EFR 841: The GoRuck Story - From Green Beret to Entrepreneur and How We Can Really Help Veterans with Jason McCarthy

00:00 - Chase (Host) The following is an Operation Podcast production.

00:03 - Jason (Guest) Joining the Army after 9-11 because of 9-11, and then came a green break. There's no glorification of the violence. It wasn't really like that. It just felt much deeper and much more absolute that I will regret this for the rest of my life if I don't be a part of whatever this is. Standing up in this middle of a Humvee with a 50 Cal staring wherever you go as well. That's a different perspective. And later on, you know, GORUCK came around. It's like this is odd. This is a business that I don't necessarily feel that great about. It doesn't feel like it's a service thing if you're in a for-profit business, and so I wrestled with that a lot, and that dramatically shifted who we are and why at GoRuck, Finding myself having to reinvent myself over and over and over in a way that I did not foresee.

00:54 - Chase (Host) You're going to stay committed to the process. You're going to stay committed to the problems.

00:57 - Jason (Guest) Pick up the rock and follow me. God bless America. I'm Jason McCarthy, the co-founder and CEO of GORUCK.

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04:16 Hey, what's up guys? Welcome back to ever forward radio. I'm so glad you're here with me today. Happy veterans day everybody. If you're listening and you're a service member, veteran, retired or in the military community in any capacity, I appreciate you. I salute you.

04:30 I'm former service myself. If you didn't know that, I spent six years active duty in the US Army back in 2003 to 2009. I suffered career-ending injuries that ultimately led to me getting medically discharged and I separated as an E6, a staff sergeant, and I always love reconnecting with my military community, and that's exactly what we're doing here today with Jason McCarthy. He is a former Army guy, former Green Beret Special Forces Army guy and co-founder of GORUCK. In today's episode we talk a lot about the struggles that a lot of service members have while serving, the training and transition that goes into civilian to soldier, civilian to military member and the disconnect going from service member to civilian again. And he and I both have been out for quite some time and unfortunately, we just still hear a lot of those struggles. So you're going to hear a lot of our opinions and our experiences with transition and what we think is going on in the military community these days. More specifically, you're going to hear Jason's badass origin story of enlisting in the army, being deployed, serving his country and then learning how to serve his community in a unique way by becoming an entrepreneur, a small business owner, and how he started GoRuck. And it's not just a product, it's not just shoes or a backpack or a weighted vest. I mean it's that and just this incredible movement that happens in communities all over the world. Now he's doing some incredible stuff, just helping a lot of different people of a lot of different walks of life realize that by putting one boot in front of the other, you can get in great shape, you can build community and you can just really see what you are physically and mentally capable of. Jason damn sure lives a life ever forward and that's exactly why he's here on the show today.

06:18 Jason and the whole crew over at GoRuck has passed off a great deal for listeners here on the podcast today. If you'd like to get 20% off a full price item at goruckcom valid now, valid for a limited time only, as we go live here today Veterans Day, 11-11-2024 through November 22nd 2024, use code EF20 at checkout. That's EF20 for 20% off your full price items at goruckcom Again goruckcom check out code EF20 for 20% off your full price items at goruckcom Again goruckcom Check out code EF20 for 20% off full price items. Jason, for somebody that just tuned in and they don't know who you are, who I am first time finding Everford Radio, why do you think they should stick around? What's going to be the value here today in our conversation?

07:04 - Jason (Guest) I think there's a lot of people telling stories out there or trying to influencing and all of that stuff, and I think the value here is you've got a really authentic story right. It's the life that you lived and you, you know, we've spent the last period of time telling it and you know, the only story that I have is the one that I've lived and it was a kind of a hard, complicated, messy, beautiful one, and still is, and so I think that's real. You know, I mean joining the army after 9-11 because of 9-11, and then kind of getting what I wanted but not getting what I expected, and you know, and then finding myself having to reinvent myself over and over and over in a way that I did not foresee. So life's a messy place, it's a beautiful place and I think that that's worth celebrating.

08:00 - Chase (Host) And then also for somebody maybe unfamiliar with you, can you give us the 30 second high level who you are, what you do Like? If an Uber driver asked you what you do, what would you say?

08:10 - Jason (Guest) Man, I wish more Uber drivers would ask.

08:12 I've made a practice of trying to sit in the front seat and I try to talk to them. Really, where are you from? How did you start doing this? And I just had one driver. He was from Sudan. And I just had one driver. He was from Sudan and his wife had just emigrated from Sudan. Because then he has kids who are American, because he got it at the consulate and his wife was now living in Cairo waiting for papers to come to America, even though his kids could come, and he's saving up money to get his wife to come back here and I'm just like God bless America.

08:52 There's something too about when an immigrant picks me up, there's there's always some crazy story and to me, the through line I've always found is that there's always a love of this country and you know, I don't think that's very rare, but sometimes I think we're all kind of made to feel that that's rare and I don't. I don't think it's rare. I think a lot of us just love this country and it doesn't have to be in a jingoistic kind of way, it's just there's a lot to be grateful for.

09:14 - Chase (Host) Can't disagree with you there, man.

09:16 - Jason (Guest) You asked for my my kind of elevator pitch, uber rider, uber driver story. So, you know, grew up in Ohio. Parents were really young when they had me moved with my mom, single mom, to university of Florida. She was on the tennis team, kind of was the unofficial mascot for the women's tennis team, and you were yeah, I was in Gainesville for three years when she was there. Um, you know, fast forward through a, a childhood of sports and all that stuff, and graduated from college didn't really know what I was going to do, wanted to do something special with my life, but I just felt kind of lost, like I didn't know where my people were, didn't know what to do, where, his mission and purpose and all that, and I didn't even know how to frame it like that. And then, you know, may of 2001,. I graduate, september of 2001,. The towers fell and I'd been backpacking in Central America trying to, you know, find myself through whatever and that doesn't work, you know backpacking doesn't work.

10:15 Backpacking around the world does not work to find yourself. You get some in some adventures and well, it's a big giant avoidance of things. There's no kind of what's your mission or your purpose. If you're you know it's a big giant avoidance of things. There's no kind of what's your mission or your purpose. If you're you know where's your tribe. If every week or a couple days you're just going to the next town, like you watch the movie the Beach or something with DiCaprio in it, you're like, yes, I'm going to go. You know, find this community and it's going to be crazy. And you know my life's going to feel different and all this stuff. And you know my life's going to feel different and all this stuff.

10:47 And I had a lot of adventures all over the world and did a lot of that stuff. But it was, you know, starting in basic training is where the real journey began for me. And you know I mean signed up in a time of war because I wanted revenge for what happened to us in New York and in Pennsylvania and in Washington, york and in Pennsylvania and in Washington. And you know the training was long, a couple of years of training to get through and became a Green Beret, and you know, got to go to Iraq in 2007 with my, with my team, or I should say, at that point I was on their team until it was our team, I was on their team.

11:21 - Chase (Host) Which Green Beret, for those that don't know, is the army's version of special forces, correct? Yeah, the main one, correct?

11:28 - Jason (Guest) And, uh, you know what I found, instead of revenge and maybe I got a little bit, I guess, but it didn't it wasn't satisfying, you know, in a in the way that I thought it would be and I found sort of service and camaraderie and that's what changed my heart. And so I got to go to Africa and Europe and developed really, really close bonds that will last for all of eternity with the guys that I served with and was kind of sad to get out at the time when I got out in 2008. My wife was in the CIA, she was a case officer, she was serving in West Africa. We were just all over the place and so something had to give. And then it was her, her kind of prompting, why we started GORUCK.

12:08 - Chase (Host) I've heard you say in another interview that it took two years for you to develop the courage to join the military. Yet you said you felt a soul level conviction that that was your calling after the attacks on 9-11. To have such clarity as to that's what I want to do with my life, but still have two years to actually act on it. Why that timeline when you had such conviction?

12:33 - Jason (Guest) I mean, why do we fear? Is the mind killer right? I mean you know you're at the backyard party and you're single and you're whatever, however old, and you know you see a pretty girl, why don't you go talk to her right away? You know it's just, this happens. And you know to say, hey, I saw all these guys under green NVGs on CNN in the mountains of Afghanistan going after bin Laden. And to tell myself, well, I want to do that in the mountains of Afghanistan, going after bin Laden. And to tell myself, well, I want to do that.

13:12 That's a lot different than actually signing up in a time of war to join the military, to actually go do that. And so you know it was complicated by I had just graduated from college, you know, I'd learned my books okay, so to say. And because so many people wanted to serve America and God bless our people for wanting to do that it was really hard to join as an officer, so much so that I just was waiting and waiting, and waiting. I applied to all the alphabet soup type places, the agency, the FBI, like, take your pick. I wanted to kind of serve. I did know in my heart that I wanted to be in the infantry. I wanted to be on the front lines as close as I could get, and did you enlist or you went commissioned. So then I enlisted.

13:50 - Chase (Host) So, oh, interesting. So you went, you went through college and then enlisted after that.

13:53 - Jason (Guest) Yes, so I enlisted in 2003 and what I? I was living in LA at the time, in Santa Monica, not far from here at all, and I remember going to Barnes and Noble. I didn't have any money, and I remember going to Barnes and Noble, I didn't have any money. And I went to Barnes and Noble and I think it was the one right on the third street promenade and I was reading the Rolling Stone articles that were coming out about Generation Kill and it was. It was you know, and they're talking about the march to Baghdad which kicked off in in March of 2003. And I was just like man I am missing this and it wasn't from a. There was no glorification of the violence, it wasn't really like that. It just felt much deeper and much more absolute that I will regret this for the rest of my life.

14:41 - Chase (Host) If I don't be a part of whatever this is, I will regret this for the rest of my life if I don't be a part of whatever. This is the reasons why anyone joins the military during a time of peace, but especially during a time of war, I think is so fascinating, because it is such a personal journey and personal process and personal choice to literally sign your life away, but especially during a time of war. You and I enlisted the exact same year, 2003. But to hear your reason compared to mine is so different.

15:11 There's a lot of common ground as to, oh, I recognize what is going on in my country, I recognize what is happening in the world and I recognize the highly probable danger of me choosing this job, choosing this career, choosing this life, but for whatever reason, kind of, for me, it was like this personal choice, this legacy of continuation of family service that superseded any decision making process of, I think, to use your words you know, revenge or feeling like if I don't, if I'm not a part of this, I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life. It just, it's, there's no question there. It's just. I think that is one of the most personal choices. Besides, maybe you know who you pick or who you ask to marry, kind of thing, the thought process where your head and your heart are going into that. It can be all over the place, but yet we all make the same decision.

16:07 - Jason (Guest) Exactly the heart of the matter feels kind of similar. You would have regretted it for the rest of your life. You felt like you owed something your, your parents, your, whoever you want it to be as a person, and it just for me. It took 9-11 for that to happen and and at that point it was you know people start coming out of the woodwork that I didn't. Hey well I served, hey well I served. You know, my grandfather's service became a little bit more interesting to me, which you know he passed away when I was still in training and I didn't really get to talk to him that much about it. But you know he'd been an artillery officer in Korea and he told me Fort Sill was, you know, one rung below hell especially in the summertime.

16:44 - Chase (Host) I'm like, okay, I don't know, fort Leonard Wood in the summertime is not that far off, that's for sure. Where did you go to basic Bragg?

16:51 - Jason (Guest) No, no, no, I was basic at Benning, benning, benning.

16:53 - Chase (Host) Yeah, excuse me, Echo 258. Drill Sergeant Hester Echo 210.

17:07 We were called. We were the trailer park boys because they had like it was such a mass influx of people enlisting at that time In Leonardwood they had overgrown the barracks so they got these trailers out in the field and we were just out there. We were the trailer park boys. Echo 210, Drill Sergeant del coro was our master drill sergeant. Sadistic, most sadistic motherfucker I've ever met my entire life ran like a 530 flat mile max out his pd score every time. Did he care about you? Oh my god, like I probably. If I walked up to him today and told him I was one of his soldiers in basic training 25 years ago, 23 years ago, I bet he would still care the same way he did then.

17:46 - Jason (Guest) Yeah, that was my experience too. I'm still in touch with my drill sergeant, no shit.

17:50 - Chase (Host) Yeah.

17:51 - Jason (Guest) And it's one of those things where man he was so hard on us I mean so hard, yeah, and it was a lot different than what special forces training became. It was a lot more. You know you're going to do exactly what is more programmed, so to say that's the point of bct.

18:08 That's the point right, but man, then he would like, all right, gather around right and he would explain what we were going to face or who we were trying to be. Or taking these elders, yeah, exactly, and man, I just I was just grateful for his mentorship and the way that he, kind of you of, helped raise us and bring us into the Army.

18:29 - Chase (Host) At any point during basic combat training before you got into selection school and all that. Did you ever feel like I didn't make the right choice? Or this is way more difficult or way different than I thought way more difficult or way different than I thought.

18:45 - Jason (Guest) The biggest questions I had was after I told my family that I had enlisted, which I did not tell anybody. You enlisted and then told the family, yeah, and that was just because you know, there's just this expectation If you're going to join which is already way too scary then you should definitely be an officer. And I'm like, yeah, I tried that for the last couple of years. At some point you got to, you got to go and, and so you know, then it's sort of well, maybe I can talk to such and such. Who can you know start pulling strings? And and I'm just like, look, this is going to I'm not, I'm not, yeah, I'm not owed anything special in this life.

19:26 You know this is a decision, but that was really hard. You know there's this sort of well can you get out of it Right, and it wasn't. That's just a natural reaction. I mean, I was wrong to it's like I was wrong, but could I have done it differently?

19:42 I don't know. I mean, maybe it's these kinds of what ifs and hypotheticals that drive you crazy, and I really try not to spend too much time on that, but that was really hard and it was a lot harder on my family than I wished, and some of that is just look at how people have lived since the beginning of time. Life is hard, you know it's hard of time. Life is hard, you know it's it's hard. We're not all living three blocks from Starbucks in a, you know, with a perfect roof and a in in climate controlled everything since the beginning of time. I mean, there's a lot of loss, there's a lot of pain, there's a lot of blood, there's a lot of sacrifice and you know I felt compelled to to serve.

20:21 - Chase (Host) But it was more than that. I mean, there are a lot of people that joined the military and they pick a job any job, any MOS, as we call it and then you go through that and then you kind of you know, you realize this is for me. Maybe you reclass, you reenlist, you extend, you work your way up, maybe go green to gold officer candidate school, warrant officer, school. You kind of start at the bottom, basically, but you said, nah, I'm gonna enlist straight away, I'm joining special forces. Have you always had that kind of mentality of if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it at the most elite level?

20:55 - Jason (Guest) I mean I was an athlete growing up and I always really enjoyed that. I mean it was, hey, I wanted to be the best that I could be and I was not.

21:04 You know, I was not like some great superstar athlete, but that's okay, and I really enjoyed the team dynamics and I enjoyed kind of excelling inside of that. And so this one was just a little bit more clear to me. I mean it was just, I mean sure, if I said, hey, if I'm going to go play basketball or play tennis or whatever, both of which I played growing up, I mean I wanted to be the best, but it wasn't the same thing. It's kind of okay, well, you know, practice harder and then you can score more points in the game. Okay, great, got it Right.

21:46 Unattainable goal that you could say, if I do all of, if I run through all of these gates like you're, you know Frodo, shepherding the ring to Mordor or whatever, right, if you run through all this and then you, that's mission, that's mission success, I mean. And that to me is a rite of passage in a world that is missing them. For too many folks. We're missing rites of passage because why? It's too hard, or it's unknown, or you might not make it, you might fail, it might not work out.

22:11 I mean all the all the trace it back to fear or whatever you want to trace it back to. But I mean I just saw what was going on in Afghanistan in 2001. And then I saw it was happening in the invasion of Baghdad and I wanted to be as close to that as possible, and so at that point it seemed like special forces was the way to go, and that can lead to other units and other and you know, guys get into that once, once you're in it. But that felt like the tip of the tip of the spear to me, and so it seemed like like a good goal to go after.

22:51 - Chase (Host) Are you familiar with, uh, you know, sade special operations, team Alpha. They're, uh, the special electronic warfare like usually in the SIGINT community signals intelligence world, which is more my branch. I was in military intelligence.

22:57 - Jason (Guest) We worked with them pretty closely in Basra and, and yeah, in Southern Iraq.

23:01 - Chase (Host) So me and one other guy, to my knowledge, maybe a couple other guys from my my unit. At the time I was stationed at um 470th mi brigade out of san antonio, texas. We're actually assigned um. This has all been declassified now at this point. But like for last, like for two years at that time I was actually we were assigned to nsa. They had a compound out there and um, the these saude recruiters knew my top, my first, first sergeant, and uh, he was like I got a couple of guys for you. So we wound up kind of getting pulled in for this Saudi recruiter.

23:33 And that was the first time in my military career, up at that point, where I realized what I signed up to do, like I'm doing that job, I'm serving missions, running support, doing all this stuff, but like there's another way to like use a skillset that the military gave me and then I've been working on for a few years in support of other missions and other job types and actually it was that seed that got planted. Long story short, um, I was only an E4 at the time, was a specialist, and they really they wanted our skill sets but they needed somebody, at least an E5, a sergeant or higher, and so like, hey, you know you're high speed soldiers, go do your thing, go to the promotion board, blah, blah, blah. So that conversation actually of being considered for Sade put me on the path to ultimately getting me like injured in this war game training. That got me medically discharged. So it's just wild to kind of know that there was a path maybe I had in mind.

24:30 But then in pursuit of that, not only did it not happen, but it completely changed the trajectory of my military career and the rest of my life. Did you ever experience anything in your military career to where, by choice or kind of by you know, strong persuasion, like, hey, we have something else in mind for you, we want your career to go this way, your job to go this way. And then just one day you're like how the hell did I get here?

24:57 - Jason (Guest) I mean, I think the entire experience was, it was a red pill for me. I mean, you know it's from the time I joined I had one version of what I thought I was going to. You know experience in the military. I kind of saw it more in terms of how World War II was fought, how so. So, you know, the guys signed up, they went to war and then they came home and then they reintegrated and they seemed to just kind of go about their lives Right and they did this thing, you know, band of Brothers style, you know, and afterwards they came back and they, you know, managed stuff at home and they became businessmen and they became, you know, fathers and husbands Went back to the factory, went back to exactly, and I kind of expected it to be like that Sort of a modern day check the box, because my country needs me.

25:46 And so I would have been ignorant to a lot, to a lot of what's best in life and also to a lot of what's worst in life. Because once you, you know, I like to travel and go places and meet people, get into adventures. I like to travel and go places and meet people, get into adventures. When you travel to a place and you have to travel through it, standing up in the middle of a Humvee with a .50 cal staring wherever you go, as well, that's a different perspective when you see violence and you're a service at that level to somebody else, like the guys on your team, and that is a drug. I mean, that was as addictive as it gets, and so you know, I have too many friends that aren't here anymore. I would have known none of that, you know, and you know I think about and I try not to do

26:51 that. Although being here now and you know, back in Santa Monica area, which is where I was right before the Army, it kind of took me back to that sort of mindset Like I need to train really hard, me, me, me, me. Right, I need to look like Rambo or Arnold or whatever it might be in order to do this. And it was still kind of selfishly motivated, even though it was a love of country and desire to serve and revenge, and it was still very me centric. And you know the red pill that I took right to join the Army, I mean there's just love and sacrifice are intertwined very deeply and that was. You can know that you can watch Band of Brothers, or you can watch Saving Private Ryan and maybe you cry at the end I always do but when you feel it, when you feel it, it's very different and it leaves a lasting mark.

27:54 - Chase (Host) I see feeling kind of coming up for you a little bit, I see the emotion coming through in your face and your eyes and we can say just as much as we said and I feel like I know exactly what you're talking about. There's just, there's this through line of being, of service, and especially in the military, that it's just so immediate. Anytime I meet any other veteran, you know it's even better if they're like the same branch, same service, same, you know, even similar bases or whatever. Um, it's just like this, this through line, that is an unspoken experience, unspoken bond, and yet we have such drastic experiences in. You might have some similarities, but odds are you know, your career was your career and my career was my career.

28:36 But one thing I personally I've struggled with this and kind of like sharing more of my military experience and even kind of connecting with other veterans. Um, so I, I enlisted in 2003, same as you were a country of war, uh, oh, three to oh, nine, two wars, yeah, and then some, and I mean those are just the ones that you know most America knew about. Um, so my time and career, I was the guy you know, kind of not kind of just painting these dots together. Now I was kind of not far from like this. I was the guy listening in, maybe had a microphone, you know getting information, providing intelligence, disseminating. You know working with different clients and different groups on ground and um clients, I love it around and um clients.

29:29 - Jason (Guest) I love it, the client. You were the guys in one of the gun trucks going out with us when we were. When we were doing it. You were all. You had all your super spy stuff all attached to your truck and you know, with like a drt guy, dirt intelligence um it's like it was like this really high speed, uh, like a offshoot of sigint, basically, but primarily worked in like cellular communications.

29:43 - Chase (Host) We had all that. Yeah, we had all that. So I bring that up because high speed, uh, like a offshoot of sigint, basically, but primarily worked in like, uh, cellular communications we had all that, yeah, we had all that.

29:48 So I bring that up because actually my first, my first real world experience in hearing the evils of the world like still, I can still hear it was a woman. It was this woman's voice describing what she and her. Before I got into like the russian missions uh, I ran intel for central america, south america, mexico, human trafficking, sex trafficking and I'll never forget this woman's voice about how she was describing what they were doing to this group of people. They were trafficking the like age groups.

30:34 - Jason (Guest) Is this in English?

30:35 - Chase (Host) or Spanish. This was in English.

30:37 - Jason (Guest) OK.

30:39 - Chase (Host) And their plans for them, how they were delivering them, and this was literally just miles down the road, not far from the American Mexican border, and like that, imprinted on me so hard to go, like I know that I joined the military and I know that we're a country at war, but right now that's not that war.

31:02 So there is this level of evil going on in the world in the background, like all the time. And so my point here is that I was the guy hearing, that, I was the guy gathering all that information and then providing for you guys to go be the boots on the ground, and I've struggled a lot with feeling like I missed out, like I didn't really serve my country in the full way that a lot of other people did. If you could say, you know, from kind of being on both sides of that, you know, would you ever want somebody to have had that full experience? Do you feel like anybody that serves, who goes through and has their experience, that's what you're meant to have? You know, cause I'm I'm not alone. There are a lot of people that kind of stay, you know, on the strategic side, so to speak.

32:02 - Jason (Guest) I mean this is one of the most common things going, I mean, in our, say, the Green Beret community. It's like, oh, you weren't good enough of a Green Beret got it because you only did X number of deployments and only did X number of missions and you could have done more. I mean this is the most common thing, I mean. And for me the follow-up to your earlier question was you know, I mean my wife was in the CIA, I, I was in special forces, I was kind of planning on joining the CIA and the paramilitary branch and later on, you know, goruck came around and so it's like this is odd, this is a business that I don't necessarily feel that great about. It doesn't feel like it's a service thing if you're in a for-profit business, and so I wrestled with that a lot and that dramatically shifted who we are and why at GORUCK. But you know it's what you're describing is a very common thing. I don't know anybody that really doesn't have that.

33:02 Frankly, I mean I wish I could have done more like this and this and this, and I think so much of it is not understanding. It's this difference between regret and wishing that something could have turned out differently, and if you separate those out, I mean, hey, if I would have done this and this and this, then this friend might not have died. If I would have done this and this, then this friend might not have died. If I would have been here on the next deployment, then this friend might not have died. Or you know, I mean I lost two guys that I deployed with just a couple of years ago. They were still in the same company. They come back through their towards the more senior end of their career and they both died. And I'm like man.

33:55 - Chase (Host) We were just in the halls together in, you know 06, 07, 08.

33:57 - Jason (Guest) Yeah, they were both still green berets, you know, and it's kind of like, well, these, these what ifs and all of these kind of I wish I could have done more, I wish I could have gone into more rooms with barrels forward. I mean it never stops. So, wherever we are in that journey, I mean, you know, I saw enough violence to want more, and that's a complicated feeling, and you were around. Enough violence to want more, and that's a complicated feeling. Because why? I mean there's something about, there's a personal side to it, that this is a challenging thing to prove yourself and test yourself.

34:43 And then it's well, this is about the team, right, right, right, yeah, and the team is kind of a it's, it's about as noble of a thing as it gets. Man, I mean you're on a small, a small team doing as required or whatever you're supposed to be doing, and it's very dangerous work, and you're in it together and you feel like you're just carrying the flag of justice with you wherever you go. And so you want more of that and you wish you could have done more and more and more and more, and you wish you were still doing it, and you know. And so the thing is is that at some point all warriors stop serving on the front lines and everybody has to make their peace with any kind of transition and the natural reinvention that comes because of that.

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36:59 I'm so glad you bring up that word, the warrior, warrior mentality. I think any veteran can. Most veterans can probably relate that warrior mentality. I think especially people, service members like ourselves that joined during or served during wartime. Compared to peacetime your op tempo is completely different, no matter what your MOS mos is, at least in my experience. You're always training for war like the training schedule was always fucking full.

37:29 And then just one day you're out, for whatever reason. You ets, you separate, you retire medically discharge and all that goes away. The music stops. The music stops literally overnight. You go from having a support system. You know who to go to for what, you've got brothers and sisters to the left and right of you, you've got a roof over your head, food in the fridge, you have all your basic needs, including community, covered and then you sign out for the last time and then it's just gone. And then especially people like myself and you, not to put words in your mouth. But I feel like there's another layer of transition that makes it more difficult and it's because that warrior mentality has been just imprinted even more Like I still I've been. I got out in 09 and no bullshit. There's not a day that goes by that I'm not. When I go to a restaurant, I sit in the back corner. I gotta make sure I have all my exits.

38:33 - Jason (Guest) I'm like going through worst case scenario if, like this, person crosses the street and they pull what like it's just constant, or you see an active shooter at a school and you think about what your response would be exactly, and an active shooter at a school and you think about what your response would be Exactly. And then you go into a school and you I mean, the hard part comes when you have to start thinking like the bad guys, which is, which is how you properly plan to defeat the bad guys is you have to think like the bad guys and so you bring that home with you and that's baggage man.

38:58 - Chase (Host) That's baggage. Did you deal with that? How did you process that?

39:02 - Jason (Guest) Yeah, every day I deal with that. I mean it's not, this doesn't go away. It's kind of like you know where you're from, or you know who your parents are, how you were raised or these experiences that you have. You have to learn how to kind of control them, or else they will control you, and so the more that you know yourself, it's just it's okay, this is just part of the deal and you don't have to be fully understood everywhere you go by everybody. You have to kind of make your peace with how you're going to live your life in the world and just know that that's something that you're going to do, and just know that that's something that you're going to do.

39:43 - Chase (Host) Well, you, during your transition, you gave yourself a new mission and you kind of had this idea. I know you and your wife kind of noodled this idea of taking this concept of having a go bag during your career, a go ruck, and you kind of created and brought a new mission out with you during your transition. And for those of you that don't know, watching the video GORUCK, they make these bad boys here, these weighted vests and some incredible apparel. I'm actually wearing the shoes as well. We got 10 pound plate in the front, 10 pound plate in the back. Why this? As the new mission?

40:25 - Jason (Guest) Man it's. It's one of those things that I can. I can recount the bullet points along the way. What I cannot describe in any amount of time is just how messy the whole thing has been and how important it has been, was, is and will always be to kind of understand what our Northern star is and why we keep seeking that, because it's really easy to. All of a sudden you're going here and there and you're just kind of all over the place chasing whatever you think might be worthwhile, like what, what actually matters here? You know, we take all the, the mission planning and the mission prep and all that stuff and say that's great, the, the, the a hundred page operations order. But like what are the five W's you?

41:14 know, and you need to know those really well, and that's kind of the Northern star. And so for us it was basically taking the Special Forces way of life and kind of bridging that, and that became just the life that I was leading and we were going through that at that time and so it was very much a live problem. You got to be around there and kind of do that with me to a certain extent. I mean, it took a couple of years to design the first rucksack, which was GR1. And then, you know, the problems were just infinite along the way and the problems were infinite after and they're still infinite. It never stops. You just have to kind of.

41:57 - Chase (Host) If you're going to say committed to the process, you're going to say committed to the problems.

42:00 - Jason (Guest) Yeah, and commitment is such an important way to look at it. I mean, are you in this because you want? Why? Why, when it gets really hard, and it will get really hard, what's your why? And that's one of the things that you learn at selection or any of these. You know cool kid bag dump schools where you show up and you know you dump all your bags and it's just chaos and it's just they suck and at some point in those you will be forced to confront yourself and it will be. Why do I want to do this? And if you don't have a good answer, you're not going to be there very long and so for us it was kind of a hobby.

42:38 And then I went to business school on the post 9-11 GI Bill which I'm grateful to the American taxpayer for I use that as well. I mean it bought me some time and helped me. That really helped my transition. And you know, goruck was just kind of a hobby for them, but he kept pouring more and more and more money into it. And then I had a bunch of inventory and was like all right, well, this is a live case study at business school where you're studying all this stuff, and so just a million accidents, mistakes along the way, but kept coming back to my roots, and part of the roots were, you know, team building through physical fitness and rucking just happens to be the foundation of special forces training, Something that I did not know when I joined the army. I mean, you see people with backpacks on, or or, or whatever.

43:26 - Chase (Host) And you just say the least. What is that Right? Whatever, I guess, where are they going with all that stuff? All that stuff, why is it so big? Why is there so much? And that's just what you can see, not to mention, you know, the body armor underneath all that. Yeah, it's horrible.

43:44 - Jason (Guest) And yet battle rattle. And so you know, in training got built up to be able to ruck a whole lot better and faster and stronger. Because it's years when you start out and it's you know you're rucking 20 pounds and then you know, before you know it, it's 45 and that's your minimum and then it's 85 and then and then it's 125 and you know it just kind of got used to it and didn't really understand even that rucking was something to train for. Almost man. I did ruck but I didn't have a plan, it was just okay, I guess I'm. I got a lot of rucking to do in this, this special forces training it was orders at the time, it wasn't.

44:14 Oh, let me rotate this into my, you know, workout protocol right because I'm going to get stronger abs or something had nothing to do with it. It was oh this, oh, this is a new. This is going to be really healthy for me. Not really a ruck run, because we were going such long distances that I didn't find. You know, running is more like sprinting and I that was not really necessary, so it was a ruck shuffle pretty much all the time. 10 miles, 12 miles that was a pretty standard afternoon until I started to train with really heavy weights because I knew what was coming. And then that was just a slog. Man, when you're, when you got 120 pounds on your back, I mean it's horrible. Every step hurts and sucks. Yeah, your body gets used to. Your body's capable of a lot.

44:56 - Chase (Host) And until you stop and realize half your toenails fell off, you've got blisters in place. Oh man, I loved it when my toenails fell off. You've got blisters in place. Oh man, I loved it when my toenails fell off right.

45:03 - Jason (Guest) And then you know you start to develop because it's one less thing to worry about. And then you've got. You know you start to get calluses in all the right places. It's like oh man, keep the moleskin in business I am winning. Look at my calluses right. Come here, look at this you know it's chafing it's yeah, well, you got to use the lube and all the right places.

45:21 - Chase (Host) Baby powder, all of it.

45:23 - Jason (Guest) Yeah, all of it. And so that became the foundation of what I was doing with GoRuck, not what we were building in terms of manufacturing of things, because things are only things, the first kind of special operations. Force's truth is humans are more important than hardware. And so when you look at that, no matter how it's the same in business, business, war, love and life, it's all basically the same. And if you look at at building things, yeah, that's fine, but there's it's hard to to to pour magic into things if they're just widgets or it's just a backpack, it's just a coffee cup, it's just a microphone, it's just I cup, it's just a microphone, it's just. I mean, it's still just a thing. So how do you kind of bring it to life? And that was exciting to me. So came up with some events or an event called the go rock challenge and that brought people together. It was became fight club with backpacks really quickly.

46:16 - Chase (Host) Meet me on the street corner at 1am.

46:19 - Jason (Guest) Details not forthcoming. Yeah, and, and that was, you know it was a, the timing was good on that. You know, the there was still kind of this people wanted to know more about special forces. And then we had special operations, guys from all the branches, so SEALs and Delta and force recon, marines and PJs and air force and all sorts of that kind of with different backgrounds, underneath this umbrella, running lots of different events, and they were all rucking events. And so you know, you look back now and we just kept doing it and doing it and doing it. And you look back now we've put on over 10,000 of those all over the country, in the world.

46:57 I've done a couple of them, yeah, and it's, it's like okay, well, I guess that's how you build community. You know, keep showing up, be consistent, come often, bring the people together. Even, you know, even if the numbers are a little too low here, you know, oh well, this is really good, let's do more of that. And then it's you know, you're, you're playing Tetris every year on where to go and how often, and all that. But you have to keep showing up, I but you have to keep showing up.

47:19 - Chase (Host) I heard you mention in another podcast, um quote I'm going to blow my cover to go all in with go rock. You were talking about kind of the early days of leaning into social media and promoting go rock on Facebook and things like that. What do you mean by that? Did you really feel like, was that the mentality of, if I choose to go all in on this new endeavor, I'm blowing my cover? Was it still kind of that military mindset of?

47:45 - Jason (Guest) not letting yourself out? No, this was very practical. Was you know what really inspired me? The first kind of sacrifice post 9-11 that inspired me was was Mike Spann. He was a paramilitary officer for the agency he was. He was killed in the John Walker Lynn prison. Uprising Right. Oh yeah, he was the first casualitary officer for the agency. He was killed in the John Walker Lynn prison uprising right. Oh yeah, he was the first casualty right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

48:06 And so they told his story because it was kind of you need someone to rally around and as a service and sacrifice, and his story was something like I owe to is really what came out of that. And so I mean, part of the plan joining the army and special forces was I want to serve in that unit, right, whatever that was. And I went through the hiring process at the CIA and they basically said, hey, you have to serve in special operations somewhere and then we'll pick you up. And I'm like, okay, thanks for the last year of interviewing, see you later. And so you know, as I was transitioning out, we'll come.

48:42 You know, my wife had been, now she's in the CIA, and I had met a lot of people that were in the paramilitary side of the CIA and they were like hey, when are you coming over, you know? So there's this kind of fork in the road and I'm like, oh, yeah, let me go to business school real quick, check a box. Right, let me check a box real quick because it's it'll be better for whatever. You know, it looks good in your your file. Terrible reasons to do things. It'll look good in your file.

49:08 - Chase (Host) That's what they tell me in the transition assistance program, you know.

49:11 - Jason (Guest) Yeah, Go back to school. The go back to school thing was actually great. It just it led a different, different route, and so I started GoRuck at least publicly online with a pseudonym Facebook account, did all sorts of stuff like that, and because I wanted to keep this other option open well, you keep doubling down on a business and it just became something to where nothing was working. I don't know anything about digital media or Google or Facebook or all that you know black magic, whatever it is that goes on in the dark web, To say the least but what I did know how to do was bring people together on street corners all over the country and the world and build teams through, you know, physically demanding, grueling events, and that proved to be something that really lifted me up, and I think people got something out of it because it became a rite of passage for them and I got to give back. It felt like I was helping other people in a different kind of way than what you know write a book a self-help book.

50:12 Like how is there such thing as a self-help book again If someone else? Anyway, I digress. So blowing the, blowing my cover kind of felt like well, I'm, I'm burning this ship to go to this place. That was the reason why I wanted to go down this path in the first place, and so it was very practical and very real and like, okay, it was a conscious decision.

50:37 - Chase (Host) You know, I think it's no surprise that you've had such great success with GORUCK because of your ties to the military. Personally speaking, anytime I find any brand, any product, any service, any local small business that I kind of like, if I find out it's veteran owned, veteran operated or any affiliation, I'm doubling down until they kind of screw up or like it really sucks. But you know, as a veteran I flock to other veteran things and products and services. So I feel like it's no surprise that that kind of initial traction I mean you definitely had a lot of hard work, but you know veterans, I think, support veterans. But bringing such a military concept to the world, to the civilian world, I don't think always translates. Why do you think you had such success with bringing probably one of the most fundamental, painstaking embrace, the suck components to the military, as is putting on a bunch of weight and walking for however long? Why do you think it clicked for civilians and why do you think it's so successful in a non-military group?

51:47 - Jason (Guest) I think I could relate to a lot of the people who showed up, from even myself before I joined the military. So these people that were maybe endurance junkies are looking for something else out of life, a little like you're looking to squeeze a little bit more out of the marrow of life, you know. And so from the outset it was really important that I did not want this to be like bootcamp. There wasn't yelling and screaming and all that.

52:13 It was kind of, hey, this is really going to suck and we're going to smile a lot right, or else it's going to suck even worse until we learn how to smile, you know, and that's such a military thing in its own right, but you have to learn to smile when it really sucks. I mean the guy on your team or your company or whatever it might be, who made you smile and laugh when it was horrible. I mean those are the people that you want on your team, that you want on your team. And so taking that kind of mindset to it and out of the gates was like I don't care if you're male, female, black, white, gay, straight, purple, pink, polka dotted, whatever pick up the rock and follow me.

52:54 And so it was this very kind of open and inviting way of bringing these like-minded people, adventure seekers and, you know, people that were looking to just get a little bit more out, like to take the harder path, those folks and then like, finds, like and it and it cut through military and civilian lines and it was just this really hard thing. And yeah, you know, there was the our time in America in 2010, 2011,. Realized you're getting into the Afghan surge. You're getting into, you know, bin Laden was killed. There's a lot of things that were still very kind of intriguing about special forces types, and that was good timing. We didn't sort of plan on that.

53:38 - Chase (Host) I mean now it just kind of falls flat because all the books have been written and you know Zero Dark Thirty came out falls flat because all the books have been written and the you know Zero Dark Thirty came out. Yeah, all the things have been done.

53:46 - Jason (Guest) I mean, how can you write a more? I mean, bin Laden got shot in the face, right. I mean how can you write that's what started the wars, okay, well, who's going to top that now? You can't keep going. More and more and more and more. There's just, it's just more at that point. And so you know, these things come in cycles, and so for us the timing was good and I think the message of inclusivity was good. We did not choose political lines and we still don't. I think that there's. It's fine if people want to do that, but it also just it's a divide and conquer tactic. That is not something that GORUCK was meant to do out of the gates. It was. It was because that's how it was in the military. I mean, once you realize that people are coming from all over the country, you know there were brown people and black people and white people and you know people all different kind of.

54:40 - Chase (Host) I did the one a couple, like two months ago at this point now, and there were guys that flew in from Jersey, from Canada. There was one guy that literally added a leg to his trip from India to come. It was like, I think, like maybe 80 guys. It's crazy.

54:54 - Jason (Guest) And you get this melting pot and I think that you know, when you look at America, it's a melting pot. When you look at the military, it's a melting pot and it's not, you know, a perfect diversity.

55:05 - Chase (Host) It's, it's not, you know there's just a lot of diversity and and I want to celebrate that right.

55:12 - Jason (Guest) It's a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds that look differently. And there you are, you know, standing in formation at 4 AM on a cold Georgia morning in December, january, february, and you're all there and then later on you're getting rained on like crazy and then you're rolling around in the mud together because someone did something wrong, someone showed up late yeah, it's always something you know. And then you're sitting out there, you know, shining your boots, and you're just in it together and nobody's talking about you know who'd you vote for and what's your politics. And you might get to that later with some folks, but it's just, it was such. This, this, this kind of pure experience that I had in the military and bringing the best of that to GORUCK was was kind of the goal, and so it was. It's been really great and it really lifts both my wife and I and our entire team up. That it is.

56:08 It's really hard to do some of the stuff and yet there's the value in it. You know that you've earned something and then when you say, okay, so, but at its at its most basic form, put 20 pounds on your back and ruck the dog for you know, 20 minutes twice a day. You're going to get a little more challenging walk your dog is going to. You know, maybe you'll want to go a little further. Your dog will get a little stronger too, I mean you can.

56:34 You can apply the fundamentals and there's brilliance in the basics here and the basics are carry weight, and so being able to make that accessible as well and still do it in a way that feels very honest and pure and on brand or on message or serving the mission in that way, that's been really special as well.

56:55 - Chase (Host) When I see what you guys are up to at GoRuck, for me it's familiar and therefore feels comforting. I see loam green, I see tactical gear, I see rucks, I see weighted vests like I had, and I see military, and for me it's just oh, like it just clicks, yeah. But for people who have not served, I feel like they view the military way of life, military training, as this, like crazy elusive thing that they, you know, maybe by doing I can somewhat be a part of. It's being sold as being packaged or there is this kind of allure of if I go do this and train like them, then I have kind of tapped into that warrior mentality and I feel like there's like this sweet spot where both of those kind of come together. Would you agree? And you know how? Would how would you kind of have one side convey the feeling to the other?

58:06 - Jason (Guest) feeling to the other. I'll start with what I don't like. Okay Is when this kind of the mystique of military training gets packaged and put on social media wherever, and it becomes this kind of enigmatic magic button Okay, Train like this and you're going to have abs that look like this dude. That's serves in the military.

58:20 - Chase (Host) I mean, it's just like you're a man, do this, let us yell at you for a weekend and you're done.

58:24 - Jason (Guest) It's just kind of it doesn't work. Bootcamp works only because it's bootcamp and people don't want to come back to people yelling and screaming at them. To do that, you, you have to feel like it's a, a real community, a real kind of tribal thing in its purest essence. And so, yeah, I mean, look, there's a lot to gain from the simplicity of military training, and for us, the the simplest is put a little bit of weight on your back and go for a walk. I mean, that's a new fitness category rucking carry that weight.

59:01 - Chase (Host) It's a category on the whoop Now you can track it as a training modality.

59:05 - Jason (Guest) It is it's it's hiking, slash, rucking in the whoop. The problem with whoop is nobody yet has done it. Where there is a weight that you, you input the weight because it dramatically impacts it so.

59:18 I wore a whoop for a while and I'm supportive of anything that encourages people to get more active. What we're pushing for is you need to get more specific on this, because it's it's not the same thing. I mean, if there's elevation, sure that's hiking. I mean hiking is just rucking in the mountains, right, I mean. And so when you say rucking, you can do it anywhere. But if you have 45 or 60 or 20, it's different depending upon who you are and where you are and which zone you're in, and the whoop gets kind of complicated or it gets kind of confused by a lot of that, so a lot of my stuff. I learned a lot from that, especially about recovery and sleep, and you know how my body responds to that, but it didn't really understand my fitness.

01:00:00 - Chase (Host) I agree, you still got some room to grow in there, I'm sure.

01:00:03 - Jason (Guest) They'll do it, they're on it.

01:00:04 - Chase (Host) The crew over there will come out. I'm sure there's an update, maybe next year. Yeah, they're very aware of the rucking movement.

01:00:10 - Jason (Guest) So, yeah, the CFO works out in my driveway. No shit, he's in Jacksonville and I went to, I graduated high school, with their growth office, how do I say it? I mean, peacoats and cargo pants are also military, right. It's just they've expanded beyond that, right? You see them on the fashion runway all over the world, and these cycles sort of come and these cycles sort of go within those examples of fashion. So for this, though, it's to say look, people are already hiking. That's rucking.

01:00:39 How should you train if you live here? How should you train if you live here? How should you train if you want to go climb a big mountain like a 14 or in Colorado or more? You should put a rucksack on your back with some weight and go to Runyon Canyon, or go to the smaller places around here, or ruck your dog around the neighborhood, and you can add more resistance with more weight. And if you're me and you live in Florida and it's completely flat, you know, add even more weight. Or find some staircases downtown at the building with the lets people come and train there. I mean, there's a lot of different ways to make this, so that people don't have to like I'm not selling bootcamp here.

01:01:15 - Chase (Host) Right, yeah, right, your habit stacking. You know to shout out James, clear from Atomic Habits. I mean. Case in point when I got it, my wife, she took it for a while just with no weight, and then I think she added 10 pounds. And we were if we were just in the house and you know, doing errands, rearranging shit, she would just put it on. Yeah, I mean. So you're already doing the thing, you're already living your life, but you just make it a little bit harder, challenge yourself a little bit more physically and mentally, because you got to make that choice to do the hard thing physically. Next thing, you know, like you take it off, like things get easier, I mean your body adapts.

01:01:46 - Jason (Guest) I mean the three things about rucking is it's very simple, it's very low risk and it's challenging. That's a difficult combination to kind of ascribe to other.

01:01:56 - Chase (Host) It's hard to get that in the gym, it's hard to get that in a lot of other exercise modalities, I mean compared to, say, running.

01:02:03 - Jason (Guest) I mean, running is very simple it's very high impact, so it's greater risk of injury, right, and it's certainly challenging, but you're missing the low-risk side. I mean, you can point against this, against other things, but I guess the bigger thing is, I think people should do what works for them. This is just something that nobody talks about, like carrying weight. It's pretty primordial, and so, for, our bodies have been developed to do this, and so, yes, it has military roots and yes, we are also talking about more people than just say, military folks to to try this, because if you have a body, this will benefit you. And so how does it kind of expand while we still remain true to our, to ourselves, and that's, that's a lot of fun.

01:02:51 - Chase (Host) People are talking about it now. I think 2024, you know I kind of live in the health, fitness, wellness world so maybe I'm a little bit biased, but 2024, I have seen, I'm sure a lot thanks to the efforts of go ruck, rucking as a form of movement, physical activity and exercise just below the hell up, and a lot of credit to such you know organizations like go ruck. I know. You know you were on Peter Atiyah not that long ago and Andrew Huberman, you know, talks about it and you know, of course Andrew Huberman could come out with his you know nose picking protocol and people would want to do it. You know, not to discredit anything he does, but like I think now we're in such a world of like content and people that know their shit, you know come from the scientific background, like Atiyah and Huberman, and kind of present things in a way that we have known is beneficial for a long time, that we have known is beneficial for a long time. It's truth for a lot of people already. But then someone does it and someone shares maybe like a little bit of the how or the science behind it and all of a sudden everybody's doing it and it's the new thing and Huberman. Actually I pulled up this article from Huberman Lab and he talks about how he explains that quote. This is a part of his weekly fitness protocol.

01:04:01 Ruckingucking includes a long ruck or weighted hike on Sundays as part of his cardiovascular exercise routine, designed to tap into various forms of endurance. So I want to kind of shift into, I mean, what we're talking about. This has been a way of life for us and it's your business now, but there is some amazing science behind it. There are a lot of physiological benefits. Is some amazing science behind it? There are a lot of physiological benefits and you know I'll link some articles I found from huberman and some other people talking about break it down in way better ways than I can. But what we're really talking about is long endurance training, steady state, low intensity, steady state training and there are just incredible benefits and we're looking at strengthening muscles and bones, improving cardiovascular health, mental clarity and focus. Can you walk us through maybe, if you had to, in your interpretation, your experience, like what are the two, three scientific ways? What was actually going on behind rucking, as to why it works and how it promotes health?

01:04:59 - Jason (Guest) Yeah. So start with the absolute basics, which is we don't move enough. We as a people don't move enough. And so you start to consider is that a? It's not because we don't know that it's, it's because we just don't things, the, the, our worlds are not engineered enough. I mean, you see a place like New York or these walkable cities, it's like, okay, more people walk there, great, got it.

01:05:26 But I think that there's this kind of how do you give people a little bit more license to do something that's feels more challenging, it feels a little bit grittier, feels like they're going to get more results, you know, and and so rucking offers offers that right, if you move more, just in general, I think that's a better way to live a life. Like if you have a bias for activity, I think that that's a great way to live a life. For me. I'll just tell you personally, if I kind of start with sleep and I say I want to sleep well tonight, I know for a fact that if I don't move my body, I will not be able to fall asleep and I will not get a good night's sleep and then tomorrow will not be good. And so if you want to stop that and you want to feel better, then start with the things that you can do to sleep better. So and I'm not talking supplements or anything like that yet, I'm talking the absolute basics of move your body to exhaustion, like that is the-.

01:06:28 - Chase (Host) Exhaustion being the key word here. Exhaustion is the key word.

01:06:31 - Jason (Guest) Okay, let's start with a veteran who might be going through transition, might be struggling, like I was in, you know, circa 2009 to 2010. And I have a dog that needs to go outside and Java was like, hey, I need to go out. Well, you know, short walks, come on, java, let's go, let's go back, and he's pulling me. Short walks turned into long walks, turned into runs, turned into rucks and ruck runs and before you know it, I'm sleeping better, I feel better. The next day. It seems like I'm able to kind of take on the day a lot, a lot better. That's a gradual thing. That just happened through increase in physical activity, that led to exhaustion, that led to sleep. So that's kind of the so cause I'm always reluctant to say, okay, well, this and this and this will magically happen. I mean, you still have to move. If you're rucking, that is movement. That is like saying, if you eat better, you'll feel better. This is just an absolute thing, right? So for me, it's a good way to.

01:07:31 I get steps in and I kind of I'm pretty religious about tracking my steps, right? I mean I what's your step goal? 12,000 is my goal, I. So your goal is your minimum. That's my minimum. So my average is pushing 15. Okay, Right, and that's and you know, a lot of that is with a ruck on. I mean, I have, I'm in front of the computer a lot, but I'll you know if, hey, if I've got a phone call with a buddy or something like, hey, I just grabbed my rock and I walk around so to say so you know what does it do? It just makes a walk more challenging. It's really really simple and you can pick the weight from five pounds or 10 pounds to. You know, I usually ruck 45 and, and you know, your shoulders are back right, so it's posture corrective for me and that means that if, if, you can open up your chest and own your breath, then you own the pose right. Ooh.

01:08:22 - Chase (Host) I love that. Go back and say that again.

01:08:23 - Jason (Guest) It's too good to pass over If you can open up your chest and breathe, then you own the pose, and if you're walking, that's a Kelly Starrett quote.

01:08:31 - Chase (Host) Like he taught me that Mr Simple Leopard himself.

01:08:33 - Jason (Guest) To own the pose, you have to be able to take a full breath, and I think that's so simple, right? So if you, if you have too much weight or something, you start to hunch over and you don't you have to pull your shoulders back, well, the rucksack kind of helps. You want to pull your shoulders back, and so that's, that's really great. And and then you know, I mean the the list kind of goes, goes on and on, but it's, it's really good for me mentally and physically, and then I do with friends, so it's also good socially.

01:09:02 - Chase (Host) The social component is huge. Can you kind of talk about that? You know what? What are maybe some extra health benefits do you think people might not fully be aware of because of the social component? You know we, we know we're stepping into a hard situation. We're walking long distances, weighted vests, but what do you think is the secret sauce? Because of the social component or our health?

01:09:20 - Jason (Guest) or you're walking short distances, like this is not some insurmountable thing.

01:09:24 This is not some brand new fad machine that's going to turn into a towel rack. It's not a band that's promising you, you know, a 12-pack abs, it's. It's it's like look, put the weight on your back and carry the weight, build it into your life or dedicate time to it. When you, when you get more comfortable with it, you know, I mean to say hey, let's go out and try a 12 miler and see how fast we can get at 45 pounds. I mean that's an advanced movement. You know you're getting into shuffling and you're getting into things that I would say let's not scare off people that maybe this is just a license to move and get results a lot better. Right, so you're, you're going to have increased heart rate, increased blood flow and all of these things are great, for you're going to it's resistance training. So you've got.

01:10:08 You know lean muscle mass is being preserved and even gained. Right, I mean bone density. That's a thing as anybody ages you're. Because there's resistance and because you're moving, there's's, there's positive bone density gains. I mean the list goes on and on and on. It's not because I'm sitting here trying to, these are just facts. I mean it's just so basic move and carry a little bit of weight to add resistance and a little bit of extra challenge.

01:10:38 - Chase (Host) Kind of shifting into like the business side of things a little bit. When did you start Go Ruck like officially, publicly, as a business 2008. And so here we are, 2024. Do you, are you now where you thought you would be when you started the company, in terms of reach growth revenue? Where are you now, in 2024, in comparison to where you thought you would be when you started?

01:11:03 - Jason (Guest) You know, it started out as a hobby for some years and so fast forward a little bit through that.

01:11:11 I mean, I think on some level it was all just kind of like an art project with funny money for some years and there was no tie in with reality. Hey, if we keep doing this, this is going to just happen magically, and it doesn't work that way. I mean, the mechanics of our business are we have to build something and we build it from the ground up. It takes years and then we have to build it, so then we have to scale it and then we have to get it in inventory and then we have to put it on a website and then someone has to buy it. And if, then we have to scale it and then we have to get it in inventory and then we have to put it on a website and then someone has to buy it, and if we don't have it, we can't sell it.

01:11:47 So it's a very cash intensive business like that and and that's just hard you have to do turnovers of inventory and you have to get smart and all that stuff. So I think our brand is as as good as I had hoped for, and that was what was most important to me and because and I'll give you my first measure of our brand, which is that I feel like we have used our platform and our mission to honor where we came from and to pay it back to others to sort of inspire, challenge and equip people to get out and embrace the suck with friends you guys make some top-notch equipment.

01:12:28 - Chase (Host) I mean again, I'll pull up the weighted vest here. I mean correct me if I'm wrong you guys have it's like a lifetime warranty on the shit. You break it, we fix it. I mean this is like ballistic grade shit. I mean it's military grade equipment. How do you go about making something that is both a sustainable business model um cost effective, that the public's actually going to invest in? But you can like literally put that level of guarantee on yeah, I mean, that was something out of the gates.

01:12:57 - Jason (Guest) That was, hey, let let's just do it. Figure it out If we go bankrupt because we build bad stuff, like I guess.

01:13:05 - Chase (Host) So it was just full burn, yeah, we burned, but it's called the scars lifetime guarantee.

01:13:09 - Jason (Guest) We launched our first website. I had that on it. You break it, we fix it, in essence, right, doesn't matter where you bought it and you know it was just I. First off, I never thought out of the gates that you know, founded by Greenbrae, made in China, never had a great ring to me, so we didn't do that. We started out with all American manufacturing and we still do a lot of American manufacturing. We've had to expand out a little bit, not to China, but we've had to expand out a little bit, just due to scale constraints and but the quality and the rigorous quality I mean I could walk you through. I don't personally know how to sew, but I'm going to learn with my daughter, with my daughter, actually we're we're going back and learning how to sew together and kind of, you know family business stuff, right, and.

01:13:57 But I mean there's just so much.

01:14:00 Other places are cutting corners everywhere they can to save a nickel and before you know it, you have finance folks picking zippers and, well, this other fabric's cheaper, why would we use, you know, this good stuff? It's like, well, you know, and nobody's willing to fight that, it's just the business starts to be run by lawyers and finance people and all that. And for us, that's just if we're building bad stuff and we're not, but if we were, this is how I play out worst case scenario stuff like my version of hell. And so then some guys that I served with get our stuff and they're like man, this sucks, that's my version of hell. Imagine, right, imagine they're downrange, no, no, and they get it in their APO, their container, like what happened to Gora, what happened to him? Like there is no amount you know they're going to let you know, there is no amount of money that is worth it to me for that to ever happen, yeah, and so we just don't cut any corners and we overbuild everything and we make sure that it just works.

01:15:02 - Chase (Host) Where are you at currently in the business? Are you at a point of we're holding the line? You're at a point of holy shit, things are going so well. We're like shooting for the moon next, like through the lens of the business of Go Ruck.

01:15:17 - Jason (Guest) Where are?

01:15:17 - Chase (Host) you and where are you going?

01:15:20 - Jason (Guest) I mean, rucking will be bigger than running. That's a pretty big goal. So we're still kind of after. Creating a new fitness category is is a difficult thing, right. A new modality we didn't invent it. This is very important, right? I mean this has gone on. The first rucksack was, you know whatever the hunters killed to bring back to the tribe right.

01:15:40 - Chase (Host) If you can't be first to market, you got to be best at what you do right and so you know, the Roman legionnaires had to pass rucking tests.

01:15:47 - Jason (Guest) This is something that goes in every inventory unit, in all of the militaries from the British SAS selection, which impacted all of our selections over here, et cetera. This is a proven thing. It just works right. We're just kind of bringing it to more people and I owe because of that this is not the me show. This is not a company called McCarthy right and never wanted it to be.

01:16:13 It's about a whole lot more than me, because I have been a very, very small part of this community that I'm grateful to have been a part of, and so you know, rucking is something that I want to exist outside of me, even outside of us, and we're just driving it, and so it's a great mission focus for us, and we keep building gear and laying tracks along that line, purpose built for carrying weight. And guess what, when you get into shoes, that happens to be something that feels good when you live on your feet all day too. Because, say, you weigh 200 pounds and you're on your feet all day doing whatever you know, you're a blue collar worker doing real work. God bless you, right, wearing shoes that support you when you're on your feet all day. Well, that's what we were doing in the army.

01:17:04 I was on my feet all day. I didn't have a desk, I had a locker right. There was nowhere to sit down, it was. You know you don't sit down, you're always on the move. And so, living that life and, you know, building products around that, I mean as rocking continues to grow and grow, and grow and grow, our high ground, just where we're sitting, goes up and up and up and up.

01:17:25 - Chase (Host) Have you ever had a rock bottom moment in the business, where the inventory is gone, the orders are in, the cash is gone? Have you ever had a moment like shit, this is, this, is it, this is the end? Um, if so, could you describe it for us, and how did you get out of the situation?

01:17:42 - Jason (Guest) So I've never had a moment where this is the end, mostly because we never took any outside funding. We always invested in inventory a lot and our inventory has always been good. So then you're getting into. How do I discount? And we don't say love to do that, but it's impossible to perfectly predict the right color and the right style at the right season all of the time. You're going to too much of this, not enough of that. But the first time this happened was 2013. We had just gotten out of whack on. We had too many people and people spread out all over the country and like, had a lot of inventory but couldn't pay bills, so had to do a round of layoffs. And you know, then it was like on Monday we had our first sale and, you know, cash went up, inventory went down, costs went lower on the business side, and those things are not fun and they're very painful. So the goal is to get smarter so that you can kind of get leaner, get more efficient.

01:18:49 Yeah, I mean, you have to kind of figure out what works for your business on whether it's payment terms or what are lead times, because if I say, hey, you know, I can have as many of those vests as you want in six months, right, it's just how many do I have now, or how many you know, and what's that cost? And is it what are the net terms on when you're paying? And you know it's speaking the truth man, it's a lot.

01:19:13 It's a lot. And then when you get into skew growth and you start getting into shoes and apparel and gear and you know there's just a lot to manage and the only way that we've been able to kind of successfully manage that is by making sure that the gear is good the gear, the footwear and the apparel it's good. So if we have to, we can turn inventory into cash. If our projections are off, it just means that we have more inventory than cash and so we have to kind of right size that ship.

01:19:48 - Chase (Host) And turn one into the other if you need to.

01:19:50 - Jason (Guest) Yeah, I mean, and Christmas comes once a year and it's sort of well, how steep of a discount do you need to do in order to move these units or those units? And I don't suspect that this ever ends, okay, I like it.

01:20:01 - Chase (Host) I like it, you know, kind of getting towards the end here, one question comes to mind. I would love to kind of just hear your military mindset. What do you think is a biggest or the biggest lesson you picked up from your time in the military that directly serves you on a day-to-day basis running a business like Go Ruck?

01:20:21 - Jason (Guest) Figure it out. I mean the expectations of a Green Beret. You are an apex problem solver. That's really what you are, and there is just a never quit button and you have to live that and that's, that's hard. I mean it's. It's somehow it seems easier in a war environment than it does in a business environment. It seems very simple and clear Good guy, bad guy, you know, go Do execute this right.

01:20:53 It is much more binary confusion around the politics and the, the social stuff, and you know it, just the way you can get attacked for whatever, for doing whatever, and whatever forum is over here and over there, and it's just the takedown mentality. And it's when you get to kind of, you know, look your enemy in the eye. It's, it's, it's simpler in a certain way, and yet I don't, I'm not yearning for that either. It's just it's, it's all hard, it's just this is, you know, I, I struggle with the fact that in serving your country, you don't talk about how much money you make. You don't talk about how big is your whatever, your house or how big is you know. You talk about how rich the officers are. That's a thing, right, and so when, when you're, you're on the team the difference in BAS yeah, but you get.

01:21:54 You get your pound of flesh out of your officer. Here's how you steal their credit card. And when you all go to the bar together, you make sure that everyone ends up on the officer's tab. And you do that every time you go, because the officers always pay. That's the rule. And so you know, you, you like this is just what it's like to be on a team and it's great. And thanks, walt, for all those bar tabs you picked up and you know, circa 2006 to 2008, whatever, all over the world, and you know, and so it's just it's.

01:22:24 I think the why is probably the harder part. If I really distill it down like why, why do I want to be in business? I mean, I don't really care about put us now or put us 10X now in sort of business size terms. The world would treat us differently. But my sense of the mission is the sense of the mission, and I say that because if I go back and take away 10x, my mission then is my mission now.

01:22:55 It's kind of, but it's convoluted because you're chasing these kind of false idols how big is your business and what's your profit margin, and all these things and you stop and we stop asking ourselves the questions that matter the most, because in the army, you get to take them for granted.

01:23:12 I love serving my country, I really love serving that dude and that dude and that dude and that dude. I love these men, and you don't get to do that now in the same way in in business or in whatever we're doing, and it's just it's much harder, and so it's important for me to kind of go back to that style of of grounding. I mean, I'm still very motivated by the mission that we have, and I want to make a big impact on the world, and that's not necessarily easy to be around. It's not necessarily easy for other people that are a part of that. That just hasn't changed, though, and what has changed is being in business is different than being in the army. It's still, we're still ourselves, and we still have a Northern star and we're still chasing it, and we're really proud to be kind of grounded in who we are and chasing it the way that we are.

01:24:09 - Chase (Host) It's kind of like we're shooting the same azimuth, you know? Yeah, do you think patriotism is dead right now? Patriotism is dead right now.

01:24:20 - Jason (Guest) So my kids are my boys specifically are nine and seven right, and they have so gotten into baseball and it's been awesome. My wife and I, we both played a little baseball growing up, but we didn't continue, we didn't play in high school or anything. She ran, I played tennis and basketball and and she played tennis as well and they just, if they're a friend group, they've taken to baseball and they just love it, right, and you know the. The fields are less than a mile away. You can ride your bike there and they're loaded up with the rock and their bats and their, their mitts and they're practicing in the driveway on the. It's called the hurricane. It's like a bungee cords attached to a ball that you can hit and it comes back and you just keep swinging it and you know, and they just love it.

01:25:06 And when you go to this ballpark and you see all these kids and we just had opening day there's 400 kids out there and there's coaches that are, you know, dads and moms dedicating their time and their effort and their energy to raise and help raise these people, these kids, through baseball to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And there's a big giant American flag in the you know, in the outfield, where for the main field, and you know the national anthem is there and people are. You know someone comes out and probably a 12 year old girl came out and sang the national anthem on opening day. And you know the national anthem is there and people are. You know someone comes out and probably a 12 year old girl came out and sang the national anthem on opening day and you know, the hats go off and the hands go over the heart and patriotism is thriving in our life and you know it, it it somehow it's become a political thing and I find that disgusting.

01:26:01 I don't. It's the same things with Go Rock. I don't care if you're left of center, right of center. The flag stands for what unites us and you know, black, white, pink, purple, polka dotted striped, and we see that at, say, a baseball field which has nothing to do in theory with the military or any of those kinds of things. It's just people there that are really glad to be a part of these kind of community activities and you know you sing the national anthem before the games and people take that seriously. And this is just one small town in America and there's so many small towns in America, so I come from one.

01:26:37 - Chase (Host) Amen, right, yeah, well, getting to my last question, I just want to say, you know, thank you for your service. It's been great to sit down with you and I love the products, I love the brand, I love the mission. Like I said, I'm wearing the shoes. I've got another pair at home, I've got the weighted vest here in front of me and I feel like this would be very meaningful for me, so I just want to give you this is like a, an EF branded military patch I created these years ago, um, as just kind of part of the brand and the mission we do here. But it means a lot to me because what I do means a lot to me, and I'll share with you before that ever forward. Actually, this is not that far from kind of what you know. Its origins were were my dad picked up ever forward from his units insignia, their creed, the 116th infantry regiment, the army national guard unit out of roanoke, virginia, before he went um, active duty served in persian gulf, 101st airborne, rakasan's aerosol.

01:27:37 all that, two scoops of horse shit and um and so, uh, I want to, just, you know, give this to you, man. Thanks, man, I really appreciate that. I don't know if you got any extra spare velcro around throw in the bag.

01:27:48 - Jason (Guest) I've got a little extra velcro and it means a lot more like anything. I mean a patch is just sort of thread and yeah velcro, and unless you give it more meaning and it's the same for the american flag.

01:27:59 I mean, it means what we're willing to put into it, absolutely, and you know it all. It all means a lot more to be here, since the name of the podcast comes from your dad, which is also a reason why you served, which is, you know, a big reason that I'm here right now to chat and meet you. So it's been, you know, it's been an interesting, interesting day, kind of going back where I was before joining the army Literally came straight from there.

01:28:31 And then so on, this guy here, yeah, rocked here to come and talk about, you know, transition and service and all that, and it's been, it's been really meaningful.

01:28:39 - Chase (Host) So thank you. You're very welcome. Welcome back anytime. Thank you again. My last question ever forward those two words, what do they mean to you?

01:28:49 - Jason (Guest) It's kind of what I was just talking about. Everybody, if you don't have a Northern star, you need to start asking yourself some really hard questions in life, like who do I want to be, where do I want to go Right, what do I want to do with my life? And I think that nobody ever regrets serving something bigger than themselves. And once you find that, ever forward will become a way of life for you, because it's just your cup is full and the Northern star is always that direction and you're just sort of following it until your time on this earth is is up, and that comes quickly and it can come too quickly, and so it's best to it's best to get going.

01:29:33 - Chase (Host) Well, from a staff Sergeant shooting Well. Thanks, man. Thank you so much. This was incredible. Um, let me get you out of here and uh, where can everybody go to connect with you and learn more about the mission of GoRuck?

01:29:44 - Jason (Guest) I mean, our website is GoRuckcom. You can find me on Instagram. I'm on there occasionally. It's Jason J McCarthy.

01:29:53 - Chase (Host) Everything will be linked down in the show notes for you guys. If you're watching on video in the description box, go check out GoRuck. They do incredible events all over the country. For more information on everything you just heard, make sure to check this episode's show notes or head to everforwardradio.com