that I listened to.

19:54 It was just so enthralling,

19:56 and I even re-watched it last night on YouTube.

19:58 And it was just such a, yeah, I mean, you mentioned

20:01 how quickly the time went, it's because it was so fluid.

20:04 And I mean, even when you're watching, you know, my end,

20:07 it seems so fluid because y'all are just kind of

20:10 easily going through the conversation in and out.

20:13 I know that's gotta be frustrating for the people

20:14 that, you know, end up making the YouTube clips

20:17 for Joe Rogan, you know, about the clips

20:19 about certain subjects because he flips back and forth

20:21 and so does the people that he interviews.

20:23 And, but that's why it's so interesting to listen to.

20:26 That's why you can listen to a podcast of his

20:28 that's two or three or four hours long

20:30 and not be bored, you know what I mean?

20:32 - Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

20:33 Yeah, good point, yeah, but yeah, I love the flow.

20:37 It went well and, you know, it wasn't exhausted

20:41 when it finished, but I haven't listened to it

20:45 and I probably won't.

20:47 - Wait, wait, wait, so like not at all?

20:48 - No, no, I don't, I do a lot of podcasts.

20:53 I even have my own and I don't even listen

20:55 to the ones that I do.

20:57 - Wow, so is it just that you're nervous

20:59 that you have misspoke or just said something

21:01 or just kind of came off sounding stupid

21:03 or something like that?

21:03 - Yeah, yeah, that, that right there.

21:06 Yeah, that, you know, I don't want to hear myself

21:10 sounding like a tool in the event that I did.

21:13 - Well, I guess, you know, I go back

21:14 and listen to all my episodes and I am my own worst critic.

21:17 I mean, if I didn't enunciate something properly

21:19 or if I said someone's name wrong or, I mean,

21:22 I've even gone back and like tried to correct the record

21:24 'cause someone pointed out, hey, you said the wrong movie

21:26 there and it's like, ah, crap.

21:27 So it's just kind of how it goes,

21:29 but that's just how I process stuff.

21:30 But I wanted to talk to you a little bit about as well

21:32 'cause this came out a lot with your interview with Joe Rogan,

21:35 but it's just your overall ideas

21:37 when it comes to being prepared.

21:38 Just having a preparedness to be able to act

21:41 in every way that that might be required of you.

21:43 And so that obviously for you comes from your military

21:46 background because for you, you spent over 20 years

21:49 in the United States Army and that entire time

21:51 you were in special operations, correct?

21:53 - Correct, yeah, 22 years special ops

21:55 and it was a really good, it's only been as of recent

22:02 that I reflected upon it.

22:05 And it was because of like doing podcasts

22:07 because I'm not one of those rests on your laurels.

22:11 You know, dudes, I was a bad ass yesterday

22:13 but I'm a bad ass tomorrow.

22:15 And when I reflected on it, I went, man,

22:19 that is a cool ass career, you know, like book worthy stuff

22:22 which I won't do a book on my career.

22:25 But I was very fortunate in, on so many levels,

22:32 because it could have gone, it could have gone south.

22:35 You know, anytime a guy goes into a special ops career,

22:38 there's so much luck involved

22:39 and there's so many variables that can change the direction

22:44 on your projected path that you never know

22:49 if it's gonna pan out.

22:52 And just making certain selections in certain schools,

22:55 the attrition rate, you know,

22:56 and all these things is astronomical.

22:59 So I was very fortunate, I mean, I was, you know,

23:03 what they call SF baby.

23:04 So I went to the Special Forces course on my 19th birthday.

23:08 So I just finished base training and jump school,

23:13 made it through the SF course and not easily.

23:16 And then I went to Halo School, Combat Dive School

23:22 and got another Special Forces MOS.

23:25 And I did that all before I was 22.

23:27 Or at, by the time I was 22,

23:29 and then I had a couple Cold War jobs

23:32 and then went to the unit selection in '91,

23:37 made that and stayed there for, you know,

23:39 and used to stock for 13 years, retired in '05.

23:43 So it was a really good career.

23:46 I got to do pretty much everything.

23:49 And I left it with no regrets.

23:51 You know, I left it pretty fulfilled.

23:55 So, 'cause that's a horrible thing, you know,

23:57 when you leave a career and you have regrets,

23:59 like, oh, I should've done this or should've done that.

24:01 Should've would've could've.

24:02 Man, it was should've would've could've.

24:04 Well, you know, they could haunt you for a long, long time.

24:07 So I was able to, you know, pursue that career,

24:12 finish it with no should've would've could've.

24:14 - Yeah, you mentioned several times there,

24:15 the should've would've could've.

24:17 And I've got a buddy of mine that was

24:18 in the Special Operations community.

24:20 And, you know, he has some regrets when it comes to,

24:23 and I know a lot of guys in the military actually

24:25 just have regrets around, you know,

24:27 when they were the point man on a mission

24:28 and somebody died and, you know, you know,

24:30 living with that and trying to figure out

24:32 what could I've done differently?

24:33 How could I've trained better?

24:34 Like, why did I make that decision?

24:35 And you guys kind of walk around with that.

24:37 But one thing that you mentioned as well is

24:40 that you are not gonna be writing a book about your career.

24:42 And that's one thing that I've encouraged my buddy to do

24:45 to actually get his thoughts down about his career.

24:48 And to be honest, that actually seems

24:49 to be a really popular thing right now

24:51 for former Green Berets or seals or SF guys

24:54 to write autobiographies and memoirs

24:56 about their time in the military.

24:57 And those are some of my favorite books that I've read.

24:59 But you, as kind of a matter of factly,

25:01 said that that's not gonna be you.

25:02 So why is that something that you don't see yourself doing?

25:06 - Well, now I'm in the process of writing another book

25:11 and I'm gonna put military stuff in there,

25:14 but it's not gonna be solely a military career book

25:17 only because I don't wanna disclose stuff

25:20 that shouldn't be disclosed.

25:21 I have a lot of sayings.

25:24 But one of my sayings is dark people work

25:27 in the dark places of the world and do dark things

25:31 and nobody needs to know about it.

25:33 There's some things that people just don't need to know about.

25:36 At least not in writing.

25:37 I will tell as many anecdotes in person as a guy wants to hear

25:42 but I don't wanna put it on paper or on tape

25:48 because there's certain things that shouldn't be disclosed.

25:51 And it's a pet peeve of mine

25:54 when guys disclose operations

25:57 or certain aspects of training that shouldn't be talked about.

26:02 Yeah, it's not my style and I won't do that.

26:09 I won't do that.

26:10 I won't sell out.

26:12 - Fair enough.

26:12 Well, one thing that I've seen a lot in a lot of your videos

26:15 and the stuff that you post online

26:16 is that you don't just preach that people need to be prepared

26:19 that you actually teach this,

26:20 that you actually go around

26:22 and you teach a lot of preparedness classes

26:23 and a lot of marksmanship classes as an expert.

26:26 And so the thing is you've probably seen hundreds,

26:28 if not thousands of people on the range

26:31 with their different firearms and all the mistakes

26:34 and the different things that they do wrong.

26:35 So for you, what do you feel like

26:37 is the most common mistake you see people make

26:39 with their marksmanship?

26:44 One is people are consumed with the feeder aspects,

26:49 fast, trick shooting, that kind of thing,

26:54 but they couldn't hit the broad side of a bar.

26:57 So there's a big lack with a lot of it.

27:00 There's a big lack of concentration on the fundamentals,

27:03 absolute bearbone fundamentals.

27:05 The thing is it's not sexy.

27:07 Working the absolute bearbone fundamentals isn't sexy.

27:10 And in typical guy fashion,

27:12 we guys are very good at practicing what we are good at.

27:15 But at the end of the day, what matters is,

27:19 being able to discern, discriminate,

27:21 and be able to fire a weapon with impunity

27:24 knowing that that shot is going to be there

27:27 when that hammer falls.

27:29 I mean, that is, to me, absolute, that's number one.

27:32 And a lot of guys neglect that.

27:35 If they're pistol training,

27:37 they rarely go beyond the 10-yard line.

27:39 With me on the range, they're gonna go to 50,

27:41 and that's five zero-yard line,

27:44 all the way back there with a pistol.

27:47 And they'll have a,

27:50 they will surprise themselves.

27:53 They'll enter the world of cognitive dissonance

27:56 where they're like, holy crap,

27:57 I actually hit stuff at 50 yards,

28:00 'cause it's unfathomable for them

28:02 to be at 50-yard line with a pistol.

28:05 So I don't do anything closer than 10 yards.

28:08 Everything is pushed back.

28:10 And I work absolute bare-blown fundamentals.

28:13 And I inject a lot of sports psychology into my training,

28:19 too, a lot of focus.

28:22 It's very martial art-esque, it's very cognitive.

28:25 And it's not rolling in the dirt

28:29 and shooting between your legs.

28:31 And there's a lot more thought process involved.

28:36 And the other thing that I do different

28:39 than most people is I work performance-based training

28:41 versus outcome-based training,

28:42 which is outcome-based training I define

28:45 as execution with consideration of the consequence,

28:47 will I succeed or will I fail?

28:49 It's basically how many, how much, how fast.

28:52 And when we're living in that world,

28:53 we're kind of stuck in a rut.

28:55 There's no progress being made

28:56 because we're adhering to some [inaudible] arbitrary standard

28:59 at some dude wrote down and put in a book.

29:01 So I work performance-based training

29:03 and it understands that we all perform differently

29:05 in performances measured by doing what we can

29:07 with what we have.

29:08 So I allow the individual to set a standard for himself

29:11 and then I discuss ways of how to make incremental improvements

29:15 based on that previous performance.

29:17 So it's attractive and palatable

29:22 to the intended recipient when we work in that world

29:25 because the pressure's off.

29:27 Oh, there's no pressure.

29:28 I don't have to adhere to Pat Mack's standard.

29:30 It's holy crap.

29:31 So now they see improvement a lot faster.

29:35 You know, on a personal level,

29:37 they see improvement a lot faster.

29:39 So I have fun with it

29:41 and what guys realize is damp.

29:45 I don't work enough on proper bullet placement,

29:48 you know, on accuracy, on doing stuff in slow motion,

29:52 making sure that my repetitions are so meaningful

29:56 that I'm able to etch these skills

29:58 into my hard drive so that I can access them

30:00 on a subconscious level.

30:02 - Yeah, I'm really glad you mentioned there

30:03 and you brought up the subconscious level

30:05 that a lot of us guys kind of go through

30:06 because there is kind of this thing

30:08 when we're at the range

30:09 and if you don't go beyond 10 yards,

30:11 the reason is 'cause you probably feel like

30:12 you can't hit anything.

30:13 And I remember the first time that I kind of surprised myself.

30:17 I went out with my cousin,

30:18 my cousin's on the SWAT team

30:19 in the local police department in my town that I live in

30:21 and he took me out to the police range

30:24 and he put me at 50 yards with my pistol

30:26 and I'm like, what in the world are we doing at 50 yards?

30:28 And he's like, no, seriously,

30:29 he showed me a couple of things.

30:30 And then I hit four, five, six, seven shots in a row

30:33 at 50 yards.

30:34 I was like, whoa, like this is insane.

30:36 And not that long after that.

30:37 Maybe six months to a year after that,

30:39 I'm with one of my buddies out on his land,

30:41 somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma.

30:43 And I had just gotten a six-hour 1911 from my dad as a gift

30:47 and he basically, my buddy's like, well, hey,

30:50 see if you can hit that target.

30:51 There was a 10-inch steel plate

30:53 on the other side of his pond

30:55 and that was probably at 150, 160 yards away,

30:58 something like that.

30:59 First shot through the barrel

31:00 had never shot that gun in my entire life.

31:03 Ping, I hit it.

31:04 - Wow. - Like I nail it.

31:05 And it's just like, it was just this insane feeling.

31:08 And even he was like, whoa, what the heck was that?

31:11 But he and I kind of traded shots for a bit.

31:13 And out of 10, he and I probably hit that target

31:15 three or four times.

31:16 And I'm sure we made a lot of mechanical mistakes

31:18 and stuff like that.

31:19 But just being able to hit a target at that distance

31:22 with your pistol is just an incredible feeling.

31:25 But that's a feeling that most guys can get

31:27 if they just push themselves a little bit, you know what I mean?

31:30 - Right, yeah, exactly.

31:31 And when you guys say, when they go, oh, I'm not going back

31:36 past 10 because I probably won't hit it,

31:38 there's a lot of, I say that limits the game

31:43 where vision ends or we cannot perform our self-image.

31:47 So if you're thinking that already,

31:51 then you're doomed.

31:53 If you have those negative thoughts prior to that training

31:56 event, regardless of what the training is,

31:58 then you're doomed from the start.

32:00 But if somebody shows you first, like, let's say,

32:04 Roger Banister Effect, like, let me show you

32:07 that this can be done and dang.

32:08 And then you shoot it with their gun on top of it

32:11 because they might think, well, you might have

32:13 a mechanical advantage.

32:14 - Right, right.

32:15 - And then you do something with their own machinery

32:17 and then they go, holy crap.

32:20 So the Roger Banister Effect takes over.

32:22 They're like, oh man, I can do this, holy crap.

32:24 'Cause I've seen it done and I've seen it done with my gear.

32:27 So, yeah, it opens up a whole new door for them.

32:32 It's amazing, it's amazing, I love that.

32:34 So for the people who don't know, you know,

32:36 Roger Banister Effect, what is it, 1953?

32:39 Nobody to break the four minute, four minute, one mile time.

32:44 - Right.

32:45 - It's scientists thought that, you know,

32:47 your heart's gonna explode.

32:48 Warren, everybody was, a lot of people are close.

32:51 You know, there was 401s and between 401s and 410s, a bunch of them.

32:57 But Warren, Roger Banister did it

32:59 then several other people did it as well,

33:04 but not until he did it, you know, so that's basically it.

33:08 And that's a real nutshell, but that's the Roger Banister Effect.

33:11 - Yeah, and another thing about preparedness

33:13 is, you know, basically what you have on you.

33:15 I know there are guys right now that are probably like,

33:16 "Oh, you better ask him about his DDC.

33:18 You better ask him."

33:19 Yes, I'm gonna ask you about what's in your everyday carry.

33:22 So I wanna have an idea as to kind of what you have on you

33:24 at all times, but also, I know that you carry a firearm

33:27 just about anywhere that you can legally, right?

33:29 And the question that I do get from time to time

33:32 and I even had a buddy just recently ask me is,

33:34 you know, what's the best position to carry that firearm?

33:36 Like, do I wanna carry out a pin mix?

33:38 Three o'clock, four o'clock.

33:39 And, you know, it's kind of different for every person,

33:41 but I wanted to kind of get your opinion of that.

33:42 So if you would, give us your DDC and also tell us what you do

33:46 in terms of your preferred carry position for your firearm.

33:49 - Right, so number one, there might be guys out there

33:52 who don't carry or, you know, it's a pain in the ass

33:55 to get a license from the state.

33:57 And they say, "Ah, I'm not carrying yet, what should I do?"

34:01 Number one is have a good flashlight on you at all times.

34:05 You know, and be able to deploy and employ that thing,

34:10 a good handheld flashlight with like an o-ring on it

34:15 or some kind of lanyard where you're not gonna lose it.

34:19 You know, that's, to me, that's number one.

34:21 I use the flashlight more than anything.

34:24 So have that and you have to have a good knife on you.

34:27 And I'm not talking a fighting blade,

34:28 but a good pocket knife, you know, a good utility type of knife.

34:33 That should be on you at all times as well.

34:37 And then for my weapon, I carry primarily Glock 19

34:42 and it's church stuff, it's pretty sexy.

34:46 It shoots really well.

34:47 And I carry appendix.

34:49 Now, how you carry is a very personal choice.

34:53 What works for me may not necessarily work for somebody else

34:57 based on how they dress, you know, the uniform they wear,

35:01 their body composition, their athleticism,

35:04 their level of training, all that stuff.

35:07 But for me, appendix works really well.

35:10 It's very comfortable.

35:11 I could, I'm built so that I could carry appendix

35:16 even with a t-shirt and only a guy

35:19 who's got a really good trained eye

35:21 is going to notice that, you know, everybody else is.

35:25 But it prints very little.

35:27 And I like that and I can, I have complete mobility with that.

35:33 I could jump, I could run, it's not gonna fall out.

35:37 I could get in a fist fight

35:39 and it's not going to impede my movements.

35:43 It's fast on the draw strokes, you guys might say,

35:46 yeah, if you carry four o'clock, it's a lot faster.

35:48 Like, well, you know, it all depends

35:50 on your level of training.

35:52 You know, what's fast to you may not be fast to me.

35:55 So I'm pretty confident in my ability

35:59 to be able to draw and hit somebody

36:02 with intended lethality in, you know,

36:06 in those couple of nanoseconds.

36:09 And I could also, you know, grapple without having

36:13 to worry about it being, you know, taken from me

36:17 because we do that at my gym.

36:19 We, you know, we roll and fight and stuff with guns on us

36:23 because that's a really good way to determine whether

36:30 or not what you're carrying is in the right position

36:34 and it's comfortable for you.

36:36 You know, if you're leaving a yard sale all over the place,

36:38 when you were, you know, running or moving

36:41 or jumping over something or in a tussle with somebody,

36:44 it's probably not in the right place.

36:46 So you need to reevaluate and rethink

36:48 how you're carrying or where you're carrying it.

36:50 But that's basically in the show.

36:51 And then I carry a spare mag in my back pocket.

36:54 What else I carry on me?

36:56 Those are the big ones.

36:58 And then I have stuff that I always have in my car too.

37:00 So, but those, that's what I have on my body,

37:03 I'm my person.

37:04 - Yeah, there's some guys that I talked to

37:06 and you know, these are the guys that are like,

37:07 hey, I don't need to learn how to fight.

37:09 I don't need to be ready.

37:09 I have a gun on me.

37:10 I'm going to have a gun in the car,

37:11 the guns in the glove box or the situation might be.

37:14 But there are stories all the time of things that come up

37:16 where your guns just not near you.

37:18 There was one here recently with my wife.

37:20 We have some studio spaces in Oklahoma City

37:22 and we go to one of our studio spaces

37:24 and this is like probably 10, 30, 11 o'clock at night.

37:26 And we needed to go around, like we needed to go inside,

37:29 go around to the back and like kind of just, you know,

37:31 grab a couple of things.

37:32 We were not going to be there more than two, three minutes.

37:34 And so we just leave the front door wide open.

37:36 It was like summertime, it was fine.

37:38 And so we go back in the back and I come out of the back.

37:42 And when I come around the corner,

37:43 there's a guy standing in the open doorway.

37:46 Again, this is a 10, 30, 11 o'clock at night on a Friday.

37:49 He seems shocked to see me, absolutely shocked to see me.

37:53 But at the time, I don't know who this guy is.

37:55 I don't know if he's a neighbor.

37:56 I don't know if my wife knows him.

37:57 So I kind of take a step back.

37:59 I put my hand kind of closer to my gun,

38:01 which was at four o'clock at that particular time.

38:03 And when my wife came around the corner,

38:05 she goes, oh hi, are you here to see the studio?

38:08 She didn't know the guy, right?

38:10 And so the guy's like, no, no, I saw the door open

38:14 and I just figured I'd make sure everything was okay.

38:16 And I was like, all right, buddy, okay, have a good night.

38:19 See ya.

38:20 And so the guy leaves, my wife doesn't think anything of it.

38:22 We get back in the truck and as we're driving away,

38:24 I get a couple of miles down the road

38:25 and I just go, sweetheart,

38:27 this is one of those situations that I'm talking to you about

38:29 because she doesn't want to have her gun on her, right?

38:31 She just wants to have it in her purse.

38:33 The purse might be in her car.

38:34 It might be on her shoulder, it's just, you never know.

38:36 And I said, look, in that exact scenario,

38:39 that guy was between you and your force multiplier.

38:43 - Right.

38:44 - Because if you had just ran inside real quick

38:45 and I wasn't there and your gun was in your purse,

38:48 which is in your car, now what's the plan?

38:51 - Right.

38:52 - Because you've got a guy that you don't know

38:53 that is in between you and potentially safety, right?

38:57 And you just have to think through those situations

38:59 and think, what would I do?

39:00 And that's why I run into so many guys,

39:03 it's just, they haven't figured out the most convenient way

39:05 or best way to carry on their person quite yet.

39:08 And that's the reason why they don't carry,

39:10 which isn't a great excuse to me,

39:12 but that is what stops some people, you know what I mean?

39:14 - Yeah, yeah, it's funny I have a quick anecdote for you as well.

39:19 It was right before I wrote Sentinel.

39:21 I was looking for a condo close to my home,

39:26 domestic messiness and all that stuff.

39:29 And I got with this realtor

39:31 and she was a nice looking lady.

39:32 She didn't know me from Adam, you know, she's a realtor.

39:35 She's a nice looking lady and I met her

39:38 and she showed me this place.

39:40 And she's walking around with impunity.

39:42 And we have a closed door behind us, you know, me

39:46 and this young, good looking, small, built woman.

39:51 And she's crawling around and going,

39:54 oh yeah, it has this little doorway here

39:56 and we're going into dark places in this building.

40:01 And I had to give her an ass to her and I said,

40:03 hey, I gotta tell you, you know, you don't know me from Adam.

40:06 You know, you let, you're doing this all wrong.

40:09 First of all, you're not looking, you know, where you're going,

40:11 you know, you have no situation awareness.

40:16 You don't know where I am in this building,

40:19 but I had a long talk with her about that

40:21 because her situation awareness and her comfort level

40:25 was two, she was way too comfortable.

40:28 And I think a lot of people are nowadays,

40:30 they're just complacent.

40:31 You know, they're, they've relinquished their natural defense

40:34 mechanisms as a human being, you know,

40:36 which is that situation awareness and lack of complacency.

40:39 But yeah, anyway.

40:41 - That's an excellent point,

40:42 especially when you're talking about complacency.

40:43 And I guess we can just move on to the, to this next part,

40:46 which is one place that you are clearly not complacent at all

40:49 is when it comes to your overall physicality

40:51 and your exercise regiments and the things that you work on.

40:54 And the thing is, there's so many different philosophies

40:56 out there now when it comes to working out.

40:58 And I'm not even gonna go through them now,

40:59 but I think your philosophy, I think it would be fair to say

41:01 that your philosophy can be summed up

41:03 with combat strength training.

41:05 So this is something that if you go to combatstrengetraining.com,

41:08 you can check this out.

41:09 He's got an ebook on there as well.

41:11 But give us an idea as to what CST is

41:15 and why it's important for guys to train in this way.

41:18 - So it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a program

41:21 that retrofits the combat chassis

41:23 so that it performs more efficiently

41:25 at near maximum capacity.

41:27 I'd like to break the work week down into basically,

41:31 you know, five different days.

41:34 A power day, strength day, speed and quickness,

41:37 hypertrophy and skills.

41:39 And then I have a formula that says work in anaerobic chunks

41:44 in circuit to near metabolic threshold

41:48 to meet an aerobic goal.

41:49 So time management at the forefront,

41:53 I'm not working out more than 30 minutes per day.

41:56 Because if you're doing it right, that's all you need.

41:59 And the other thing is there's,

42:01 I'm always doing something different.

42:03 So each day or the day before, prior to work out,

42:07 I developed in my head what I'm going to do for that day.

42:11 I already have a guideline, let's say a strength,

42:14 like today was a strength day.

42:16 On the drive to, to my gym,

42:18 I figured out what I was going to do.

42:20 Because I don't want to get into a routine.

42:23 One thing is the routine is a playground of a dull mind.

42:27 And if you're in a routine,

42:28 you're going to fall into a run of complacent adaptation.

42:31 You're not going to see improvement.

42:33 And you're not going to be able to recognize voice

42:36 if you're doing the same thing over and over.

42:38 So I like to always mix stuff up and confuse the body.

42:40 Those are big ones that guys neglect.

42:44 You know, those are huge.

42:46 Another thing that I do every day is work

42:48 in the transverse planes.

42:49 So you have three different planes of motion.

42:52 You have frontal sagittal and transverse.

42:54 Most guys live in a sagittalistic world

42:57 where they're doing bench press and curls

42:58 and stuff like that.

42:59 You can't bench press your way out of a burning building.

43:03 The most important plane of motion that we could work

43:05 is that transverse plane, that rotational.

43:08 In the transverse plane lives ass kicking and life saving.

43:11 I would also to say that the most neglected plane of motion

43:17 is the transverse plane.

43:20 You know, when we work out, that rotational stuff.

43:22 So every day I'm doing something transverse.

43:25 I'm also loading differently on each side.

43:28 And there's very little conventional stuff.

43:33 Every once in a while we do some Olympic lifts

43:35 because they're great.

43:36 You know, Olympic lifts are great for you.

43:38 But most of the time I'm mixing it up.

43:42 And I have a couple guys I train every day at noon

43:44 and their body types are completely different.

43:49 They, that's why I break the body down

43:51 into different combat chassis types

43:53 because once again it's performance based

43:56 and performance based training recognizes

43:59 that we all perform differently

44:00 and it could be measured by doing what we can

44:01 with what we have.

44:03 So it's very malleable and fashion

44:07 and that guys can adjust it

44:10 and work within their capability limit.

44:13 But yeah, I have a lot of fun with it.

44:16 And I have, I am, I am my machine.

44:21 My combat chassis is running very well

44:24 at I'll be 55 in two months and it's running very well,

44:27 especially considering the mileage that I have.

44:29 You know, anybody who's doing a career in ground pounding

44:33 has a lot of miles.

44:34 They're hard, hard miles on that combat chassis.

44:37 So not only hard miles, but I had, you know,

44:40 I retired with four reconstructive surgeries

44:42 and 13 broken bones.

44:43 So in most cases a guy finishes a career

44:48 with those kind of injuries

44:50 and he's put out the pasture, you know, he's done.

44:55 He's riding that couch for the rest of his life.

44:59 But I did not want to be like that.

45:00 I started training smart in my, I think early 30s,

45:05 maybe it was, I started training smarter

45:07 and it has really paid off.

45:09 The age thing guys always are amazed, you know,

45:13 like holy [inaudible], bro, are you kidding me?

45:16 What do you eat, you know, or what do you do?

45:17 And I tell them about the programming.

45:20 I mean, the older I get, so long as I could stay fit,

45:25 the more legitimate or, you know, the more affirmation

45:28 I get from what I am doing.

45:31 It's a good program.

45:33 And the other thing is it's fun and it's interesting.

45:37 And it helps to mitigate the mundane, you know,

45:40 that stuck in a rut type of feeling or that routine

45:43 because you're always doing something different.

45:45 You just, the only routine thing about it

45:48 is Monday's power day, Tuesday's strength,

45:52 Wednesday's speed and quickness,

45:54 Thursday's hypertrophy, Friday's skills.

45:56 And if you don't have five days,

45:57 you could lump a couple of them.

45:59 You could lump power and speed and quickness

46:02 and you could lump strength and hypertrophy, for example.

46:06 So I like to mitigate as many excuses as possible.

46:08 And the other one that I helped to mitigate is,

46:11 bro, I don't have gym or gear.

46:15 So I'm a minimalist when it comes to working out.

46:17 I don't need a lot.

46:20 I mean, I do workouts on the range

46:23 with a cinder block and a couple chunks of wood.

46:26 And I get a better workout than guys

46:28 who are going to LA fitness.

46:30 - Yeah, I think you're nailing it, Pat,

46:32 especially when you're talking about the excuses.

46:33 So many guys just put every excuse they could possibly

46:36 think of out there as to why they shouldn't be able

46:37 to do things.

46:38 I even talked to a guy that's like,

46:39 yeah, I stopped working out for 10 years

46:41 because I had kids.

46:42 It's like, that can't really be your excuse

46:44 because the thing is, is you're a guy in your mid 50s.

46:46 That's not just aging.

46:48 You're aging dangerously because you're learning more.

46:50 You're taking more things into your brain.

46:52 And then if you guys didn't catch it,

46:53 your combat chassis is your body.

46:55 But you keep working out your combat chassis.

46:57 And you hear these guys that are like,

46:59 I don't need to be in shape.

47:00 I don't need to be able to run or fight

47:01 or train you Jitsu or Muay Thai or boxing or any of that

47:04 because I have a gun, right?

47:05 But what if you get a fight in an airport

47:07 or someplace where you can't have a gun?

47:08 Like you're not always going to be able

47:10 to depend on the firearm to save you.

47:12 And the thing with you that I think I like so much

47:14 about your workout regimen is you're really big

47:16 on having a lot of different ways

47:18 of being able to work out, right?

47:20 So you work out with bands

47:21 and you've even got your own workout resistance bands

47:24 are called get you some bands.

47:25 We'll make sure we put those in the show notes

47:27 so you guys can check those out.

47:28 But you work out with Freeway,

47:29 you work out with kettlebells,

47:30 you mentioned blocks of wood earlier,

47:32 like you just get your work in.

47:34 But the thing that I like about combat strength training

47:36 is it's not just training for whatever.

47:39 You're not just training because you want to look good

47:40 in a bathing suit.

47:41 You don't want to be embarrassed at a pool party

47:43 and your clothes will fit better.

47:44 Those are all things that'll come with it.

47:46 But you've got four specific goals

47:48 as to why you train this way.

47:50 And I love it.

47:51 So I just want to go over the goals for our listeners.

47:53 The first goal is self-preservation longevity.

47:56 - Bingo.

47:56 - The second goal is to be able to save your own life.

47:59 The third goal is to be able to save the lives

48:01 of your family or friends.

48:02 And the fourth is to crush bad guys, right?

48:05 I mean, that's the whole thing is that's,

48:07 that's a very much so sheep dog mindset.

48:10 But I feel like so many men today

48:12 just struggle with having that mindset at all.

48:14 They struggle with the idea that they're ever going to have

48:16 to use their body or something near them to end a threat,

48:20 to engage somebody.

48:21 They just want to walk around with their hands over their eyes

48:23 and hands over their ears and pretend

48:24 like nothing bad could possibly happen.

48:26 It's kind of, it reminds me that poem

48:28 that I bring up all the time on the show,

48:29 which is, and I don't even know who wrote it,

48:31 but it's hard times make strong men,

48:33 strong men make good times, good times make weak men,

48:37 weak men make hard times.

48:38 And I just gotta be honest, I feel like right now

48:40 we're in this moment where we've got a lot of weak men

48:43 that are gonna be creating some hard times for us

48:45 that are just over the hill, right?

48:47 I mean, these are gonna be just facing us right,

48:49 right down in our faces before too long.

48:51 I feel like we're in that.

48:52 So I just want you to kind of talk even a little bit further

48:55 about why CST is so important

48:57 and to train with those four different ideas in mind

49:01 are so important and why it is so important to be a sheepdog.

49:04 - Yeah, so anything can happen to anybody at any time.

49:08 We don't plan to fail, but we fail to plan.

49:11 And our lack of preparedness is basically lack of will

49:16 and a lot of it is just character motivation.

49:20 I am not worried about taking care of myself.

49:24 One of my biggest worries is, you know,

49:27 not being prepared to take care of somebody else, you know,

49:30 to be somebody else's Batman.

49:32 I mean, I want to be able to help other people.

49:35 Not me, I'm good, I'm good.

49:36 I don't carry a gun to protect myself.

49:39 I carry to protect the sheep.

49:41 The sheep don't want my health, but guess what?

49:43 I mean, they can give it to them anyway.

49:45 And I will not relinquish an opportunity to be Batman

49:49 and you can be Batman at any level.

49:51 That can be helping somebody to change a tire, you know,

49:53 or push their car out of the road

49:54 because, you know, they got in an accident

49:57 or to help, you know, help somebody out of a burning building.

50:00 I can't imagine having, you know, the burden,

50:06 having a shoulder, a burden of not being able

50:09 to help somebody in need.

50:11 And that's my biggest, that's my number one reason.

50:16 You know, besides self-preservation longevity,

50:19 you know, being able to save my life,

50:20 somebody else's life or taking somebody's ass.

50:22 You know, the self-preservation longevity

50:25 and how you look, those are byproducts.

50:28 That's all byproducts stuff.

50:30 And it's, you're going to look better, you know,

50:32 you're getting sexier and you're going to feel better,

50:34 you're going to live longer.

50:36 Those are byproducts.

50:38 But the big ones, man, I want to be there for somebody,

50:43 you know, when [inaudible] hits the fan.

50:47 And it doesn't have to be, you know, a catastrophic event.

50:52 It can be, you know, helping a mom whose kid fell off

50:55 a bicycle and you got to carry this kid home

50:59 without getting smoked because you're walking 200 yards

51:02 with 80 pounds in your hands.

51:04 But I think those are the big ones.

51:06 And for the guys who are like,

51:08 eh, you know, nothing's going to happen to me.

51:11 Yeah, but it might happen to somebody else

51:13 and you need to be there to help them.

51:15 You know, it doesn't have to be your kids

51:17 or your wife, to be somebody else's.

51:19 And you should be there as a human being, you know,

51:23 it's your duty to help other human beings.

51:26 So I don't know, I don't get the mindset,

51:31 but I hope it resonates.

51:33 You know, when I talk about that,

51:34 usually that resonates with people more than anything.

51:38 When I see guys who are out of shape, like in my courses,

51:41 you know, they let themselves go

51:46 and I can see if they have good footwork, you know,

51:48 that they're the good shooters, but they've let themselves go.

51:51 What I do this tactfully,

51:55 but I say, hey, man, you have to be there for other people.

51:57 Do you have kids?

51:58 You've got to be there for them.

51:59 You know, think about them.

52:01 Think about your wife.

52:02 And that usually resonates better

52:05 than take care of yourself, you know,

52:08 'cause self guys are like, eh, you know, whatever.

52:11 No, take care of somebody else.

52:13 And usually that's a good kick in the pants

52:16 for another human being.

52:17 'Cause they're like, damn, bro, you're right, man.

52:19 I got to take care of other people.

52:21 I got to be there for my kids, for my wife,

52:22 for my family, for my community, whoever it is.

52:26 And I don't know that resonates and it's more palatable.

52:30 - Yeah, you're definitely preaching to the choir here.

52:32 I mean, and I do everything that I can,

52:34 even just from what we do here,

52:36 to encourage guys to train,

52:37 to encourage them to train their bodies with fighting

52:40 and encourage them to train with all their weapon systems

52:42 that are at their disposal

52:43 so that they can be lethal with all of those things.

52:46 And another thing that we talked about here a lot

52:48 on Undaunted Life of Man's podcast

52:49 is just cultivating spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.

52:54 And one of the reasons why I follow you

52:55 and I like your stuff is because you absolutely crush it

52:58 at mental resilience and physical resilience.

53:01 It is so clearly part of who you are

53:03 and everything that you do.

53:04 But we don't really hear you talk much

53:06 about the spiritual aspects of life

53:08 or any type of spiritual resilience.

53:10 So for you, what role, if any,

53:12 does spiritual resilience or some sort of a Judeo-Christian

53:15 world view or Christian ethic

53:17 works into the overall Pat McNamara philosophy

53:20 of how to do life?

53:22 - Well, I consider myself a spiritual person

53:25 and how that translates to another person,

53:28 maybe completely different.

53:30 But I am, and this sounds freaking so hippy.

53:33 Oh my God, I'm gonna say this to you.

53:35 So many of you gonna give me [inaudible] for this,

53:36 but I am at one, yeah.

53:39 I am at one with nature.

53:41 I love to look at nature

53:45 through the eyes of a child.

53:47 Like I've never seen it before.

53:50 You know, like I've been living vicariously

53:52 through a being who came here from another plan.

53:57 But I look at that every day

53:59 and I find great solace in that.

54:02 And that's where I find spirituality.

54:05 When I do a wilderness walk every year

54:07 in the Rocky Mountains and I am one,

54:11 I feel like I am one with nature

54:13 and that's where I get my biggest like spiritual moments.

54:18 I am not, I am not a religious person per se,

54:24 you know, as we define religion.

54:29 It's not that I have anything against it.

54:31 It's just that I'm kind of just,

54:33 I draw blank on it.

54:39 For some reason I draw blank.

54:41 I really respect it and I love it.

54:44 Like I do once again, my podcast with CJ

54:47 or TC used to be a preacher and man,

54:50 when he talks religion, I just, I love it.

54:53 I mean, it's so cool.

54:55 You know, the way he talks about it.

54:57 I'm not that guy and I can't talk it,

55:00 but I love it and respect it.

55:04 And I really respect guys who are devoted

55:06 and without being a hypocrisions,

55:09 'cause I grew up with hypocrisions

55:11 and I can't stand those people, they make me sick.

55:15 So I like people who not only talk to talk,

55:17 but walk to walk when it comes to that.

55:19 - Yeah, man, I appreciate you being so candid about that

55:21 and well, to be honest, you do kind of sound like a hippie,

55:24 but that's okay, we can get past that.

55:26 But the reason why I like to ask that

55:28 is because a lot of people do categorize Christians

55:31 as a certain person that grew up a certain way

55:33 that thinks a certain thing.

55:34 And the thing about it is,

55:35 is it doesn't really matter where you started.

55:37 In terms of kind of what your worldview is,

55:39 it matters where you're at right now

55:41 and how you arrived at that.

55:42 You know what I mean?

55:43 - Right.

55:44 - And the encouragement I would give to you

55:45 would be the same encouragement I would give to anybody else

55:47 because for me, the reason that I'm a Christian

55:49 is not because I had some sort of other worldly experience

55:52 like the clouds parted and God said,

55:54 "Hey, you should follow my son."

55:56 Like it wasn't one of those situations.

55:57 For me, I just had to reckon

55:59 with who the person of Jesus was.

56:02 And you know, was this a guy that actually existed?

56:04 Okay, so follow the flow chart.

56:05 Yes, this guy actually existed.

56:07 Okay, well, what did he say?

56:08 Okay, well, how was that recorded?

56:10 Well, how was that documented?

56:11 How do we know that that is true?

56:13 Like, how can we base that?

56:15 'Cause here's the thing is like most people think

56:17 that the Christian religion in,

56:18 I'm kind of with you in terms of, you know,

56:20 when you use the word Christian.

56:21 I mean, that term and that phrase or whatever

56:23 has been hijacked by so many people,

56:25 no one really knows exactly what it means

56:27 or what it means to be a Christian.

56:28 But every single thing that I believe

56:30 within the Christian worldview,

56:31 I can point to the exact evidence for why I believe that.

56:35 You know, it's not just faith and crossing my fingers

56:38 and hoping I'm right, you know?

56:39 This is definitely a thinking man's religion.

56:42 This isn't one of those things where you,

56:43 if you can either be a Christian or an intellectual,

56:46 these aren't ideas that are contrary to one another,

56:48 you can be both and you should be both.

56:50 And I'm sure that comes up when some of the discussions

56:52 with you, with CJ, and the thing is,

56:54 as you seem like an open-minded guy

56:56 and you seem like a logical guy,

56:57 and that's the thing at the end of the day is,

57:00 and you kind of talked about it a little bit earlier

57:01 talking about the Hippo-Christians, right?

57:03 The thing about it is, that's how people get turned off

57:06 to Christianity.

57:07 It's his supposed followers, right?

57:09 It's Jesus' supposed followers.

57:10 Because the thing about it is,

57:11 is you should judge a religion based on the words

57:14 that were said, not based on its abuse.

57:16 And what has happened for most people

57:18 is they look at the writings of Jesus

57:19 and they look at the people that are actually out there

57:21 espousing those beliefs,

57:23 but then they're also looking at their actions

57:25 and they don't necessarily coincide.

57:26 You know what I mean?

57:28 - Yeah, 100% x-raying.

57:29 I like to tell people when they peg it, yep.

57:32 - You hit an x-raying on that one.

57:34 - Well, I guess I'll leave that one there.

57:35 So I appreciate that very much.

57:37 So we're gonna go and get into our last section here,

57:39 and here's the deal.

57:40 Anytime there's somebody that's very active on social media

57:42 and they're doing a lot of things out there,

57:43 every now and then there's some quotes

57:45 or some tweets or something like that

57:47 that just need a little bit more context.

57:49 So for you, there's, I originally had a list of five,

57:52 but you already answered one of them.

57:53 So there's four, I guess we can call 'em McNamara-isms

57:56 or something like that.

57:57 That I think just require a little bit more context.

58:00 So the very first one that you did,

58:01 you already covered it earlier in the show

58:03 and you did a really, really good job with that.

58:04 And that's this, you have to be the agent in charge

58:07 of your own executive detail.

58:08 But the next one, that needs a little bit more context

58:11 as this, just because we have a gun doesn't mean we're armed.

58:15 - Damn straight, bro.

58:16 Well, you started talking about that one where guys are like,

58:21 I don't need to train.

58:22 I don't need to learn how to fight 'cause I got it done.

58:25 What are you gonna do with that gun?

58:26 You know, in most cases, you pull it out

58:27 and if it's a physical confrontation,

58:30 that's called murder, dude.

58:32 You know, just because we have a gun doesn't mean you're armed.

58:34 The mind is to find a weapon, all else is supplemental.

58:37 We don't plan to fail, but we fail to plan.

58:39 When we do, we get experience.

58:41 And experience is something we get shortly after we need it.

58:44 You know, I know the mindset that if there's a confrontation,

58:49 most of the time it's gonna go physical

58:53 way before it goes lethal, way before.

58:56 I mean, I've had a lot of confrontations with people

58:59 and I've had, you know, let's say konas.

59:02 None of my konas confrontations have been lethal.

59:06 They've all been physical.

59:08 You know, and how do you deal with that is up to you.

59:10 And, you know, most, we can avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid

59:13 at all costs, you know, but there's going to be a situation

59:18 in everybody's life where they have to, you know,

59:23 where they're gonna have a physical confrontation

59:25 with somebody at most people's lives.

59:27 With me, it's been a bunch for whatever reason, you know,

59:30 because of alpha males and there's, you know,

59:32 bar bullies and stuff like that.

59:34 Or I hate bullies and I'm gonna step in.

59:37 When I see a bully, I'm stepping in.

59:39 You know, I'm not asking permission.

59:41 I am going to intervene because it is my job.

59:44 It is my duty.

59:45 And it's not gonna be lethal.

59:46 It's gonna be freaking physical, you know, every time.

59:50 So I really despise that one.

59:53 You know, that, well, I got a gun.

59:56 Yeah, big deal.

59:57 Yeah, good on you.

59:58 Yeah, a guy who says that probably can't shoot anyway.

1:00:02 He's probably a freaking liability and not an asset anyway.

1:00:05 You know, a guy who says that [inaudible].

1:00:07 You know, usually guys who, guys who train well,

1:00:11 they train on some level of, you know, physical training

1:00:17 fighting, some kind of close quarter battle.

1:00:23 You know, with their hands, with their feet,

1:00:24 with grappling, and stuff like that, a lot of them.

1:00:28 But, you know, the open carry [inaudible] who say,

1:00:31 "Oh, I just got a gun and I'll shoot 'em."

1:00:33 They have, you know, they're an absolute liability.

1:00:36 They can't shoot, and this is my opinion.

1:00:39 But my opinion is they can't shoot, they can't fight,

1:00:42 and they couldn't run freaking a hundred yards

1:00:45 without killing over.

1:00:47 I tell guys all the time, it's like,

1:00:48 "Hey, look, if you can't sprint

1:00:50 "to the end of the parking lot to save your life

1:00:52 "but you've read every book on the planet,

1:00:53 "you're still useless to me."

1:00:54 Like, I don't care how many books you've read,

1:00:55 I need you to sprint in this moment.

1:00:57 So, but hey, I got three more things

1:00:58 I need a little bit more context from you on.

1:01:00 The next one is this.

1:01:01 Every night is Saturday night,

1:01:03 every morning is Monday morning.

1:01:04 - Yeah, so this one has resonated with a lot of people.

1:01:09 I can't remember when I invented that one,

1:01:12 but I have a stressful work schedule.

1:01:16 And in the past several years of my plan

1:01:19 is to slow it down here in 2020, that's my plan.

1:01:22 But for the past several years,

1:01:25 it sets six, seven years, it's seven days a week.

1:01:28 It's seven days a week and I am jam-packed with crap.

1:01:32 And I'll work till nine at night.

1:01:36 You know, if I'm at home, I'm gonna work till nine at night.

1:01:40 So several times a week,

1:01:43 I like to, my wife works in town.

1:01:47 When she gets off the work, let's say 6.30 or seven,

1:01:49 she'll send me a text, "Now, me or downtown."

1:01:52 And we'll sit down and we'll chat like school girls.

1:01:56 You know, my wife's my best friend,

1:01:58 which I'm very fortunate to have a wife

1:02:00 who's my best buddy.

1:02:01 She's probably one of the best human beings I've ever met.

1:02:04 And we'll talk about our day, we'll sit on a pint

1:02:09 and we're around other human beings as well

1:02:12 because we are social, we are social creatures.

1:02:15 And I don't go out to make friends and stuff like that,

1:02:17 but you know, I like my local people.

1:02:20 I'd like to say hi to them and ask how their day was

1:02:23 because I think community is important.

1:02:25 But so every night we'll do something,

1:02:31 but we recognize also that every morning,

1:02:35 back to the grind, you know, it's our own grind.

1:02:37 And that goes for Sunday night, you know,

1:02:39 or whatever it is.

1:02:41 But every night is Saturday night, every morning

1:02:44 is Monday morning because that's the life that we live.

1:02:47 A lot of people do too.

1:02:49 You know, they don't have days off when people say to me,

1:02:50 have a nice weekend.

1:02:52 I'm like, holy crap, man, you have no idea.

1:02:55 I don't have weekends, you know,

1:02:56 I don't have Saturdays and Sundays.

1:02:58 It's every day, every day, I'm working every day.

1:03:01 I have to schedule days off.

1:03:03 Well, I don't do that my wife does that for me.

1:03:05 - Hey man, the grind never stops.

1:03:07 The grind never stops at all.

1:03:08 But here's the deal is like you got someone on your team

1:03:10 that can run interference for you.

1:03:11 So that's a good thing.

1:03:12 The next one here is the ability to fail quickly.

1:03:16 - Right.

1:03:17 Yeah, so failing is important.

1:03:22 It is a biological requirement, you know, to fail.

1:03:26 Like, but we have to recognize it.

1:03:28 We have to fail well.

1:03:30 You know, we have to fail with cognition of why we fail.

1:03:35 You know, there should be some kind of key intellect there.

1:03:39 You know, why did we fail?

1:03:41 I always worry about the guy who, when he fails,

1:03:44 he has no idea why.

1:03:45 That to me at the red flag, it's like,

1:03:47 ooh, I got to spend some time with this guy

1:03:49 when I'm teaching him.

1:03:50 But the guy who fails and knows exactly what happened,

1:03:53 learning is taking place there.

1:03:56 So a lot of people, when they fail, they'll dwell on it.

1:04:01 You know, they'll dwell on it and they'll think about it

1:04:03 and they'll spend a long time failing.

1:04:07 So it's basically like stay in the fight.

1:04:10 Everybody's heard that, you know, stay in the fight,

1:04:12 stay in the fight, stay in the fight.

1:04:13 Failing quickly is the same thing, you know,

1:04:16 get over it, water off of a duck's ass.

1:04:18 When we fail, fail quickly and learn from the past,

1:04:23 prepare for the future and perform in the present,

1:04:26 but learn from that failure.

1:04:28 If you repeat the same failure over and over again,

1:04:30 you have got an issue, that is a red flag.

1:04:33 You know, there's no learning taking place.

1:04:36 You know, if you repeat the same mistake,

1:04:38 there is no learning taking place.

1:04:41 So yeah, don't spend a long time failing, fail quickly.

1:04:45 - All right, man, last thing I got for you.

1:04:47 And I can't do it in the best Pat McNamara voice,

1:04:50 but I will do my best.

1:04:52 Make it habitual.

1:04:54 (laughing)

1:04:54 - Make it habitual.

1:04:56 Yeah, I totally winged that one.

1:04:57 That was on a Sunday Sentinel sermon.

1:04:59 And because I write about it in a Sentinel book,

1:05:02 how certain things should be a habit.

1:05:04 And for me, there's certain, initially,

1:05:08 like your day to day, if you're the agent in charge

1:05:10 of your own executive protection detail,

1:05:12 there's certain things I do during the day

1:05:14 that initially require work.

1:05:16 You know, they require work.

1:05:18 It's like, oh, this is a pain in the ass to do, you know,

1:05:20 being switched on, having this much, you know,

1:05:23 situational awareness.

1:05:24 You know, you're in the orange, you know,

1:05:25 Cooper's color codes, you know, from white to red.

1:05:28 But if you do it over and over and over again,

1:05:31 pretty soon it becomes a habit.

1:05:32 And when it's habitual, it's not working more.

1:05:34 It's a way of life.

1:05:37 You know, it's your new normal.

1:05:39 Let it become your new normal, those things.

1:05:42 Like when you're driving around,

1:05:43 or when you're back in a parking lot,

1:05:45 doing your scanning five yards and 25 yards.

1:05:48 You know, if you do it, if it's repetitive,

1:05:51 let's say, I don't know, a couple dozen times

1:05:54 for every human being, it's different.

1:05:56 But if you do it a couple dozen times,

1:05:57 pretty soon it just starts happening.

1:06:00 It just starts happening, you know, it's a new normal.

1:06:02 So that's where I came up with that.

1:06:04 Make it habitual.

1:06:05 Make it habitual.

1:06:06 Well, hey man, if I could have that be my alarm clock every morning,

1:06:09 if I could just hear that.

1:06:10 So if any of you tech guys out there know how to do that,

1:06:12 I would love for that to be my alarm clock.

1:06:14 But that's all for me.

1:06:15 Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?

1:06:17 - No, bro, I appreciate you having me on.

1:06:19 - Pat McNamara, thanks for being on Daunted Life,

1:06:22 a man's podcast.

1:06:24 - Rock 'em roll, brother.

1:06:25 - And there you have it.

1:06:28 Wouldn't that fun, wouldn't that fun guys?

1:06:29 I mean, I had a blast.

1:06:30 I had an absolute blast talking to him.

1:06:32 That was so much fun.

1:06:33 I really hope that you guys enjoyed it.

1:06:34 But before we let you guys go,

1:06:35 we are gonna do a quick resilience boost.

1:06:37 As you know, by now, we are a men's ministry

1:06:39 and our mission is cultivating mainly resilience.

1:06:41 Specifically, we do that by providing content

1:06:43 that for just spiritual, mental and physical toughness.

1:06:45 So for you today, I got a recap of all the links

1:06:47 that we talked about throughout this podcast.

1:06:49 So we've got his website, that's tmaxinc.com.

1:06:51 I've got a link to his Instagram and YouTube pages.

1:06:54 I've got the Joe Rogan Experience Episode 1262

1:06:57 that he was featured on about a year ago.

1:06:59 There's a video called T-Max Sentinel Review.

1:07:01 So this is kind of a review of one of the tactical trainings

1:07:04 that he had done.

1:07:04 It's a really cool video.

1:07:05 You can get a little bit more in-depth look

1:07:07 at what he does when he's doing his trainings.

1:07:09 I also have a link to the Combat Strength Training e-book.

1:07:13 The book he wrote called Taps,

1:07:14 Tactical Application of Practical Shooting Book

1:07:17 and Sentinel, becoming the agent in charge

1:07:19 of your own protection detail.

1:07:21 And there's also another shop that he's got.

1:07:23 He's got some teacher, it's in those Get You Some bands.

1:07:25 And then also a link to his podcast

1:07:27 that he does with CJ Ortiz.

1:07:28 Guys, thanks so much for listening to the podcast.

1:07:30 We really do appreciate it.

1:07:31 If you would, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts,

1:07:33 iTunes, SoundCloud, Spotify, or Google Play

1:07:36 and refer your friends to listen

1:07:37 and share this on social media.

1:07:39 Guys, if we deserve a five-star review,

1:07:41 please leave us one.

1:07:41 That is how this podcast will continue to grow

1:07:43 and get out to more people just like you.

1:07:45 I'm currently booking speaking engagements

1:07:46 for the entirety of 2020.

1:07:48 So if you want me to come speak to your team

1:07:50 on your podcast, at your men's event,

1:07:51 your conference, whatever, hit me up.

1:07:52 Info@Undaunted.life.

1:07:54 Again, that's I-N-F-O @Undaunted.life.

1:07:57 The website is www.Undaunted.life.

1:08:00 You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter,

1:08:01 @Undaunted.life or Facebook.com/Undaunted.life.

1:08:05 Check out our free devotionals

1:08:06 on the YouVersion Bible app.

1:08:07 Just search Undaunted.life under plans.

1:08:09 And as always, we want to thank the band,

1:08:11 August Burns Red, for allowing us to use

1:08:12 their entire music library for our content.

1:08:14 The intro out to a track on this podcast

1:08:16 is their song "King of Sorrow,"

1:08:17 which is off their latest record entitled "Fantim Anthem."

1:08:20 The links are in the description.

1:08:21 I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.

1:08:23 Remember, keep cultivating manly resilience,

1:08:27 keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical toughness,

1:08:30 and keep seeking the lion of Judah.