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Hard Truth Podcast: Freedom Is Not Free with Shawn Land

EPISODE 26

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ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Join us in this episode as we explore the inspiring journey of a former Army soldier who transformed his life through military service. Hear about his experiences, challenges, and how the military shaped his character. We’ll also discuss the importance of personal fitness, leadership under pressure, and advice for those considering the military. Don’t miss this insightful conversation on resilience, dedication, and understanding the veteran experience.

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Welcome to The Hard Truth Podcast.

Today, we have a special guest, Shawn Land.

I actually served in the Army for, I think, what, 23 years?

And we’re gonna be hearing from him for, you know, one of the things that I love to do is show appreciation to the veterans and our freedom that we have here.

You know, as we as, you know, Americans, a lot of times it’s easy to forget the price that’s been paid for others, for us to have freedom.

And so today, it’s an honor to have you on Shawn Land.

And, you know, I’ll read a little bit of your bio.

I don’t, I’m not gonna read the whole thing.

You have accomplished a lot, but I know first and foremost, knowing you as a friend, something that makes you more proud than anything, a Christian and a father of two boys, Jaden and Jace, married 26 years to your high school sweetheart, be 28 years for me.

So married my high school sweetheart as well.

Congrats to both.

So absolutely.

Graduated high school in 97 and enlisted in the Army immediately.

I’ve gotta stop right there.

What made you right out of high school wanna go straight into the Army?

A couple of things, almost forced, right?

I needed to grow up.

A little background, some of my family had prior been in the military.

My great-grandfather, you know, World War II, my grandfather served in the Army.

He actually played for the All Army Team, against the Globetrotters and things like that, you know.

I wouldn’t say any of them had like storied careers, which I followed or anything else like that, but I think it planted a seed in the back of my mind of, you know, just what could I do, you know what I mean?

So through high school, watching some movies about helicopters, you know, Navy SEALs.

Always like helicopters.

Oh yeah, man.

Just, I also went into Civil Air Patrol, and it was definitely on my mind that I wanted to go straight in and become a helicopter pilot.

Yeah.

I mean, looking at your resume and everything you accomplish, you were selected to attend flight school as a warrant officer in 2000.

Deployed multiple times, flying airplanes and helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2002 to 2018.

Twenty-three years of service, multiple air medals for action and combat, job titles.

You know, chief pilot, director of operations, Blackhawk helicopter, flying Russian hip, King Air, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, excuse me, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, purple belt under Jonathan Hunter.

That’s a great accomplishment.

I know jiu-jitsu is something that’s very important to you in your life.

You got a jiu-jitsu shirt on right now here on YouTube.

So what is CrossFit Coach 2010?

We’re going to get into the military, voluntary work, kids, Bible study leader, mentor for building your legacy, provided one-on-one group mentoring to fatherless boys in the city of Refuge.

That’s some impressive stuff, what you did in 23 years of service, but the volunteer work, I’m going to ask you a series of questions here, but I’ve got to ask, I’ve never heard of the provided one-on-one group mentoring for fatherless boys.

Tell me a little bit more about that.

That’s something that, you know, I feel like society today, you know, we don’t really understand how many kids there are out there in today’s world that don’t have a father figure or don’t have, you know, any direction.

Tell me about that program real fast.

Yeah, so like you’re saying, there’s a huge need for men and not just men in your home, but to be a man outside the home.

And to show these young boys who haven’t had a father figure, who do not have that positive light in their life.

You know, what is it like to be responsible for one?

What’s it like to have somebody, a man love you and nurture you and show you how to go out into the world and act?

Right?

And yeah, it was just a huge calling of mine.

We had probably 15 men, a couple of guys from DEA, you know, a couple of guys we just picked up off the street.

We would meet once a month.

We would go to the City Refuge, which is in Atlanta.

It’s right in the middle.

It’s a shelter for women who have been battered, abused, and things of that nature.

And we would take the boys, do projects with them, replace roofs, all kinds of stuff, you know, just trying to show them daily stuff as well.

Like, this is our responsibility to help other people.

Right.

Tell me about your jujitsu.

And I know, I mean, those of you that’s listening on podcasts and not taking a visual on YouTube of Shawn’s physique, you know, he’s always concerned about what he’s putting in his mouth, always staying physically active in his workouts.

What would you tell, I’m a big advocate as well of fitness and nutrition, obviously.

And you and I talk about that all the time.

What role does fitness, you know, what the people listening, how important would you, you know, not next to faith, obviously, that’s number one, but how important do you think taking care of your personal fitness is?

And being that example for your kids, being that example in society, and what does it do for you personally in order to be the best you can be on a daily basis?

Because I know now you’re a commercial airline pilot, you know, so, but I know it’s a lot of, you know, a hard on you traveling and doing the different things.

You know, how would you rank fitness as a priority?

Well, it’s huge.

I don’t know if it’s hard to rank, but it’s your personal responsibility to maintain that.

How, you know, how can you go outside and play with your kids if you’re not fit, if you get winded just going outside to throw a ball with them, right?

How can you help somebody else in need, change a tire if you can’t even bend down, or if you don’t know where to get the jacks, you know what I mean?

So it plays into every other responsibility you have.

If you don’t take care of yourself, how can you take care of others?

And, you know, we’ll talk about spirituality, physical, mental.

But if you don’t have your body, you can’t do the other stuff.

So it’s huge.

So I know you spent 23 years of service.

Can you give us a little bit of background?

obviously, I’ve got your bio.

I’ve got everything you accomplish in SEER training.

We’ll get into that here in a few minutes.

But can you share a little bit of background on what not only led you to join in the Army, but your experiences in the Army?

You know, what in that Army experience has turned you into the man that you are today?

That’s deep.

All right.

So, I think the calling to go in the military was I wanted to be something more than just a punk kid sitting around drinking, working at a restaurant.

I wanted to go in and do something that I knew mattered, right?

And not only that, I knew going into military would give me a responsibility.

It could help me financially, and I’ll also get to serve my country.

So, I got all of that out of it, and it shaped everything in my life.

Right.

Structure, discipline.

It gave me everything that I am today besides my faith, and I would say my wife, she was huge on that.

But everything else as far as, you know, I think you have a mentality, you know, as a kid, I think being the first born, we’re all always hard-nosed, you know, ready to work, do whatever we have to do.

I think I always had that.

I think I’m a hard worker, but as far as everything else, you know, it teaches you to learn to lean on others, not just yourself.

Like you’re saying, responsibility, following through with everything.

Yeah.

Yeah, I work with a lot of dads, and you know that.

And, you know, one of the things that they struggle with is doing what they say they’re going to do.

You know, if they say they’re going to work out, they’ll call me and say, man, I didn’t get it in today.

Or one of those little bitty things.

And, you know, the military, the reason I love it so much for a lot of people is it teaches you to trust yourself because you’ve told yourself you’re going to do something and you continually do what you say you’re going to do.

It’s just second nature.

It’s not something you think about.

You know, all these books that everybody reads about, you know, we’ve talked about atomic habitat, you know, habits and, man, it all comes down to building that callus, right?

Understanding this is what I’m going to set out to do and it’s just what I’m going to do.

You don’t think about it.

You just do it.

I’m going to get up, I’m going to do my quiet time, I’m going to read about this, I’m going to work out, and I’m going to support my family.

It’s not a question.

And I’m going to put the right fuel in my body during the day.

That’s it.

You just do it.

Now, how do you do that?

You plan, right?

You can’t just wake up one day and say, oh, I’m going to do this.

It’s small things.

It’s small things that lead into big things.

And it’s step-by-step.

But eventually, after you do it long enough, it’s just second nature.

You know, you’ve built that callous.

You built that mental fortitude to continue to build upon yourself.

And then that permeates into everything you do, right?

You know, I mean, one of the reasons for The Hard Truth Podcast is for me to kind of teach that to different people and let them know because as we talk about the society today, we pretty much have become a weak society and hope.

And you know, the callous is, I mean, there’s probably a younger generation listening don’t even know what callous is are.

You know, I’ll never forget shaking those older gentlemen hands at church when I was growing up and their hands just felt like sandpaper.

You know, there’s so many callous in different things, but you know, that’s one of my really passions for this podcast is to try to take that weaker men generation and turn them into beasts, turn them into, you know, just I’m going to go slay the day.

I’m going to go do the best I can do on a daily basis.

I’ve got to ask this question.

I know a lot of audience is going to want to know this.

What was some of your most memorable or challenging experiences during your time in the army?

Because I mean, flying Black Hawk helicopters, all the different things going on.

I mean, it’s not only your life, but it’s also those that you are going to protect and get out of a situation.

So, spending a lot of time in Afghanistan and in Iraq, share with us some of the memorable or challenging or some things that maybe you want to share.

Yeah.

So, I’m going to start off with something that people probably aren’t going to think about.

They want to hear about war and bombs and getting shot at, blown up, all that stuff.

But let’s talk about some statistics of being married for as long as we’ve been married.

Yeah.

The divorce rate has been as high as 90% in special operations.

90%.

90% versus 3% in the regular army, right?

So, when you look at how much I was gone from my wife in the length of time, a year in Korea, 12, 13, 14 months in Iraq, nine months in Afghanistan, coming back, deploying here, deploying there, being gone two weeks here as a medevac pilot.

I mean, probably safe to say we were in part seven-plus years, right?

Man.

At the end of the day.

But as far as my biggest achievement, I would say it’s my marriage.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

That’s awesome.

But hands down, now, I don’t put that all on me, right?

You have to have a woman who’s independent, who’s loyal, and that’s hard.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, one of the things that we’re talking about right now is the work that goes into anything.

And that marriage, I mean, 50% of just the normal civilians are getting divorced.

And I actually touched on this on a podcast.

A lot of people use the excuse, falling out of love.

And I know there’s different situations for different circumstances, but in my opinion, most of it is not putting in the work.

Yeah, because it takes a lot.

You got to be trained to fly that plane.

You got to be trained physically, mentally.

You know, that same type of effort goes into a healthy marriage.

100%.

Yeah.

But at the end of the day, you know, what more are we invested in?

I mean, you know, you…

And here’s something else, you know, all your training you do, working out, eating, all this stuff is you.

Yeah.

You can affect that.

Now we’re talking about another person.

Yeah.

This is outside influence that you’re having to work with to understand, you know.

So I just think being able to sustain that for that long, it’s my best achievement.

Right.

I love it, man.

Couldn’t be nothing better.

How did your military service impact your life and shape who you are today?

I know you’ve already touched on this, but is there anything else that you want to add to, you know, that military lifestyle?

I know you talked about the discipline, responsibility, but is there anything else that you’d like to add?

You know, it is who I am today.

I am who I am today because of my service, right?

Going through the experiences, becoming a leader at such a young age, which the army or the military forces you into that, right?

It gets you out of your comfort zone probably way sooner than you might be in other situations.

So I think that lends itself to you growing now.

How you grow is up to you.

Not everybody becomes a great leader.

Not everybody, you know, takes that and internalizes it and makes it into something good.

But if you can take those challenges and reflect and actually grow from them, then yeah.

Right.

All right, I got another question for you.

And what are some of the misconceptions that people have about the military and that you would like to maybe clarify?

You know, and that’s mainly, you know, that question is not for people to understand military.

Yeah.

You know, that’s for people listening that really don’t understand, you know, the military’s role and purpose and, you know, and, you know, I mean, we don’t have to get deep into politics.

But I tell everyone when they ask me, you know, my stance on Trump versus Biden, I just tell them, look, you know, the first thing I look at is security.

Who’s going to secure our borders?

Who’s going to make sure that we’re safe on a daily basis?

I mean, we don’t like inflation going up.

We don’t like all those different things.

But, you know, at the end of the day, our security is the most important thing.

And I don’t think society really understands that.

I think, you know, a lot of times it’s easy personally for people to look and say, oh, we just spent a lot of money on military.

I don’t know, what are some misconceptions you think that a lot of people have on military and its purposes?

I would say one of the biggest thing is how much the politics do influence the military.

How much the administration influences what we focus training on.

But let me give a great example.

So I joined in 1997 when Clinton was still in office, right?

We weren’t getting the funding.

We weren’t getting the flight hours.

It was to the point where we had to take our own toilet paper to work, right?

So, and everything, it becomes administrative, right?

Versus what you get once you enter combat, then it’s all mission focused.

We’re training to do an actual subset of mission, whether it be Afghanistan, Iraq.

So everything’s focused on that.

And then you revert back now to an administrative military where we’re not training as much as we should be.

We’re getting money taken away to support things like Ukraine and things like that.

They’re pushing their focus, which would be diversity, DEI, all this stuff.

So it takes away from what we should actually be doing.

So yes, politics influenced the military heavily.

Are you gonna go ahead and say who you’re gonna vote for?

Trump.

Or you would be on this podcast.

Yeah, so I mean, you know, it’s really hard as a soldier, right?

Because you go in and that’s your focus.

My focus is my country.

And I don’t have a say in when I get deployed.

I don’t have a say if I have to go to Africa and work in Djibouti and get malaria.

Right?

I’m doing what I have to do because that’s what I’ve signed up to do.

Right.

So that’s what I have to do.

Now, if it goes too far, of course you can always say no, but I mean.

But that’s what you’re trained to do.

That’s it.

Yep.

How did you handle the transition coming out of military into normal civilian life?

I know a lot of soldiers, they have a hard time making that transition.

Because they did something like you for 23 years, and then I was away from my wife, I think you said it one time, up to seven years.

And now the love of my life is here.

I’ve got kids, I’ve got all these other responsibilities.

Now I’ve got to go into a different way of making a living.

How did you make that adjustment?

And what was some of the maybe the difficulties or the rewards of going in to civilian life?

Yeah, the biggest reward is being at home.

Yeah, 100%.

I think you have to take it in small steps.

One of the biggest challenges is not being with people that you would give your life for at all times.

You know, I mean, you have a camaraderie.

Your brotherhood.

A brotherhood.

I’m deployed with these people now.

I get in a jet every day with somebody new.

It’s 41st dates.

So, that was a huge change.

And it almost feels lonely at times.

You know what I mean?

Because these people I’ve been with for quite a while, and we always had something to talk about, and you just have that familiarity.

And like you’re saying, coming into the civilian world, flying with people who just, it’s different.

So, I just had to change my mindset.

And focus on other things.

Well, I think a lot of what you just described, too, as we mentioned, I’ve worked with a lot of dads, and a lot of people in general, but mainly dads, that they don’t even have a purpose still at 35 or 45 or 50.

And I think that’s what you loved about the military so much.

You felt like that purpose was easy identified.

But what you’ve done after 23 years, you come straight out of that and say, my purpose now is focused on my wife, my two boys, being the best example I can be.

And I think that’s the real thing that not only coming out of military into civilian life that a lot of men struggle with, but just the men that’s just in regular civilian life, the reason they’re not complete, they’re not happy, they’re not working on their physical fitness, they’re not pushing themselves on jujitsu, they’re not striving to be the best.

Would you say that’s the reason why a lot of men feel kind of just lost?

So what’s funny, I taught a class on purpose at building your legacy.

Right?

So you have to understand their season’s life, and it’s not always about you.

And as a man, I think that’s hard sometimes.

I think that’s just part of the maturation process.

As we grow up, though, understanding that your family comes first.

So changing your purpose.

And putting it up, always, just like we talked about the physical aspect, the mental, if you don’t write it down, right, and question yourself and ask, what am I doing?

What am I ultimately looking to the future for?

Then you’re just walking to nowhere.

Going through the motion.

Just, you’re just being.

Right.

And nobody just wants to be, right?

And, you know, the other thing that, for me, is super important is I feel like my sons are my legacy.

Not everything else, you know?

Like I said, my love me book’s in the closet.

That really doesn’t matter.

What matters to me is that everything I’ve done is in an effort to understand how to make them the best version of themselves, you know, through my teaching and understanding.

Right.

That’s big, man.

I mean, a lot of dads, they lose that, you know, I have a kid, I have another kid, I have a wife, and they lose that understanding of being that legacy for those kids.

You know, they get into this grind of just making money and putting food on the table.

And, you know, and I mean, we could have a whole other podcast about this, man.

I don’t like how society today, though, they don’t show the respect for the dad either.

I mean, it’s almost like your sitcoms, your Disney movies.

I mean, everything’s about making fun of a dad and, you know, not understanding what a dad puts his mind and his body through to be able to accomplish, you know, putting food on the table and that type of thing.

I mean, you know, do you have any feedback on that?

Do you agree with me the way we look at as a man, as a society and don’t understand and respect and honor what they’re doing?

Well, 100%.

Yeah.

Watch, yeah, watch anything.

Yeah.

The man’s always weak and babbling and not sure, not confident, not around, has to come home, have a beer, you know, to try to escape.

Instead of embracing the opportunity, they just try to escape it.

Yeah.

Instead of facing it, you know, face on and being that selfless servant and driving on.

Yeah.

It’s 100%.

Yeah.

100% agree.

What advice would you have maybe for someone that’s maybe considering the military that’s listening, maybe a younger generation?

I’ve got a big following actually of younger generation that’s listening to The Hard Truth Podcast that, you know, maybe are looking for direction in life.

And what would you give them considerations of looking at the military?

Yeah.

First, get educated.

Educate yourself on the different jobs you can have, how to get there, what tests you need to take, and try to figure out what interests you.

Right.

Because even if you want to be a SEAL, right, we can look at how hard is it to actually get through, make it.

But a ton of guys get hurt, right?

So it’s not always just about you.

If you break your leg and can’t complete and then have to be a cook the rest of your career there, right, you need to understand that.

So try to find something that interests you, get educated, and then find a mentor.

There’s plenty of us veterans out there that mentor kids and lead them along so they can find what fits them best.

Yeah, I agree with that.

How about leadership?

I know on my lifestyle, everything I’ve done, I’m big on leadership.

I mean, that’s why I’m not afraid to talk about politics.

Everything hinges on leadership, in my opinion.

I know I’ve been reading through some of your awards and different things that you’ve accomplished, and we’ll get into that more here in a few minutes.

But can you give us an example of leadership that you demonstrated when you was under pressure?

I mean, I know that there’s a lot of different situations.

It’s probably a really difficult question, but what maybe is a situation that you was under pressure or maybe whatever the situation was, but you brought it together and said, this is the direction.

Yeah.

Well, let’s talk about how to get there.

Okay.

All right?

Because to be a good leader, it can’t just be about you.

Right?

And not only that, you have, all right, like we’ve been talking about physical, be always being prepared, you know, being a good leader, you have to be ahead of everything else so that you have the time to understand what’s going on.

Right?

And then, when it really gets stressful, you have to be able to detach yourself from that instance so you can keep a calm head, you know, whether it be if we’re trying to launch a couple of helicopters, you know, because somebody got shot down.

Right?

Well, I can’t just blast off immediately.

I’ve got to understand where I’m going.

I’ve got to understand my LZs.

I got to understand if they’re cherry or ice, right?

If they’re under fire, if they’re not, I have to look at weather.

I have to look at how much fuel I got to go back and forth.

So even in life or death situations, you have to keep a calm head.

And I think, man, that, you know, being a medevac pilot, it taught me that very quickly, which really helped me moving forward, like what’s really important, right?

Because this job is life or death.

Oh, yeah.

There was no, there’s no other, well, you know, if we’re doing target hits or something, that might be, what do I want to say?

Might be close to on the level, you know, but as far as how important that is, I don’t think there’s anything more, right?

So even under that understanding, that I would have to say no, because I would be putting the life of my crew and another crew on the line.

Yeah, that was.

Yeah, controlling your emotions, knowing the plan and following the plan.

I mean, it doesn’t matter if it’s military or the things we talk about daily on your fitness and nutrition and being an example of a good father.

I mean, it’s all the same.

I mean, I did a podcast yesterday talking about put it down on a piece of paper.

You know, what are some things we can do every day to become a better person?

You know, what can you do to advance your business or grow in your profession, whatever, but you have to have a list and put it down and know the direction that you’re headed in life, you know, just like if you’re going to go get somebody, you got to know what direction it is and know the situation.

It’s the same principles over and over, right?

Just in different facets of your life.

But it works everywhere.

Yeah.

I’m looking at a document here from Sears School.

Explain to us what that is.

So Sears School is where we, the definition is survival, escape, resistant, evade, resistance and escape.

So basically, if you go to Fort Bragg, it’s a school that teaches you how to live out on the land.

Basically, you kill a few snakes, learn how to cook them, you desert, you learn how to do a little navigation with that, and then you learn how to get interrogated.

Right.

Yeah.

I’m reading a couple of things in the document.

It talked about you quite a bit in here, and it talked about, you know, this is from one of your superior officers, I assume that’s training you.

You can speak up and talk more about it.

He said, I’m very proud of him as an American and a soldier.

If we were ever in a prison camp together, I know he would inspire me and all the prisoners of war to do the right thing and return with honor.

You know, I mean, there’s so many different things in here, but, you know, tell me a little bit about what that would mean to you after completion of reading this document.

It’s got to be a proud moment for yourself, because I know it’s not easy.

I mean, reading some of the things that they, how they treated you physically, mentally abuse, all those different things.

And every time the superior officer just said, hey man, he took it for his team, you know, he put others first, and that’s what we talk about in leadership.

What does that mean?

I know you’re a very humble person, and that’s what I love about you.

You’ve never really bragged about all the different things you’ve done, but I definitely pulled this document out of you to be able to read that.

But what does that mean to be able to go through school and read these eight different comments that he has written about you that is basically praising you at the highest of the way you handled every situation?

That’s still gotta feel good, knowing that you completed it and you did your best.

Yeah, yeah, so I was 18 when I went through that.

And at the time, I had majors, colonels, starting for classes, guys that had been in special forces for 12, 15 years.

So it just showed me that even under the highest pressure at that age, that I was able to be a leader, even with my minimum amount of training.

And it showed me I had to support my leaders, right?

That even though they might have not been making the best decisions for me because I was getting the crap beat out of me, every time they made a bad decision, they hit me.

But yeah, I mean that that experience definitely influenced the rest of my career as a leader.

Right.

Under those high stress situations and being with others and seeing how they reacted.

Yeah.

It led me to understand who and what I wanted to be.

And you probably learned at a young age and something that’s really lacking in the teenage boys today is you probably learned that, you know, it’s not physical.

I mean, we can handle so much physically.

I mean, but it’s mental.

I mean, one of my favorite quotes is conquer the mind and you can conquer the world.

And so that’s probably what really started your path at an early age is knowing how to conquer the mind, going through some of this training camp.

You know, physically, yes, you beat up.

Yes, you soar.

But wouldn’t you say understanding the power of the mind and how to control the mind is what really got you through and helped you for the last 23 years of service?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I didn’t think about it that way, but definitely.

Yeah.

Well, and I think that’s something that’s I’ve tried to do a good job with my boys.

I mean, I don’t hit them every time they talk to me.

Sometimes I may want to.

You know, but that’s something I’ve tried to do over the last three or four years is, you know, and of course, when there are two, you’re not doing that.

You know, you’re loving and nurturing, you know.

But would you agree with me, you’ve got two boys similar to my boy’s age, a little bit younger.

Jace is a little bit younger.

But as a father, would you give that recommendation to make your boys mentally tough?

That’s why I make them work out with me.

Right.

That’s why I make them do jiu-jitsu with me.

That’s why I want to be there to push them.

Right.

And that’s why we constantly talk about like even this weekend, when the boys started getting down, you have to look in.

Right.

You have to think, you know, push me so I can push others.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

85% humidity.

My son plays lacrosse with his son on the East Coast.

And, you know, I heard a lot of moms on that one team, we won’t say which team it was, complaining, oh, they didn’t give them water breaks.

And I’m not saying you don’t need water break, but I’m saying this, it was the same temperature on that field for both teams.

For everybody.

Every kid was sweating, every kid was gassed, but you have to dig down deep.

And that’s why I love athletics.

obviously, you can’t go into military when you’re 14, but I think it does a good job of grooming young men and pushing them and recognizing that they can be pushed to the next level.

And one of the things I have a hard time with parents too, and I know a lot of moms probably don’t like me or my reasoning behind this, but I hear a lot of times they say, oh, they’re just 14.

And something I told Beckett, I said, man, 150 years ago at 14, you was already married and have kids and you was a man.

Yeah.

I mean, you was providing for a family.

You was farming, you was branching, you was doing something.

And don’t you agree with me that society today, don’t start getting these boys prepared for life until it’s too late.

It’s too late.

I was roofing at 14.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

I’m sure you were working young, young age.

I was on a tractor or, or holding soybeans or watermelons or something.

You know, when I was five, starting when I was young, boys aren’t, aren’t meant to be treated with kick gloves.

No.

Right.

You can’t build those calluses if, if you’re constantly cuddling and coddling.

They need, you have, you have to push them.

Right.

And they respond.

Right.

They need that.

Yeah.

They really do.

Right.

They don’t, they don’t want you to just sit around and let them play on games and what have you.

They need to be tested.

Because if not, what’s going to happen when they turn, when they turn 18, you let them go somewhere.

And the first time they’re stressed out, they get into a wreck.

They don’t know what to do or they’re being peer pressured and you haven’t taught them how to, how to react.

Yeah.

Or just simple things, you know, like you didn’t make them cook for themselves.

Yeah.

No, all they know how to do is get ramen out.

Yeah.

You know, that’s not building a man.

No.

They don’t, you know.

They don’t know how to take care of their laundry.

They don’t know how to do anything.

Right.

They don’t know how to change the tires, change the oil.

And if they don’t know how to take care of themselves, how are they going to date a woman?

And expect to know how to treat them.

So yeah, it starts way younger.

Yeah.

Yeah, I totally agree.

That was one of my reasons for spending that many years on the ranch with the boys is teaching them responsibilities.

I’ll still never forget the day, you know, we actually, Candice and I and Pearson and Beckett, we was, you know, feeding his cattle early every morning before school.

And when you would feed, Beckett would help me feed and Pearson would take the four wheeler and actually go vaccinate the new calves and take care of them.

And it was 72 days straight, seven days.

I mean, 172 days straight of calving, feeding before school, getting up at five o’clock in the morning, doing those.

And I’ll never forget, it was cold.

It was like zero degrees, foot of snow on the ground.

And I went and mowed Beckett and Pearson up.

Beckett looked at me and he said, man, does the cows, do we have to feed the cows this morning?

And I said, no, I said, no, Beckett.

I said, here’s the deal.

You go tell the cows that we’re not going to feed them.

And if they’re OK with that, then we won’t have to feed them.

And he looked at me and he said, OK, I’ll get my clothes on.

But I think teaching that at a young age is big.

You know, it’s not, yes, it made me feel more warm in that bed, but get out of that bed, serve a purpose, do your work, complete the task.

Because at that point, you have something else relying on you, right?

Right.

Yeah, it’s very important.

Yeah.

All right, I got one more question for you.

In what days or in what ways do you think civilians, the people listening, can better support and understand veterans?

I think number one is understanding history.

Staying up-to-date on current events, and it’s not just about sending money or giving your time is awesome, but staying educated.

What’s going on in the world, being connected.

Because I don’t want the fact of my friends dying in Iraq and Afghanistan and previous wars to just go to waste.

And if people aren’t staying connected with what’s going on, then it will be.

Because we’ll lose this country.

So you need to be educated on what our government’s doing, what it’s planning on doing, the history, how we’ve got here.

I think all that’s very important.

That’s what I was telling my boys this weekend as we’re touring DC., right?

You’ve got the Jefferson Monument, but then I took them to the Vietnam Memorial.

You have the Korean Memorial right there.

You know, it kind of hits you.

How many men and women have sacrificed for this country?

And you have people that have no idea.

They don’t know how great this country is, right?

They’ve never been anywhere where women still have no rights.

Kids have no rights.

Kids are less important than a goat, right?

So.

Yeah, I know I’ve did a lot of traveling over the last 25 years, and every time my plane touches down on American soil, I am really, really happy.

In my opinion, we have the best country in the world.

You know, I know I’ve never served in the military.

I have a lot of respect for the military.

I know I have an older son that is looking in that direction.

He’s kind of like you.

He likes flying things.

He loves the military, which I think it’s a great option for him if he don’t go play college baseball.

But, you know, one of the things that really bothers me, Shawn, is I’m not perfect.

But at a young age, I was determined to provide for my family, to get myself in a situation where I’m going to push myself to be the best I can be.

You know, to remove finances from being the issue, from hitting my fitness, to being the best leader I can be.

And one of the things that troubles me, and I don’t know, you know, obviously we didn’t role play this, so this is just going to be live.

I don’t know if you agree with me or not.

One of the things that bothers me is seeing the divorce rates, seeing the people that are struggling financially, seeing the people that are not giving it their best on a daily basis.

And people, you know, friends of yours, friends that you know, that they know, have died for our freedom, for we can have anything we want, man.

I mean, it doesn’t matter if someone’s flipping burgers at Wendy’s right now.

They can become the manager of that Wendy’s.

They can go out and do something else, start another, their own business.

I mean, you know, does it not bother you, those years you spent in service of 23 years, to watch the people that is just floating through life?

I mean, you and the military gave us that freedom to be the best we can be.

I mean, does that not bother you, looking at people and just kind of floating through life and not giving it their best?

And how would you get somebody listening to this podcast to say, guys, quit playing around with this game of life.

Go give it your best.

And that has to be a personal decision.

It’s really hard to influence people who are comfortable.

It’s much easier once people hit rock bottom to say, oh, maybe, so don’t let it get there.

Take a look around, reflect on yourself, seek out help, seek out mentors, and do it.

It’s not that hard.

Quit staying in the comfortable.

Because that’s really the issue, right?

People get comfortable, which makes them become lazy, which makes them become apathetic.

It’s just a mind shift.

Yeah, one of the things I’m big on, too, I believe what you’re saying, to get comfortable, enough is enough, you know?

And then the other thing I think is really big is they fall into that victim mindset.

And what I mean by that is, you know what?

My boss didn’t give me a raise, you know, or my wife didn’t give me enough attention, or life’s not fair, or whatever.

And that just really frustrates me.

I mean, if you would have showed up to work an hour early and stayed an hour late, I mean, there was a recent study that came out that said the average person working in corporate America only really works three to four hours a day.

And that’s the same type person that’s complaining about not getting a raise.

Do you see that victim mindset being a problem in society today as well?

Oh, yeah.

But, man, it all goes back to something that I think it’s hard for us to do.

And I keep saying it, and that’s reflect on yourself.

It’s hard to be truthful with yourself.

It’s hard to…

Here, I’m going to make a list.

Is that really truthful?

When I look at my pros and my cons, or what I want to be, is that really real?

Or am I just fooling myself?

So I think, for me, that’s one of the biggest things you have to do.

You have to be truthful.

You have to be able to tell yourself you’re wrong.

And then you have to listen to other people sometimes, too.

You can’t always say, ah, they just don’t like me.

There’s usually some half-truths, even in something that’s not true, right?

Oh yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Doing a good job of self-evaluating.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which I think it, especially as a young man.

Yeah.

It’s very hard.

Right.

Right.

Even as when you get older.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, I mean, you know, I mean, you know, I went to the pole, you know, last weekend or the weekend before, and, you know, watching the guys walking around without no shirt.

I mean, it’s, you know, I wanted to pull them aside and say, hey, do you see what you look like?

I mean, what’s the excuse here?

I mean, you know, do a good self-evaluation.

I talk to dads all the time, but they think their kids need to be playing on the All-Star team.

And I’m like, hey, we got to do a little bit of self-evaluating here.

I mean, your son has potential, but he’s not there yet, you know?

And all aspects of our life, we have to be really good at self-evaluating the situation, 100%.

Well, Shawn, I’ll tell you, it’s been an honor today.

And I cannot thank you enough and all of our military for giving us our freedom.

And that’s something that, you know, at Corps V, we’re doing a big, big sell in honor of all the veterans.

And that’s something that I will always do.

The veterans, you know, and not only veterans, too.

I think our law enforcement, they don’t get enough appreciation.

I mean, I don’t know if I could put a bulletproof vest on for 45,000 a year and go keep drunks and druggies off the road and all of that for our survival, you know, to have that freedom.

I mean, we are a spoiled nation, honestly.

There’s very few listening to this podcast that could not just go walk on the sidewalk at 9 o’clock tonight because they’re scared of getting shot or whatever the situation.

So, you know, I know you’ve served for 23 years.

I cannot say thank you enough from me personally as a personal friend.

And I know you probably want to say thank you also to the military and the police officers and everybody who put their life on the line on a daily basis.

A hundred percent.

Yeah.

So quick story.

Whenever I separated from the army in 2007, I thought I wanted to go be a police officer.

I did two ride-alongs.

Well, because they have a helicopter, so I wanted to fly that as well.

And after seeing what they had to deal with in Austin, two days straight, I said, no, I don’t think that’s for Shawn.

So yeah, you know, it’s not like they’re getting to deal with the best civilians around, right?

Every day, they’re dealing with something that you and I don’t have to see.

Yeah, and they’re dealing with knuckleheads that don’t know history.

Yeah, exactly.

And not only that, they’re firefighters, you know?

Same thing.

Ambulance drivers, yeah.

Thank you to all our men and women.

Goat star families, especially.

Yeah.

And I mean, the spouses that put up with it.

I mean, like Angela did for you, just there supporting you, being of service any way she could be.

I mean, it’s not just the veterans or the first responders, it’s the spouses that are, because they have to be in agreement too.

Like I said, when I see a successful man, I can look at the woman behind him.

Yep, absolutely.

Pushing him forward, because that’s the hero.

Absolutely.

Right?

Absolutely.

Well, Shawn, thank you very much for being on The Hard Truth Podcast.

Ladies, gentlemen, guys, I encourage you to share this podcast and let freedom ring on 4th of July.

Hopefully, we get this podcast out for 4th of July.

That was our go.

If not, then listen to the podcast, share it with your friends and family, leave a review, and understand the powerful freedom that we have here in the United States of America.

And thank you, Shawn, for being a part of that, providing that freedom, and giving us 23 years of your service.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.