0:00
LinkedIn is pretty amazing at helping you grow your small business.
0:03
We cannot stop your new clients from emailing you at 3 a.m.
0:07
We can help you sell, market and hire in one place.
0:12
We cannot help you be in three places at once.
0:15
And while we can't help you organize your calendar,
0:20
LinkedIn can help you land more clients so you have a calendar to organize.
0:24
Grow your small business on LinkedIn.
0:26
Learn more at linkedin.com/smallbusiness.
0:30
(Music)
0:50
This is Undaunted Life a Man's Podcast.
0:53
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:55
Let's get into it.
0:56
All right guys, we've got a special guest on the podcast today.
0:59
His name is Donnie Dus.
1:00
And I just got to tell you guys right from the beginning.
1:02
This is certainly one of my favorite interviews that I've done this year,
1:05
but this might be one of my favorite interviews that I've ever done.
1:08
So we really hit it off outside the podcast before we started recording.
1:12
Excuse me, it was just one of those things where I just like,
1:15
I had a feeling even as he was answering the first question.
1:17
I was like, I think we're going to dig into some great stuff here,
1:20
but it really didn't go the way that I thought it would.
1:22
And with most of my interviews,
1:24
I really like when that's actually what ends up happening.
1:27
But this guy has a reputation for being a professional caveman.
1:31
So I haven't had one of those on the show before,
1:32
but he is an expert survivalist,
1:34
primitive skills expert,
1:35
and he's a retired United States Marine.
1:37
So he owns and operates paleo tracks survival.
1:40
So that's Colorado's premier survival
1:42
and kind of wilderness self-reliant school.
1:44
So he's done that for a couple of decades.
1:46
And he's got a couple of decades worth of outdoor survival
1:49
and primitive living experience.
1:51
He's authored three books,
1:52
including his latest book, Wild Wisdom.
1:54
And so here it is right here. It's an absolutely gorgeous book.
1:57
And man, it's just very, very impressive.
1:59
So you may be familiar with him
2:01
because he was a contestant on Alone, season six.
2:03
And that was in the Arctic.
2:04
Also, he was co-host of a reality show called Mud, Sweat, and Beards,
2:10
Mud, Sweat, and Beers.
2:11
But let's talk about this interview today.
2:12
So in the interview, I started out with,
2:14
"Hey, you were a Marine.
2:15
How'd you end up being a Marine?"
2:17
But that got us into about a half-hour discussion
2:19
about the current state of the United States military,
2:22
the differences between being a peacekeeping force
2:25
and a force that's trying to end a conflict or end a war.
2:28
We talk about his deployments,
2:30
kind of the difference between someone with combat experience
2:33
versus somebody with non-combat experience.
2:36
And he served in Iraq for two of his deployments
2:39
and looking back on the GWAT, looking back on Iraq,
2:42
looking back on Afghanistan.
2:43
I really enjoyed his perspective there.
2:45
But also we got into just the state of the military overall.
2:49
And I'm looking down on my notes
2:50
because we went through and talked about
2:52
a whole lot of different things.
2:53
But one of the things in that discussion,
2:55
he talked about God-country core.
2:58
And so we got into a discussion about his views on God,
3:01
his views on spiritualism, his views on Jesus.
3:04
And we had a really interesting connection there.
3:06
And he actually thanked me for an affair after we were done
3:08
because he was like, "Yeah, I don't ever really get to talk
3:10
about that. I think it's interesting."
3:12
And I put an interesting rock in his shoes.
3:14
So you're going to want to make sure that you keep going
3:17
through the interview so that you can get that.
3:18
But then we got into how his personal motto became,
3:22
"Life is long" after he had a heart attack in his late 30s.
3:26
Right? And so this was a life-changing moment for him.
3:28
It cost him to reevaluate his life,
3:30
kind of reevaluate the pace of life that he was living.
3:32
But then how does he go from that to being a professional caveman?
3:35
Like, how do you go from that to building a career
3:37
around survivalism?
3:38
But one of the interesting things about this,
3:40
I was like, "Hey, give me a really sketchy survivalist story."
3:43
And he told me about a time in Utah last summer
3:45
where he almost died.
3:46
It was super, super sketchy.
3:48
But then I was like, "Hey, you got to tell us something
3:50
that you've never told anybody."
3:51
And so to his own embarrassment,
3:53
he did tell us something that he was embarrassed to admit,
3:55
but it was just kind of a funny thing.
3:57
So you got to continue listening to hear that.
3:59
But then towards the end, we got into a bunch of really
4:02
kind of rapid fire, rather survivalist questions.
4:06
You know, what are some of the biggest problems?
4:08
Is it overestimating your survivor's skills
4:10
or not having any survival skills?
4:12
What are some of the basic skills that you need
4:13
to survive in the outdoors?
4:15
What's the difference between surviving and thriving?
4:17
What are some of the biggest misnomers and misconceptions
4:20
that people have about survivalist stuff?
4:22
But then towards the end, we got to the essential things
4:24
that every single one of us needs to have in our vehicles
4:27
and also on our person at all times
4:30
and when we're in a nature scenario.
4:32
So guys, again, I can't recommend this highly enough.
4:35
I think this is going to be one of your favorites as well.
4:37
So guys, without further ado, let's get into it.
4:39
Donnie does.
4:41
I would give my normal welcome to the podcast speech,
4:44
but I got to tell you, I got to bone to pick with you
4:46
right from the beginning.
4:47
Okay, and here it is.
4:49
I have the best beard in these interviews.
4:52
Okay, almost every interview I do, it's me.
4:55
I am the captain now when it comes to the beards.
4:57
But look at that thing.
4:59
Like, what are you trying to do to me on my own show, Donnie?
5:02
It's all genetics.
5:03
It's all genetics.
5:04
The dust clam, the line, we are a hairy group of men.
5:08
We all have beards.
5:10
And they change in lengths, they change in color,
5:12
but a little bit of deer fat keeps it going.
5:15
No complaints.
5:16
Okay, very good. I will tell you that this is the beard
5:19
at this length is already too long for my wife.
5:21
But if I wasn't married or if I had more of a cave woman type wife,
5:25
I mean, I would be tucking this thing into the front of my pants.
5:28
And so, you know, we just, we kind of do what we can.
5:30
But Donnie, we got a lot of ground to cover.
5:32
We already hit it off of air.
5:34
But the first thing I want to get into,
5:35
because this is always just a curious thing for me.
5:37
So I grew up in Lawton, Fort Sill.
5:39
So I grew up around a lot of military.
5:41
I kind of live a little bit of a Spartan lifestyle.
5:43
So people think that I served, but I'm very, very cautious about stolen valorance.
5:48
I never pretend like I served.
5:50
I've never raised my right hand and said that I would defend this country
5:53
for Minimes, foreign and domestic, but you did.
5:55
And you entered the United States Marine Corps.
5:58
So for you, let's just start there.
6:00
Why did you choose to serve?
6:02
Why did you choose to go into the military?
6:05
And why specifically the Marine Corps?
6:06
Yeah, I think there's a lot of, you know,
6:10
simple reasons and more complex ones.
6:12
For me, there wasn't a lot of family that had that lineage,
6:16
that history of serving in the military.
6:19
And I was one of those kids that spent more time outside
6:23
and less time in the actual schoolhouse, if you know what I mean.
6:26
I love playing football.
6:28
I love the wrestling.
6:29
I love, you know, throwing javelin and track.
6:31
But grades were not my thing.
6:34
And, you know, Uncle Sam, one day on a rainy day, kind of very cliche.
6:40
I was going to visit my girlfriend.
6:42
She wasn't there, was raining.
6:44
And the only light that was on was the armed forces recruiter.
6:48
So I stopped in there.
6:49
Army wasn't home, Navy wasn't home.
6:51
Air Force was probably out to lunch, but the Marine Corps light was on.
6:55
I walked in and I was the easiest cell for the military.
7:00
They were like, "Do you like hunting?
7:01
Do you like fishing?
7:02
Do you like being outside?"
7:03
I was like, "Yeah, all of those.
7:04
You should join the Marine Corps.
7:07
You should join the infantry."
7:08
And, you know, probably within two weeks, I signed all my papers,
7:12
taking all the tests.
7:13
You know, I never got in trouble.
7:15
I never was into drugs or alcohol or doing anything to that extreme.
7:18
So it was very easy.
7:19
And I found myself quickly at Parris Island, United States Marine Corps boot camp,
7:25
the home of it.
7:26
And it was kind of on the fling because I didn't want to go to college.
7:32
I was playing football.
7:33
It just wasn't my thing.
7:34
But the Marine Corps gave me direction.
7:36
It gave me purpose.
7:37
It gave me God country core.
7:40
It gave me something, not that I was missing in my life,
7:43
but it gave me a more focus into those sort of aspects.
7:45
And it really set a foundation stone for me in the military,
7:49
as well as all of my time outside of the military.
7:52
Okay.
7:53
And you've talked a lot before about kind of what the military did for you.
7:56
And the thing is, is very, very few people percentage-wise,
7:59
in terms of the population of the United States to actually serve.
8:02
It's the lowest percentage that we've ever had.
8:04
And with our problems with recruiting,
8:06
that percentage gets even lower and lower with each year that passes.
8:09
But for you, and I'm not asking this to try to drive a wedge in the community,
8:14
but there is a difference between a combat veteran and a non-combat veteran.
8:19
And I don't say that to diminish any one's service.
8:23
Because again, even if you never served outside the wire,
8:26
you served a whole lot more than I did.
8:28
And so like I have a deep and abiding level of respect,
8:31
even if you just served on posts and you got other guys ready to go out
8:34
outside the wire, like I have a tremendous amount of value.
8:37
But for you, you saw some kinetic situations,
8:41
quite a few kinetic situations.
8:42
So let's talk about some of your deployments.
8:45
So what years were you in?
8:47
Where were you deployed?
8:48
What were some of the mission sets that were in front of you?
8:51
Yeah.
8:52
So I was in from 1999 to 2011.
8:55
So I came in before 9/11 when we were still training for that Vietnam,
8:59
different sort of jungle warfare.
9:01
The towers went down and it was quick, fast, ready to go.
9:05
And when those towers came down, I was at kind of a transition in my military career,
9:10
where I was teaching leaders in the Marine Corps.
9:12
I was teaching squad leaders in helicopter rope suspension training.
9:16
And I found myself kind of in this position where I needed to deploy.
9:21
I needed to get outside and really, you know, do the good fight
9:25
that you've been training for for so long.
9:26
So I actually did a lat move into the counterintelligence, human intelligence field,
9:31
where my job was to embed with indigenous people and run local area assets
9:38
for intelligence, human intelligence, where the bombs were, where the HVI's were,
9:43
where the caches and drugs and weapons were.
9:45
And that put me in a lot of close contact with some very unique individuals,
9:52
especially on the interrogation side of the house, because that was the other facet of that job.
9:56
So I did two deployments to Iraq that was six into seven and then eight into nine.
10:03
And then I did a bunch of other counterintelligence deployments to Southeast Asia,
10:08
to Zamboanga, Philippines, you know, against the Abu Syef group.
10:12
The counterintelligence field is a very unique field.
10:15
It's a small field, but our job is to deny, detect, and deceive terrorism, espionage,
10:20
sabotages, and subversive sort of acts.
10:23
So you can find yourself deployed independently in a kind of hostile environment,
10:29
but the threat is minimal compared to like a kinetic environment like Iraq or Afghanistan.
10:34
So my deployments into the into the Philippines was myself,
10:37
my partner were working within a local area to establish assets
10:42
and different human sources to support a variety of missions are going on.
10:46
So you're in board shorts, flip flops, a t-shirt with a pistol down your pants
10:51
and a backpack full of money trying to make connections and contacts.
10:54
One facet of kinetics and combat and the things that you can see,
10:58
because everyone in that sort of capacity looks friendly, but there could be some,
11:02
you know, nefarious individuals.
11:04
You go to Iraq and that full kinetic operation, that full kinetic environment,
11:08
when you're outside the wire, you're meeting with local assets on the ground.
11:13
Sometimes late at night, sometimes during the day, but it was one of those things,
11:19
you know, I kind of had this mentality that my job as a guy to deny detecting to deceive the threats
11:26
was that if 100 Marines landed on a plane and they landed in Iraq,
11:31
my job was to ensure that that 100 got back on that plane and flew back home to their loved ones.
11:36
And that is that kind of trying time.
11:38
So you have the physical kinetics of IEDs and suicide bombers and, you know, snipers,
11:45
and then you have the mental kinetics of ensuring that everyone gets home.
11:49
That 18-year-old kid, that 19-year-old kid, or really young man who raised the right hands
11:55
that I will support defend, my job is to make sure that they got home.
11:59
And it requires you to kind of lay in that kind of gray area.
12:03
You know, it's hard when you're interrogating a potential HVI or somebody you pucked or placed
12:10
under control, and you know that that guy has killed several service members.
12:14
It's me and him sitting there having a discussion, having, you know, a conversation
12:19
where all I want to do is end him as he sits there.
12:23
But the reality is I know he knows things.
12:25
So I have to kind of battle my own personal kind of demons to say, all right,
12:30
as much as I want this guy wiped off the face of this earth,
12:33
I need to see what he knows, who he knows, why he knows it, and how I can use that
12:38
to potentially save lives.
12:39
So my deployments were spread between full-blown kinetic environments in Iraq,
12:44
and then a lot of sort of overt within the clandestine operations into southern
12:50
Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia.
12:52
It was a bunch, so with 2011 came around.
12:56
I wanted to be a dad.
12:58
I wanted to be a husband because I was gone.
13:00
My sons really didn't know who I was.
13:02
I was just kind of in and out, high off tempo, and said, hey, I appreciate the scars.
13:08
I appreciate the camaraderie.
13:10
Thank you for letting me serve, but now I need to serve in a different capacity.
13:14
OK, I appreciate all that detail.
13:16
A question I have in terms of Iraq.
13:18
And so obviously when we look back on the GWAT, there are a lot of strong opinions
13:25
from those in the civic community and those that served about why we were even in Iraq
13:29
to begin with.
13:30
And then also Afghanistan and the pull out, and there's all this stuff.
13:33
But looking back now, well, actually, considering your reaction just then,
13:38
I want to hear from you about looking back on Iraq.
13:42
Do you regret being there?
13:44
Do you feel like you were part of the military industrial complex?
13:48
And do you feel good about what you did there?
13:51
Because, I mean, there are villains in all of these different conflicts.
13:54
But I don't think the guys that were, again, the guys that raised their hand and said,
13:58
hey, send me wherever you need to send me, those guys aren't the villains, right?
14:00
Those guys just did what they were told by superiors.
14:03
But then you see Afghanistan and you see that the absolute nonsense of pulling out,
14:08
the leaving behind of billions of dollars' worth of arms that will be used and have already
14:13
been used to kill Americans and to kill other allies of ours.
14:16
You see the subjugation of the women in Afghanistan.
14:19
You see, 100 years ago, you could go to Afghanistan as part of a backpacking trip across Europe.
14:26
And now it's like, you're never going to go to Kabul for anything.
14:30
So just kind of talk to me, I guess, Donnie, of the current state of the military,
14:34
as we look back on the GWAT, but also as we look towards the future.
14:38
Yeah, I think as a young Marine, the opportunity to go to battle, to protect and to serve,
14:46
I wasn't necessarily focused on the big picture because we have strategic level sort of
14:49
informations and decisions and policymakers. And then we have that tactical level,
14:54
that grunt down on the dirt, you have the ground truth and what's going on.
14:58
And within that kind of construct, that tactical ground truth level,
15:01
I am there to protect my fellow Marines and fellow service members and the human
15:07
population that exists there that doesn't really know why this war is taking place or some sort of,
15:12
you know, nefarious organization is instituting rules, regulations and cutting off heads and
15:18
all these strict things. So at a very baseline grassroots level, I know that my purpose was to,
15:25
just like a law enforcement officer, serve, protect, and absolutely get into the [inaudible]
15:30
part of my French, if it goes down that pathway. And only when you're out of that environment and
15:36
you have a time to breathe, kind of lift your head up and say, what were we doing there?
15:40
Do you catch those glimmers of what I would like to say, different sort of truth? And as time has
15:45
progressed, we quickly learned and my perceptions have changed that we were there for pretty much
15:51
the wrong reasons. We were there part of that military industrial complex. I was there to serve
15:56
my fellow Marines in that civilian population, but those decision makers and those key influencers
16:01
at the top really didn't care about us, I guess you could say. We were the pawns in that chess
16:09
game as they vie for power and money and oil and all these sort of strategic positions. And I think
16:14
that's a common thing that takes place in a lot of wars and a lot of sort of environments. There's
16:19
always an overarching kind of goal or influence to gain, to control, to have some sort of sway of
16:27
power in an environment that you're not organically from. And I think Iraq was one of those things
16:34
where I do believe as we withdrew, we left the necessary presence. There was a systematic
16:40
handover in certain ways. And you could see what right looks like to a certain degree. And then
16:46
when you compare that to Afghanistan and the chaos and the lives and just everything that ensued
16:51
afterwards, it's a slap in the face to every veteran that set foot on that piece of dirt and just
16:58
the chocks were pulled and that was it. It was like how many lives were lost, how many battles
17:04
were fought and how many days were spent away from loved ones to just hear, why don't you take
17:09
everything that we're leaving behind and go forth and carry on with the way you want to live. You
17:15
know, I had a very unique opportunity to go to what's called the mirror image program where I
17:20
actually got to live as a terrorist. It was about 60, almost, I was like right below 90 days where
17:28
I've been prayed five times a day. I learned to build bombs, do assassinations, kidnappings,
17:32
all of the sort of things that your adversary would do. I went to an organization in a school
17:37
with some other Marines and some SF and some seals to learn who your adversary is, how they think
17:44
and how they operate. And there's one message that I really took away from it. And it wasn't,
17:50
it doesn't really matter if we win a battle or if we stay there for 10 years, eventually
17:57
we will leave. And when we leave, we lose. That's the name of the game. So that's their home front,
18:04
that's their turf. And one day we will leave Iraq, we will leave Afghanistan, we will leave
18:09
any sort of place that we go. And when we do, we lose. And in the minds of those, you know,
18:14
adversaries, you know, local sort of insurgent populations to higher level kind of national
18:20
level insurgent organizations and threat groups, we will lose no matter what. So that kind of
18:26
shapes your perception going forward, where if that is the message that's going to be portrayed,
18:31
and you can clearly see that in Afghanistan, for me, I'm here to protect, to make sure
18:35
my guys come home, protect those populations where hopefully that influence of kind of protecting
18:40
and serving everyone can kind of carry forward into the future. Okay, Donnie, we might just go
18:46
a little bit long today because we have so much stuff to get into, which is, you know, the stuff
18:49
that that you're doing today in your new book and all the type of stuff. But I want to kind of go
18:53
through this thread just a little bit further, if not, just maybe just one more question. So if
18:57
you look at the trajectory and Jack Carr actually helped me kind of understand this because it's like,
19:02
you know, back in the day, it was the Department of War announced the Department of Defense,
19:06
you know, we go into World War One, World War Two, World War Two, and it's like, we're not going
19:10
to keep the peace, we're going to like kill people and break stuff until we do that enough to where
19:15
we actually win. But it seems like perhaps starting with Vietnam, we kind of lost our will to win,
19:21
and it seems like with every conflict we get into, we try to see what the political price is going
19:28
to be in specifically, you know, reading Jack Carr's book, you know, another Simon & Schuster author,
19:33
as you are, you know, he talks about and targeted Beirut in Lebanon in 1983, you have Ronald Reagan,
19:38
and you have all these people that they sent the Marines into kind of be a peacekeeping force in
19:42
Lebanon. And just saying Marines and peacekeeping force in the same sentence is one of the silliest
19:47
things that you could say because you you send the Marines in to kill people and break stuff like
19:51
that. That's what the Marines are best at. And guess what? They don't need a big budget for that,
19:55
and they certainly don't need, you know, high high speed gear and high speed, you know, tens and
20:00
things like that. Marines are just going to go out there and get it done. But it seems like
20:05
we're hamstringing our military with these really restrictive rules of engagement. We're hamstringing
20:12
them because we're not giving them the mission set that leads to success. It's a mission set that
20:17
at best will lead to the prolonging of a conflict. And Donnie, when as you just alluded to, when we
20:22
do get out, there's going to be a vacuum. And when we create a vacuum specifically in a place like
20:28
the Middle East, there's not a whole lot of, you know, options for people that aren't nefarious,
20:33
that are going to try to fill that vacuum. So so for you, when you look at the military and you
20:38
look at kind of the state of it now where we seem to be really worried about making sure we have
20:44
very diverse, you know, it seems like we want people to sign up for the military that have two
20:48
mommies or that identifies LGBTQ or, you know, those types of things. And we're not looking for
20:52
those corn fed farm boys that just want to get after it and protect the country and protect the
20:57
homeland. So talk to me a little bit about kind of where we've drifted as a country and where we've
21:02
kind of landed now. Yeah, so I think there is a different climate in this country. But I will say
21:08
this rest assured, my six foot nine nephew, who's from Texas, a corn for corn fed super intelligent
21:16
guy, and listed in the Marine Corps six months ago, and is right now training to serve in the
21:22
capacity that we want. Now don't get me wrong, there are some individuals that as he's kind of
21:27
alluded to me and kind of shared with me, like, was it like this when you were in where did you come
21:32
across these people that could just raise their hand and say, I don't want to do this. And I'm like,
21:37
in my time, which was, you know, when I went in 20 years ago, not so much, there was there was a
21:42
longing, there was an answer to a lot of young men and and women when you were going in the
21:47
Corps, but times have changed. Well, we still have those hard chargers and those warriors that are
21:52
wanting to serve, not because of a dollar or not because of anything, but they just have that longing
21:57
and that that calling to serve. I mean, yeah, it's it's a different environment. Today's day and age
22:03
is very much different. I mean, for a guy who makes primitive stone tools and teaches survival
22:07
classes, I've got an iPhone and I'm trying to connect with a broader and larger audience through
22:12
various ways and writing books is one of them. But I think there's an adaptation to the current
22:19
sort of environment. Those that are questionable in their and their practices and their beliefs and
22:25
all the sort of nonsense that we see all around the world, they're not really in there. They're not
22:29
they're not going to make, they're not going to make it all the way through. It's guys like my nephew
22:34
who are monsters who just love to serve love that history, they're going to make their way through.
22:39
You'll get those ones in onesies and twosies. But I think that's a social kind of misperception
22:45
of what's actually going into our military. It is harder to probably recruit after so many years of
22:51
war, right kinetics, but it still exists. And I think the important thing we have to remember
22:56
between World War one and two is what is Moutois. So we have Moutois military operations other than
23:03
war. We've only actually had a couple wars, World War one, World War two, and I believe the Korean
23:08
War that we're full-blown conventional warfare sort of approaches. Everything else has been
23:14
a different type of an operation other than where so counterins, counter drugs, counter terrors,
23:19
and there's a counter to everything. Those are your Moutois. And in that Moutois sort of world,
23:24
there's a lot of kind of misunderstandings as well as sort of the rules and the things that
23:31
you can do underneath Geneva Convention and the laws and rules of land warfare because typically
23:36
those were written for a conventional war, but we're battling a high-tech, more complex, more
23:42
spread out sort of nefarious group. And within that, we need to kind of readjust. We need to take a
23:48
look at our adversary and say, if we're applying these old policies and methodologies to safeguard
23:55
our troops and allow them to fight, because trust me, Marines, they want to fight. That's
23:59
why they're there. We're trained to fight. All the other MOSs in the course serve the combat arms.
24:05
But if we're not creating that ability for them to engage in the most logical and kind of impactful
24:12
way, we're really just tying one arm behind the backstand. We're going to give you bare minimum
24:16
stuff, but we're also going to handicap you. So if you are in some sort of kinetic, you have to
24:20
fire a warning shot above the head, wave them down, do all these steps in order to negate that
24:26
ultimate threat. But we need to adapt. We need to adapt to this sort of current climb in place,
24:33
especially now that we have a clear vision on what our adversaries have. Why? Because we gave
24:38
it to them. All the stuff that's going to Ukraine that's winding up and God knows whose hands,
24:43
because it's easier to sell a gun than it is to employ it and those sort of places. More importantly,
24:48
all the stuff and resources that were left in Afghanistan, some remain there. But that's easy
24:54
money. That's easy buy. So now that we know the capabilities as well as the limitations of where
24:59
adversaries have, we need to train to that high tech capacity. We need to train to be
25:03
not only global thinkers and responders, but how can we actually anticipate these sort of things
25:08
from taking place before we have another 9/11 or Pearl Harbor or pick your sort of chaotic event
25:15
where an adversary gets the jump on us, if you will. Donnie, I think I'm just going to whatever
25:21
you have booked after this, we're just going to push that. So whatever that person needs from you
25:26
after our allotted agreed upon 60 minutes, because I got more questions and we still haven't gotten
25:30
to the point of the interview today. So you good with that? You good to be a little flexible in time?
25:34
Yeah, man, I got I'm a separate gummy. I got very, very good. So earlier you talked about how,
25:40
you know, the core kind of taught you, you know, God, country, core, and those types of things,
25:45
and I think family's supposed to work in there somewhere. But for you, I haven't heard you talk
25:50
about God or any type of relationship with, you know, with the God of the universe, the Creator God
25:56
or things like that. I just haven't seen it. Perhaps you have another places. So for you, I guess,
26:00
where would you say that that you land? Are we saying that like, you know, maybe in your upbringing,
26:05
you didn't have didn't go to church, maybe no spiritual discussions? Because like for me,
26:09
I grew up in Oklahoma. And so you're Christian because you were born here. That's that's kind
26:13
of how it works out. But you know, everyone's Bible has an inch of dust on it. And you know,
26:17
you just go to church, you know, a few times a year and you don't really lead a gospel-centered
26:21
life. You're just born on red clay. And so I guess that means you get in the club, right?
26:25
But for you kind of what's what was kind of your upbringing in the world of the spiritual,
26:31
if you can use it broadly like that and kind of where would you say that you land now?
26:34
Yeah, I think from a spiritual aspect, I am very spiritual in a lot of different ways.
26:41
My upbringing, I was raised Catholic. My family, they are from Michigan. And you know, my grandfather
26:48
was a truck driver. My father started off in a shoe store and wound up running multiple companies.
26:53
My mom was a stay-at-home mom. And going to church on Sundays was part of our practice.
27:00
And as I kind of got older and as I kind of started to ultimately kind of experience the world in
27:06
different ways and a lot of questionings into faith, especially when I joined the military,
27:11
not so much of, you know, declaring God country core, but from the things that I witnessed and
27:17
I saw, whether it was, you know, you know, people behind, hiding behind a woman and shooting an
27:22
AK between their legs, young kids being exploited for all sorts of things. And I truly started to
27:27
question if such a divine creator existed, why would these things take place? And I battled with
27:34
that. Well, evil will exist. And this can be influences in all sorts of matters. But it really
27:39
allowed me to kind of take some time and truly explore what it means to be spiritual. What does
27:45
it mean to have a following within faith? And for me, I kind of came to the conclusion that faith
27:52
is important. Faith is something that you need to have. It's faith in yourself. It's faith in the
27:58
outside world with that outside world. I mean, in that kind of divine capacity. And I do believe
28:04
that there is that kind of divine entity that guides us. But I personally am still looking into
28:12
and trying to discover those kind of nuances of what it is. I've read the Bible. I read the Book
28:17
of Mormon. I've read the Quran. I've read many religious texts to understand different perspectives
28:23
in the life. And I still kind of go back to that, that obviously the Bible and that kind of
28:27
Catholic approach, that's how I was brought up. But for me, I'm still kind of in that journey. And I
28:31
think when I come across people and I talk with them and I hear the reasons behind their faith,
28:37
their spirituality, what it means to them, I find those points resonating in me. I'm like,
28:43
we're the same. And is it, have you come across these because of an acceptance of God and Jesus
28:49
Christ and these various sort of beliefs? I have those in me, but I haven't been able to
28:54
quite define them. I know they exist. And I see the moments when they do exist from the birth of my
29:00
sons to the love of my life, to experiencing all that the world holds. And I think for me,
29:05
I'm still kind of in that spiritual path. And it's never one of neglect. It's one of exploration.
29:13
And I think that divine creator would say, you know, one day when I walked through the early gates,
29:18
thank you for putting the time, effort and energy to truly understanding what your faith is. If it
29:23
required your entire life to do so, you did it right. You just didn't accept. You just didn't say
29:30
because someone told me you went out and found it out yourself. Same way as the prophets and even
29:36
Jesus went and discovered and educated and informed people and they came upon those conclusions
29:41
themselves. And I'm there. I mean, I do go to church at times and it is a good feeling. I pray
29:48
pretty routinely. And I can find that there are those connections there. I'm just looking to kind
29:53
of define what that is. But it's hard to fit into a category where I might feel differently,
30:00
if you know what I mean. But I absolutely don't you mean? Yeah, the thing with categories is,
30:06
especially with a guy like you with a personality, I'm assuming if you were to take the big five,
30:10
you would be high in conscientiousness, but also high in openness similar to me. So you're
30:14
you're deeply creative, but you also can get things done. And so what happens is when you're
30:19
like that, you don't really like putting yourself into a category, because you know, and so people
30:23
will kind of default saying, well, you know, I'm spiritual, well, demons are also spirits. And so
30:27
you have to be more specific than that. And so the thing the thing with faith is when people use the
30:33
word faith, especially if you're, which you have a sense of the divine, so I wouldn't put you in
30:37
the militaristic agnostic or atheist camp, surely. But when you when you don't have a sense of the
30:42
divine and someone uses the word faith, people just kind of roll their eyes, because they're like,
30:46
I don't have faith, I have evidence, you know, I have proof. And the thing is, is we can't really
30:50
prove anything. We can't technically prove that you and I are even talking right now, because
30:54
this could all just be a simulation, Donnie, like this could all just be, we could all just be dancing
30:58
to our DNA. I can't prove to you that I'm even using these words right now. But this would be
31:03
the recommendation recommendation that I would give to you, because you do seem like even just in
31:06
your answer, Donnie, to be an eight intellectually honest seeker. And so whenever I've had discussions
31:13
with intellectually honest seekers throughout my life, the thing that I have them do is because
31:18
when you look at the world and you're like, Oh my gosh, there's a Bible and there's the Book of
31:22
Mormon and there's the Quran and there's their Bhagavad Gita and there's there's all these different
31:25
ancient writings from ancient Sumer and all these different areas. Okay, what do I do?
31:28
I start with the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, because you could read the entire Bible,
31:36
but guess what? If Jesus didn't actually rise from the dead, like if he didn't die on a Roman
31:41
cross at the behest of the Jewish Sanhedrin, you know, at the hands of the Romans and put into a
31:47
tomb and three days later, rise from the grave and show himself to hundreds of people and the
31:52
people that were running away from him saying, No, I never knew the man are now willing to die
31:57
for what they saw, not what they believe, not what they had faith in, but for what they saw.
32:02
If that is not real, if the evidence for the resurrection is absolutely faulty, then you can just
32:08
dismiss the entire Bible or look at it as, Hey, this is a book of fables. This is a book of, you know,
32:13
kind of like decent moral panderings, but it's not really real. And so that would be the thing
32:18
that I would recommend to you and that there are certainly some resources. There's, you know,
32:23
different things that people that have looked, even atheist scholars that have looked at. Okay,
32:27
how can we explain Christianity making it out of the first century when Rome, the most dominant
32:33
hegemonic force of the time, did everything it could to stamp Christians out? How in the world
32:37
did it survive? How are people becoming Christians in Iran right now? Whenever there are no Christian
32:42
missionaries, they're like, what does that look like? And so, you know, if you're open to continuing
32:47
that exploration, man, let's dig into the resurrection and see if it has any merit to it.
32:52
Yeah, I am. And I willingly and want to accept that resurrection and the evidence that has been
32:59
proven. And there's a couple of even Bible verses that, you know, I like to go by. One of them is,
33:04
turn over a rock and you will find me, you will see me. And that resonates with me and kind of
33:09
that natural aspect, because I think that is one of the places where I become the most spiritual,
33:13
where I see the most evidence and the most connection to a divine power. It's witnessing it in a different
33:21
capacity of, of watching animals, watching the landscape, watching all these things that exist,
33:26
for sure, have changed over time, but there has been a root origin to them all. That is where
33:31
that spiritual connection runs very, very deep. And I find it to be one of those places where
33:36
it's almost like going to a church. It's, yes, I'm not sitting in a pew and there's not a pastor
33:43
or preacher, you know, speaking to me in that capacity. But someone is speaking, I guess you
33:47
could say, and I sit there and I listen, and that listening could take an hour, it could take,
33:52
you know, five minutes, but it's the nuances that I catch out in the natural world. And then that I
33:56
see and kind of my everyday pattern of life, like when I see my kids wake up, and when I get to
34:01
experience time with my loved ones, that is a clear representation of, of something intervening.
34:08
And like the evidence that you spoke of, of resurrection, without a doubt, it's written, it's,
34:14
it's, I mean, hundreds of people have witnessed that. That's really kind of, it rolls into that
34:18
experience of, I know that to be true. And it could be my own ego or my own perception saying,
34:24
what else can I find that really builds upon that initial kind of evidence, if you will? And I do
34:31
see it in the category, what you would want to call it, how you would want to call it. You could
34:36
call a lot of different things, but I know it exists within me. And I'm sure at one point,
34:41
it will be revealed in a higher light and a higher capacity without the aid of narcotics
34:47
or anything like that. It's going to hit me a ton of bricks. And I'd be like, man,
34:50
this is what I needed. This is what, what I knew existed, but now it's come to me in a different
34:56
light. And then it's caring for it from there. Hey, guys, real quick, if you're anything like
35:00
me, you are constantly on the lookout for high quality products that are actually made here in
35:04
America by American hands. The problem is that a lot of American companies have outsourced their
35:09
labor overseas. So it's an American company, but it's supporting people that don't live here.
35:14
So I've always went to partner with an American company that prioritizes America, American workers
35:19
and making all of their materials here in this country. That's why I want to remind you that we
35:23
are partnered with Origin. Origin is an apparel company based in Maine, and they are focused on
35:29
getting as much manufacturing back to the United States as they can possibly do. What do they make?
35:34
They make the best jujitsu geese on the planet. And these are the only jujitsu geese that are made
35:38
completely in America. They also make jeans. Yes, they're stretchy and awesome. They also make
35:43
amazing hunting gear. And I know you guys love your kuyu and your sika, but those companies use
35:48
overseas labor and they don't do that to help you guys out. They do that to increase their profit
35:53
margins. Origin also makes boots and work boots. And yes, that does include steel toe boots. And in
35:58
the fall of last year, they launched a line of everyday clothing, their Versa pants are their
36:02
everyday pants. And they are just especially phenomenal. They also make other outdoor clothes
36:06
and workout clothes. And they're launching new apparel stuff all the time. If you haven't already,
36:10
you need to check them out and support a company that supports America and America's workers.
36:16
Try Origin out today by going to www.originusa.com. That's originusa.com. Use the promo code
36:24
undaunted to get 10% off of your order. Again, that's originusa.com promo code undaunted to get 10%
36:31
off of your order. Hey, man, I just love the the openness that you have in your personality into
36:38
you and to the people listening right now. There's a couple of very heady, but very deep resources
36:42
that I point people to. So there's a book called Jesus and the eyewitnesses. It is a tone that people
36:48
really, really go towards. So I can send these to you later, Jesus and the eyewitnesses and evidence
36:54
that demands a verdict. And so I'll actually send you a couple, I'll send you some copies of that.
36:58
And so evidence that demands a verdict. This is a book. I read it wrong. I read it like it was a
37:02
book that you read from beginning to end. No, this is a reference book. And so you flip through the
37:07
table of contents and you go like, okay, I want to dig into that. And then you dig into it because
37:11
it's very, very heady. But the one rock that I'll put in your shoe before you move on to the
37:15
craft that we're actually supposed to talk about today. What you seem to describe,
37:21
albeit accidentally, is the difference between faith that and faith in. And so someone like Jordan
37:28
Peterson recently, he was kind of, I forget that the guy, but he's kind of an atheist intellectual,
37:33
but he put, he put Jordan Peterson, because Jordan Peterson's kind of all over the place,
37:37
when he's asked about God and Jesus and all that. And so this atheist said, Jordan, if there was a
37:42
camera pointed at Joseph of Arimathea's tomb, and three days after Jesus was put in there,
37:50
and there's a monitor where you can watch what happens. What do you think happens? Do you think
37:56
Jesus goes walking out of that tomb? And Jordan Peterson goes, yes, I believe we would see Jesus
38:01
walk out of the tomb. So Jordan Peterson is, is admitting to saying, I believe that the resurrection
38:08
happened. But there's one more step that he has, and I would probably argue the same for you,
38:14
is there's faith that it happened? And then there's putting the faith in that it happened
38:21
for you. And so that's the difference to where there's, it's one thing to say, Hey, I have faith
38:25
that that's a chair. And if I like, you know, that's a chair, and you know, presumably if I sit on it,
38:31
it'll keep me up. The difference is walking over there and starting to put your weight down and
38:36
having faith in the fact that it's a chair that will keep you up. And so that's the difference for
38:41
people that, you know, faith that Jesus rose from the dead, but then faith in the fact that
38:46
whenever he did that, when he died on a cross, that accounted for you. Does that make sense?
38:50
Yeah, yes, sir. Yeah. That's, that's a very, that's a very articulate way of putting it more importantly
38:55
breaks it down into in that. Yeah, I mean, I think that's, that's something I can actually put my tool
39:01
back going forward and saying when I am experiencing things in that like, how does that reference to
39:07
mean that sort of construct? Absolutely. Well said. Very good. Well, that's the rock in your shoe.
39:12
That's going to bother you and keep you up late at night. So you're welcome. But here we are a half
39:16
hour into this. Let's get into your personal motto. And your personal motto is life is long.
39:22
Yes, sir. But Donnie, you almost died when you're in your 30s, because you have a heart attack.
39:27
And for a lot of people that survive a heart attack, that becomes a moment in their life to
39:31
where it's like, Oh, crap, I let myself go. I'm super fat. And I almost died. I got a second
39:36
chance of life. Other people like, Oh, shoot, I didn't know I had this genetic addition. I didn't
39:40
know this and that. And then now they're aware of it. But it was kind of different for you. But it's
39:44
not the same impact. You're in your 30s. You have a heart attack. It's life reevaluation time.
39:50
Let's pull out the clipboard. Let's erase and start over. So talk to me about how, you know,
39:54
your personal motto is life is long, but yours was almost cut short. Yeah, absolutely. I think
39:59
so I was 37. And I was in great help. I was training for a super jungle ultra marathon down in Peru,
40:07
245 K, don't smoke, don't drink did everything right. Lead by example, was a role model to my kids.
40:15
And one day after going to my son's spelling bee, I just started feeling pains in my chest. So
40:21
this, this is going to be a message to all the men that are listening this as well as women.
40:26
I had a pain that was not something familiar. I had just returned from Alaska and I felt maybe
40:31
like I was just getting used to the elevation back in Colorado. And I ignored it. I took that rock
40:37
as you just put that in my shoe and I ignored it. I pushed it off to the side. And I kept having
40:41
this pain all throughout the day and these kind of different intervals. Later on that night, I woke
40:46
up as if somebody had poured a bag or bucket of hot coals on my chest and it was burning a hole.
40:53
Something was wrong, put some baby aspirin in my mouth, got to the hospital and the doctor
40:59
said you had a heart attack. And I kind of had a polite conversation with the doctor. I'm like,
41:02
look, I'm going to be honest with you, Doc. I'm 37. I'm in great physical health. I delivered
41:07
babies. I've been in combat environments. I have run from bears. I didn't have a heart attack,
41:12
you know, and he's like, well, let me be honest with you. I've been doing this for 40 some years,
41:16
you had a heart attack. I'm like, all right, you got me on this one, Doc. I'm gonna let you have it.
41:20
And yeah, lo and behold, I had what's called a whittle maker heart attack. I had a 99% blockage
41:27
in my left interior descending artery. And it ruptured. And it wasn't the only ID, I guess you
41:35
could say that I've experienced in my life. But yeah, it ruptured. And they put a stent into my heart.
41:42
And yeah, I then I was on the road to recovery. I mean, it was kind of happened one day and then
41:47
two days later, I was being wheeled out of a hospital in the wheelchair getting back into my
41:52
car and driving home. And at that point, I started to realize that the things that I had done were
42:00
all good. And then I'm sure there's things that, you know, I could have done that were different,
42:05
you know, and there's there's you start to question a lot of those things. But what I quickly realized
42:10
from then until this, you know, post experience that my life prior to was always in a hurry. I was
42:16
always in a hurry to do this or to get this done or to experience this. And I never just took a step
42:21
back and slowed down, because the mentality is life is short, you have to get it going, you have to
42:27
just go nonstop. And I started to think, well, life really isn't short, despite coming out of a
42:34
heart attack and almost dying, life is long. We really don't know when we are going to pass
42:39
on to that next world, that is the common denominator, all of us taxes and then ultimately
42:44
succumbing to old age or failure of the organs. But I'm like, you should start to slow down, you
42:49
should take an evaluation of your life, you should find the values, you should find the things that
42:54
give you peace, give you motivation, and stick with those and cut everything else out. That's
43:01
personal relationships. That's all the things and I use a value statement. If it doesn't bring you a
43:06
form of value, get rid of it. If it's a personal relationship, if it's a habit, if it's some sort
43:12
of mentality, you get rid of it. And I did this reevaluation and I did this out in the bush. I
43:18
moved out into the bush and I stayed out there for about six months in a couple different caves,
43:23
and I would come back and forth to see my kids and my wife at the time. And it was
43:29
the time when I actually kind of reevaluated everything. I wrote my first book called Scavenger,
43:36
and I realized this was the best thing and the worst thing that could happen to me. The best
43:41
thing being that I could be the example, if you live a life of fitness and you are on top of your
43:46
game, it could still happen to you. Why it happens to me, it was just genetics. That was it. I have
43:51
real sticky blood and the cholesterol in my blood sticks more than average. And that's okay. Now,
43:59
what you do with this is educate and inform and be that example. If you are smoking two packs of
44:04
cigarettes and you eat McDonald's every day, your probability increases. If mine actually took place
44:11
and happened. So it formed my perception of life as long where I need to slow down. I need to start
44:16
enjoying the nuances and the beauties of life, whether it is my son playing in a lacrosse game,
44:23
or us out for a hunt, or we're building something together, my time with my woman and just maybe
44:29
we're just sitting and enjoying each other's presence in the company, not even speaking.
44:33
It's the life as long mentality that gives you a truly fruitful and long life, not saying that,
44:39
"God, I got to do this today or I got to do this tomorrow. Don't get me wrong. We do have those
44:42
tasks. I got to pick my kids up. I got to maybe get some groceries." But I want people to understand
44:48
that if you have a goal or you have an objective, you have something you're looking forward to,
44:51
don't be in a rush to sacrifice yourself to get to that objective. Understand that things take
44:56
time. Things take a couple of breaths. It takes a couple of days you can do a year's and the journey
45:02
of that life being long is the biggest reward while you're alive on this current plane.
45:09
So you should take the time, accept that, and not be in a rush to achieve everything and do
45:13
everything. Because you can't take it with you. You're going to go to the place that you want to
45:17
go and you're going to live the best life there is after that. So enjoy this one, accept that you
45:22
will die one day. That is a guarantee we all have. So live this, Jife, live this life and the aspect
45:29
of serving and the aspect of loving and commuting with your family, your neighbors. Be a leader by
45:37
example and enjoy the longevity of it because you never really know. And my mentality is once
45:43
you've had one heart attack, it's very likely you'll have a second one. So I've kind of got a leg up
45:48
on all pretty much everybody else out there. I know one day I'll probably have one more and that
45:54
could be it. That could be my mentality and say, okay, that's what's going to get you 20 years from
46:00
now, 30 years from now. Or I could say, yep, that could happen. But all the things that I do now,
46:06
I'm not going to know when that day comes. So as long as I just take a step back, breathe, enjoy
46:11
the beauty that is life, life will be long, and I'm not rushing through it to get to the end.
46:16
Donnie, are you impatient by nature? At one point I was. That was the military.
46:24
That's what I would have guessed. So I am very impatient by nature. And so I used to do hobbies
46:35
that had instant gratification, right? And so, you know, I talk about this all the time. So,
46:39
you know, I used to play because I was a baseball player. And so when you're an adult, you don't get
46:43
to play baseball really. So you play slow pitch, beer league, softball, but you still get that
46:47
immediate gratification of the hit or the home run or the play or the outfield assist or whatever.
46:54
And then I started doing Jiu Jitsu at the age of 30, which you can't just be an athlete and be
47:01
good at Jiu Jitsu. It doesn't work that way, right? You could have never played softball before and
47:05
go out there and maybe be able to do a few things, but with Jiu Jitsu, it just doesn't work that way.
47:10
And so if you keep that impatient mindset, you will eventually quit because you're going to
47:15
look at yourself and you're going to be like, I'm not getting any better. This sucks. I'm just
47:18
getting killed every single day. I got other things to do with my time. I'm too important
47:22
to keep doing this hard task all the time. And so that's why I encourage people to do Jiu Jitsu
47:28
because as you progress, I've trained for a little over seven years, I can look back on who I was
47:34
at the beginning and who I've been able to mold myself into. But it's an iceberg, man, that just
47:40
moves slowly across the plane. Like, you know, I'm thinking Ice Age where this just a slow spread.
47:46
It's lava that's just creeping over the earth. Like it's just a slow process. And if you try to speed
47:53
it up, you will actually do yourself a disservice. And so that's what I think it's very interesting
47:58
for you that you've kind of embraced this more patient mindset, even though it doesn't, you know,
48:03
necessarily align with your wiring. And so you go from that, you have this situation where, you know,
48:10
your life almost ends, you're given this new perspective. And then somewhere along the line,
48:14
you become a professional caveman. And so you're going to have to kind of explain that to us well
48:19
adjusted normal people that aren't surrounded by dead animal skins. Like when like, where did that
48:24
happen? So it's like, obviously, as a marine, you're being taught survivalist things. But most
48:30
Marines don't turn survivalism or teaching the general populist survivalist behaviors. They don't
48:35
turn that into a career. But for you, it kind of, it kind of became who you were, you became obsessed
48:42
with this idea of survivalism. And then it turned into, okay, how do I teach other people how to do
48:47
these same things that I've, that I've learned these primitive skill sets, even if you're using
48:52
modern tools. So how in the world do you become that? Yeah, you know, I really think it comes from
48:58
kind of that evaluation of life and saying, as we have everything we could possibly need in this
49:06
world food, you know, just everything exists, everything you see around you exist. And it's really
49:10
at our fingertips. Where can I go that those things don't exist? Where can I go where I have to work
49:16
for every single thing that I do to make a fire, to get some food, to get some clean water?
49:21
And that natural environment allows you to reset. And for me, that reset environment,
49:27
probably like for many of your listeners here, we grew up without YouTube and all these sort of
49:32
influences out in the world. We spent our time outside, we spent our outside
49:37
BB guns or 22s and building forts and trapping animals. Like, that's just kind of how we grew up.
49:42
And from that early age, there was a piece there. There wasn't an acceptance there. There was a joy
49:49
there. And through that young age, into the military, which reinforced a lot of my skills,
49:54
as well as gave me a mental game that said, no matter what you do in the civilian life,
50:00
your hardest day will never be compared to some of the hardest days you'll experience in the
50:03
military, whether it's combat or sleeping in the rain. So gave me something to kind of hold on,
50:08
which built my resiliency. And then after that heart attack, it was battery that reevaluation says,
50:16
well, what do you really enjoy? What brings you peace? What brings you a whole different aspect
50:21
of enjoyment in life? And it was the natural world. And I wanted to go about it in a way where
50:26
less was more because in a world of everything, everything that you could possibly need, you have
50:31
at your fingertips, where can I go where there's less? Where can I go where I have to actually
50:36
figure out how to make a stone knife or make a blade to cut up, you know, a deer and a fireboard
50:43
and build a shelter. That's going to give me perspective, more importantly, appreciation into
50:48
the things that do exist when I'm at home or with my loved ones. So for me, it was thinking to folks
50:54
like, we all kind of grew up in the outdoors. And we kind of have an origin story in our in our
51:00
use around it. We should try to get people back to it. Because as technology slowly comes into this
51:06
whole new form between AI and all this sort of stuff, we could kind of lose that connection to the
51:11
natural world. And the best way to understand it is to go live in it, to actually go experience it.
51:17
And a hike is good. A hunting trip is even better. But how do you actually go? But not just survive
51:23
because survival is just getting by thriving is that level that you aim to thriving is where you
51:30
can have peace, you can't have comfort, you have that safety, you have that security. So I wanted
51:34
to survive, but then ultimately, I wanted to thrive. And it was something where I believe that people
51:40
wanted to reconnect with they wanted to kind of re evaluate their own kind of personal life in
51:45
that kind of modern world, and see how they can kind of reconnect to that natural world. And for
51:50
me, it was a process of kind of starting off at the very beginning. And one of the things that
51:56
I found a complete fascination with was things like stone tools, stone knives and arrow points
52:02
and arrowheads. And that was the determining factor. And a lot of my pursuits going to this day where
52:08
I can take a, you know, a raw piece of stone like this, and then turn it into a knife like this that
52:15
I could use for any manner of tasks. And for me, that was that kind of determining factor. That
52:23
was the golden nugget, if you will. And I wanted to really deep dive into that and start teaching
52:28
people. So how, you know, how does a guy that's coming out of the military that that doesn't really
52:34
enjoy, you know, technology didn't even have social media at the time. How does he do this?
52:39
You go find a trailhead, you go find a parking lot where people congregate to go to the outdoors,
52:44
you roll out a bison hide, you do a handrail friction fire, naps and tools, do a little elevator pitch,
52:50
print out 50 business cards, and try to start, you know, impacting people where you can bring
52:55
them out there and experience the outdoors. That's awesome. And so you drove home the point of how
53:01
you kind of got started with all this, but in order to get to where you are now in order to
53:06
be on that journey, you had to do a lot of these things yourself. And you had to basically put
53:11
yourself in a lot of sketchy situations. And so here's the thing. You've talked a lot about this
53:17
on some of your shows that you've been on and some of your own personal things that you've done. So
53:21
what are some of the extra sketchy situations that you've been a part of? I want to hear some of
53:27
those stories, but also I have a request. I want you to tell us something that you haven't said
53:33
anywhere else. I want there there's that story that you haven't shared on a TV show before or a
53:37
podcast before. But there's one that as soon as I said that I know it popped up in the back of your
53:41
brain, what's that story that you hadn't told before that only my audience is going to get because
53:47
they stayed with us this long. So let's go. All right. All right. So there's been a lot of
53:51
sketchy situations, but I'll give you one that's happened even as of recently. And that was last
53:57
summer out in the deserts of Utah. I almost died. And I thought I genuinely was going to die.
54:02
I was scouting a location for a fellow individual who teaches a lot of younger kids.
54:08
It's a 16 mile long canyon. He asked me if I would go out and scout for water. And I've been to this
54:12
canyon. So I knew there's water in a couple of different areas, but I wanted to make sure before
54:16
you get some teenagers down in there. So I walked down to this canyon and there's a lot of slick rock
54:21
and you're kind of sliding down rock and going through these spider holes and shimming across
54:25
stuff. Eventually I get to the bottom of the canyon. There's no water. So water has a natural
54:30
property. It typically flows downhill and it will pool and collect. So I start walking down the
54:34
canyon. Eventually I get to the base of it and there's no water. And I'm like, this is bad. More
54:38
importantly, I have one water bottle with me. Ego was kind of getting in the way. I'm like,
54:43
I got to get out of the canyon. The only way to get out is to walk back up. So I turn around
54:47
and walk all the way back up. And I have not had water for probably three or four hours.
54:52
And you know, I'm a larger guy. I'm six foot three and 235, 240 pounds. And it was starting to take
54:59
a toll on me. But when I got out of the canyon, the canyon's at a little bit lower kind of elevation.
55:04
It's cooler. I got to the rim and the sun started to bake me and I started to blackout. And I had
55:10
about three, three and a half miles before I got to my truck. And as I'm walking, I'm just getting
55:16
tunnel vision. I'm dry heaving. My pulse is racing and as a heart attack, you know, you know,
55:21
survivor, if you want to use that term, I knew this wasn't good. So I had to like sit down,
55:26
take a break, and I had to turn on this mental switch from the military and all my loved ones
55:31
saying, get up. You have to do this. Otherwise, you're going to cook and bake out here. And crows
55:36
are going to be eating your eyes in about 24 hours. So I found little accomplishments. I found little
55:41
pieces of terrain that offered some shade and I would move from shade to shade to shade or a series
55:48
of, you know, three plus miles over about, you know, an hour and a half to about two hours.
55:54
Dry heaving, cramping, vomiting the entire way till I was about an hour away from my car.
55:59
And or about a mile away from my car. And I thought this was it. My body had completely
56:05
seized up. I could not move my legs. And there was just something that kind of spoke to me
56:10
that was like, you have no other options. My dude, get up and just go. So I took every bit of last,
56:17
you know, strength and effort and energy and just trudged through with this tunnel vision coming
56:22
in and out, eventually got to my truck, drank up a half a bottle of Gatorade that was lukewarm
56:28
through it up because you don't want to chuck something when you're dehydrated. You want to
56:31
slowly slip and turn on my car, sat in the AC, eventually got my body to a composed state,
56:38
and I had to drive myself out and start rehydrating. But it was that sort of thing where I kid you
56:44
not like I've had very various brushes with death. But that was one time where I honestly thought
56:51
like this, this could be it. This guy who's, you know, does all these survival things and teaches
56:56
this that the other when he brings one bottle of water with him. Yeah, go into a canyon all day
57:00
long. And you know, almost, almost died. But something that I guess your listeners.
57:10
Let's go first time you heard here first guys, let's go. All right. So one of the things that I
57:20
preach in a lot of, you know, videos is in a lot of public things is kind of like to know more
57:28
and carry less. And when it comes to flint napping, I'm always kind of talking about safety. And a
57:34
lot of people ask me about safety sort of stuff, do wear gloves, you wear like pads. And one day I
57:41
was working on a giant piece of obsidian, which is volcanic glass and it's razor sharp. Right. And
57:47
while this was going on, I was doing some pressure flicking a couple different techniques. And when
57:54
I went through this, you know, and as somebody who's dedicated much of his life to flint napping,
58:00
this is kind of a really bad mistake. But as I was pressure flaking, my pressure flaker slipped
58:05
off the obsidian. And I drove the top of my thumb right through the obsidian slicing off a pretty
58:12
sizable chunk. And when I when I sliced off that chunk, and you can kind of see the scar on my
58:19
thumb, I had this huge, like panic attack. And I kind of didn't like shut down, but I was like,
58:27
Oh my God, I just did the one thing I preach continuously to people to have safety to be this.
58:34
More importantly, I was hyper focused on that cut that I was starting to not fully bleed out,
58:41
but there was a large pool of blood and I kind of went into this shock mode. And I've seen,
58:46
you know, burning bodies and explosions and all sorts of chaos. But on my own thumb,
58:51
I kind of tweaked out and just kind of lost complete composure, and was looking at it as it was bleeding
58:57
out all over the place. And I started to get lightheaded. I started to kind of go into this fancy
59:02
mode until I was able to put my hand over the top. And I was able to actually cauterize the wound
59:07
through a chemical process. But I never share this with anybody. And I can't believe I'm sharing
59:13
this with you because I am the ultimate practitioner when it comes to flintnapping that safety is
59:18
important and that you should always be prepared more importantly, you should have first aid.
59:22
And I feel like through my own negligence and through my own, it will never happen to me. It
59:26
did happen to me. And the result was a serious, serious wound on my hand where I couldn't actually
59:32
flintnap. And the whole aspect of this that I will never really admit to anybody else is that
59:37
I use primitive tools. I use antler and I use bone to do this. Because of this happening,
59:43
I had to transition into a modern tool set. And I do not use modern tools, but there's about a
59:48
three month recovery window where I was using modern tools to produce my projectiles, my points,
59:54
because they're just easier to manipulate. But it doesn't sound very exciting. But for somebody
59:59
who's like dedicated their entire life to using a very primitive way of making stone tools and
1:00:04
having the dumbest accident you could possibly imagine with the sharpest substance on earth,
1:00:10
it's just it's embarrassing for me. It's not like, you know, that exciting, but it's,
1:00:16
I feel embarrassed. It's like, I can't believe I just told that to everyone.
1:00:21
Hey, well, let me hop, let me hop in here to assuage some of that embarrassment. Because what you just
1:00:27
displayed, Donnie, is putting your ego aside for the betterment of the longevity of your project,
1:00:35
right? Absolutely. Because there are people, right, because if this happened a thousand years ago,
1:00:41
you get game green and you die probably, right? And like, this is this is a major issue. And so
1:00:46
it's like, okay, you use primitive tools, but you'll use modern medicine. And so it's like,
1:00:50
there's always this inconsistency of how we're doing things. And I just, I have, I have a, you know,
1:00:56
thought here that probably no one's going to hold that against you, that you're using some modern
1:01:02
tools to make things that have all that. And so just relax, take a deep breath. And here's the thing,
1:01:07
we're going to take away a little bit more of that anxiety. Because now we're going to get into
1:01:11
some rapid fire questions. Because as we wind do a close here, I have a bunch of survivalist
1:01:17
type questions that we can kind of treat like a lightning round. Because I think this will cover
1:01:22
a lot of ground in a short period of time and give guys a lot of nuggets to walk away from a
1:01:26
conversation that's already been fired. So let's get into a couple of these questions here. Okay,
1:01:31
first one, I have, yeah, what is the bigger problem? People overestimating their survivalist
1:01:38
abilities, or people not preparing to survive at all? What is the bigger problem?
1:01:44
I think it's, I think it's the overestimation of our abilities. A lot of us, like I said,
1:01:50
we grew up hunting, fishing and camping and all these things. But it doesn't mean if all of those
1:01:54
resources are removed, you have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to address your needs,
1:01:59
wants, and desires in that true, true survival situation. It's yes, it is better to know more
1:02:05
and carry less. But if you're in that novice stage, you should supply yourself. So we have to kind of
1:02:11
put our ego aside, we can all be big, honking, hurling, oil rig, field workers, and iron workers.
1:02:17
But the environment is a harsh place. It will not lie, cheat, or steal from you. It is the
1:02:22
ultimate truth in this natural living world. And it will take from you very quick.
1:02:27
I think you're absolutely right. That's what I would have guessed you would have said, because
1:02:31
we talked about this off air, but it's like, there are people that don't know how to fight,
1:02:35
but they just assume if they're in a situation that's going to get kinetic, that all of a sudden
1:02:38
they're just going to know how to use that car being, they're just going to know how to take
1:02:42
someone down and hold them there until help arrives. And it's like, no, you're actually going to fall
1:02:46
to the level of your training, and especially in a survivalist scenario, you don't want to
1:02:50
just pretend. All right. So next question here, go ahead, Donnie, go ahead.
1:02:53
I was just going to say I have an actual story that goes into that example,
1:02:56
perfectly. I'm I'm in Golden, Colorado. I'm walking in a park with my fiancee and her parents,
1:03:02
and it's a loaded park and a fight breaks out. Well, not really a fight, but a brawl breaks out
1:03:07
between homeless guys once smashes a bottle, flashes a guy across the face, he's got a huge
1:03:12
gouge process face. And every one of the audience starts looking, my girlfriend goes, Hey,
1:03:17
well, my fiance goes, Hey, stop. And I'm already mid run over there. I tackle this guy, put him in
1:03:23
like a rear naked choke, bring him to the ground, chicken wing, both of his arms. And people start,
1:03:28
you know, first thing we do is pull out their phones and they start calling the cops and then
1:03:31
filming. And for about 25, probably less than 20 for maybe we're closer to 20 minutes, I sat there
1:03:37
and I held that guy with just my body pressure and just, you know, obviously manipulation of the
1:03:43
arms until the cops came. And for whatever reason, they handcuffed me and put me in cops because I
1:03:47
thought I was a perpetrator of this. Yeah, everyone kind of displayed it out. But it's one of those
1:03:52
things I don't consider myself a fighter. I consider myself to have certain knowledge skills and
1:03:56
abilities and fighting. And that was kind of the limit to my ability to kind of fork this from
1:04:01
continuing on to, you know, ultimately being a bloody mess, a little bit of a background,
1:04:05
but not a proficiency. So if anyone going into that survival world, you might have a little bit
1:04:09
of background, but what is your level of proficiency in those kind of austere environments to really
1:04:14
get you out on top? Very good. All right. Next question here, let's get to the basics.
1:04:18
What are some of the most basic skills someone needs in order to survive in the outdoors? What
1:04:25
are some of those basic building blocks? I think we're the most important things that people need.
1:04:30
One is an aspect of creativity. We got to have a creative process. That is our number one
1:04:35
survival skill, because even with very few resources, you can be creative to solve problems. And really
1:04:41
that main problem is understanding how to shelter. And that's macro as well as micro shelter. Exposure
1:04:47
to the elements will kill you fast and extreme heat, extreme cold, when you're wet, when you're
1:04:51
tired, the exposure to the elements will kill you quicker than not having food. So being able
1:04:57
to build something or understand how to protect yourself from that environment will keep you alive
1:05:02
a whole heck of a lot longer. From there, it's understanding the dynamic between fire and water.
1:05:09
They go hand in hand. Fire heats, warm signals and cooks, water hydrates and keeps you alive,
1:05:15
but sometimes you need fire to potentially process water. So it's understanding the environments will
1:05:20
dictate what your priorities will be that will ultimately keep you alive. But I cannot tell you
1:05:25
how important it is to understand how to build a shelter on the large scale to keep you safe,
1:05:31
protect to the warm, as well as understanding what clothing you can wear that is your micro
1:05:36
shelter, if you will, to keep you alive ready and willing to go forward out in a survival situation.
1:05:40
Okay, very good. So those are the basics. Let's move from surviving basic survival to thriving.
1:05:47
You really talk about thriving a lot. How does someone thrive in the natural world?
1:05:52
Yeah, thriving is that aspect when you've moved beyond just getting by hand to mouth.
1:05:58
Thriving is the comfort, the security, as well as the ease of survival, knowing that you have a
1:06:06
supply for knowing you have a supply of firewood that the shelter that you're living in is safe and
1:06:10
secure from the elements, bears, moves, mountain lion, whatever that case may be. And how you get
1:06:16
from survival to survival, there is no defined way. There is no say I've done these five things.
1:06:22
Now I'm thriving. It's a mentality. And more importantly, it's addressing your needs over a
1:06:28
long term. And if you find yourself with all of those needs met and your mentality is straightforward
1:06:34
and you feel like you want to sit in the sun for 45 minutes, you're starting to get into that
1:06:39
thrivel zone where you're not worried about, will I have enough food? Will I have enough water?
1:06:43
Will I be safe tonight? You're moving into that zone of now I can start thinking about comfort.
1:06:49
I can start thinking about things that might give me enjoyment where I could sit and read a book
1:06:53
if that, you know, if I had one, or I'm going to sit and carve a stick that serves no purpose,
1:06:57
except for the enjoyment of it. So there is no defined way. What is thriving? What is that kind
1:07:03
of characteristics or those four or five steps you need? It's the mentality as well as addressing
1:07:07
all of your needs, but it's hard to address your needs all the time. Very good. All right. Next one
1:07:13
here. What are some of the biggest misnomers and misconceptions about what someone should do in a
1:07:18
survival situation? And I'll use an example from you. So I've heard it said before that if we're
1:07:24
dehydrated that we should drink our own urine, but I've seen where you've said that's a terrible
1:07:28
idea. So what are some of those misnomers, misconceptions that are that are really, really popular?
1:07:32
Yeah. So drinking your own urine, do not do it. It's a toxic element. If anything,
1:07:37
you are going to employ urine, pee on some clothing, and then wrap it around you, because it will
1:07:42
create an aspect of moisture. And that's better than actually consuming it. Moss doesn't grow on a
1:07:48
certain side of the tree. You can go into some forest and find moss growing 360 degrees all the way
1:07:53
around it. So the other things are that there is a difference between purification and filtering.
1:08:00
If you filter water, it does not mean that it's purified. Filtering means you are removing particulates.
1:08:06
Purification means you are killing all of the cryptosporidium and bacteria and all the things
1:08:12
that could live and exist and cause you harm on the inside. We need to understand those differences
1:08:18
and the easiest way to purify water is to simply boil it at 212 degrees. How do you know you're
1:08:24
there? The water's boiling. That's your perfect indication. Some of the other misnomers are,
1:08:30
I guess you could say, when it comes to buildering shelter, there is no specific
1:08:36
best shelter for any environment. Every duration of time, the equipment, the resources that you have
1:08:44
will dictate what sort of shelter you will build. There is no, when I go into the jungle,
1:08:49
this is the shelter I'm building. Again, creativity and understanding the resources and the environment
1:08:55
that you're in will ultimately dictate the sort of shelter that you're going into. Another misnomer,
1:09:01
as well as you might know the stars, I would not navigate off of them. The stars are a very unique
1:09:08
tool to use, but it takes a very complex and in-depth understanding of the season, the time,
1:09:14
the year, and where those stars are aligned for you to use them as a navigation aid.
1:09:18
Some stars will exist in the routine patterns of where they are, but it can be very confusing,
1:09:24
especially this day and age with satellites and all this artificial light that exists,
1:09:28
stars can get drowned out, you'll be good to go. And the last one I'll add is this,
1:09:34
typically in North America, within eight to ten miles, no matter where you're at in North
1:09:40
America, you can find a road. So that road doesn't mean a hardball road where it's traffic,
1:09:45
it could be a fire cut, it could be a forest road or a fire actual road, but you can come across a
1:09:51
road. So to get really remote, you can get there, but the feasibility and the probability of you
1:09:56
finding a road to ultimately get yourself out and come across somebody else is extremely high.
1:10:01
So keep that in mind that you can be out in the bush in the middle of nowhere, but I can guarantee
1:10:07
you there's some sort of road close by. All right, that's all very, very good stuff. A couple
1:10:11
of more questions here. So let's talk about some essentials. What are some essentials that we
1:10:17
should all carry in our vehicles? Yeah, vehicles, I mean, number one is your own personal extraction
1:10:23
device. I mean, come along, any sort of like heavy gauge wenches as well as straps to pull yourself
1:10:30
out, you know, from a fence post or a tree, whatever the case may be, but it's always kind of like
1:10:34
having your own self protection to remove yourself out of it. With that is the necessary kind of
1:10:40
reflective gear that you could use to signal other drivers that you are under arrest,
1:10:44
or something that gives them warning, especially at night. Within that, I always go vehicle maintenance
1:10:50
is extremely important. The necessary tools that you could do to overcome kind of simple problems,
1:10:54
a flat tire running out of gas, anything that could go wrong in your vehicle. I mean, you might not
1:11:00
be able to address everything, but some of those simple tasks and problems would be smart.
1:11:03
With that is a bag for you to leave your vehicle. Everyone wants to stay close to their vehicle,
1:11:10
and I don't recommend it based on the environment, but you have to have a bag where you have to say,
1:11:14
I need to walk from here to the gas station. I saw 20 miles ago and in that bag, you want to
1:11:19
have to change the clothing, that's weather appropriate, signaling devices, cash, a good map or two of
1:11:25
your local area where you're traveling, as well as the necessary footwear that you can do it.
1:11:30
As much as everyone wants to kind of be the gray man and go dark and all this sort of stuff,
1:11:35
but if I see somebody walking along the road and they're wearing an orange vest and I'm in a remote
1:11:39
area, they've got a backpack on, they look somewhat clean and professional, I'm more likely to stop
1:11:45
compared to somebody that's wearing all black, trying to be industry because they read some
1:11:49
blog about you have to be this, you have to be that in this sort of situation. No,
1:11:53
be presentable and you're more likely to get picked up, but personal aid, self aid, first aid as well,
1:11:59
and then all the things that you could wind up using necessary to your family. If you have a
1:12:04
family dynamic with young kids, a wife, you know, sons, what things will they need? And you should
1:12:09
supply it with food, snacks, water in case you are sitting on the side of the road for an hour,
1:12:14
even a day, I would go as far as even say, throw in a coloring book or a word search to keep those
1:12:19
young ones potentially occupied, but it's addressing the needs of everybody that routinely travels in
1:12:24
that vehicle. All right, so that's the vehicle. But last question of the day here, what are some
1:12:29
essentials that we should all carry on our person? So and we'll split that to when you're just in
1:12:34
your normal everyday life, but also if you're going to be out in any type of a, you know, nature
1:12:40
situation. Yeah, so I think for me in that everyday life where I sometimes refer to as your EDC
1:12:45
everyday carry, I think a good blade is to have whether you're cutting out of a seat belt or you're
1:12:50
opening up a package. And if you are well versed in certain self defense things with the blade,
1:12:54
I mean, just remember your adversary could take that blade and use it against you. But for those
1:12:58
general purposes of cutting, I don't think that's wrong. I usually carry a butt pack. And in that
1:13:03
butt pack, I always have a blade and I have as a little micro flashlight just for turning on and
1:13:09
looking here and there, it's going to give me a little bit light. Also, it's a signaling device
1:13:13
in times of arrest, carry a little aspect of cordage, not to be building snares or traps,
1:13:18
but it gets to shoelace breaks, or I got to quickly bind something down and I just don't have
1:13:22
something readily available. And then within there, I was carrying a couple Band-Aids and some
1:13:26
some time on something that can give myself a little bit of relief in the event of a minor
1:13:30
injury and, you know, some sort of mental pain, something in that capacity. It's very, very minimal
1:13:36
in the in the modern world. And that's a very word you can come across those resources readily
1:13:40
available. If you need them, but it's always nice to have, but a knife and a good little flashlight,
1:13:45
you can't grow wrong. But this is shooter preference. Every, every, anyone that shoots has a preference,
1:13:50
you know, I'm a less is more, but that's my thing. Out in the bush, if you're going out for a list,
1:13:54
just use a day hike scenario, or you're going out hunting for the weekend, I would definitely
1:13:58
have something that you can address yourself in a form of shelter that can be a bivi bag,
1:14:02
or a small little micro tarp. And within the structure of that tarp or that bivi bag,
1:14:06
make sure it has some signaling capabilities. It's orange, it's reflective, and it holds in your
1:14:11
body heat pretty well. A form of fire, I usually like to carry a ferro rod, because it's waterproof,
1:14:17
and it's not going to break, or you can carry some matches in a lighter, but something that
1:14:20
will aid in your ability to make fire. I like to carry some sort of cutting tool. I like to use
1:14:26
typically like a Leatherman, something with a little bit more cutting capability with multi-use
1:14:31
that could also translate into that kind of everyday carry as well. I also like to carry a
1:14:36
little bit more cordage, and I also like to carry something kind of sweet, if you will, like a
1:14:40
little sugary thing, like a lifesaver, or a little packet of honey, that if I am getting kind of
1:14:45
down on my luck, and the hiking backpack that I was wearing on this day hike, and I accidentally
1:14:50
lost it or fell into a river or stream, and I dropped it, I still have a little bit of recess
1:14:54
or the on the inside, something that will address my needs of tooling in the form of cutting,
1:14:59
shelter, cordage, a little bit of sugar, and last but not least, is a form that's going to allow me
1:15:04
to process water quickly, and the best rule of form for that is an iodine tablet, or some sort of
1:15:10
little plastic bag that I could throw some iodine tablets in, scoop up some dirty water,
1:15:15
know that it's safe to drink, and be able to drink it. So it's kind of going back into that
1:15:19
fire food, shelter, water, signaling, you really can't go wrong, but again, shoot a preference
1:15:25
based off your environment, but more importantly, it's based off your knowledge, your skills,
1:15:30
and your abilities, all three uniquely different things that will give you a lot of different
1:15:35
perspective and how you can go, put your ego aside, and really go out into the outdoors and
1:15:39
address those survival situations if they become present. Boom, Donnie, that is exactly what I was
1:15:46
expecting from you. That is a fire last 20 minutes of this. We only went a little bit further than
1:15:51
we thought we did, but man, we weaved in and out of a lot of different things here. I
1:15:55
really, really appreciate your time and attention and creativity in our interview today, but
1:15:59
that's all for me. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
1:16:01
No, first and foremost, I appreciate everyone listening. Keep that mental positivity going
1:16:06
forward, lead by example. And remember, sometimes, even though we might be older, we are still the
1:16:11
future and how we impact those people that are older than us as well as young as us. And I
1:16:17
appreciate everyone's time. Thank you so much. Kyle, thank you, and I wish you the best.
1:16:21
Donnie, I appreciate you coming on. There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with Donnie
1:16:25
Dust, but before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost at Undaunted
1:16:28
Life for Mission is equipping into pushback darkness with content that forges spiritual
1:16:32
mental and physical resilience. The only link I've got for you today, we're keeping it simple.
1:16:35
It's a link to Donnie's website. Go there and check it out. Thank you for listening to this
1:16:39
podcast. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive five
1:16:42
star review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, shoot me an email
1:16:47
to info@undonton.life. That's i-n-f-o @undonton.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook
1:16:53
and check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like
1:16:56
this coming your way. Just go to www.undonton.life. And as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name
1:17:02
for allowing us to use their music for our content. The music on this podcast is their song Perpetua,
1:17:06
which is off their self-titled debut album on Face Down Records. The links are in the description.
1:17:11
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual,
1:17:17
mental, and physical resilience. Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
1:17:41
you