When I was working at the White House, everyone wants to know, how did that look like?

What did that look like?

It looked like me being around a lot of people that I just, I was like, wow, I can't believe I'm here.

And one of those people that I worked directly for was the President of the United States.

I created the podcast like a business to exit it because most people don't see podcasts for what they are.

The TED Talk, the theme of the TED Stage was think again.

And it really made me think about what I thought I had mastered.

And I found out that it's not only three things that matters whenever you're making decisions, it's only one.

I took all the lessons that I'd learned over 30 years of actually leading people around the world.

Like you said, I put them in to framework and that was the book that I wrote for my kids.

Welcome to the Evolving Potential podcast.

My name is Todd Smith.

Today it's episode number 30 and I'm here with Atlas Altman.

Atlas has an extensive background in the military, serving in the Air Force and special operations, including time at the White House and as a military commander spanning missions in 30 countries.

Alice is also a TEDx speaker with more than 300,000 views on his video, international best selling author, and the host of the targeted podcast with more than 115,000 subscribers where he interviews world champions, professional athletes, celebrities, and everyday heroes.

Atlas has a master's degree in both national security and an MBA and has made several appearances on the news to discuss security measures such as active shooters, terrorism, assassinations and political violence.

Clearly, Atlas is more than a soldier and calls himself a technologist as well as realizing that these were the big moves, movers and shapers of the world.

His books have won awards, his services earned him multiple bronze medals, and yet he is one of the most humble guys I know.

Thank you for being here, Atlas.

That was awesome, man.

It's almost like I wrote some of it.

I don't know if you hear this kind of stuff, you're like, oh yeah, I do have a master's degree.

Oh yeah, yeah, I did do that.

It's like you, you just don't.

I'm just a dude.

Like, I'm just a guy, I'm somebody's neighbor.

I'm most of all, most important thing I am is, is a father and like a husband figure, you know what I mean?

So whenever I hear that kind of stuff, I'm like, yeah, that's right.

I am doing that stuff.

The biggest thing I got Going on is podcasting, though.

This is it.

I'm so.

I'm so.

When you told me you had a podcast, I was like, oh, this is awesome.

Yeah, no, yeah, you had it, man.

You got some good.

You got some good ones.

You got some really good stories on there.

And you.

You don't.

You don't clean it up either.

Sometimes you just let them talk, don't you?

Yep.

Yeah.

100.

100.

I try to.

I try to.

So, yeah.

So first and foremost, you have some great frameworks that.

That make things easy for people to understand.

You know, we've got your pirate leadership philosophy, which I loved.

When I met Atlas, he was well, well dressed and had the.

Just a little hint of the pirate with it, and I loved it.

He's always got some pirate swag.

And so let's talk about pirate leadership and the rule of three.

How does that help us become better leaders, better humans?

Yeah, well, Seth Godden said, you know, marketing's dead.

It's all about stories.

So let me tell you mine a little bit.

When I was out of the military, I started trying to figure out what I was going to do, because, you know, for 30 years, they gave me missions, and they were like, this is where you'll be, and this is what you'll do.

And I thought I did pretty good at that.

You know, I was in a lot of really cool places and looking around me like, what am I doing here?

You know, there's a lot of cool people here, and.

And I. I don't associate myself with.

With the people that.

That I saw around me, which it was cool.

So when I got out, I had to find my own purpose.

And so I took all the lessons that I.

That I had learned over 30 years of actually leading people around the world, like you said, and I put them in to a framework.

And that was the book that I wrote for my kids.

And then I sent it to my friends, my close friends that had worked with me in special operations and worked with me at the White House and had been deployed with me in places where people were trying to kill us.

And I was like, hey, what do you think about this?

Did I capture all this for my kids?

And then one of them ended up sending it to hbr, Harvard Business Review.

And then I started talking to Harvard about publishing this book that I just put together for my kids.

And I found purpose in that.

Initially, I was like, okay, this is my purpose.

It's to take all my lessons and give them to the world now, because more than my kids are going to be interested in this.

And now I'm hearing people have given my book to their kids.

It's a framework, just like you said.

Everything that you can distill over 30 years can be summed up into how people make decisions for this book and really quick for your audience.

How that's done is backwards from the way we're trained to do it.

When faced with a problem, people ask three questions.

They ask always three questions.

And they ask them in the wrong order.

They ask, okay, I have a problem.

How much is it going to cost me to make this problem go away?

How much time is it going to take for this problem to get solved?

And then they ask, who can do this?

Who can help me with this problem?

So the common example is your car breaks and you're like, crap.

How much is the new transmission going to cost?

And then, okay, who can put a new transmission in?

Is the last question.

Whenever you start looking at the problem.

If you have a transmission problem, you should probably go to a transmission place.

Who does transmissions?

They're the experts.

So I found that the elite people, they skip all the nonsense and they go right to that.

And then I found another layer above that, and that was my TED Talk, which was my next purpose, you know, So I was like, okay, maybe I need to spread this message.

People are making decisions wrong.

They're wasting their life.

So the, the TED Talk, the.

The theme of the, the TED stage was think again.

And it really made me think about what I thought I had mastered.

And I found out that it's not only three things that matters whenever you're making decisions, it's only one.

And it's only been one this whole time.

And that's who you have in your life.

Who do you have on your team?

Who's in your story?

So that became my new purpose, is to tell people that they have purpose.

And that was super profound.

And I thought doing it on stages would be good.

So I did a few stages, did a few more stages, then I started doing master classes, master course work, whatever they're called now.

I. I just.

I did a day with a company or an organization, and I went through their leadership in detail and listen to their people, man.

That's basically all it is.

And I found out I need to be listening to more people, so I found Stages.

And then I found stages could be translated as a podcast.

So I did about 100 podcasts as a guest like this.

And then I was like, I need to be listening more than I talk.

So I started my Own podcast.

And then, like, you went through.

That's the whole journey of how it went in there.

But in that process, the whole pirate theme came about.

When I really discovered podcasting, was it my old secretary from when I was in the military was out in Ireland, and she said, hey, what is your family name?

Because, you know, I have a red beard.

She was out in Ireland.

She's like, I'll find your family crest.

And I'm like, driscoll.

O'.

Driscoll.

So she found it.

She goes, hey, did you know that you have a whiskey that your.

Your clan makes whiskey?

And I go, no.

And so as I started to piece this together, I started working with the Arizona Irish Coalition, all of the factions, and I started to piece together the parts of my family.

I talked to the owners of the whiskey.

In fact, I have it behind me.

I love it.

It's fantastic.

It's the best whiskey ever.

It's o' Driscoll's whiskey, and it's pirate themed.

So why is it pirate themed?

Well, I'm glad you asked, even though you didn't.

It's themed that way because we were mislabeled.

We were misbranded as pirates, but then we owned it.

And the way this worked was there were other countries coming to Ireland, Port of Baltimore, to be exact, and they were looking to enslave our people.

And my clan was the one that stood up and said, no.

I got Jack Johnson and Ronnie Rousey ready to go.

Let's go.

And they fought him off, killed a lot of them, stole their boats, and became pirates.

Because whenever you do that to a nation state as not a nation state, as a clan, you become labeled as something.

And we were labeled as pirates.

So we always stood up for what was right.

And I realized my whole life has been doing that same thing that was in my blood.

And then I realized there's a lot more to piracy than what people actually think.

Hollywood has us mislabeled.

Most people look at piracy and they think, you know, the Horn of Africa and the Captain Phillips story where pirates overtook, and that still happened.

Those people are pirates, but we're a different type of pirate.

Whenever we start to look at our life as a real treasure and we start to dig in.

So hearing you say some of that and the way that you stayed connected with people throughout that, like, you got out of the service and you wrote a book, and then you started connecting to people, like.

So I don't know if you've heard of the TED Talk by Sebastian Younger about our Lonely society.

And it's huge, like, so that, you know, warriors going out in these brutal environments and they.

And they come home and it's all peaceful and great, and they'd rather be back there because they have a brotherhood of people who would support them, who they know has their back and who doesn't.

So I'm kind of curious, like, you know, was that intentional?

Like, I need to stay connected with people, or was that more intuition, like, because I think a lot of people come out of the military and have a really hard time transitioning.

And you kind of just described coming right out, and you're.

You're filled with purpose, you know, so.

The psychology behind exiting the military can be closely related to a divorce process.

And I know because I've done both of those, right?

And what happens whenever you know something is going to change, you start to mentally prepare for that, whether you want to or not.

And some people live in a denial stage, and they live in a victim stage, and.

And they think, oh, woe is me and all this stuff and what about me?

And whenever you start to move your mind out of that victim mindset into the victory that, you know can happen, everything starts to change.

So there's a lot of science behind this.

In the brain, the one that Tony Robbins talks about is the reticular activating system.

If you've seen Tony Robbins on anything, you've heard this, right?

Where the brain recognizes things that it needs to formulate a plan for you to survive, you can program that.

It's a subconscious, conscious thing.

Another good book is James Clear.

He talks about habit stacking, and he talks about reprogramming the subconscious in that book In Atomic Habits, which is a phenomenal book if you've read that one.

I love that book.

I read that in two days.

Oh, my gosh, it's such a good book.

So whenever you start to pair Tony Robbins with James Clear, it becomes really clear, like how.

How you can go about it.

And what that does is you start to look at where you need to be, and then you backwards plan the actions that you need to do that.

And I call that targets.

And that's where my show name came from.

So targeted is picking one thing, targeting it until it's hit, and then you get to decide, do I want to hit the bullseye or move on to the next target.

When you start looking at things one at a time, you get your time back.

And so that whole mantra, that whole mindset, it shifts your life, man.

It shifts your life to where you can Reprogram it on purpose and actually achieve massive results.

So, I don't know.

Back to where we started.

Yeah.

Is that something that military transition piece and the divorce piece are the same?

Whenever you're getting a divorce and you start to look at, you know, what the future could look like without this person who no longer needs to be in your life for whatever reason that is, then you can see it from the military perspective.

Whenever someone has to leave the military, they're separating themselves from a marriage that they've been committed to for a very long time.

And to think about it as a relationship might help some people, but it's hard.

I mean, I talked to multiple people who have gotten out of the military that have.

Have really, really had a hard time with it because it's the biggest organization in the world, man.

It's the most money in the world.

It's the most powerful thing in the world.

And now you've separated yourself from that.

And it's the same thing, I think, of the same thing as marriage.

You know, I didn't want to get a divorce.

It just didn't work out.

So whenever I started to peel back why I was doing this, it was healthier for me to be on the other side of the divorce and not married to the person I was married to.

And it's the same thing.

It's healthier for me to be on the other side of the military and not married to the mission sets that I was married to, because now I have a different purpose.

And right now I have a different whole life compared to what I was doing 20 years ago, 30 years ago.

So the transition piece is tough, but it's the people that you put in always.

So if you're going through a divorce, what are you gonna do?

You're gonna get a lawyer that does this process all the time.

If you're gonna separate from the military, find somebody that's gone through it and has figured it out.

Maybe I'm not that guy.

I don't do that kind of counseling.

But you can watch some of the things that we're doing and find success.

Right.

Success leaves clues.

So start following the people that have made it on the other side in the ways that you want to make it.

For me, that was David Goggins.

That was Jocko Will Link.

That was Leif Babin.

That.

That was a whole bunch of, you know, Matt Best from Black Rifle Coffee.

I started looking at what they did and.

And where they are and how they continue to serve, and that's really what military People do.

It's just a big service, that organization.

I have the hardest time taking money, man.

I can't sell nothing.

I can give away everything, but I can't sell nothing because I never had to.

So whenever I start looking at what did they do to change, I'm like, okay.

And there's models to that if you want to talk about it.

So do you feel like that targeted concept is what drove you through getting, you know, promotions in the military?

I gotta be real careful with this because there are people that are still in the military, they're going to watch this probably and then be offended.

But military promotions work like this.

You get promoted until you fail or until you quit.

So the whole objective of the military system is to get you to level up in your skill and then level up in management and then level up in leadership.

And until you fail massively or you are not able to do the job and they move you into another one, you're not able to, they'll promote you.

It's just a matter of time.

As long as you're not doing anything illegal or moral, unethical, you're going to get promoted in the system that is.

It's still a lot of work.

It still takes a lot of time for a lot of people.

But I think what you're really asking me is how I got promoted quickly.

I got promoted quickly by doing things that were the right things.

And if you've watched my TED talk, I talk about my whole life study is on decisions.

So I put myself in front of a four star general, the highest rank you could make decisions at.

Right.

I put myself in charge of billions of dollars to where I could start to make money flow in different ways to see how that works.

I put myself in combat zones to find out what stress does to decisions.

You know, I put myself in the White House to see what high level politics and world, world history would do to decisions.

And all of that said, it comes back to I move fast because I watched what people did and everyone who had success made the right decision.

No matter what the popularity vote.

The, the, the, the, the, the people who would always naysay anyways would say, and unfortunately in our society today, and this goes everywhere, everywhere including the military, people are conditioned to do what other people want instead of what's right.

And unfortunately I'm just not built like that.

And so I've been yelled at a lot.

But we've got the mission done.

My, my book, I talked about stealing a secret service vehicle.

They accused me of stealing a secret Service vehicle.

I did, man.

I took that vehicle.

I mean, I didn't steal it, though.

It was given to me so they couldn't arrest me.

But.

But, like, I did what was needed and I did what was right based off of the situation that I was in.

And that was the right thing to do, man.

I had to get the mission out there and I had to secure this stuff for the Secret Service.

So, like, the whole thing with them saying they were going to arrest me.

Cool.

How was it?

Because your boss's boss's boss told me over the radio that I did a good job.

So let's go ahead and try that out, see how far that goes.

Oh, my gosh.

So you make it sound easy in a way.

You know, again, not to disrespect anybody, but.

But in reality, it's like you're getting put in these crazy situations that if you do fail, like, you're going to get switched jobs, you're going to not get promoted anymore.

And so what is.

What is the framework for.

For being in these really tough situations.

And not failing, man, Fail.

I mean, who cares?

Like, it's.

It's just you have to not be afraid of the failure.

Like, did you die?

That's a popular saying, right?

But did you die?

Did you die?

People need to really think like that.

And that's a very pirate mindset.

You know, if.

If you're going to go all in on life, go all in and make it count.

You only get one go at this.

You only die once for real.

And you get this short period of time in between unknown periods where you get to actually do things.

And I think that that's super powerful to just look at it and be like, who cares if I fail?

At least I tried.

You know, Most people aren't going to do that.

Most people don't try.

They're so scared of what other people think.

And by the way, nobody else cares.

Nobody cares if you fail.

One of the biggest leadership tips that I always teach is own it.

You know, it's extreme ownership.

That whole book before.

Before he put this one out, this whole book, you know, you can see it's tabbed in here.

I've done a couple shows on.

On some of the things in there.

One of the things he says is just own it.

Guess what happens when you own it?

It's no longer conversation.

They put the blame on somebody.

They don't care as long as it's not them, and then they move on.

And the biggest thing you can do, and if you're leading your family, if you're leading your life, if you're leading an organization or billions of dollars is to just own the failure and then keep going.

All professionals do that.

You don't see a game stop because somebody failed.

You see the next play.

And why don't people live their life like that?

I don't know.

But that's how you win.

I was going to ask you that.

And so having been in all these different environments with incredibly high performers, having interviewed high performers, what would be a couple of things that you say?

Like this.

I can tell when someone's a high performer, they exhibit this trait, this character, this.

This way of living.

What is.

What is it?

They're extremely guarded.

So what billionaires all say in different ways is, I wish I would have spent more time figuring out who to place in my life earlier, because I'd be here a lot faster had I done that.

So I put.

I put that into.

This is the way I say it.

I say, be careful who you let into your life, because they will change it.

But it's also said like this.

Show me your friends, and I'll show your future.

You are the top five average of the top five people you hang out with.

If you hang around, you're gonna smell like is what Don says.

There's a whole lot of different ways to frame the same thing.

And it's, you gotta be really, really careful who you let your life.

That's number one.

That's.

That's one of the top conversations I have with all of my guests.

You know, world champions, hall of famers, celebrities.

I ask him, I said, you know, how do you trust people?

And the answer is always, you know, success.

You know, like, they have to be successful in order for them to even get in there.

And then the other thing I found really interesting, Cody Sanchez actually had this on her podcast a couple weeks ago, where she was interviewing a multi billionaire, and she was like, so what's up with the communication?

Why are we always texting?

He goes, all billionaires text all the time.

Because, one, if you can't break through the text portion to the conversation that you're going to have, you're not worth the time to have the conversation.

And then if you can't break through the conversation to the business deal, then you're not worth doing the business.

And if any of this ever comes to court, it's all written down.

So that'll be the second thing that I.

That I. I was like, wow, that comes out all the time.

But no one says it, you need to actually write things down.

Write them down.

There's a couple things, it gets them out of your head because while it's in your head, it's creating stress.

When it's creating stress, you're going to gain a whole lot of unhealthy habits from that.

So writing it out makes it real.

It puts it in the world.

That also activates the reticular activating system.

Whenever you put that on paper, your brain then recognizes that something that it sees and starts to work to get there.

This is why goals, whenever you write them down, they become more prominent in your life.

You start to see the pieces of the puzzle that you wouldn't have seen just by writing it down.

But the other thing you can do is write everything down so that you can clean up what you're saying.

There's been some things you've asked me in this specific segment that I've never been asked before.

And then I tell you this whole roundabout answer.

If I would have written this down, I would have been like, okay, yeah, I went into the pirate theme because my family name is associated with pirates.

Long story short, I found out that pirates actually value their life more than most people do.

And I value my life.

And now I think in pirate terms.

Yeah, but I didn't write it down.

I just spoke it out.

So that's, if I wrote it down, it'd be like a one liner.

How do I make this one line, man?

And that's a big hack that a lot of people do.

A lot of people who are successful do that.

They write it down and they write it down on paper.

So that's a big deal.

That's a great, that's a great segue into then, you know, I have told you before the podcast episode, like, I really think that your message is penetrating.

You know, people are hearing your message and there's all kinds of people, I know for a fact there's all kinds of military people out there that have amazing stories to share, amazing lessons to, to give people.

And yet, you know, their voice is not being heard in the same way yours is.

So what have you feel like you've learned in giving a simple message and giving a succinct message, especially through, I know that you did like the Great American Speak off or one of those speaker competitions as well.

Right.

And so like you had to learn so much about, about making your message succinct.

You know, can you, can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah.

Everyone should have a one minute life lesson.

Just one Minute that was the TV show the Great American Speak Off.

You know, they advertise, hey, come get on our stage.

And it's America's got Talents for speakers.

So bring a lesson, you know, and then you compete against.

I think there was, I don't know, 250,000 competition was 250, 300,000 people you were competing against.

And so, you know, they whittled it down in, like, 10 locations.

And then everyone.

We competed.

The top 100 speakers.

It was the top.

Top 150, went out to Florida, and we competed for the top three.

Whatever.

And all of the.

The winning speeches were a life lesson.

And I changed mine.

I went from the one that works to the one that doesn't.

And, you know, I totally failed on that.

And whenever they announced the, like, the top three, all the people that were like, in Phoenix with me, where I competed, they were like, you're gonna totally win with that story.

And I'm like, yeah, we'll see.

And I changed it.

But the story goes like this.

Here's my one minute.

You ready?

Yeah.

When I was working at the White House, everyone wants to know, how did that.

How did that.

How did that look like?

What did that look like?

And, you know, it looked like me being around a lot of people that I just.

I was like, wow, I can't believe I'm here.

You know?

And part of that process, I was putting myself down here with a bunch of people that were all over the world as important.

And one of those people that I worked directly for was the president, United States.

And on the president's calendar, every day, he would put all the things that he was going to do.

And I would.

I would look at that every day, and then I would follow him to make sure that I could be within distance of him in case I needed to, you know, get him on the phone or he needed me.

I had to be, like, really close to him all the time.

So I walked into this room, and there was an old man in this room, right?

And he was in, like, a chair.

He was just a wheelchair.

He was all hunched over.

And I looked around, and he's supposed to be doing, like, a meet and greet.

So I'm like, where's this guy?

And then the president walks in, and it was President Obama.

So he's got that booming voice.

He's like, how you doing?

Your man?

You know, immediately, this guy, like, rocks back and his shoulders pop back.

And, you know, he's got this smile that takes over his face, right?

Races all the wrinkles.

And this old man became a young man because he was recognized by a recognized leader.

And I thought, I wonder if I can do that.

So I did.

I went into the next room, saw my guys, went right to my team.

I said, how's it going, guys?

You know, you guys doing all right?

I came in with the same energy.

And immediately I saw the mirroring happen where they became positive.

They.

They were excited.

And I brought that energy right?

And I realized you don't have to be the President of the United States to bring positive energy anywhere.

It's inside us a whole.

The whole life.

We just need to let it out and then change the environment that we're in.

So that was my one minute.

I. I'm rusty on it.

I probably made it a minute and a half.

So.

Sorry.

Not sorry, but, yeah, the whole.

As I started telling that story, I get people.

I tell people that story and.

And they're like, no, man.

You know, you're downgrading yourself.

Like, you were there the whole time.

The reason why you were working there is because you were the best at what you did.

And the people around me were really good.

So I must have been doing something right because I was there.

But I never.

I never want to put myself on the pestle and be like, well, I'm the best.

You know, some sliced bread, you know.

No, it's just.

It don't work like that.

People don't relate to that.

People relate to messes.

People relate to failures.

And, like, I failed a whole lot to get there.

And you fail up.

If you allow yourself to do it, you're going to get there.

It just so happened that my.

My top tier was at the President of the United States.

No fail mission, where I couldn't fail because I already failed all the times before to get there.

And they realized he's failed enough to not fail anymore.

Let's put him here.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And like, really, you can fail in training, which I did a lot.

You know, I'd always met.

I'd always mess up and learn.

And then we would write it down.

We'd do these things called hot washes, where we would do an event, and then we would go back and go through every single line item and see every single play, if you will, on what we did, and then we take notes on it.

You know who else does that?

The All Blacks.

They're the most winningest sports team in the world.

Rugby.

Yeah.

All the time, man.

So before, after every game, they hot wash everything.

So, like, if you're doing all that stuff.

Solid gold.

That's gonna work all the time.

And as I started to, like, pull these things out, I realized, like, yeah, I failed a lot, but I learned a lot.

I didn't really fail because I kept going.

And you don't really fail unless you stop.

And that's a lesson that people need to learn because that's the other thing I'm putting on my podcast is I take these lessons and I take these people that they see as successful.

You look, look at my roster, man.

Everyone on there has a massive success attached to them, if not multiple massive successes.

And everyone sees them for that success.

They don't see all the failure and the mess that they had to go through and the struggle and the strife.

And all of them had that story, man.

And so I'm exposing that.

Like, turn your mess into a message.

It's really that simple.

But it's hard to get there because you're going to go through a lot of failures on the Pro, on.

On the way there, in the process.

Yeah.

Was there ever a time during that process where, like, the way that.

That felt to be around others, like, that feeling like, why am I here?

Was.

Was any way.

In any way overwhelming for you that you had to like, actually overcome it?

Like, oh my gosh, like, I really actually don't feel like I belong here.

This is a real problem.

I need to figure my out.

Like, was there any of that?

Yeah.

Always and always.

I'll tell you a story I've never told anybody.

And General north, who was in charge, he was a three star at the time.

He's the last guy to shoot down, like plane to plane, like fighter pilot.

He's a legend in the fighter pilot community in the Air Force.

And he flew out to Baghdad to pin on my first bronze star.

And my boss didn't tell me about it.

I didn't know what's going on.

I was just, I was there to give him an update on the situation that we'd done and what we'd done out there was we took a five year plan and I did it in three months because I got people together that were never talking to each other.

And I just, you know, it was.

It wasn't me, dude.

It was just me asking questions and then realizing their.

Their pain points were opposite of each other and then putting them in the same room.

So I asked the Air Force, the Iraq Air Force, what their problems were.

And they're like, we have a lot of money.

We just don't have the people.

And the expertise.

And then I was advising the civilian sector air component, if you will, of the faa.

And their problem was they didn't have money, but they had all the expertise and the people.

And I was like, thank you, Jesus.

This is easy.

So I was like, hey, you ever talk about talking to each other?

And they're like, oh, Saddam would never allow us to do that.

I'm like, well, I'm not Saddam.

Let's do it.

And so we put them all in the same room, and they were speaking English for a minute, and.

And then they're like, can we just speak in Arabic?

And I'm like, yeah, it's yours, your country.

So they went at it.

They just developed this whole plan by themselves, and they regained the airspace that was supposed to take them five years to get back in three months just by working together, Right?

And it's.

It's things like that.

But where I'm going with this story and how I felt like in that moment, I didn't feel like, wow, I did this.

I just connected the dots and did my job.

And where I was was putting myself in harm's way sometimes without a weapon, in places where people really wanted to kill me.

And I really didn't care because my marriage wasn't that great at the time, and I really didn't care if I lived or died.

And in that environment, I just wanted to get the mission done, and I wanted it to be done as soon as possible.

And I found great, great success doesn't bring you happiness.

It brings you confusion sometimes.

And so at the end of that, whenever General north flew in and pinned that bronze Star on me, I was still in country for, like, two weeks.

And I got to tell you, man, every.

Every bomb that hit, I felt different because I felt like I needed to survive, to, like, come back and tell people how I got a Bronze Star because the Air Force doesn't get bronze.

It's an army medal.

That's an army medal for doing stuff in a war zone.

And so the Air Force doesn't get brawn stars at the time.

So I was like, man, I got this thing.

Now I can actually start to lead at a different level.

I thought it was going to open doors, you know, and it didn't.

It just gave me more responsibility to tell a story like this.

But, I mean, every bomb that they hit, man, I felt a different stress level, like, than I did before, because I actually wanted to come back to my kids.

I actually wanted to be a part of society in a different way.

I actually wanted to lead people in combat again.

And I was concerned for my life again, and that was a weird time for me.

And it definitely unlocks different parts of your fight or flight or freeze mental mindset that you have to overcome and hurdle.

And that's, That's a whole nother.

That's a whole nother aspect of your life that a lot of people don't talk about.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what's, what's your advice for somebody who is dealing with, you know, beating themselves up, feeling like they're nobody, they don't belong where they are.

Like, some people actually want to quit their position, you know, step down, give it away and because it's like, I don't know why I'm here.

Like, what do you say to them?

Yeah, everybody feels that way.

Everybody feels that way.

And it doesn't matter where you're at in the, the societal totem pole, everyone feels that way.

So you just got to figure out how to get through it.

And that looks different for every.

There's no one size fits all problem solving, one liner for that.

Other than you are like everyone else, you're alive, and as long as you're alive, you're going to have problems.

And the people who are on their deathbed would rather have problems and life than no problems and death.

So you're gonna have to get through it and you'll figure out the way.

And there's differences for everybody.

You know, I, I believe.

I believe in, in my faith in Jesus Christ and I pray and, you know, I'm not, I'm not gonna prophesize on your, on your channel or anything, but that's a part.

That's a big core strength of mine that's always given me strength.

You know, when I was in Iraq, the second time we were taking fire in a helicopter and I was, I was taking some local texts out, and they're a Muslim, not bad mouth and Muslims here.

I know there's a whole thing on that, but I'm not doing that here.

What I'm telling you is like, my faith really got solidified in that moment where it was extreme chaos and gunfire was going around all sides of me and the noise level was at probably, you know, the loudest it'll ever be in my life.

And I felt calm and peace because of my faith.

And the people who did not have faith were, were screaming and peeing their pants, man.

And, and so at that moment, I'm like, man, I got this right.

It's definitely something I'm praying for peace and I got the piece when I shouldn't be peace at peace at all, you know, so if, if all hell can break loose and I can survive that with the knowledge and the, the feeling that I got that I can't explain to anyone until they have that feeling, then, then I think that's a big part of what.

The way I, the way I deal with it, I also deal with it through a bunch of people in the face.

I think martial arts is a phenomenal thing for people, especially men.

You know, if you, if you want to get your energy out and you want to learn something to protect yourself and your family, Mixed martial arts, great.

Suggest Muay Thai, because every, every fight starts on, on, on your feet.

So if you know how to punch somebody, maybe you'll be able to defend yourself.

I think punching in the face is good.

Everyone should get punched in the face.

I think that's a good idea.

I love that, man.

And that's what's so funny about like having these conversations.

So, you know, spirituality takes many different forms.

And whether it's, you know, believing in God or believing in Vishnu or any of these guys, you know, I just think that hearing it from a man in the arena, hearing it from somebody who's actually at a high level, that that is something that actually helps is huge.

Because I think that my audience particularly is like ambitious, driven, smart people who are like, they want to evolve their identity, they're holding themselves back from their true potential and they're open minded to help.

They're open minded, but they want it to come from the right source.

They want that leverage, they want the good strategies.

And so even though someone could give a proper good message going to a church sermon, you know, and that could really help somebody, in reality, hearing it from someone like yourself, who's been through the fire, means that much more to some people.

Like my audience, you know?

Yeah.

And I appreciate you saying that.

It's definitely something that.

I don't know.

I think your, your podcast Evolving Potential is properly named for that because as people start to unlock the levels in, in their, in their life, they'll realize that there are a lot of people just like them that sound just like me.

So we're not special.

Even though if our mom mom say we are, we're not special in the, in the, in the hardship arena.

Everyone's got hardship, man.

We're all going through things, so you just gotta step up to the plate and keep delivering.

And yeah, 100.

But it's too funny that your answer was, was basically spirituality.

And.

And combat sports, which is like two.

Two opposite ends of the spectrum.

But it's like.

I absolutely love that.

Yeah, no, it's.

It's.

It's how I deal with it, man.

It's.

You know, so I. I've lived in the world of technology for a very long time, and I chose the world of technology because all the world leaders at the time are really.

Who are you talking about now?

You're talking about Elon Musk, technologist.

You're talking about Bill Gates.

That's.

Whatever.

What's going on with him?

A technologist.

Yeah, but then you're talking about a whole bunch of people that are on platforms that have a social media presence.

That's technology.

So 30 years ago, when email was new, I was like, technology is going to be where all the leaders are.

I want to be in technology.

So this knuckle dragon guy that, you know, played sports, went into technology, didn't fit in.

And the people that I was talking to, you know, if they were extroverts, they were looking at your shoes instead of their own.

And like, I'm coming in like, hey, we should go have dinner.

And they're like, who the hell is this guy?

Go eat your protein powder, dude.

You know?

Yeah.

And so, like, coming from a technology standpoint, I didn't really fit in.

And so whenever I would go do combat sports, I didn't have anybody from work coming with me.

When I went to combat comm, the communications tactical part of the air Force, they.

They allowed me to go to some of these schools, and I got my combative certification.

And I remember my boss asking me, why are you doing this?

Like, surely you don't want to do this?

And I'm like, yeah, surely I do.

This is.

This is great.

And then when I was in special operations, you know, then when they sent me to sear school, I was looking forward to it.

Like, somebody's gonna probably punch me in the face.

It'll be awesome.

They're like.

And I'm like, no, I just.

I want to see how this happens and how people react to it.

And the spiritual and the physical are part of our everyday journey, man.

And if you're not waking up whole on this side and you get punched in the face, it's going to feel different than if you're whole on this side and you're empty over here.

And so, yeah, the spectrum, sure.

But right in the middle is what's happening in your life.

So that's definitely the spectrum for me.

And I definitely rely on Both ends of the spectrum, and both are options.

You know, if you're.

You're gonna give me spiritual warfare, cool.

I can deal with that.

You're gonna give me some physical violence.

I like that, too.

Either way, dude, I'm gonna have a good day.

Let's go.

It's just where it's at.

I'm Brad.

I'm glad you brought in technology, because that's something that I definitely wanted to talk about as well, is, you know, the effect of technology on.

On our minds and how.

And how that's, you know, getting obviously worse and worse as the younger generations come up, how that's affecting people's will to live and.

And where they're getting their information sources from.

And.

And I. I even heard, you know, conversation.

One of your podcasts that I listened to that I would love to talk about is the.

The ability of.

Of AI to create these echo chambers in which, you know, political warfare can easily become the.

The symptom of that.

Yeah, yeah, that's a big deal.

Okay, let's go there.

As far as technology, this book, the One Thing, the One Thing, it's written by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.

They.

They went through and dissected how people do their life.

And you can see in here, I have a bunch of notes, but the one.

The one thing that I pulled out of the One Thing is how people spend their time.

So I talk about this every course that I do, every stage that I do, and it's paying attention to how you're spending your time.

So they said 25, 22 to 29%.

So I'm going to say 25%.

25% of your day is switching between tasks.

So you're waking up and you're going to brush your teeth.

That period of time counts, right?

When you're going to work, what are you doing during that time?

If you're not.

If you're listening to the radio, you're wasting that time, you know, but maybe you're getting your mental clarity.

Doesn't matter.

I don't care.

I'm not here to judge.

But you're switching between tasks 25% of the time.

So let's just dissect that in a larger scale.

That's one week out of the month, you're switching between tasks, right?

That's.

That's four months, you know what I mean, that are potentially wasted because you got to give it a little fluff, you know?

And if you're looking at 10 years, it's two and a half, three years.

You're wasting just switching between tasks.

Now add technology.

This is, but this book was written like, I don't know, 12 years ago.

Now add technology.

So now when you wake up, you grab your phone, you're looking at some posts and then you brush your teeth.

Oh, did you just add some time?

Yeah.

Probably 40, 40% of your time is now switching between tasks and technology.

And if you are doom scrolling all night, you're not getting sleep.

So now you're decreasing your life for technology and you're wasting it because you're not controlling how you're doing your time.

So you really need to stick to your schedule.

It's this, the schedule thing really matters.

So if you're not tracking your time, you're losing it and you need to specifically state things in specific places or it won't happen.

And if you're not putting it on there now, if you're not doing it today on technology, you're going to get stuck in technology.

The next part to this is the echo chambers and AI.

Whenever you started adding in the social media noise to your daily schedule, that was additive, but now you have AI added to the technology bubble as an assistant.

Now it's creeping in as something that you have to have a relationship with.

What you're seeing with kids now is they're going to be the first generation that grows up with AI as a sibling because it's basically either partnering with them or helping them in some way to where they're developing a relationship with their phone much farther along than anything that we've ever had in the past.

So it's becoming a trusted resource, it's becoming something that they look at.

So whenever you start to pair AI with the amount of time that you're spending on social media, with the time you're switching between tasks, you're going to see the time switching between tasks start to grow into 50 to 60% of your day.

And the echo chambers are going to continue.

Because AI only tells you what it thinks you want to know unless you program it to give you some something else.

So you're going to get AI in social media, which has been around.

Most people weren't talking about that.

Your social media, your social media feed is different than my social media feed because recognizes what you do with your social media.

That's artificial intelligence.

And artificial intelligence combined with AI, which is doing whether you want to know that or not is going to give you another level of who you are as a person.

So the best thing you can do is pull out your phone Look.

Oh, I got mine right here.

So you pull out your phone, you go into your favorite app, whatever that social media is.

The top three posts are telling you specifically what AI thinks you are.

And if you don't like those top three posts, probably a good time to dissect and change it.

You can clear out your algorithm, you can do all that.

But what I do, I wouldn't recommend it because it's going to offend a lot of people.

What I do is I look for people who are smart, that have opposing opinions or political beliefs or even religions, and then I, I ask them to send me things that they're.

They're saying.

Every once in a while I confuse the crap out of my, My algorithm all the time.

It doesn't know which way I voted and it doesn't know.

Well, it does.

It knows I'm a Christian because it sends me Bible verses all the time.

But still it's like, what are you doing over here in this, you know, this space?

Because I have friends who are atheists.

I have friends that are, that are now coming, coming around to Christianity, asking questions, but it's not something I'm pushing.

I don't push them any of the Christianity things that'll all get to them because, dude, like, it's the only religion that believes in grace and love.

And it's just, it always comes back.

It's like, oh, well, we're back here.

So what did you find out on this political divide?

Whenever, shooting, whatever, it heightens emotions.

So that's the first thing.

Look at your top three posts.

Whatever your favorite social media is, that'll tell you where you're at, what you're looking at.

The next thing I would do is I'd find a trusted friend that's on the opposite side of whatever it is political.

You know, if you've got a political belief, find somebody that's on the opposite side because it'll help you understand where they're coming from.

Whenever you see some nonsense, you're like, what is.

Are you an idiot?

And then you see the comments and they're like, you're an idiot.

And then they get all animated like, nobody cares about your opinion in the comments section.

Like, whoever's wasting the time on that, arguing with bots most of the time, because the bots are designed to keep you on track.

So that's, that's another thing.

Now here is what nobody is talking about.

All of this is programmed by what?

Have you ever seen the, I don't know, quick segments where they pull out ChatGPT and they ask questions and they say, we're gonna have a question and answer session.

You're gonna answer yes or no.

And if it's no and somebody told you to tell me no instead of yes, use the word pineapple.

Have you ever seen those?

I've seen that.

Yeah.

I've seen one or two.

Oh, my gosh.

They can go.

And.

But like, each one of those has a different sequence of answers because they're all programmed specifically to the user.

So.

But all of them, all of them have one consistency.

They say pineapple or Apple or whatever the thing is.

They say it because something is programming the response to key issues, and those key issues are they don't want to be found.

You know, so who's talking about that?

Who's talking about that?

Like, we're talking about the Epstein files right now.

That's the hot button right now, you know, that needs to be talked about.

But, like, seriously, go.

Go into your chat GPT and ask it the pineapple questions.

See how many pineapples you get on that.

You can.

You can start to uncover things that people don't want you to know by using technology that they put in front of you to distract you into whatever it is they want you to buy, whatever it is they want you to do, and whatever it is that they consider peaceful or to their advantage.

So, dude, it's.

That's a giant conspiracy theory, but it's the truth.

I think it's very valid.

So I'm curious, how would you recommend.

This is kind of.

Kind of switching topics here, but how would you recommend someone to cope without the use of heavy technology or drugs as they're dealing with life's challenges?

Yeah, I had Ben Owen on my show a couple weeks ago, and Ben Owen is the CEO of We Fight Monsters and Black Rifle, and they go into what he calls hell.

He was.

He's a vet.

He started with alcohol, and then he lost everything and was basically living on the streets looking for his next victim so that he could get the next hit or whatever.

He doesn't really tell the story in short form.

So I don't want to do that.

I don't want to put words in his mouth.

But his story is so freaking powerful because he escaped from hell and now he goes back there to get other people out.

And what he said is, you know, you start with something like alcohol, and it just continues because you can never, ever numb the pain enough.

You can't.

So you never want to.

To substitute anything that has to do with an addictive side to it, like alcohol or drugs for a pain that's temporary.

What.

What he said was, there's no sweeter place than rock bottom for a man because you can only rebuild from there.

But you shouldn't have to get down there, you know, you shouldn't have to get down to the bottom to figure it out.

So coping mechanisms again for me would be, you know, what do you like to do?

Like, physically, if you like to run, run.

If you like to bike, bike.

You know, you need to get the physical energy out of you.

Because we're all sedentary now.

We all sit in front of screens and we don't really.

Our bodies aren't made for that.

So you have to move.

We talked about the spiritual side to that.

I think you should pray to something for me.

I pray to Jesus, you know, and there's a spiritual side to that.

So your mind and body are all controlled by the soul, too, but your mind, body, and soul are all controlled by how much time you spend there.

Whenever you're spending all your time in social media, you're going to start feeling more depressed because you're going to see a bunch of fakeness on social media platforms because people aren't putting their junk out there.

I mean, I do.

I'm like, I don't know how this happened.

And then, you know, no one likes that.

Nobody cares.

They're like, why are you putting that out there?

But whenever I post, like, hey, I got a new studio.

They're like, awesome.

But deep down, they're thinking, dork.

You know, it's like, I see the sidelines of technology a lot differently than I think a lot of people do.

Because, I mean, let's just be real, man.

Like, everyone's got stuff.

So the coping mechanisms for you should be something that actually makes you healthy instead of unhealthy.

And if you can look at it as a decision, is this action going to be healthy for me or unhealthy, then I think you can figure out the coping mechanisms that will actually pull you out of the hole that you might be in.

Quick change, right?

Wake up in the morning, drink a glass of water.

You depleted your whole body of.

Of hydration while you're sleeping.

Grab a glass of water.

It's the quickest thing you can do.

You know, Admiral McRaven always says, make your bed.

I say, drink a glass of water.

You know, it's.

It's much easier and it's much better for you, because who cares if your bed's made when you come home, you had a bad day.

You had a bad day.

Doesn't matter if your bed's made or not.

Who cares?

Yeah, 100%.

The water's going to help you.

And so as you talked about putting clips out there and really getting your podcast out there, how has technology and your use of it or your knowledge of it aided in this?

Because I know a lot of people that are 10, 15, 20 years older than myself are.

They're like, oh, my God, I'd love.

Yeah, podcast, be cool, but what the heck, I don't even know where to begin.

And.

And you're out there now, 115,000 subscribers.

Like, obviously, you've embraced technology.

So what are the strategies?

How are you using your information of technology to get this success?

Yeah, I'm gonna bridge it right back to where I started on the book and the stage.

It's people, man.

You should be using technology to get to people.

What that looks like for you may be different from someone else, and that's okay.

There's a lot of people that offer solutions.

They're their solutions.

What you need to be looking at is who you are and what solutions you need, and then the technology will go from there.

For me, I use technology to talk to people around the world.

So I have a partner out in Australia that I talk to about once a month, and we share strategies on what works with our shows and our books and stages.

And the world's so small that an Australian strategy is going to work in America, and American strategy is going to work in Australia.

It's the same thing.

You're helping people.

So no matter what language, no matter what culture, no matter what problem, you still have to figure out how to work with people.

So if you're using technology to get two people to solve a problem, Solid.

I solved the problem of, hey, everyone's got a mess.

This is how people who have great success have dealt with it.

Here you go.

That's the problem I'm solving with my show.

I'm showing people who look successful had to go through a lot of crap to get there.

And one day I'll have Sylvester Sloan on there talking about how he lost his dog.

You know, that'd be freaking great.

That.

That's my dream, you know, Guest.

One day I'm gonna have Sylvester Sloan center.

I'll call you.

I'm like, I can die now.

But no, like, that's what I'm providing.

I'm providing that through technology.

So how.

How am I reaching people?

Well, I'm pushing it out there, but the technology.

Each, each, each framework is different.

So pick one.

For me, I picked YouTube.

So it's a podcast.

But podcasts are.

Ever since 2023 when YouTube picked up RSS for podcasts, podcast being everywhere else is great.

You know, when Joe Rogan stops podcasting, Spotify is going to have an interesting dilemma.

They started doing video, but like all the other podcast platforms, they aren't really moving with technology.

And you know, we've seen this before.

Blockbuster, Kodak, you know, all the companies, they, they don't learn.

YouTube is where it's at.

So I focused on YouTube.

I wanted to be big in YouTube.

All the rest of them, cool.

I don't care.

And then you, when you start a podcast, everyone reaches out and they're like, let me help you promote it.

Like, no thanks.

I just want to work in YouTube, you know?

So, like, I don't even know what my rankings are.

I know we, we made it to like, I think we made to 69 in the nation when I did an Eric all day, because Eric all day was exposing Hollywood.

You know, they were making fun of his friend getting shot in the neck.

His friend was Charlie Kirk.

And he's like, hey, guys, I don't care what your political views are.

You shouldn't do this, man.

And they're like, yeah, well, suck on it.

And that went viral.

Now YouTube doesn't like me saying that.

So YouTube stopped the virality.

So there's a whole lot of things that I learned during, during this journey, like with that.

So that, that's one of.

That's a great conversation with a guy who's been a stuntman for 30 years.

He's been in a lot of big films.

He's Billy Zane's body double.

He's been a Clint Eastwood.

Movies.

He's doing films right now.

Dude has a massive amount of experience.

Plus he got locked in a Pakistan prison during 911 when they were trying to kill him.

So he had to, like, survive.

And you know what that means.

Like, his story's amazing.

So like an amazing, amazing story.

And YouTube's like, nope.

So I learned a lot from that.

So I didn't, I didn't say, oh, well, this is going to be weird.

Maybe I shouldn't do it.

No, I still published it.

It's got like, I don't know, a couple hundred views.

But most of my, my, I'm serious.

Most of my.

I think he's got like 250,000 on his shorts.

But most of my, my journey has been on YouTube.

I'm only focused on YouTube.

I want to master YouTube and then I hire people for someone else or for something else like Tik Tok.

I don't even mess with TikTok.

Some kid's gonna mess with TikTok.

I don't know what.

What goes on Tik Tok not even pretend to know what goes on TikTok.

I don't care about TikTok.

I'll pay somebody to do it.

So that's what I've been doing.

I've been looking at the people that can get me into the technology that I can afford, and then I'll go there.

So YouTube, all the podcast channels.

I think we have 18 locations on podcast channels.

What does that do?

Dude, it feeds Google like whatever, whatever you want to highlight.

So Eric's Eric got some highlights and he's in a movie now.

I'm not saying I can't connect those two, but he's.

He was blacklisted by Hollywood and he came on my show and now he's on a movie set this week.

I can't say that I did anything like that because he's got a massive network and connection.

But I guarantee you, if someone was looking for a stuntman, a Hollywood stuntman, Eric all day came up on it because I put him in like 19 massive places where Google loves to read data and they love that text that you put in every one of these podcasts.

So there you go.

And then to grow the show and to pay for this, if somebody wants to highlight themselves on Google, then I could put them top two, three lines in my show and they're going to get Google hits.

They're going to get moved up on the Google ranks.

And, you know, I can do that for a small amount of money, depending on whatever they're trying to do.

And I can change it all the time.

So technology.

Google owns YouTube.

YouTube is a backdoor to Google.

I focused on YouTube and then I went full, full court press and learned a whole bunch of things in a short amount of time.

We gained a hundred thousand subscribers in ten months.

Think it's insane.

Insane.

My record week was 6,000 in one week.

I was like, that was good.

We need to do that again.

We didn't.

I think we got a couple 5,000 weeks, but we never got to six again.

And then, yeah, the.

The people that I'm bringing on are bigger names.

They don't bring crowds with them.

So I could have the most popular person.

I could have Elon Musk on my show and it might get double or triple the amount of views of what I'm getting now.

But if no one knows about it, they won't.

It won't do anything.

It's.

It's a crazy thing to master.

And then, yeah, we were figuring out what to do, what tags to use, where, where to send it, you know, how to watch it all the way through.

Like, here's three things you should do.

Here's three things for your audience if they're thinking about doing a podcast.

Yeah.

Yeah.

One, name your.

Your file, whatever it is that you're going to name the file on Google on.

On YouTube.

So if this is going to say this is going to be Atlas Altman Episode 30, then you name the file before you upload it to YouTube.

Atlas Altman episode 30.

And it ties those things together.

So Google finds it quickly, and then it throws the video up there at the top of the video.

Because what does Google do?

It gives you text and video, but it gives you video first.

So if you put the text in and the video is the same name as the text, you're gonna be the first video.

It's, it's.

It's simple things like that that no one talks about.

The.

The next thing you can do, whenever your show is going out, you gotta put it out two to three days before you're going to publish it.

And then Google will index it, it'll categorize it, it'll figure out what's in your text.

Everything that I'm saying now is going into Google whenever you post it on YouTube.

So everything that I say, every word is going to be categorized, and they're going to figure out who wants to see this video.

So you need to let them have one to two days.

Two days, preferably upload it.

Upload it as a private video or upload it as unlisted, but don't make it go live.

Whenever you hit the.

The live button, do a premiere.

So set it up for a premiere.

Do it at a certain time every week because YouTube wants to see you publish every week.

Every week.

If you're not publishing every week, it ain't pushing anything for you.

And then the way YouTube does it is, it's a stacked order.

So whenever you stop watching this video, you're gonna see a recommendation in one of the screens, right?

It's gonna be like, what is this?

Would you like to see this?

And then if you're, if you're doing it right, two days, it'll go.

It'll be like, oh, you want to learn about Social media want to learn about the warfare of social media, you know, and so all of this stuff that I'm, I'm talking about goes into whatever someone who actually watches YouTube a lot is consuming.

And then it'll make that recommendation.

So if you give it time, instead of giving the next recommendation or whatever, it's going to recommend yours based on what's indexed.

So, and then, you know, there's a third order to it and how you do all that is what.

What is actually talked about.

Then how does that work?

Well, I'm glad you asked again.

The top three lines are the ones that Google uses to index your video.

So you better have the summary of whatever it is that you are talking about on here.

That the audience that you want to hit, the keywords that you want them to do, that should be in the top three lines.

So what should that look like?

Well, Google makes it pretty easy.

If you go into Google and you type in whatever it is that you're trying to reach, whatever group.

Like, for me, it was masculinity, it was men's health, it was men's mental strength, it was men's whatever.

Whenever you start typing in men, it'll tell you the next word you should use.

And whenever you're putting in the top two sentences because that's trending.

And that trend doesn't go away for two to four weeks.

So your video will pop up because you properly named it under that trend for that specific, specific entity.

And guess what?

They're gonna be like, dang, this is perfect.

Wow, why am I not subscribed to the show?

Subscribe, last part.

Always ask for a subscribe.

Every one of your videos should have an ability to just subscribe.

So if you're not asking at the beginning or the end, pin a comment up there that says, if you like the video, please subscribe.

It helps us out.

Just, it's free.

And boom, there it is.

That's.

That's a quick 1, 2, 3.

On what I learned in 10 months to gain that many followers, that's super valuable.

There's more to it, but it'd take a lot longer.

I appreciate that, that even that little bit.

So I'm curious, I'm curious.

Do you consider yourself to be an extrovert?

Because I think that some of these people might have a challenge reaching out to people in the way that you seem to so easily.

I'm not saying it's easy for you, but it seems easy by the way you describe it.

Yeah, no, I mean, so I'm Adopted kid.

I was raised in someone else's family, and I was told that I wasn't going to amount much.

Amount to much my whole life as a child, you know, So I was always kind of put in the bucket of like, you're a failure.

Just shut up.

And so I was always.

I was an introvert for a very long time.

And then when I went into the military, you know, I started working with other people and I started realizing that they're.

They're not special either.

And so I started trying a little harder and a little harder and a little harder.

And there's been many a times where I've stood up and my voices stayed right there in that seat.

And I couldn't get any words to come out of my mouth.

And I'm sweating out of my palms and my.

You know what I mean?

I'm sweating out of behind my ears.

Like, who sweats behind their ears?

This guy.

You know, there's things that just mysteriously appear that you just won't find out until you try.

But you gotta go, man.

You just gotta go.

You gotta hit the gas and find out.

You gotta fast forward into whatever it is that you're scared about and realize it ain't that scary, man.

We learned this lesson as kids all the time.

We're scared of the things that we shouldn't be scared of.

You know, the Les Brown story always gets me.

He talks about a dog chasing him.

It's like a big old dog was chasing him and he ran up the fence and he looked back down and he saw the dog had no teeth.

He's like, this dog is not gonna bite me.

You know, why am I scared of this dog?

We have teethless dogs in our life all the time that we place there.

We place them there.

And we tell ourselves no by not taking the opportunity to do whatever it is that we're trying to do.

It's just a mind trick, man.

And stop playing that game.

You're good enough, you're smart enough.

People are going to figure that out once you start trying.

And you know what the biggest tip is?

Strangers are going to be the ones that get you to the next stages that will help more people.

It's not going to be your friends and family.

They're usually the ones that hold you back because they're not comfortable with your success.

They just don't.

That's.

I'm not married for that reason, you know, but the whole.

The whole thing was one of the reasons.

But I remember writing that book and I remember it going to Harvard business Review.

And I was like, wow, that's cool.

I actually might have a book that I could publish.

And I remember being told, nobody's gonna read your book.

You're not a doctor.

I'm like, why do I have you in my life again, Chase?

Yeah, stuff like that.

And, you know, never mind that I haven't talked to her for a while, and I'm getting shot at, and people are trying to kill us, and we're in the middle of a civil war, and there's Covid going on, and people aren't paying their rent, and I have, like, a shoulder problem because I keep jumping in and out of the helicopters, and I'm taking people in and out of combat zones, and I have problems that I have to continuously solve on the battlefield where people are actually dying.

All that stuff doesn't matter, because all the stuff that I just said was half of what I had to do is just where I came.

Came out with the call sign Atlas.

When they started peeling back the layers of all the things that I was putting on my back and still moving forward on, they were like, it's only fitting that we call you Atlas.

And now I honor them.

That's why I have the first name Atlas, is because I want to honor those guys that I was deployed with that went through the roughest part of the.

The just is a mess, man.

And.

And so I honor them by.

By using the name instead of what my mom gave me and Joshua.

And.

Everyone'S got a mess, man.

I'll just summarize it like that.

Everyone's got a lot of stuff going on, and you have to believe in yourself, and you should believe in yourself.

And I believed in myself and in different stages of my life, but I still have doubt.

I still have doubt today, even now, I'm like, okay, yeah, now what?

I'm here.

Now what?

So I'll tell you that once you have success, you make a lot of friends, and they're not necessarily your friends for the right reason, you know?

So we were talking.

We were talking, and we were going back and forth, and I was like, instant friend.

I like this guy.

But, you know, did I ever ask you for anything?

And did you ever ask me for anything?

No.

We were just bouncing things back and forth.

It's very rare whenever you meet somebody the first time and they find out that you're.

You're successful, like, when they see you talk in front of people in the stages that you grow on, whenever they watch you perform, the knowledge that you've acquired over the decades of your experience.

They immediately want to stop you at the end of the stage and dissect all of it to put it in their brain.

And you can just see that, that personality come out of them where they just want you to, like, almost do the work for them because you just display a high level of competence.

Whenever you start to get into different levels, you start to.

The reason why we're talking is because we're at a different level.

We started working at a different level.

Friends and families down here.

Cool.

Sometimes your friends and family will come up with you, but a lot of times you got a break and you got to start new friends and family.

Definitely new friends.

Your family never really goes away.

Yeah.

Can't leave them behind.

Yeah.

You can't leave your family behind.

But your.

Your friend circle and your family, their friends will change if.

If you're.

If you're doing it right.

But it's.

It's interesting because everybody wants to.

To get everything that they can out of you, but it doesn't work like that, man.

It takes a long time for success to have materialize and happen.

So it's not gonna happen overnight.

That's.

That's.

That's key.

Yeah.

And I agree.

100.

And would you.

Would you say.

Would you be willing to share a lesson or two from men who have not gone through divorce and don't want to and.

And would like to.

To glean anything they can from what you may have experienced?

Yeah.

I mean, there's only one reason to get a divorce from my.

From my religious beliefs, and that's whenever your.

Your wife is unfaithful.

If you're a man, if your wife is unfaithful.

Yeah, that's a pretty good reason.

Other than that, you need to figure it out.

You know, I'm not a big believer in divorce.

The saying is it's cheaper to keep her.

And I can attest to that.

I can definitely attest to that.

But what you will experience is if you do have an unfaithful spouse and you do go through the divorce process, when you start talking about it to other people, you're going to realize there's a lot of people that have done this.

There's a lot of people that have gotten a divorce.

A lot of people go through this.

It's very strenuous on your family, and.

And it's really strenuous on yourself.

But.

But it does.

There's a reason for it.

You know, I went to the chaplain.

Of course.

Of course I did.

I Went to the ranger chaplain and tried the marriage counseling thing and.

And then just unfaithfulness is unfaithfulness, man.

So, yeah, you know, when you're, when you're gone all the time, when you're deployed and you know, I get it, but I wasn't unfaithful, so it's gonna seem like it's unfair, like what's happening and who cares?

Life isn't fair, man.

Just move on.

On the other side of this, everyone who's gone through one of these things, they've usually found somebody better.

I know I did.

I'm like 100 times blessed on, on the woman that I found to be in my life to, to actually partner with me and give me the support that I need.

She's amazing.

Amazing.

And I'm so glad I met her because in the short period of time, I've become an international best selling author, number one in 13 categories, a TEDx speaker with 350,000 views.

I get on stages all the time.

I have a top 1% podcast, and this has all happened since I've met this woman.

So it tells you a lot about the partner that you choose in your life.

And if it isn't working, try to make it work.

But if it isn't working, it's probably a reason for it.

So you talked about having a top 1% podcast, and I know that you also have a podcast awards, am I right?

Yeah.

Yeah, let's hear about it.

So actually, the International Impact Book Awards, which you know very well, they do a good job of like, putting people in front of a camera to tell their story, but the story wouldn't get told without the event.

You know, they do a real good job of making 12 minute clips, which everyone needs.

But the people who write these books, they spend a lot of time putting thought into what goes into this book, but they haven't thought about how to sell the book.

And what I mean by that isn't like book sales.

I'm talking about who they need to talk to that will change their lives because of your words that you put on the book.

So I think it's a very powerful thing that they were doing.

And so I reached out to him, I reached out to Rich, and I was like, hey, I want to offer this to you if you guys want to do this for podcasting.

And he's like, yeah, we'll talk about it.

And then I was like, let me just.

Let me try it first and see what it looks like.

So I did a trial event last year and we recognized our top podcast was from Australia.

The guy, actually, I'm talking with a lot now because he's brilliant.

And so he was our.

Our top, top, top award winner.

He spoke on the stage.

We did a red carpet event.

We had Cliff, who I met at International Impact Book Awards, came in and help me on the red carpet there.

We got a different person now coming in for April event.

But I just want to keep people podcasting.

This is the future, man.

Everyone used to rave when I was a kid that their kid was in the newspaper, and now they rave whenever they see somebody they know on a podcast.

So we've become our own little news outlet, spreading joy and cheer or whatever, whatever people want to hear.

And what they're doing with podcasts is amazing, but people start this and it's a lot of work, and they quit.

So what I've done is I've opened up a free opportunity for people to enter their podcast.

They go out to Podcast Awards, international.com.

they can enter their podcast for free.

It goes into a competition cycle, and we'll recognize probably five to ten of them, and then we'll recognize people that do editing and people that support podcasts in that way in a different format.

You don't have to be a host or own a show, but we do like studio awards, too.

So all of those things, they formulate into the ability for somebody to come to one of our events and talk about what they're doing, because whenever you talk about what you're doing, it helps you build something better.

So I've offered that up.

I think I got.

I think Sean Cannon's gonna come in and do, like, a session with us about being a host.

Yeah.

Sean's a good guy, man.

I like him.

He's really good guy.

I agree.

I agree.

So I. I think he's gonna come in and.

And kind of help out with that.

But it's an opportunity for people to come in and talk to other podcasters.

Yeah, I went to a pod.

I'm not going to say the name, because I didn't.

I'm not.

I don't want to promote for them.

And I don't like.

I didn't like what I.

When I got there, but I went to a convention, and I met with other people who are traditionalist, meaning they.

They really like the audio.

The.

The Radio on Demand, I believe, is what they call it.

They're missing the boat, man.

The video is where it's at.

And I had.

I experienced some hate there.

I'll just put it that way because I'm primarily a video guy.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, it's interesting to see that, that merge happen.

But as, as we start to really move into real smartphones, where things are going to pop up in front of us without having to, like, touch it.

I mean, this is where it's at, man.

People are going to be watching this for hundreds of years to come, and you're either contributing or you're not.

And I'm a contributor, so I want to recognize other contributors to rewards program that I started.

I don't know how long it'll go.

Would be cool is if it was just part of the International Impact Book Awards and I could offer them an opportunity to like to get on, you know, the podcast to talk about their book or to, if they have a podcast, to kind of help them with their podcast.

That way it could be like, maybe even another day.

But I, I don't know.

I'm not sure how long I'm going to do this for.

The program itself may not be like physical.

It might just be like recognition, like a lot of podcast awards do, and that's virtual recognition.

It all depends, man, because, you know, event planning takes a lot of time, as you well know.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

So that's podcast awards, international.com.

Yeah, podcast awards international.com or international podcast Awards.

On all the socials, though, it's just International podcast awards was not something I could buy and I think somebody wanted a crazy amount of money for it.

So I'm like, yeah, no.

So this, this number one podcaster from Australia.

What.

What made him number one?

Yeah, so he formulated a team.

So he had an editor, a story maker, and.

And then shorts, clip maker.

What he brought in was the story aspect.

And then one of the things he continues to do with very prominent people, I won't say their names, but you know who they are, is he takes podcasts and he translates them into shorts.

So for example, every podcast I do now, I focus on like five areas and that's my shorts, my clips, if you will.

And that builds out the audience.

So he did that with extremely good quality on audio and video and then the storyline behind it.

So he was able to pull that together.

And yeah, of the.

I think there was five people that competed.

So of the five we had, he was like, way above all of them.

And I only compete against people that submit.

I don't believe that they should compete against people who.

Like Joe Rogan.

Like Joe Rogan didn't.

Didn't submit his podcast for an Award or he'd won it, probably.

But the award cycle is.

Is.

It's whoever's competing in the cycle, that's.

That's who they're competing against.

So it's not everybody in the world.

Jeez.

Even though I do have.

Right now, I have someone in Spain, I have someone in the uk, three in Canada, and the rest of them are from the United States.

So it's still international recognition.

That's amazing.

That's really good that you're doing that.

People are having stories out there, and they're trying their hardest to put it out there.

And.

And some people just need recognition, man.

Some people just need to be like, hey, someone sees me.

Someone, you know, actually cares about, not just the show itself, but the fact that I am doing this show, the fact that I'm doing the work behind the scenes to put on the show.

It's huge.

Yeah.

I always tell them, you know, everyone's scrolling until they see a red carpet, and they don't realize or they don't recognize the person on the red carpet, and I stop.

It's a scroll stopper.

So we'll end up doing a red carpet, but it may not be a dinner.

I think it might.

I might end up going into a mastermind to where I can bring in the best of, you know, the best to talk about YouTube's.

This is what we're doing in YouTube, you know, so I might bring in somebody from YouTube, I might bring in somebody from Instagram, and then I just do, you know, a course on.

On how to make your podcast the best it can be for people who actually care about podcasting.

Because a lot of people do this, man.

You've probably seen this.

People do this for their business.

They'll do a podcast to kind of paint themselves as a subject matter expert, but then they don't want to do it.

So they'll end up paying somebody like, eight grand a month to, like, do a studio thing.

And then.

Then they do everything.

And then you're like, this is not working for marketing.

And so, like, they do it for the wrong reason.

And those aren't the people I'm really recognizing.

The people that are looking for an award are the people that want to continue and be a part of this community that we're a part of.

So those.

It's just.

It's.

It's different, man.

It's cool to see all those kind of people, like, pop up.

And I'm not even advertising it, man.

I'm not even advertising this at all.

It's just that I made a website and a couple of social media sites, and I went out to talk about it at one event, and now I have dozens of people that are interested in getting an award.

So.

So there's.

There's obviously a price to enter than the.

The thing or.

Because not, not to enter as in entering the competition, but to enter the event itself, correct?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yes, to enter into the evening, we do a similar structure.

So why come to an event that doesn't have media coverage?

So what I mean by media coverage is who's taking pictures and who's doing video?

And if they're not professionals, you're losing out, man, especially in today's visual age.

So we do offer that whenever you.

You come to the event, you will be a part.

You'll.

You'll either get to talk to people and they're getting videos, you're getting their videos, or you'll buy your own package.

So we have like, media kits, if you will, to get people headshots, videos, interviews, that kind of stuff.

And then if they want to be on the stage, dude, same thing, man.

If they're working on being a speaker, a lot of podcasters are working on being a speaker.

You need professional video.

And you're either going to pay to.

To be in somebody's professional video crew, and they're gonna.

They charge.

I know how much that costs.

I think it's like six grand for you to go be a part of some stage that they made for you to come be a part of it.

And then you're talking to other people who are also trying to get professional video.

So you're not really getting through to an audience.

Like, why don't you come in and talk about podcasting, whatever it is that you do, and then get through to other podcasters and then actually get crowd response, you know, instead of whatever fakeness that they build.

So, yeah, we offer that.

And I might bring in.

I got.

I got a coach to, to.

To the stars.

His name is John Bates.

He does a lot of coaching for celebrities.

I might bring him in to do something, and then I might bring in a media expert.

So I haven't really, really put this out other than we're going to do it on April 18th in 2026.

And I've had.

I had one venue, but I think I might do another venue based off of the way I'm changing the whole dynamics, which is what I talked about today earlier with the guy who won it last time.

He's like, oh, that sounds good.

Mate, I'm like, oh, yeah, you said, Nate.

Is this going to be in Phoenix?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know what?

I might pick your brain a little bit after this, because we're gonna do it.

There's a couple venues opened up, so there's people who believe in podcasting here.

They have non profits and they've opened up their buildings to me to come in, but then I have to, like, set up the tables and all that stuff.

So I might just look at a venue like.

Like one of the early ones that you guys did.

I might just look at something similar to that and might just do it that way.

But the way it's going, there's very few.

There's five podcasting conventions in the United States, and none of them are really that big.

They all.

They're all conventions that try to sell you on something.

And I don't.

I don't really want to be that convention.

I don't want to sell anything.

I just want people to come together and then learn from each other and build a strong network so that we, as a podcasting community can grow up into what we're going to be or what we can be.

And I just want to be a part of whatever it can be because there's a lot of potential here and we're not really tapping into it.

Yeah.

I'm curious then, even though.

Even though I know that your kind of general attitude is taking it day by day right now and kind of seeing where things go, but what's the vision for targeted podcasts and everything you're doing?

What's the larger vision?

All right, so I'm going to blow your mind on this, and maybe you guys can think about this, but I. I created targeted podcast like a business, and someone reached out to buy it recently.

I have a family that's interested in buying the podcast.

Wow.

So I might exit out of targeted and like, hand over.

Might do co hosting for a while.

Exit out of targeted and create another.

Another podcast like Targeted.

I'm not sure, but I. I created the podcast like a business to exit it because most people don't see podcasts.

For what they are.

They're marketing agencies.

I bring you on and I ask you the right questions, and then you get Google ranked because of it.

That's what marketing does.

That's marketing pr.

So I do.

I only do in person, in studio interviews, because those get better hits.

And then I control all the aspects of the audio and the video because I'm putting them in front of a professional.

So all of that aspect of it, I'm going to do targeted as long as I can until I get the price that I want for it, which I'm not going to say on the air.

Yeah, you're good.

You're good.

I.

Eventually, I think I'll end up selling it, quite honestly, and I don't know how long that's going to be.

I'm going to open a studio here in Phoenix.

It's going to look very much like you saw the last studio that I went to.

That's a $200,000 studio.

I'm gonna open up something somewhere in the back so that I can get next level podcasting done.

It's.

It's something that I've been.

I've been talking to some investors on, so I'm looking at that.

And then I might sell a nomadic podcast course to show people how to do what I did and make money at it.

Because, you know, there's some people on there that are looking for stages like this, like a podcast, and what opportunities they have.

Like, one of them would be.

I mean, I'm not gonna say there.

People pay a lot of money to be on podcasts, and people pay a lot of money to be on podcasts because of the attention that they get from the podcast.

So whenever you start looking at podcasts as a media company, consulting business, and that's it, that's where I'm at now.

I'm going to be in podcasting.

This is where.

This is what I was called to do.

This is.

This is my calling.

This is what I.

What I plan to do.

So I know it doesn't make some people happy because they want me to do other things.

I think Nim's one of them.

She's like, why are you doing podcasting?

Because that's the future.

Yes.

So she's like, well, don't do that.

Do something else.

And I'm like, oh, I'm going to do podcasting, but thank you.

And I'm totally supportive of all the things that she's doing.

I just don't want to do them.

So I want to do podcasting.

That's the future.

That's crystal ball.

I like it a lot too, man.

Just a real conversation with somebody, it would be as simple as just being like, hey, man, someone like yourself, to be perfectly honest, I consider myself incredibly lucky, incredibly grateful.

And again, you're gonna feel weird about that.

You're incredibly humble.

But, you know, it's like to be able to get people like this on a video call and just have an hour or two to just kind of pick their brain, ask whatever questions I want.

Like, that's a gift.

That's a huge gift.

And I've been able to now 30 guests, you know, all high caliber people.

Like, I know that.

You totally know what that's like.

It's just that is, that is such a thing to be grateful for in this modern world with technology, a good use of technology.

Yeah, for sure.

Well, so the conversations too, they, they're much more powerful than you're really, you're probably really realizing right now.

Because if you go into a YouTube studio, when you publish this and you go to the language tab, you can click on that language tab and you can edit whatever they think we said.

What you can also do is control C, copy it all and throw it right into AI and say, summarize this for me and then it'll give you the search engine optimization things that you're looking for that used to pay somebody a hundred dollars to do.

You know what I mean?

Awesome.

Now here's, here's one level deeper.

If you could do that for all 30 of your shows, you can take that out and pull out the general ideas to talk about this on the stage.

Now you've used your podcast as a launching point to get yourself on more stages.

Most people don't, they're not thinking about that.

You know, your podcast is, is so powerful and you're not really using.

It's just like you're not using even a 10% of it right now.

You know, if you get on a regular schedule and you get these regular guests, you're gonna get all the statistics that you used to pay thousands of dollars a month for through YouTube studio.

They're going to tell you exactly where everybody's at, what time they're on.

They're going to give you the playbook that you need to help out more people.

And if you're paying attention, you'll grab a hold of it and grow.

And then the other thing is like there's a little play button down there.

I don't know if you can see a little silver thing down there.

That's, that's like a degree, brother.

I mean, I need to put that in the background somewhere.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I'm seeing everyone.

I got mine up there.

Yeah, see, there it is.

You just got, you gotta, you gotta put it in there.

I don't.

I used to have my degrees up.

I think they're in the closet now.

I just, I don't know, man.

I. I don't know.

What are your thoughts on them?

I'm gonna ask you a question if I can.

Go ahead.

What are your thoughts on education now?

Do you think people should still get degrees?

I know you just got one.

Congratulations.

Yeah, so.

So that's.

Actually, I'm really glad.

I'm really glad you asked that.

So I was talking to one of my guests one time about how I was gonna get my master's degree and then move.

That was really just a door to open me up into the PhD.

And he's like, I just have to ask you, like, if.

Do you.

Do you truly love school?

And I was like, you know, and he's like, I'm just.

I'm just curious because, like, you know, now in the modern world, you know, a online influencer that's 18 years old can have way more, say, way more influence, way more persuasive skills, and.

And then.

Then a Nobel Prize, you know, winning PhD.

Yeah.

And I'm just, like, thinking about it the first second.

I didn't even say anything at first.

I'm just like.

Like, that is, like, when I go online, like, do I see Nobel Prize PhD, like, opinions?

Like, not unless.

I mean, I try to find good stuff.

I do.

I'm very intentional about the things that I follow online.

I try not to click on things that are clickbaity that are like, you know, trying to get me, like, the news and this, like, I'm like, oh, I click on this.

I'm changing my algorithm.

Like, I'm very, very aware of that at the same time.

Yeah, it's like, it's.

It's such a hard thing, you know, to.

To really feel like it's that valuable.

And I don't feel like they prepare you for the real world at all.

I did most of my stuff online, so it was very easy and very convenient, but in reality, I was teaching myself these topics based upon some.

Some lesson structures.

And so it's like, yeah, I have a degree, and it does help with a certain level of credibility in the world, but in reality, it's.

It's not necessary at all.

I think it's more so.

Has made me feel a certain way to get rid of some of the imposter syndrome, if you will, you know, because I was going to get the PhD, and I was like, yeah, I'm going to be super credible and this awesome guy, and.

And I'm just like, actually, I. I think if I spent the next three to four years that it would take me to get the PhD.

Like, just being out in the world, like, doing my podcast and, and getting on stages and, and writing my newsletter and all those things.

I'm pretty sure I'll make it further, actually, and I'll be in less debt.

Yeah, it's the structure, right?

So, I mean, I have two master's degrees, so, like, I don't.

I don't display them because I don't want people to.

I. I got the first one.

I got them both because I needed them.

They're like, in order to get promoted, you need a master's degree.

I'm like, done.

You know, summa laptop one.

I got an mba, you know, in like a year and a half.

And then they sent me to the war college for national.

National Security.

Master's degree, which, it was great.

I had Harvard instructors and Brown instructors.

A fantastic school.

It was great education.

They used a lot of.

They used a lot of video, so they use movies to teach curriculum.

They use video to teach curriculum.

And now what do I do?

Video, you know, so to say I didn't get anything out of it is.

Is.

Would be a lie.

But I think college is where most people go to find people that are like them nowadays, and I think that's important.

But I'm with you, man.

Like, I got my.

I got my bachelor's degree for imposter syndrome, you know, I wanted to prove that I was worth it.

No one else in my family got a bachelor's degree, you know, so I'm like, yeah, screw you guys.

Look, I'm not a loser, right?

Yeah.

And then I got a master's degree.

My grandpa was real proud.

You know, my grandpa dad's.

My adopted dad's dad was real proud that I was doing something with his name, you know what I mean?

And it was.

It's kind of cool.

But now as I look at it, in today's society, I'm not forcing my kids to go to college.

I think that they could do whatever they want.

They want to go to college.

Cool.

But.

And I think I'm not bad mouthing anything in the college system.

It.

It opens your mind to different things, but it teaches you how to get a job, man.

And there's four ways.

There's four ways to get a job, or there's four ways to make money, according to Kawasaki's book.

Have you heard of that?

The way money's made.

No, go ahead, Go ahead.

No, tell me.

So he.

He wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

I think he's in Phoenix too.

But his second book is called the so it's quadrant the 4.

4 money.

I'm familiar with the quadrants, but I'm not familiar with what you probably are going to say, so go ahead.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So basically he says everyone's taught how to do what his poor dad, his real dad, did, that's employed his.

His real dad was a doctor employed by the University of Hawaii, and he died in debt in a small house, and he worked his work his whole life, and he didn't spend any time with his son.

So he's like, waste of time.

Right.

This is how we're all taught to do things in the employment bucket.

The other way that most people understand money coming in is, is another trade your time for money, trade your life for money type of event.

That's when you own your own business.

So unless you're really liking it, it's.

It's a lot of your time, man.

Like, podcasting takes my whole week and do I.

At least it pays sucky, you know what I mean?

It doesn't.

There's not a lot of money in it.

Good thing I made money.

So where I can.

I can figure out how to do this the way I want to do it, otherwise I would be in this bucket still.

So now I'm down here running a business, but, you know, it'll grow and then it'll grow into something else, and then I can hire some more people.

That's the whole thing, right?

When you hire enough people to where you don't have to do all that's.

That's business ownership.

That's a different model.

That's, I own a business instead of being a business owner, being an entrepreneur can be on one of these two models.

And the objective is to go from this side to this side, because once you become a business owner on this side, you can start to invest more money into other people doing the same thing.

So if you're a business owner and an investor, you spend all your time with your family doing whatever you want.

And this is the people you see online saying, I used to be used to, to nine to five, and now I live with my family in these really cool locations, and I make 900, 000 a year.

And this is how I did it.

You know, I bought a business, I got investors, and like, there's a whole bunch of mess that goes in with that.

Yeah, you're gonna put in a lot of time here.

You're gonna put a lot of time here.

Either, either way, you're going to put in a lot of time.

So you have to do this in order to get here.

Unless you're born here.

And then guess what, usually you go to this because you lose all the money because you don't understand it.

Yeah.

So, yeah, for money model, if you go to college, you learn this side.

Most no one talk about that chat.

GPT is not going to tell you how to do this.

You have to do it.

And yeah, you go to school, you're going to learn how this is done.

Business, finance, the entrepreneurial journey is, is the same thing as owning any business.

So you're going to learn how that's done.

I'm not badmouthing that, but you're also learning how to work for somebody on this side.

So if you're not looking at it from the perspective of escape, you're going to get stuck there and you're going to get trapped in a 9 to 5 or whatever it is that you're doing.

But if you're looking over here and that's your objective, that's your target, you're going to hit one of these two things, you're going to be good.

So that's what I'm trying to teach my kids, but they have AI, so why do they need a degree?

You know what I mean?

Yeah, that's.

Worked.

It's worked every time.

That's a huge thing that I actually.

So I met Kevin Harrington last April and he had somebody working for him, like taking social media for him.

So I started talking to her.

She has a podcast called, I'll Plug it for her, the Decision Day Podcast.

And so the idea behind it was like, there's a day where it comes for you to make a decision whether you're gonna go to college or take some other path.

And then who do you ask on that day for that question?

And it's usually someone in that side of the thing.

They're an employee, you know, and they're going to tell you to be an employee.

They're going to tell you that's the best thing because they don't have any sort of.

They're incredibly biased and they don't mean to be, but the whole system has been built that way.

So you're going to ask a teacher or you're going to ask your parent or you're going to ask somebody else who's most likely an employee, and they're going to tell you, yeah, go get a job.

And so that is huge that you said that.

Like, I think that's not spoken about enough for people to have that, that willingness to know, like, you know, hey, you don't have to go to school.

There's, there's plenty of different ways to become an entrepreneur.

But I will give school credit for one thing, which is the fact that time passes anyway and people make these big things out of like, okay, it's going to take three years for me to do that.

It's going to take five years for me to do that.

So I'm just, yeah, screw it, you know, not worth it.

And I'm like, the time is going to pass anyway.

And so I get that these things are hard.

Like my master's degree was hard for sure.

No, no, no, lying about it.

But at the same time, like, that time was going to pass anyway.

So I could come out five years later with a master's degree.

I could come out five years later, you know, having just made excuses the whole time and acted like things are hard.

And it showed me really, that if I just dig in and have that mindset that the time is going to pass anyway, that I can pretty much accomplish anything.

And it's helped me with my podcast, it's helped me with all the things I've been accomplishing by being so regimented week after week, knocking out those five page essays, reading the chapters, getting my scholarly resources, and all the BS that I had to do to get that degree.

You know, it was very, very valuable in the long run for my work ethic in general, honestly.

Yeah, definitely.

You're creating habits that you can replace with other habits.

Your body doesn't care, your mind doesn't care what the habit is, good or bad.

Whenever you set yourself on the track, you can definitely stay on that track and continuously do something really big.

But a lot of people, they see it as the exit.

They get off the track and then they have the piece of paper, their ticket.

Right?

It's the next thing.

And yeah, I mean, there's, that's, that's a conversation.

Because no, no education, no educational institution is in debt right now.

I mean, so when you're looking at who's doing it right, they're doing it right.

They got the good business model.

Once you follow whatever they're doing, you probably figure it out.

Think about it too, like the people who make the most money in our industry, like I mentioned Tony Robbins, what does he do?

He does the same thing as colleges do.

He advertises his event and then you go to it for a week and then he gives you some kind of transformation.

Then you go and talk about to other people, it's college, it's Condensed college.

So people try to duplicate that.

The numbers behind this are pretty interesting.

I went to a Grant Cardone conference where he's talking about a psychology of stages.

And if you're trying to sell like a program like that, and by sell I mean you're trying to help people that are willing or do they want to be helped?

Not like, and leave those things down your throat like a used car salesman.

But he said if they're, if they're open to it, but on the fence, you got to give them three days.

You have to give them three days in person.

They have to figure out who you are, then they have to figure out what you know.

And then they have to figure out if you care about them.

And if they can do that, it takes three days.

They can do that.

They'll actually work with you.

It's amazing that like, that's how long it takes for you to make a decision.

Whenever you go to college, they want you to show up for, you know, orientation.

Then they want you to come back for school, like pass off with it with the parents.

And then the third, the third trip is like their intake.

And then they have you for as long as, as you'll allow them to whenever you're making the decision.

I'm going off on a tangent about colleges.

I think they do a great job of making money.

No, I agree.

And Alex, Alex Hermosi talks about that too with like Harvard and the business model and being willing to turn people away and all those great, great business principles that they use.

So I'm curious to wrap this up.

You had talked about being like what you saw with Obama and how he just totally lit up this person's spirit by recognizing them.

So a recognized leader recognizing somebody else.

And I feel like that was a really good principle, like something I can take with me and go do right now.

Something I can go out into my kids and really just recognize them and make them feel that special way.

And so are there other things that come to mind in that same category of really tried and true leadership principles that you've seen from being around these people that are like, yes, here's something you can go do right now to make a difference in your world?

Yeah.

So elite leaders.

Okay.

The whole book is like elite leaders.

So elite leaders always make sure that they have heard the correct things.

So whether it was a four star general, whether it was a general in, in combat zones, or whether it was the President of the United States, whoever was advising them on decisions that they had to make, they always asked for clarification, in this frame, I think you just told me this.

Did I get that right?

This is what I heard from that.

Am I correct?

How I understand this to be is this way, Is this the way you're describing it?

And then that opens the door without it builds a golden bridge, if you will.

Have you ever heard of that?

The Golden Bridge.

So Sunsa, the Art of War, he talks about giving your enemy a golden bridge.

And what, what a golden bridge is, is it's a way for them to retreat without losing face.

So whenever someone comes at you with a decision that you need to make, they're going to give you their opinions and they're going to, they're going to ask you for a decision.

If you ask them basically what you heard from them in their frame, because they're going to point you towards your decisions.

If you ask them to double down on whatever it is that they, they're, they're suggesting, they're either going to say yes, and then you're going to feel that you're going to hear it, you're going to see it, or they're going to say, well, you know, there's other options.

Shouldn't make the decision then.

So every one of these elite leaders knows how to do that, but people who are starting their businesses, starting their podcast, writing their book, they don't do this.

They don't ask the question for clarity.

They never get that clarifying question in there.

And then they end up going back later after they put their foot in the mouth, after they made a bad decision because they didn't do the first step, which is clarify what you just heard.

So it's a big elite leader trick that you can put into every.

Everybody's life.

Dad.

Life right there.

Are you sure you cleaned your room?

I heard you just say you cleaned your room.

Well, I put the clothes in the closet.

Okay, so you didn't clean your room.

Got it.

And it's just, it builds that golden bridge for them to be like, okay, I didn't tell you the whole truth.

And they're not losing any face for it.

And they're going to give you more details you never lose.

Whenever you, whenever you build that golden bridge of that second question with the golden bridge, it's another thing.

I haven't put that in a book.

Maybe I should.

I don't know, maybe I shouldn't.

Another book.

Another book is coming.

No, and again, so the book I was gonna write is start with who?

And that's just, who are you?

Who's on your team and, and who's, who's really got your back.

Because that, that changes all the time.

People change.

You're no different than anybody else.

You're gonna change too.

So how are you changing if you're not monitoring that someone else is molding you?

Like, this is me.

Be 100 with you on that.

So if you want to get to a certain place, you better be tracking on how you're going to get there or you're never going to get there.

And a lot of people are okay with that.

That's called comfort, contentment.

And that's an enemy of mine.

I love, I love that you know that, that your humility and your ability to look for the right, the right who go hand in hand, you know, like you're trying to, whether intentionally or not, have a community of men and other people who are skilled, who you can, you know, counsel with, you know, and again, that takes a level of human humility for you to be, to, hey, you know, you, you know more than me about this subject.

You know more than me about this subject.

Let's collaborate.

Let's figure this out.

Like, I got big goals, you know?

Yeah.

I mean, the most successful people in the world will tell you they don't know anything.

And I hope to be successful because I, I can tell you what, what I think, but I mean, I don't know half the stuff that people I talk to know.

It's evident.

I love that.

Well, Atlas, thank you for, for coming on the show.

I'm gonna wrap it up here, but I want the viewers to be able to find you.

I want them to, you know, go ahead and plug your podcast, website, socials, anything that they can, they can find to, to follow your, your work.

Well, I mean, I don't normally do this, but I will put a, I'll give you a link out to Leaders Kit and I'll give away my how to become a best selling Author.

It's something I spent $20,000 learning.

And everyone who's followed the plan has become a best selling author.

So I'll give that to your audience.

That's on leaderskit.com leaders-kit.com and then I'm at Atlas Altman everywhere.

Look me up, you'll get me on LinkedIn.

That'll actually be me.

The other ones, it's a crapshoot whether it's me or somebody that's managing one of my accounts.

Yeah.

You know, and then you gotta do it.

My podcast is, is targeted, Targeted podcast with Atlas Altman.

Yeah, that's it, man.

Thanks for having me.

I appreciate it, though.

Absolutely, man.

It's.

It's been an honor.

Like I said, I'm super grateful to be able to talk to people like yourselves, as humble as you are.

Like, you are truly amazing figure doing amazing things.

So keep doing your thing, Atlas.

Thank you, man.

Thanks, brother.