Motivation Through Adversity
EPISODE 40
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THIS WEEK THE GUYS GATHER IN THE TEAMROOM TO TALK ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS…JUST PLAYING, WE TALKED ABOUT MOTIVATION. WHAT MOTIVATES US, HOW FAR MOTIVATION WILL TAKE YOU, AND BRIAN GAVE US OUR NEXT GREAT SHIRT IDEA. LISTEN UP AND GET YOUR MIND RIGHT.
INTRO
Intro 00:02
You're listening to the Ones Ready podcast, a team of Air Force Special Operators forged in combat with over 70 years of combined operational experience, as well as a decade of selection instructor experience. If you're tired of settling, and you want to do something you truly believe in, you're in the right place. Now, here's your favorite CCT personality, JTAC extraordinaire, embracer of the ridiculous face, unlike the shortest operator you'll ever meet Peaches.
Peaches 00:27
Hey everybody, welcome to the Ones Ready podcast. We're happy to have you in the team room with us. And as always, thank you for tuning in and listening. Hopefully you've subscribed and have left us a review, whether that's good or bad. I don't know we'll just take it and roll with it. However, however you see fit, so check us out on YouTube or on Spotify. And don't forget to check out some of our partners. So today we'll talk about Strike Force Energy. I've said it in the past I don't think I've actually ever brought in a packet but the They come in these nifty little packages you mix it in some water and then that you're on the go juice. I also said it before you cannot have water and throw it right in.
Aaron 01:12
That is a recommendation. That is that is not the preferred technique, man, you better be ready. I don't know what kind of life you're living. You can't just like find a cup of water or like find a drinking fountain or something to make that happen. But man, if that's how your life is, it's not terrible. Well, it is terrible, but you can get through it.
Peaches 01:35
So, if you guys do check them out there, we're over at Strikeforceenergy.com and use the promo code ONESREADY, and you guys will get a discount. We don't get anything from it. It's just us. They're helping us out by being a partner and then you know, they're helping you out by giving you a discount. And of course, I use my own discount code as well. Like who doesn't?
Aaron 02:00
I have discount codes for I haven't tired notes on my phone that are just like oh this is this page is discount code like this is straight forces discount code Make sure to put in one's ready and you'll get you know like 10% off or whatever it is like I have to No kidding remind myself of what they are we put the partner link on the page, I believe, Brian, do we not?
Brian 02:17
Yeah, definitely. Check, go check it out over there. And you can check out all the codes and all the people that were affiliated with the onesready.com under the party link.
Trent 02:25
If you just do a subscription to then just don't have to worry about putting the code every time you're subscribed. Every few weeks. It's amazing.
MOTIVATION
Peaches 02:51
Alright, so moving on to what we actually want to talk to you about his motivation. We get asked a lot of questions and hey, even internally I asked my own self what motivates me what drives me to do certain things. And kind of this topic sparked by really the amount of questions that we were getting on, hey, what motivates you? And when you look at it on the surface without really diving into it, it's kind of tough you're like, well, I just do it I know. You know, I there's no question I just go and I and I do it. But if you actually take a moment to take a step back and figure out what does in fact motivate you, I think some of it could be pretty surprising I think a lot of people go with the really positive you know, positive motivation, which I'm still a proponent for positive mental attitude, PMA.
Aaron 03:45
You have to that's on every single war we put out there. You better bring your PMA dog. I don't want to see any poopoo faces.
Peaches 03:51
Exactly. But if you're someone like me, you tend to have a little bit more of a negative connotation with what you motivate yourself with so like, for example for me and it's going to sound trivial maybe but I, I don't like I don't mind winning I like I like winning, but I hate losing even more.
Aaron 04:18
Oh, you're speaking my language dog. Yes. I don't know how many times I said it like I'm going to have to get a tattoo that says we get ones in this organization.
Peaches 04:29
So, and I know I'm not the only one there Aaron, you just touched on a little bit. You want to go into yours?
Aaron 04:38
Just on the winning thing. I don't know how many times I've said it because I apply it to everything like it's not okay with me. You know, with my guys are the people that I want to see do well, it's not okay that they're not good at things like admin. Like you could not like admin, you'd be like, this suck. I don't want to do it. But guys that consistently cannot write EPR packages that aren't pushing for those awards guys that aren't like really, really good. The administrative piece like, I don't find that to be okay. And I always say I'm like, Listen, we get wins in this organization, whether it's a silly of the quarter award or whether it's, you know, I walk around our Squadron and I'm like 5 Flight, best flight in the squadron. You know, I say that all the time. Just like I stole it from Russell Wilson. Have you ever seen Russell Wilson, the quarterback and every single interview, go see how he ends every single interview? He gets done. He's like, Alright, Go Hawks. And then he runs off. But I always thought that was funny. So just as I leave anywhere in the squad, I'm just like, Alright, 5 Flight. Best fighting squad. And so, you guys, but I hate I hate feeling that lacking feeling that you're talking about that lose, like, Listen, I love to win, just like you're saying. But man do I hate to lose?
Brian 05:43
Yeah, I just think on that whole what you're talking about there, Aaron. You know, the most important part about whether or not you believe that you're going to be able to like do admin stuff, because I kind of felt the same way and some of the things that were I was doing through PA school when I was like first learning ropes, I was just like, man, I just do not get this at all like, this is just really hard for me to my head. Yeah. And it's every time I come back to this and if it's been like a month or whatever, I'm just like, I don't even remember where we left off last time. That was that magic trick you did last time? Yeah. What? How did you get the five to one? Oh, here's a five to one instead of a three to one. But I think the big thing here is like when I was a kid, my dad always used to tell me Don't say that. I can't do something. And it's the same kind of deal here. You know, if you walk up and you're like, I just don't know I can't do ropes or I can't do EPR I just don't ever do them and I can't see like, Okay, well, maybe you don't want to right now, but you can do them. It's not like, you know, all of you know, Aaron's that much smarter. He's obviously smarter than all the rest of us, but he's not smarter man. Like, we can figure out, you know, things that that he does and you know, make it our own. way, you know, people have different ways of doing it. But if you need to write down a bowl or whatever, you just figure out little tips and tricks to make it. So, you can remember those things and not commit to it. Because once you commit to anything, then it's going to be like that for, you know the rest of your life.
Aaron 07:14
Just this weekend, man, I was putting a 1206 together, I sent it out to a couple people that I know that are great. And I'm just like, Hey, you know, I sent it out to our friend BC. BC is a CRO and I've worked for him for a long time, but he is a savant with writing any of that stuff. So, I literally wrote this thing up, and I sent it to him. And I was like, Hey, man, like when I was his flight Chief, he used to tell me if he if he could spend less than an hour, like the first EPR I wrote for him was trash. And he was like, get this out of here, man. And he's like, I looked at this for an hour and a half last night, and I just turned it off. He's like, you need to start over like, and he gave me some feedback. But he was so good at it. Like he's always going to change stuff. So, there was like, a time window. So, I was like, man, if I could get this to around like 40 minutes, that's when I know I wrote a good product because he was going to change it because he was better at it. But uh, even that I was like, okay, about 40 minutes, but I sent it to him. The other night, I was like, hey, hopefully this is about a 40-minute product man, can you give me some feedback because I want to, I want to get to that Jedi level.
Brian 08:07
Let me just also for you guys that aren't in the military yet EPRs and I want you guys to know what we're talking about instead of, you know, just talking about nothing. So basically, on an EPR, you have a certain amount of lines that you fit in a certain amount of space per line. And within those spaces per line, you want to fit it all the way up to the very last character that goes in that line. And you want to put as much information packed and hard hitting whatever your troop did as possible. And then you know, numbers all that stuff. Just try and make it sound like this guy's amazing and they produce it represents all the stuff that they did and then they go up against a board and you know, they see the packages and they rate you know, all that stuff. So just so you guys know, it's a lot. It's really difficult to get out and it's just first start.
Aaron 08:59
And it's really Military writing all the writing is different every from emails to the way that you compose papers to the way that you actually like physically talk to people. Like, you've seen the cliche where everybody's like roger that locked and loaded all the time, which is, yeah, exactly how we talk all the time.
Trent 09:16
But yeah, I think our years in the Air Force are showing like our years in service combined, because we're over here talking about writing. But the Senior Airman version of ourselves will be slapping us right now.
Brian 09:31
Bring it back to the not losing thing though. Peach. I want to just sit on that too. I think we're trained from that trained to do that from INDOC also because I remember, you know, as an instructor, and when I was going through, we'd have races like, go to the creek, dunk yourselves, bear crawl through or whatever, and then run back. You're the first dude, everyone would always notice and sometimes it was in a bad way because he was just like, you know, always trying to get the glory but you know, if you finish with a team, you know, you can finish and it was everything. It's fine if you're that last dude. And then you just got harassed.
Aaron 10:05
They had plenty of time and they're looking, I'm just sitting there as an instructor and I'm like, who’s it going to be? It was going to be last.
Brian 10:12
Just all the instructors Don't be less no be last all the way down the road. So, I think if you're the first you're like, Oh, good job, dude. And then the last year, like, what are you doing?
Aaron 10:21
Those are the only two people that matter who won and who was last everybody else in the middle. That's just that's just a rep. Like you're going to run that one again.
Peaches 10:28
I recently so kind of what helped, you know, capture that in my mind was I was listening to another podcast that had Matt Fraser on it. So, you know, four-time CrossFit game champion, right. And he was talking about the podium placement so you have you know, first, second and third first place, you know, hey, that's fantastic. That's where you want to be right? Third place, the first and third place guys or people are extremely happy. Because first place he wants third place, hey, he met he, he, you know, ranked. Okay, I made the post I write the poem. The second guy is the one that is almost always pissed off that he got second, You're the first loser.
Aaron 11:21
I think the worst too is like, you know, I'm not going to lie and say I've never taken a loss, you know, especially at work, you know, trying to get things done or trying to get a school or whatever, like sometimes you just can't win. Doesn't make it okay, I hate those losses every single time. Every single time. It's still it's still stings every single time you have.
PAIN CAVE
Peaches 11:42
Alright, so, Aaron, we'll start with you what kind of devious things motivate you to push through difficult workouts.
Aaron 11:50
Oh, man, I'm a big proponent of the pain cave. So, we have Chief Cox he's actually going to be the Special Warfare Training Group Chief now with TX. So, he and TX are going to take the organization down there so he's on his way down. But he gave a great mental armor brief talking about how to kind of prepare yourself and like exercises for things you're going to see to actually get you mentally engaged beforehand because there's nothing essentially left of bang for and we've talked about mental health a lot, right? So, this is actually like a program where you can actually like, have almost a mental fitness routine leading up to what you think is going to be a stressful event like a deployment, right? So as he was kind of talking through the mental armor brief, he talked about dropping in and we all do it right like Brian, if you walked into a training room and there's a mannequin and somebody just reads you off, you know, hey, here are the vitals here the problems go like immediately you know to just click right into that you drop into that scenario and you're mentally engaged.
Brian 12:47
Muscle every time, that's what we train for. Walk it out, walk out of my room right now and you know if that happens after.
Aaron 12:55
Exactly, you're like, Hey, I can do it. We were talking before you know, we started recording but like You know, having something pop off, basically, you know, at any time you need to be able to drop in to that event and I'm a big proponent of it. So, when I'm in the pain cave, when I'm just hurting, like, I have levels, right? Like because you're under 30 minutes like workout like pain fests or when you're really hurting kind of in that range. You know, it's short enough to where you can be like, okay, you listen to music, you kind of vibe out, you're cool when it goes like an hour plus, for me, that's when I know I gotta get like serious, like I got to think about usually the thing that I default to a lot in those moments is like, I'll think about friends that have aren't here anymore. I try to think about something and emotionally attaches me to that moment because it actually works. Like all emotion in that moment. Whether it's rage or anger or you know, sadness for missing somebody or you know, even feeling love for you know, failing because people think about their family because that's why they're doing it like that. Those are good and those moments and I like to I like the idea of dropping in and really being present and being there at the workout. You know,
Peaches 13:58
That's why hero WODs in CrossFit are so awesome. I love them. They are suck.
Aaron 14:04
Yes, they're like terrible 31 heroes just it crushes me. Every single year I have such good memories of being down and shout to San Diego CrossFit, what's up C-Bo and everybody down there, but being down there with them, and we would do it with the students and we'd have huge teams 150-200 people that we go through and I great memories of those days down there. But man, it just always just flattens me like it that one hurts.
Peaches 14:32
Yeah. Yeah, completely.
Aaron 14:35
Yeah. I think that's for me is like, you know, you find it's funny. We're talking about this where at the very beginning, you were like, No, we just turn it on. It's just time to go. Right. Well, we do that because we've done it so many times. We know exactly how to flip that switch and go Alright, now I'm at work now and I have a problem that I need to fix. And, you know, we can turn that on a lot.
Peaches 14:56
I think I think that motivation goes into overall times and you know, General, not just during a workout, but you know, difficult times in life difficult situations.
Aaron 15:06
Yeah, for sure. And it's seeing wacky things that you've never heard of before. You know, I still get surprised by, you know, a friend will tell me a scenario that that he's in or one of my team guys will have a problem and we'll start working through it. And you're just like, holy cow. I cannot believe yeah; I still haven't seen that. That's new every single day. So, I'm glad that I have all that experience behind me where I can go, Okay, well, I may not have seen this thing, but I've seen things kind of like this. So, I at least know how to how to start attacking the problem, you know, and if not, then I reach out to my friends, which I do all the time. I'm like, Hey, have you ever seen this? Do you know anything about this?
Peaches 15:43
All right. Cool. So, Trent, you’re kind of a sick and twisted and very sarcastic dude. I mean, right?
Trent 15:53
I'm a nice guy.
Aaron 15:55
I love the sick and twisted angle because I'm thinking about that cartoon view.
THE FAMILY NAME
Peaches 16:11
So, what are some of the things that motivate you? Do you have negative thoughts that help drive you? Or do you kind of go on the positive route?
Trent 16:19
I mean, if I'm thinking about my baseline motivation, you know, its pretty common reason is family. And when I say family, what I mean is, as I've, as I've moved through my career, what family is and how it motivates me, has changed throughout my career. So, like in the beginning, right, like, I remember that first day, you get your uniform, and you get your name, your name tag, and you slap it on your chest. And I have a very unusual last name. And so, I felt that pressure of representing my family name, as soon as I joined the Air Force that pushed me along for a lot of things.
Aaron 16:55
Yeah, distinctive. People like there's not a whole lot of signalers running around. You're like, Yeah, got it.
Trent 17:01
Yeah, they'll remember me forever, as opposed to like some Smith that is like, there's 100 Smith's that come through this place every week. But um, you know that that motivated me for a long time. But then my motivation never really changed because my family evolved through my career. So, like, I showed that my first duty station and Bragg as a SOWT, right? When I call people, my brother, I'm not, I'm not kidding. But you know, like my family, the people that don't want to disappoint the people that I want to live up to their expectations. The people that I want to help are the people that did all the work prior to me getting there to put me where I'm at, I want to make sure that I don't disappoint them, I don't squander the opportunities that they set up for me. And then that motivates me to push forward and push the envelope a little bit. And then also to push the next generation of guys a little bit harder to get a little bit further.
Peaches 17:50
So, yours is still kind of, you know, rooted in fear of failure.
Trent 17:57
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I hate that. In Moneyball, Brad Pitt said like, I hate losing more than I like winning
Peaches 18:05
That is absolute truth. Yeah, I don't know why it's not like I've won a whole bunch. I've just lost a whole bunch.
Aaron 18:13
I violently agree with this statement.
Trent 18:15
But it's like, I don't want to spit like so you like your parents? Right? I think that the American Dream is every generation moves up right? And then same thing in like, every generation of Pararescue, Combat Controller is supposed to get a little bit better. I don't want to spit in the face of the people that came before me that put all that work in all the giants whose shoulders I'm standing on. I don't want to spit in their face by not trying my hardest and, you know, utilizing my abilities and talents to the fullest extent. Otherwise, I feel like yeah, if I'm losing if I'm not trying my hardest, and I'm just poking them in the eye and being like, yeah, thanks for putting me here. I'm just going to take advantage of all these opportunities you set up for me and not try it all.
Aaron 18:52
I saw it on the Instagram’s on the Facebook's somewhere. It was a it basically said You know, when you don't believe in yourself that Basically attacking everybody that does, like everybody else that does believe in you. Like, that's, like you're doing exactly what you're saying. You're like, all those people believe in you, you're just like, Nah, not good enough. So,
Brian 19:11
yeah, I like that. Only that, like all the work that the people that, you know, when you're in high school, he did sports, your parents, they tried to teach you all these things like, you know, like I said, my dad taught me not to say I can't. But if I, you know, go through, and I tell him, you know, I just quit. I couldn't do it, you know, as I'm an adult to take responsibility and just look him in the eye say like, everything that you did for me and everything that you taught me when I was a kid was worthless, because I just, you know, spit it back in your face.
Peaches 19:39
Yeah. Yeah. And I know this is not exactly tied to motivation, but since you brought up the parents thing, I know we I just seen something on Reddit and I replied to it and basically his dad or his mom and dad are not supportive of him becoming a PJ he got close to a six figure job, freaking college degree. And he hates his job hates where he's at in life and he wants more so he's motivated, right? Because you don't get to where he's at the age of 24 without being motivated. And then to hit your parents with this is what I want to do, and then not support you, in this in the least, you know, to you know what happens if you get shot and you could die, you could do all this, you know, and you're comfortable, you've got a secure job, right? Man, if he doesn't take that motivation and move towards being a PJ, which is what he wanted to do, he will end up regretting it for the rest of his life, resenting his parents. And I'm not I'm not saying that his parents aren't justified because I'm sure it comes from a place of love and care, but, man, if you find yourself in that situation, you have to use that motivation that you have, because you obviously have a lot if you're going to give up what you have and go put yourself through this. Use that.
Aaron 21:12
yeah, and it's always funny how the first time in your life where your kind of really have to you start making these hard choices. Usually it is with your parents about something where it's like you realize like your parents are just, it's always funny you grow up to a certain age and you think your parents are just like these superhero people. And then you have that one time where you're like, wait a second, you're figuring this shit out, day by day, just like I am. And you have that time where you're like, wait a second, and then like now I'm you know, I'm 40 now like I am you know who I saw my parents. I'm like, they had no clue. Like you're just I watched my brother and sister in law with a two-year-old and while one year old or a two-year-old, like a six-month-old I'm like, your life is radically different. You know? You're just you're juggling chainsaws all day trying to figure stuff out. Exactly. Right. So But it's funny, like, you're going to have to do that a lot of times in your journey, like, you're going to come to this crossroads, or you're going to, like, hey, I want to I want to try to do this thing, and I hope you're on board with me. But if you're not, you got to understand like, I'm going to go do it because like you said, like, it might be his why this might be his reason this might be his calling, or his universal goal, or whatever it is that you know, you want to call it. And woo terms are not like this might be a thing that he has to go do. And it sucks that sometimes your parents are on board, it doesn't mean that they don't love you, you just have a difference of opinion on this one.
Brian 22:29
I think another thing that I kind of think about this, I asked this question a lot is what motivates me and that kind of thing. But as far as motivation is concerned, I see motivation as like, you know, a kid in the candy store, and they see a candy that they want, like, Ooh, that looks really good. I'm motivated, the motivation is there because they want that candy. But, you know, later on in life, why did they want that candy, and that is the purpose and I think that's what kind of long term drives a person reading than just the motivation in general, because motivation, we get motivation to do whatever, like we're going to work out one day this week or somebody, something like that. But what gets you up the rest of the week is your purpose. And that drives your motivation learn later on that way. You know, you're not skipping workouts, you're not doing whatever, because you think if you're going to join the military, yeah, it's fun. You're going to put on every see the motivation on Instagram or whatever, you see all these cool pictures. And then when you get home, there's no pictures, nothing else driving you when you are at INDOC or when you're at selection. Nothing else driving you you're not thinking about like cool to braise nice or whatever. But the purpose of you doing all that and going through these struggles is for you to go and save person's life or go help your teammates out by dropping bombs or go out there and you know, gather Intel information or whatever. So, I think the purpose is the overall driving factor, and motivation kind of is those short spurts of like, Alright, I'm going to go do this to fulfill my purpose.
Peaches 24:00
It can be a short spurt. Absolutely. And I think it's a misconception that each and every one of us is automatically motivated as soon as we wake up. I mean, yeah, there are there are days that it is like that. Okay. Yeah, you know, but don't think for the people out there do not think that there aren't days that I wake up and I'm just going no way.
Aaron 24:30
No way to that absolutely not.
Peaches 24:32
And then it is a it. You remember this is not a decision. Right there, there is no choice. It's happening, you know? Now, that doesn't mean that you don't take rest days. You just take deliberate rest days like planned, planned out, you know what I mean? Like and you still got to listen to your body. So, you know, if you feel shin splints coming on, you don't go out and you know, throw the 90-pound ruck on and go for 12 miles. Yeah, exactly. It just doesn't work like that. So, you got to listen to your body as well. Like, I can't just say, there's never a choice. You just go out there and do it because you just can't go out there and hurt yourself. But if you are deliberate about your rest days, and then understand that you're going to wake up some days or you're in the afternoon after work when you're tired, and you're not going to feel like working out we all get it. That's my point. We all feel that we are no different than you guys out there.
Aaron 25:34
Oh, yeah. And I'm in worse shape. So, you know, I hate working out in the afternoon. This is just a tangent because it was well said like, I don't have anything to add on because it was perfect. But I hate working out in the afternoon. When I start pushing my workout to like 2:30/3:00 and I haven't worked out yet that day. I'm just like, the likelihood of this workout happening at all is going down minute by minute.
Brian 25:56
Quickly diminishing unless you have got your promise, you're going to work out Um, yeah, then you're like that guy.
Aaron 26:03
Meanwhile, he really, really good friend that's getting he's out now Chris Scobell. Chris always used to laugh because he and I would train together in the pipeline. And we would, we'd be walking out to go do some heinous workout and he would just look at me like, I don't know, man. You want to quit? I don't want to do this, but I don't want to quit. And I'm like, No, no, Chris, come on, we're going to just go do whatever heinous workout but he's like, it only takes one if just one of us just doesn't want to do it. Maybe we just go have dinner or something, you know,
Peaches 26:29
like, shut up. That's why it's important to find accountability in someplace. You've got to have accountability, whether that is somebody in person, a workout partner training partner, whether it's you know, your spouse, your girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever it is.
Aaron 26:45
That we answered the What does it take to be a good training partner? Or was it on like one of the emails? You guys remember that question come it was actually a really good question. Somebody I'll have to look through my DMs. Maybe somebody sent it to me, but they were like, hey, my friend wants to train for this thing. What do I need to do to be a good training partner? And I was like, oh, man, that's a, that's a great question. Like, you can't ever be the one that cancels the workout, like, show up early, you're going to be sore to try to do the same things that they're doing and just be there. You only need to be there for that 10% where your boy is just like or your girl whoever is just like, I'll feel like it. I think I'm going to cancel this one. You just need to go one time go Nah, man, we plan this one. Let's just go knock it out. Even if we do something different, or if we switch it up fine. But let's go do I'm like, that's, that's a great training partner right there.
Peaches 27:30
Yeah. And another technique for the people that don't like can't get a training partner is and not that I've done this but I've heard people do this as they kind of do a call to action on social media, where they go, Hey, I'm going out to whatever run this half mile or a half mile half marathon, right. You know, you can you can set your goals out on social media in front of everybody. And once you set it out there, I mean, paper will wonder, hey, when in two months or whatever it is when this thing rolls around, I better be seeing results. And you
Aaron 28:19
know, the internet remains undefeated, you know the second, like you're going to get a screencap and it's going to be your posts, and you're going to have to see your own posts, and they're going to be like this, you. So
ACADEMIC PERSEVERANCE
Brian 28:31
the other way, the opposite way to think about is what happens if I don't do this today. Like you can say that for one day, okay, I'll feel a little bit less tired today. But at the end of the day, when you're at selection, and you said, I didn't want to wake up so many different times throughout the course of your training, and then you show up, you can't do the push-ups. You can't do the underwater, everyone else is smoking you. You have only yourself to blend. So, when you wake up and you don't do the workouts or study or do whatever like you promised yourself. You're going to do, then you have only yourself to blame and in reality, you know, no one else is going to care about your career as much as you do. At this point done, you're an adult, you're making your own decisions. We're not no one's going to force you to do anything. It's going to motivate you to do whatever if you have a friend like Aaron was talking about that shows up the other day is like, well, I guess we're going to freak in do this thing. So, it's awesome to have us here. Person accountability. At the end of the day is what's going to make you stand out and be the person that's selected or be the person that's going to do the job the best.
Peaches 30:00
So, I would not have wanted to go through some of the academic struggles that you did. But like. You talked about days that you don't want to study days that you don't want to train. What motivated you to study? Train, and you were also running beapj.com too. So, like, where did you find all that motivation? And I think Time management is probably for another podcast, because Wow. But where did you find that whenever you don't want to study?
Brian 30:37
There were days that like he said, I had my planned rest days. I always just focused you know, each night. Radical books I mentioned the same thing. You focus on your work during the day and then at night you focus on your passions. So, it's the same deal for me. So, I would work throughout the day, work in that in this context, going to school, which was the worst thing I could do out of rally went through INDOC the entire time, over and over again. It's just liked our personality type. It was absolutely terrible for me in every single way. And I was hating life for a lot. It was.
Aaron 31:18
I don't know, I've never heard you speak this strongly. But this is hilarious to me right now. Why was it so bad dude?
Brian 31:23
Well, because I'm not living it anymore. Now. Like, once you're done with whatever that was hellacious, you're just like, screw that stuff. I'm so glad that I'm done. And I'll have to look at that. And when I'm in it, I'm like, oh, everything's fine. Everything's fine, but it's all burning down. I try to pretend like I can just cruise through it only a couple of months. Everything's fine. But in the meantime, all everything's going crazy and I'm just losing my mind. But kind of forget what I was talking about now, but the biggest thing is you work on your past. At night, and then you work on your work during the day. So, choose those days where I would have to, you know, focus on we're doing podcasts that day or doing a post or doing whatever event did events in between there too. And so, a lot of that just was just that time management portion. But then thinking about the patients that I would have to treat, obviously, I had to learn all this information. And that was kind of the reason why I went to the military in the first place was because there are patients that I wasn't able to people that I was not able to treat for I can the military. And I didn't know what to do. So, it's the same thing. I think that's what drives PJ's in general is like we came in to help people want to do a certain job that we were told is going to help people. So that's it and our life is worth risking because of that potential purpose and patients that we might be able to save later on. So those things motivated me and then a huge thing was just, I didn't want to be a dummy and get kicked out of that PA program and go back to the career field a failure.
Aaron 33:05
That'd be when you just show up with your beret on dead like Hey, what are you doing? Are you coming through town?
Trent 33:14
No one will give you a hard time I think it would have been fun.
Aaron 33:16
You like failing myself in the mirror?
Peaches 33:21
Yeah HALO jumpmaster course or something like that just freak in No, you take the short course
Brian 33:29
No, it's not going to happen. So, I mean, a lot of those things motivated me throughout. And I think for those people that are out there. I also wanted to do this to test myself because I know I strong enough to go through INDOC whatever but it was I smart enough to get through PA school with all these other people that are just brainiacs. And they would just walk around and it was kind of like when I first got the INDOC, honestly, like, they'd say, Oh, you don't know what to look for what to look for. If a person has testicular cancer or a person has liver cancer. Yeah, they're paying me to teach me that. And anyways, I was like, man I'm way behind, I guess because all these people are way smarter than me and they know so much more than I do. And it's the same thing. When I went to doc. I mentioned a couple episodes ago, people were like, yeah, I also have like, 8000 meters every single day. And I was holding my breath for five minutes. And I was just like, what I get myself into, I can't do any of those things. But I think, you know, anybody can do things that most people can do things that you see everyone else like, rocket scientists, astronaut, whatever, those are going to take a lot longer and a lot more work to do. But if I wanted to be a doctor, I feel I could be a doctor or if I wanted to be whatever, I could do that because the preparation that I got going through and going through all these difficult schools that are called, you know, are revered, I guess. We see them Like, you know, all right, we're just going to do another jumpmaster course or we're just going to do another whatever course it's just another thing. And we set up our mind like, okay, let's get in the mode, reverse plan and goals this, what do I have to do to get those, whatever, and make this happen so I can move on with my life?
Peaches 35:18
Yeah, you get a lot of distractors. People need to focus on their end goal, and not worry about some of the chaff that goes by, you know,
Trent 35:32
What happens is, is the first step is seizing your personal authority over yourself, right? And that there's a lot of goodness to having like a training partner or someone that motivates you or helps you or external factors, but until you hold yourself responsible for everything that does or does not happen, and I think that's what happens throughout the pipeline is it's a learning experience so that you'll see these guys go through it. And what happens is in the beginning, they might be like, this isn't my fault. And then by the end of the pipeline, it's like yeah, That's my bad. Like, we'll fix it next time, we'll you know, we'll do it. We'll have an out. next task, let's go. And that's just where your authority in your head lies. It's not your parent’s authority anymore. It's not your instructor’s authority. It's not anything else. It's, you've signed up for it, you said you would do it; I'm going to go do it. No excuses. You know, just moving out,
Peaches 36:21
Taking ownership of it.
Brian 36:25
The other thing that I think about when I'm going to do difficult courses, or like selection or anything, is, this is my time for me to be good at this. Like, I'm not going to get more time in the future. It's not going to get easier later on.
Aaron 36:41
It's only going to get harder. Yeah, this is the own. Yeah, that's a great way to think about it.
Brian 36:45
I'm expected to perform at a certain level. And everyone's going to expect that. So if you get done with selection, you know, you go deploy with seals, they're going to expect you to perform like they're going to say, Hey, here's your rock, we're going to go on and whatever movement, they're going to expect you to do it Expect you like, oh, let me teach you how to wear your boots.
Aaron 37:04
whatever. It's like have you had a hat? Have you had an equipment packing class where we talk about the rucksack Alright, so this is a large frame ALICE ruck.
Peaches 37:17
For those people that Brian I just want to go back to what you were talking about you know, people are saying I swim 1000 meters and I was holding my breath five minutes like some of those people and they're with every single class that comes through but a lot of those people are some of the first ones to quit.
Trent 37:55
Okay, not to go too far off the road. But like when you ask a student, you're like how Can you not do like 45 push-ups? And their answer is well I've been training for the last three years and I like okay, I don't know you haven't or whatever you called training is not training. I could do 800 push-ups before I got here like are you have not Yeah,
Brian 38:14
I spent two hours in the gym every day bro yeah, all right, what are you doing in there just have to waterphone take breaks every 10 seconds.
Peaches 38:32
So anyway, things are not as they appear when you enter the pipeline for all those people that are saying they did all these things to help train so you guys got any other things motivation wise that you want to discuss before we close this up?
WRAP UP
Brian 38:47
Yeah, I got one more thing. Last thing, it's just, I kind of see motivation and purpose. I see it kind of in phases. So, you think about your work. As you're going through, you're motivated at first whenever you step into the gym, and then you start to get a little bit tired. I like to start to get angry, like, listen to angry music. And it's the same thing whenever I get in, you know, a situation like we're doing bear crawls, and instructors yell at me or when I would yell at them, you know, it's easy to just get angry and the power through and they're just like, screw you, I'm going to freak in do this, that lasts for you know, a couple minutes or so. And then you start to get on something else because you know, when you're going through something like ETD you can't just be angry the entire time. It's not going to help you perform better the entire time, or continue through it. The next thing was looking to your team. And whether it's, you know, looking at your team and saying, like, if this guy's still here, I can do it also, or, you know, just motivating yourself by looking around and keeping your head up, like we said in some of the past episodes. That got me through a lot of different difficult times just like you know, whether it's school and unlike I'm not a dummy smarter than this guy, like let's keep on pushing through or I'm not a little bitch like I can get through this guy's getting through. Same thing. And then the last thing is always drive back to your purpose and your why you started this in the first place and remember that moment that you committed to this this whole pipeline or you know series of adverse events that you put yourself through and know that you're going to be going through this for the foreseeable future and just enjoy it while you can. And then the last thing was I just want to go over a quote by Viktor Frankl is a Man's Search for Meaning if you haven't read the book, it's on the reading list. But this is one of my greatest fears is not to be is not to be worthy of my sufferings. So, you guys are going to go through suffer a lot. Like I said, you're going to have to perform at a certain level and you're going to have to show that you are worthy of the things You've been through you know, when you finished jumpmaster course you do it. And when you're done with selection, you go out there and do the mission and there's no question that you're going to be able to finish it. So those are the last things that I want to throw in there.
Aaron 41:28
And I'm not a little B. Seems like a good place to end it, man. We want to thank everybody for coming out. We appreciate you hit the Instagram page at the Facebook page. Hit the Like Subscribe button on the YouTube come out. Hit us up in the DMs. If you guys have any questions, we're here for you guys. So, go out and train hard earned each breath. See you next time.
TLDR: Find what motivates you. Know the difference between short term motivation and purpose. Take responsibility and ownership for yourself and your actions. Train hard. Earn Each Breath!
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