Episode 23 from The Grit Theory. 

Today we sit down with the indomitable Jeramiah Solven. Jeramiah is an Army Ranger Veteran, Amazon #1 Best Selling Author, MMA Fighter, Entrepreneur and Coach. He wrote “The Whole Man Project: Military Athlete Performance Manual”, founded Conquer Academy,  and created Suffering Saturdays. Our conversation follows Jeramiah’s journey from shy country boy to Ranger Officer and Entrepreneur. 

Highlights from our conversation include:  

–          Suffering Saturdays.
–          The true path to growth is through pain.
–          Attack what you hate.
–          Play scared, don’t live safe. 
–          Asking hard questions about life. 
–          The calling must be greater than the comfort. 
–          Rollercoasters of self-doubt. 
–          Pay it forward. 
–          Ultra-marathons. 
–          Get ahead of your negative dialog. 
–          Engineering your ecosystem
–          MMA & Entrepreneurship
–          Growth Mindset 

To learn more about Jeramiah check out his Instagram @jeramiahsolven.

If you are interested in picking up his book you can get it HERE.

Want to check out Conquer Academy? Click HERE. 

Did you find value in today’s conversation? SHARE IT! 

Also, check out Be Relentless: If the obstacle is the way, then we must be waymakers HERE.

Do you want to learn more? Check out:

The Book: Be Relentless: If the obstacle is the way, then we must be WayMakers.

The Podcast: “Be Relentless Podcast”

The Fuel: Sisu Stamina, Performance Evolved

Linktree: Here.

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Episode Transcript

00;00;03;11 – 00;00;09;02

Jon

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the grid theory, where we believe in facing difficulty head on.

00;00;09;15 – 00;00;19;16

Aaron

These are stories of inspiration. We applaud grit, tenacity, resilience, the struggle in the pursuit of better, more intentional lives.

00;00;24;03 – 00;00;44;20

Jon

All right. Well, hello, everyone. Today we are joined with Jeremie Sylvan, the man, the myth, the legend. Before we jump in, we have a question for you, Jeremie. Yeah, let’s go. So for the first 19 episodes, we just were using our computer, Mike. So knowing that you have a podcast and much going on, we went out and bought all this stuff just so we looked official.

00;00;45;17 – 00;00;47;00

Jon

It’s actually not plugged into anything.

00;00;47;01 – 00;00;49;09

Aaron

Yeah, these lights don’t mean anything fake.

00;00;49;09 – 00;00;55;21

Jeramiah

It’s all going to go anywhere. But do we look cool? You look legit. Yes. All right. Credibility established.

00;00;56;09 – 00;00;57;10

Jon

So we look legitimate, though.

00;00;57;13 – 00;01;00;25

Jeramiah

Yeah, you guys do. Credibility. Like I said, establish. Look. Well.

00;01;01;03 – 00;01;03;20

Jon

We’ll figure out how to plug it in for the next episode, but then. Yeah.

00;01;03;20 – 00;01;06;29

Aaron

Yeah, that’s great. Thanks for making us better, Jeremy.

00;01;07;09 – 00;01;08;23

Jeramiah

Yeah. Good stuff.

00;01;09;02 – 00;01;12;09

Aaron

All kidding aside, actually. Can I. Can I jump in for a sec?

00;01;12;16 – 00;01;12;20

Jeramiah

Yeah.

00;01;13;11 – 00;01;22;07

Aaron

So I was Instagram stalking, you know, and a couple of things. I don’t know which one I should pick first, but one of them was a Burpee mile.

00;01;22;09 – 00;01;26;11

Jeramiah

Mm hmm. Yeah. What the heck is wrong with you, man? How’s my suffering? Saturday workout.

00;01;26;15 – 00;01;29;03

Aaron

Suffering Saturday. Tell us what that is.

00;01;29;17 – 00;01;55;00

Jeramiah

Yeah, so I. It’s. I guess you could call it my trademark, you know, program or challenge, right? For people to improve themself. It’s a weekly event that I designed is to grow mentally and physically. So every week I go out and do something that pushes me and challenges me. Well, sometimes it’s like super physical where, you know, one time I ran from my house at the top of Pikes Peak, which was and backed down, which ended up being like 32 miles.

00;01;55;12 – 00;01;59;14

Jeramiah

I didn’t take very much food and water. Just it just a.

00;01;59;25 – 00;02;00;21

Aaron

That’s a challenge.

00;02;00;21 – 00;02;16;20

Jeramiah

It is big time just to test my resilience and see see what I could do. And it was a 7000 foot climb. I finished that in about a day’s time. But then afterwards the suffering said a workout was to do that plus a small workout afterwards. Oh, so how.

00;02;16;20 – 00;02;17;21

Jon

Small was the following?

00;02;17;29 – 00;02;32;08

Jeramiah

It was. It was just literally do any type of workout in the gym. And I didn’t know what I was going to be capable of. Right. So I got to the bottom of the hill and my wife actually picked me up. So I ran from my house to the top of the mountain back down, but I run back to my house.

00;02;32;08 – 00;02;49;12

Jeramiah

I ended it at the bottom of the mountain. Yeah, that was the goal. So did that. She took me to the gym and as I’m getting out of car, like, I couldn’t, I couldn’t. I was so broke off and I’m literally limping into the gym. I sit down, I’m sunburnt. Yeah, You know, faces, like, just completely red. And I’m trying to throw around weights in there.

00;02;49;13 – 00;03;13;15

Jeramiah

It was the most pathetic workout I’ve. But I got it done, so. Yeah, so. So suffering Saturday that that sounds extreme, but I’ve done other things too. Like one day I leaned more on the mental. Yeah. And I didn’t speak for a whole day. I challenged my discipline and turned my cell phone off at the same time. I called it the silent treatment workout.

00;03;13;15 – 00;03;29;27

Jeramiah

Right. A full day of that which was interesting because I still went up, went to the store, and people were like talking to me and I was just like looking at them like deer in the headlights. It’s like, so, so suffering Saturdays. I know it’s it’s pretty unique for a lot of people to hear that, like, why the hell you do this?

00;03;30;03 – 00;03;30;28

Aaron

That’s intriguing.

00;03;31;02 – 00;03;56;00

Jeramiah

Yeah. And it can be anything from you know, it could be a ten minute workout. That’s that’s something you’ve been avoiding or maybe an all day event. Yeah. That really challenges you and pushes you. But the idea is every single weekend. So to your point, Darren was today’s workout was the Burpee Mile. It’s like it sounds you do, you know four laps on the track or 600 meters of a burpee in a broad jump and you don’t you That’s it.

00;03;56;00 – 00;03;57;26

Jeramiah

That’s it. Simple as that sounds just one.

00;03;57;26 – 00;04;05;05

Aaron

Oh man that’s about about what part of the mile are you like. Okay, I got it. I got, I got to engage my mind on this.

00;04;05;05 – 00;04;23;25

Jeramiah

And I threw the first, the first two burpees. I’m like, Man, I got along. This is a mistake. Yeah, I brought my dog out there, you know? So he was keeping me company. That was fine. But it was good. It was a good time. It’s just, you know, it was a matter of just consistency and staying focus and not letting yourself talk yourself out of it.

00;04;24;09 – 00;04;26;15

Jeramiah

Totally manageable. Just, you know, just a grinder.

00;04;26;15 – 00;04;28;11

Aaron

I think your dog is concerned about you.

00;04;28;17 – 00;04;28;23

Jeramiah

Like.

00;04;29;08 – 00;04;32;13

Aaron

Just think his perspective, like, what is he doing now?

00;04;32;13 – 00;04;47;23

Jeramiah

He’s we’ve been palling around for years now. He knows he’s, you know, it’s crazy. Yeah, we’ve we’ve gotten me and him have gotten trapped and I got trapped in the snow with him. We’ve been on. We’ve been lost in the woods together. In the snow. Yeah. You know, doing rock marches and climbing mountains and stuff. He’s been through it all with me.

00;04;47;23 – 00;04;54;02

Jeramiah

He’s a he’s a good dog. Well, clearly, you know, familiar territory for him. But anyway.

00;04;54;12 – 00;04;57;18

Jon

You know, I love it. I’m a fellow pain connoisseur, so.

00;04;57;25 – 00;04;58;06

Jeramiah

Yeah.

00;04;58;18 – 00;05;14;11

Jon

Right now I’m on it more of like a not a slow trickle, but just a consistent trickle of pain. So every day for a long experiences, I’m doing something I hate. Yeah, and it’s been really good. So, like, right now it’s 415. Wake up straight into the pool.

00;05;14;12 – 00;05;14;20

Jeramiah

Mm hmm.

00;05;15;02 – 00;05;19;27

Jon

Stretch for minimum of 10 minutes. And whatever my workout is.

00;05;19;27 – 00;05;20;10

Jeramiah

I like it.

00;05;20;13 – 00;05;37;04

Jon

Yeah, it’s. It’s been good, though, man. I’ve really been. So it’s. And I love those, like, sprints, too, because, like, even with these, like, things, like right now, Monday, 30 something of 100 and it’s like they’re good, but they become part of your rhythm. You adapt, you cals your mind to it, and then it’s like, okay, it’s ten 4000 calories on this whole biker.

00;05;37;04 – 00;05;41;22

Jon

It’s time for I’ve never done a Burke Mile, but I can tell you I’m about to. You’re going to.

00;05;41;22 – 00;05;45;04

Aaron

Yeah, he did seem. You seem like there’s a light in your eye when he’s just.

00;05;45;10 – 00;05;48;02

Jon

It’s an exciting idea. I’ve done the Devil’s.

00;05;48;02 – 00;05;48;24

Jeramiah

Mile.

00;05;48;24 – 00;05;49;10

Jon

Which is like.

00;05;49;15 – 00;05;49;26

Jeramiah

Zone.

00;05;50;06 – 00;05;58;23

Jon

So the Devil’s Mile is 400 meters of the fallen force. You have your program, Burpees. It’s crab.

00;05;58;23 – 00;05;59;07

Jeramiah

Walks.

00;05;59;26 – 00;06;22;17

Jon

Lunges and overhead plate carry. So and then there’s the iron one, which is fun. Where you joke at. Yeah. And you walk like with 135 for the mile and it’s like the weights nothing. But what sucks is your arms. Everything dies. Yeah, right. So it’s just the pain, It’s just the mental game, but never a burpee. Miles So that will have to change.

00;06;22;17 – 00;06;23;10

Jon

Yeah. Thank you.

00;06;23;10 – 00;06;26;10

Jeramiah

Yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing it on social media.

00;06;26;24 – 00;06;27;08

Jon

So I’ll take.

00;06;27;08 – 00;06;28;10

Jeramiah

You out for you. Take me? Yeah.

00;06;28;12 – 00;06;33;22

Aaron

So why are you doing so? You said you’re trademarked. So why. Why are you doing these things? Tell us a little about, you know.

00;06;34;13 – 00;06;52;04

Jeramiah

Yeah, it’s a good question. So I usually I get that question like, Hey, why are you going out every week and pushing yourself and doing suffering Saturday? What caused you to create it? And I usually get asked, you know, how do I create one? It’s usually what people like to ask me. They’re interested and, you know, like yourself, you know, I a both of you guys really?

00;06;52;04 – 00;06;54;08

Jeramiah

Because I’m Erin. Do you like to do hard things? Do Yes.

00;06;54;08 – 00;06;56;11

Aaron

Yeah, I’m Jon’s my friend.

00;06;56;11 – 00;06;57;20

Jon

So that’s the hardest thing. Yeah.

00;06;58;13 – 00;07;17;19

Jeramiah

Yeah. Well, what I’ve learned over the years is that, you know, the true path to growth is always through pain. And there was a period of my time where I was reflecting on how I’ve grown as a person. Mm hmm. And, you know, I was I’m a very, you know, logical, practical type of individual. I like to put things into steps.

00;07;17;19 – 00;07;42;28

Jeramiah

I like to systemize everything. Yeah. And if I can do that, then I can. I can guarantee that I can continue on that path with this mental minimal amount of thought and energy as possible and still get to the thing that I’m working on. Right. Yep. So I was just reflecting and I was looking back on my life and I had, you know, realized I had just transformed from this really small, shy kid into, you know, doing some pretty cool things in the military and getting into entrepreneurship.

00;07;42;28 – 00;08;08;15

Jeramiah

And I was, you know, I’m like, how did this happen? You know, how did this transformation happen? And I realized it was through all the things that made me scared, made me nervous, you know, pushing myself through the the uncomfortable things in life that produced that product. Mm hmm. I realized it was through suffering, you know? And so Saturdays had always been a day where I had kind of dabbled in doing harder physical things.

00;08;08;26 – 00;08;21;00

Jeramiah

You know, maybe I would do the thing. Maybe once a month or every every couple of months, I’d go to a race or something, right. Like a lot of people do. But because I’m practical and I like to systemize, I said, Why don’t I just do this every single Saturday?

00;08;21;00 – 00;08;22;26

Jon

Yeah, make it a keystone habit. Yeah.

00;08;22;26 – 00;08;32;15

Jeramiah

So I literally will wake up Saturday and I’ll say, Man, what do I not want to do today? And then I build a workout around it and, and try and knock it out and do it. Yeah.

00;08;33;03 – 00;08;34;04

Aaron

Do the things you hate.

00;08;34;08 – 00;08;48;01

Jeramiah

Oh, that do. That’s the cornerstone of everything. It’s my, it’s the cornerstone of my business. It’s the cornerstone of how I coach my clients. Everything we want is on the other side of the shit we don’t want to do. Hands down, man. So why not just do it every single day or at least build it into your life, you know?

00;08;48;02 – 00;08;57;20

Jon

Yeah, well, you see that a lot, too. Like, I’m just thinking about when pressure starts to mount, right? If you start going down the right path, it seems like everything starts to hit the fan. Good. Murphy just comes knocking.

00;08;57;21 – 00;08;58;02

Jeramiah

Yeah.

00;08;58;14 – 00;09;17;27

Jon

And the natural inclination, albeit I believe fundamentally the wrong one, is to back off then. And then you give up the things that will actually transform your life positively. And what you’re talking about attack what you hate when you start doing something you know is good for you and everything starts at the fan. Start small baby and just tackle that thing.

00;09;17;27 – 00;09;35;04

Jon

That’s what I like about your set. Your suffering started as having talked about a little bit is you wake up in the morning and you imagine some design in advance. But typically it sounds like you wake up in the morning like, what do I least want to do? And then you’re honest enough with yourself to say this. Yeah, because you can’t run from yourself anyways.

00;09;35;20 – 00;09;36;08

Jon

It’s like, that’s.

00;09;36;08 – 00;09;54;02

Jeramiah

The point of the work. Yeah. Like, there it is. I’m like, Oh, shit. Like what? Like for example, one time, you know, the David Goggins challenge was going on 4×4 by 48, right? Yep. And it’s Friday. I had a busy week with work. I had not committed to the four by 4×4 eight. I was like, I’m not going to do this.

00;09;54;03 – 00;10;12;19

Jeramiah

Yes, I’ve other shit I’m going to focus on. And it started on Friday, so I said no. And then I woke up the next day and a couple of my friends were doing it. And so I’m like, What am I going to do for suffering Saturday? And I see everybody doing the Goggins challenge and I’m like, Shit. I’m like, So I’m like, How can I do this?

00;10;12;19 – 00;10;20;12

Jeramiah

A version of this? Yeah. And still challenge myself and kind of show support to my friends who were doing it. So I did 48 miles in 24 hours.

00;10;20;22 – 00;10;21;22

Jon

I saw eight mile trunks.

00;10;22;14 – 00;10;42;13

Jeramiah

I broke it up. Yeah. Okay. So it was a 24 hour period. I was running basically, you know, from the time I woke up off and on throughout the day at midnight, and I just tried to cram it in, but it all started by seeing my friends. This 4×4 by 48 they didn’t want to do. And I look and I see it on social and my stomach turned on my shit.

00;10;42;13 – 00;11;00;05

Jeramiah

I’m doing 48 fucking miles and it was that made me nauseous. I looked over at my wife because we were still in bed and I was like, Guess what I’m doing for suffering Saturday? And she’s like, What? And I’m like, I’m doing 40 miles. And she’s just like, She’s raised eyebrows. She was like, okay. And I’m like, Yeah, I know.

00;11;00;05 – 00;11;03;28

Jeramiah

I did it. Yeah. So that’s usually how it happens like that, right? Yeah.

00;11;03;29 – 00;11;22;16

Aaron

You So you’ve gotten used to like, you know, it’s like, yeah, because you’ve kind of made I guess we’ve talked about like contract with yourself. You’re like, Hey, you’re out. You’re not giving yourself an out. You’re just sort of saying like, Yeah, I know it sucks, but that’s not the out, the, the out is this is the most time people say, oh, this is really difficult, this is crazy.

00;11;22;16 – 00;11;26;00

Aaron

So I get an excuse. I get a pass on this. Yeah. You don’t give yourself a pass.

00;11;26;01 – 00;11;42;11

Jeramiah

No, I mean, since I started posting on Instagram I haven’t missed a single day, a single Saturday, you know, in about two years or more. Yeah. It’s been, you know, everything. And I mean, I almost broke my ankle one time. I broke it on a or sprained it really bad on a Friday and then woke up the next day.

00;11;42;24 – 00;11;43;04

Jeramiah

Yeah.

00;11;43;04 – 00;11;44;12

Aaron

And was like, that’s you’re out right.

00;11;44;12 – 00;11;59;16

Jeramiah

I’m on crutches. Yeah. It could have been excuse I when I went to the Red Rocks open space and on my crutches and for an hour, 2 hours I was climbing mountains on my crutches. People were looking at me like I was fucking insane. I was with me. She was shaking her head, laughing the whole time.

00;11;59;16 – 00;12;13;23

Aaron

That’s like Goggins says, that you’re like stealing your soul. I mean, can you imagine looking into the eyes of the person who’s like, you know, they got they got their nice water bottle? Yeah, It’s kind of having a like usually with their poodle, that kind of thing. And you’re in your crutches.

00;12;13;29 – 00;12;29;07

Jeramiah

Yeah, just I can’t say I was pretty happy. I was sweating. I got a lot of support out there on that. Little like you were coming out being super friendly, man. They were like, I love it. I love it. Yeah. You didn’t care what made you do this? What made you do this? I was like, Hey, man, just, you know, had to do something today.

00;12;29;07 – 00;12;31;22

Jeramiah

I had to get out of the house, but I told them to get out of the.

00;12;31;22 – 00;12;34;23

Aaron

House and just affect you in that choice, too.

00;12;34;24 – 00;12;35;04

Jeramiah

Yeah.

00;12;35;14 – 00;12;53;02

Jon

Well, it you talked about how since you started posting on social, you’ve not missed like anything in just about two years. And it is interesting because, like, social media does have a lot of positive power. If you engage with it. Right? Right. It’s a tool. Yeah. And like you can use as an accountability piece like, Well, I’m putting it out there.

00;12;53;02 – 00;13;08;19

Jeramiah

Yeah, well, for me it was instant. So when I created Suffering Saturday, I instantly announced that I was going to be doing it. Yep. And then I started showing it. On day one. I started, you know, hey, this is my first suffering Saturday workout. And so from the time I started publishing it and committed to the plan, I’ve never missed it.

00;13;08;19 – 00;13;15;28

Jeramiah

Like when I had that epiphany of got to do it, I got to put something together where every week I’m challenging myself, made the decision every single Saturday, boom, something.

00;13;16;03 – 00;13;35;08

Jon

Yeah, and it’s fun. That’s good stuff. So earlier you mentioned something that kind of caught my ear and you were talking about how you were once a shy little kid and then you transformed. You had a pretty interesting military career for me. I can see some cool stuff there. Now, you’re an entrepreneur, you’re doing multiple ventures, but I’d love to hear those.

00;13;35;08 – 00;13;41;26

Jon

Like what sparked the transformation from shy, timid Jeremiah to who you are now?

00;13;42;08 – 00;13;43;06

Jeramiah

Yeah, you know.

00;13;43;08 – 00;13;46;27

Jon

Just chiseled alabaster. God was sitting across the table.

00;13;47;03 – 00;14;09;10

Jeramiah

I appreciate that. I don’t know about it. You know, man, it was a series of tough decisions, is what caused me to be who I am now. You know, I grew up low income in the middle of nowhere town of, like, 300 people. My dad, like, hijacked the television cable so we could have a little bit of TV in the house.

00;14;09;10 – 00;14;36;10

Jeramiah

Right? We didn’t have Internet. I spent a lot of my time as a kid running around the woods hunting with my dad. So and I’ve got three brothers. So, you know, we lived kind of a sheltered life and we lived, you know, away from normal society. So as I started progressing, you know, I was young for my grade in every class that I went into just because of where my birthday falls and then because I was from a small town, I was really shy.

00;14;36;28 – 00;14;55;27

Jeramiah

And so his life kind of like moved on. I moved on. I got into high school and my graduating high school class, my senior class was a hundred people. So for me that felt like I was in the middle of L.A., right? It was like, Holy shit, it’s going from 300 people, you know, in my little village essentially, to this high school class of 100 people.

00;14;57;12 – 00;15;14;18

Jeramiah

So it took some getting used to. And, you know, I was the guy in high school where if you the teacher called on me, you know, one I was always sit in the back, too. If you called on me, I get flush, I turn bright red to know what to say and choke up and not be able to do anything.

00;15;15;07 – 00;15;37;14

Jeramiah

So, you know, fast forward, I turn into a company, infantry company commander. I’ve led rangers in combat, served with Rangers, and from the 75th, done some of these physical things. And it’s like, how the fuck did this happen? Yeah, like, you know, so it all really just started from one decision where my first dream was I wanted to be an athlete.

00;15;38;03 – 00;15;55;08

Jeramiah

So because I was small child from a little town, I got into high school, not a whole lot of confidence. And I started and I tried out for the wrestling team and I started doing okay, started making some progress. And by my senior year, I was I was beating people. And I’m like, Man, I wonder if I can, you know, go on to the college level and compete.

00;15;55;08 – 00;16;17;10

Jeramiah

And so that was my dream. MM But I wasn’t, I wasn’t good enough, didn’t, didn’t make it to the levels that I wanted to and after high school because I wasn’t lining up to achieve that, you know, dream as an athlete, I didn’t really have any other plan. So I followed what my friends were doing and I went to a community college about 3 hours from where I grew up.

00;16;18;13 – 00;16;34;27

Jeramiah

And just honestly, you know, I had quit on that dream and I felt like a failure, you know, And that was for me, it was it was tough. And maybe it doesn’t sound tough for a lot of people, but your first dream, like when that doesn’t happen, it hurts, is like, fuck, man, you know, you a big letdown.

00;16;34;27 – 00;16;58;12

Jeramiah

And especially when you come from a small town where you don’t really have much belief in yourself anyway, right? You don’t really think big anyway. And when you do start to dream a dream and then it doesn’t line up, you’re like, Well, I guess I’m not. I guess I’m not meant for anything significant, right? You know, so yeah, I went to a community college for two semesters and felt pretty miserable inside.

00;16;58;14 – 00;17;17;22

Jeramiah

Yeah, my self-image was really bad. I saw myself as a failure athlete, and then I come home one day and I just had basically gotten to the point where I had enough. My my girlfriend from high school and I had broken up. My best friend from high school had gone on and served in the military. I was with kind of a new group of friends.

00;17;18;06 – 00;17;22;15

Jeramiah

And, you know, I just I just was there’s just a lot of emptiness inside of me.

00;17;22;15 – 00;17;24;13

Aaron

So, yeah, it’s like, who am I? A moment.

00;17;24;13 – 00;17;34;04

Jeramiah

Exactly. Like, no purpose, no direction. The dream that I had before absolutely crushed. And now here I am, kind of clocking in. Clocking out. Right, Right. No, no real goal inside of.

00;17;34;04 – 00;17;35;16

Aaron

Schools that stick, like.

00;17;35;24 – 00;17;52;12

Jeramiah

You know, wherever. Yeah, yeah. And it just got to the point where I walked home one day and I open the door and everybody, you know, my friends were there. They were partying about at about 2 p.m. in the afternoon. And they’re really successful people now and they’ve all been great. But at the time we were young and I walked in on that and I just it triggered me.

00;17;52;12 – 00;18;12;08

Jeramiah

I was like, I’m done. I’m fucking down with them. So actually I need it out. I am. I would say my transformation started out of desperation, okay. You know, was really the big thing. A lot of guys sign up for the military, for maybe patriotism or for college education. Me, I just wanted the hell out of my situation.

00;18;12;21 – 00;18;31;17

Jeramiah

You know? I needed something different. So that caused me to join the military. I picked the military because I had seen some other people go down that route and I was like, Man, their lives don’t look that bad. Looks pretty good. You know, they’ve got money coming in. You know, they’re buying cars. They look like they have some stability.

00;18;31;17 – 00;18;53;28

Jeramiah

Let me let me go that right. And so anyways, I took off and went that direction and it really just snowballed. You know, I got into training to basic training. That initial like decision of going from college into the military made my stomach turn right. I was nervous, I was scared, and I was like, Fuck it. I got to get out of this place that I’m in.

00;18;54;12 – 00;19;18;18

Jeramiah

So I go and I start getting some little victories. You know, I go to basic I’m a student leader. I go to advanced individual training. I’m a student leader again, and I’m nervous as hell the whole time. But like for some reason, the instructors kind of keep piling on responsibilities to me. And I really I think what happened is I didn’t want to fail and I was so scared that whatever they gave me, I found a way to get achieve success.

00;19;18;18 – 00;19;34;20

Jeramiah

You know what I’m saying? Yeah. Like, Hey, I want you to take charge of your your other peers here in basic training and make sure they go into the chow hall and they’re out on time. Right? And I’m thinking like, fuck, fuck, fuck. They found me out. Yeah, Yeah. Like, I got to get all these guys up. I don’t want to fail this, right?

00;19;34;20 – 00;19;41;28

Jeramiah

So, you know, a lot of our any type of, like small success I had along the way, I came from fear of failure and, like, I wanna fuck it up, right?

00;19;42;15 – 00;19;47;10

Aaron

But you showed up like. Like that. All that feeling was there, but you’re like, I’m still going to.

00;19;47;10 – 00;20;05;29

Jeramiah

Yeah, I’m going to do it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was. And I think that most of my journey has been like that. I’ve played scared most of my life and not lived safe. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? From the time I decided to join the military and then after that, you know, I go through the initial stages of training.

00;20;05;29 – 00;20;24;13

Jeramiah

I go to Iraq, I’m there for 15 months and I’m 19 years old. And I get there. I turn 20 and 21 while I’m in Iraq. I’m starting to get exposed to a little bit of combat. We had a lieutenant in our in our in our unit that got hit by a roadside bomb. He dies. And so I had like there for 15 months.

00;20;24;13 – 00;20;40;24

Jeramiah

I’m thinking about life and when I came into the military, I elected it kind of an easier type of path. I decided to become an engineer. Okay. It wasn’t. I didn’t come into the combat arms. Yeah. I wanted I picked something that thought made sense that my friends and family kind of guided me towards, and I was like, I don’t do this.

00;20;40;24 – 00;20;54;15

Jeramiah

Yeah. So I’m overseas and I’m like, I kind of settled essentially. And I realized I had settled, gave up on my first dream, and now I’m just kind of doing it. Everybody else is telling me to do so all this kind of comes to a head and I’m like, Man, like, what the hell am I doing with my life?

00;20;55;05 – 00;21;13;22

Jeramiah

You know, I’m giving up on myself. I’m not really pushing myself. You know, people are here in Iraq and they’re dying. I’m like, you know, what do you really want to get out of life? And so I realized that I like some things about the military. I didn’t like some some things. And I wanted to put myself in position to make a difference in the organization.

00;21;13;22 – 00;21;31;16

Jeramiah

So I started like reflecting on what I wanted to get, what would make me happy. And I realized that life was short and I was going to go back to school and finish what I started. I was going to get into the infantry and get off like the quote unquote bench that I felt like I was on. Right.

00;21;31;17 – 00;21;45;27

Jeramiah

Kind of get into the fight because I felt like I belonged. More on the combat side and I wanted to take a chance on myself again. I said, you know what area? Yeah, you failed before, but fuck it, you what do you got to lose? So let’s let’s push, let’s drive. Let’s make something of this life and turn the corner again.

00;21;45;27 – 00;22;04;20

Jeramiah

Went back to school and again scared the shit out of me. Honestly, it really did. Because I had to go confront something. I had to go confront college, which I had dropped out of. So I saw myself as a failure there. And then when I got back to the States, you know, back from from Iraq, I’m dealing with adjustment issues.

00;22;05;03 – 00;22;20;28

Jeramiah

So I’m nervous again and I’m in class. And it’s so anyways, the whole my whole story is like that. It’s like these series is these chapters of being super uncomfortable, leaning into it, living with that fear anyway. And then all of a sudden I get better, right? I get a little bit better and that becomes addicting for me.

00;22;20;28 – 00;22;37;09

Jeramiah

Yeah. And I’m like, Oh shit, I grew I got, you know, I graduated basic. That feels good. I got I did a deployment that feels pretty good. Oh, my gosh. I got selected for the Army’s Green to Gold program. It feels good, but I’m still scared the whole time. You know what I’m saying? So I get addicted that it was like a feeling of significance.

00;22;37;09 – 00;22;41;06

Jeramiah

Yeah, I just wanted to catch more of it and make myself feel good. And over and over and over again, you know.

00;22;42;00 – 00;23;15;08

Jon

There’s something so critical to being scared. Yeah. If you’re not that to me, it’s more scary not to be scared because it’s like you’re probably settling. And so kind of here to spit back at you. What I just heard in a nutshell, right? So here we have this quiet back backwoods dude with three brothers grown up hunting, very secluded, shy, going through school, not doing well or, you know, getting by, but very shy, timid, embarrassed when called on type of situation and then just kind of gone with the flow and want to be an athlete.

00;23;15;21 – 00;23;36;03

Jon

Failure struck, right? You didn’t perform at the level you wanted and that caused you to get to a place where you’re broken enough to be sick and tired of being sick and tired. Yeah. So you’re like, okay, I’m not going to tolerate this. I’m going to choose something to try to not live like this. Military, you know? And then you go through that, you get some wins, start to feel better, right?

00;23;36;16 – 00;23;54;13

Jon

And while deployed going through life, you’re seeing and you’re exposed to enough that you’re actually asking the intentional questions about living. And you’re like, oh, my goodness, I’m settling. I’m doing this again. You know, I’m doing better than I was, but I’m settling right now. What do I do? And you’re like, Well, I’m scared of school. I’m scared, you know?

00;23;54;20 – 00;24;11;17

Jon

So you go back, you tackle school, and you’re like, I want to get off the bench, so to speak. Right in combat arms, which is kind of like in some ways also like another stab at your previous athletic career in a way because it’s more physical, right? It’s like I’m going to conquer both those fears and push myself and then you do that.

00;24;11;17 – 00;24;33;16

Jeramiah

Yeah, right. Yeah. And one of the main reasons I decided to switch directions while I was in Iraq was it was, you know, I had some good leaders about me. I had some had some bad ones. Right. My parents and my parents had taught me, if you want to change something, you do something about it. So because I was dealing with some frustration, some leadership frustrations, I decided, okay, I got to make a change here and influence the situation.

00;24;33;16 – 00;24;49;05

Jeramiah

So a little bit of my decision was about that resolving that issue that I saw, even though really the real problem was that I was young and immature and I was kind of putting these leaders on this pedestal and making them perfect humans, and they weren’t living up to being perfect humans. So I’m like, You’re ridiculous. I need to fix this.

00;24;49;06 – 00;25;09;20

Jeramiah

I’ll be better if I’m in charge, right? Yeah. And, well, the other ones was like, you know, I don’t like quitting shit, period. And I had felt like I quit school, so I wanted to bring that back in and make a difference. Essentially in the military and almost redeem myself. Hmm. Was what really what I was chasing, you know, from going at that failed athlete to this next dream.

00;25;09;20 – 00;25;15;04

Jeramiah

It felt me it felt like I was going to have a chance to prove myself to myself, like, hey, man, you know, why not fuck it?

00;25;16;00 – 00;25;40;04

Aaron

You know, I, I just. I want to be just a word of encouragement to those who who have felt that feeling of fear about something I think of, like even my own wife, she she had to do some big state tests for something that she was studying for. Yeah, but she had this old ghost. Like, this is what kind of hear in you is like these ghosts of fears that have just stayed with you.

00;25;40;08 – 00;25;54;01

Aaron

And at some point you got to stop and say, Enough, stop haunting me. I’m going to. I’m going to face you. And so she was like, I’m not I’ve never been a great test taker. And so I’m like, well, we’re going to change that, you know? And then she and she face and she, like, crushed it. It’s amazing the people.

00;25;54;01 – 00;26;02;25

Aaron

Like if you bring the energy to the fear, like you’re saying, like enough, like that’s that’s you really like, okay, this I’m not going to live here.

00;26;03;02 – 00;26;31;01

Jeramiah

You know I was I was a lot of it, too like to make that switch happen for at least for me. Maybe this will help somebody listening is like the calling has to be greater than your comfort, right? Like what you’re being called to do at the moment. Like, Hey, man, I need out of this situation that I’m in, that calling has to be greater than or, you know, my comfort essentially is I would stay here or in the military like, you know, I got to direct my my calling was I need to go back to school and finish what I started.

00;26;31;06 – 00;26;45;22

Jeramiah

Yeah, I need to put myself in position to make a difference. Yeah. And I want to I want to bet on myself. That’s what I’m being called to do. And so that calling drove me to get out of what I was comfortable doing and and, you know, go back to that so good during the gold program. Yeah.

00;26;46;00 – 00;27;04;10

Aaron

That’s so good because I see the things that you’re doing and that terrifies some men. Even just like, well, he did that. But then you’re telling me, Hey, I got a secret. This terrifies me too. Yeah. In fact, I’m doing it because it does terrify me. It’s. I’m doing it because it’s hard. Yeah. And the only difference between you and me is that I’m willing to try it.

00;27;04;10 – 00;27;04;19

Jeramiah

Yep.

00;27;04;19 – 00;27;12;02

Jon

Yeah, well, it’s funny because you’re talking about. I can fix these leadership problems, and then, you know, because they’re on this pedestal and then you get to like, Oh, they were just scared human beings.

00;27;12;10 – 00;27;13;10

Jeramiah

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;27;13;11 – 00;27;15;12

Jon

I know that. Because I’m now the scared human being. But I.

00;27;15;12 – 00;27;17;24

Jeramiah

Think. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely.

00;27;17;24 – 00;27;36;21

Jon

But it’s good. I just want to say it again because I think it is profound. It’s your calling has to be greater than your comfort zone. Yeah, right. Good word. Yeah, that’s. That’s awesome. Yeah, it’s motivational. I can’t help but ask. So you do that, right? Causes you to go into military. You go back to school, you conquer those fears, right?

00;27;37;01 – 00;27;52;13

Jon

You serve your time, you climb, you meet the self expectations you have for yourself, right? You still those voices I sing about? You know, when you have those fears as ghosts, as you’re calling them, how do you get rid of boogeymen? You eliminate them, right? You have to face them head on. Get rid of them. Yeah. So it’s like, here you are.

00;27;52;13 – 00;27;55;06

Jeramiah

Now, you put it back in the closet. Yeah. You come back.

00;27;55;09 – 00;27;55;28

Jon

Well, he’s never.

00;27;55;29 – 00;27;57;12

Jeramiah

Been a turnaround guy.

00;27;57;12 – 00;27;59;00

Aaron

By the collar. Okay, that’s enough.

00;27;59;00 – 00;27;59;21

Jeramiah

Yeah. Yeah.

00;27;59;29 – 00;28;20;05

Jon

And that’s the site tangent to where I was, where I was going to go. But it’s like when you’re at war with yourself to become a better human being, there’s no killing your weaker man or your weaker human right. There’s only putting him into the closet until they’ve gained a strength to re challenge your your efforts. And then you have to do it again and again and again.

00;28;20;05 – 00;28;36;20

Jon

Forever. Every day. Every single day. Right. And but that’s the journey that you pick, knowing that for the rest of my life, this will never stop. But I’m going to put that weaker version of myself back in the closet every day. Right. And that’s what I’m hearing in your story.

00;28;36;20 – 00;28;36;26

Jeramiah

Yeah.

00;28;37;08 – 00;28;38;00

Jon

That’s encouraging.

00;28;38;00 – 00;28;38;14

Jeramiah

Absolutely.

00;28;38;18 – 00;28;56;20

Aaron

Yeah. Maybe be encouraged by that. I mean, we’re talking about some physical things. And you also mentioned some other you know, you that you you for your suffering Saturday. Like maybe it’s mental or maybe it’s whatever because it doesn’t really matter what it is. It just has to evoke some kind of like a fear, a pushback.

00;28;56;20 – 00;29;14;07

Jeramiah

Yeah. Well, it’s it’s it really comes down to the question, do I want to get better or do I not? Mm. Like, if I want to get better than I were, how do I get there? Well, I have to do the things I don’t want to do. Right. It’s pretty, it’s pretty like, it’s pretty logical. So for me, it’s just that it’s a clear path, you know?

00;29;14;07 – 00;29;37;15

Jeramiah

And so I just feel like that that makes the most sense. And then I’ve found through doing it, it, it returns the best, the best feelings. It it brings you it has the highest rate of return. When I do something hard, I feel great every single time, right? You guys, too. So I think in life, a lot of times we sit back and we take the easy path over the hard path over and over again, and that becomes a habit, you know?

00;29;37;15 – 00;29;58;09

Jeramiah

So who I once was is is a guy that, you know, kind of hit out and made his decisions around, kind of hiding inside and playing small. And then now I’m a guy that I try to make decisions that I know that are going to that I just don’t want to be honest. Yeah, but yeah.

00;29;58;22 – 00;30;16;07

Jon

So t that right. And so you’re, you’ve conditioned yourself to make the decisions you don’t want to in the pursuit of your better self. Yeah, right. And you came back in, you accomplished your, your goals as an infantryman as I understand it. Yeah. What, what caused or triggered your next transition.

00;30;16;19 – 00;30;41;20

Jeramiah

Yes. Well when I, when I shifted from enlisted soldier to wanting to become an infantry officer, I applied for the Army’s Green T Gold Scholarship program. That was a way for me to get out of my current contract that I was under and into a new contract, which was becoming an officer. That, for me was nerve wracking. I didn’t think I was good enough to to get approved for that scholarship program.

00;30;42;20 – 00;31;00;05

Jeramiah

So when I got selected, I was pretty elated. Yeah, I was like, Oh yeah, you know, you can do more, right? Yeah. Oh shit. So I go back to school and I’m thinking the whole time, now that I’ve got some more wins, Special Operations kind of gets planted in my head and I’m like, Maybe you can do more than you think, right?

00;31;00;05 – 00;31;16;22

Jeramiah

Like, when you just pick the hardest thing I can do. And so I’m thinking about special operations. I start obsessing about it. I start reading stuff online. And, you know, it was very appealing to a guy who didn’t feel like he was much as a kid to be this, to turn into this, you know, super soldier or whatever.

00;31;16;22 – 00;31;22;24

Jeramiah

Right. Which I’m not now, but I’m saying that’s the that’s the image that I saw and I want to be and is.

00;31;22;24 – 00;31;24;11

Jon

The ideal to pursue, Right?

00;31;24;11 – 00;31;41;13

Jeramiah

Yeah, exactly. So I go back to school and I have the it’s basically a rollercoaster. I’m like, I can do this. I can’t do this right. I can. You’re good enough, Jeremiah, to become an infantry officer one day. The next day you’re not good enough, right? And so I’m constantly fighting. Kind of like you talked about the boogeyman.

00;31;41;16 – 00;31;42;25

Jeramiah

Yeah, every single day.

00;31;42;25 – 00;31;43;23

Aaron

And the week, man.

00;31;43;23 – 00;32;02;23

Jeramiah

Yeah, exactly. So I call my my weak voice in my head. I call him Scar. Okay. From the Lion King, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because scar’s like, super manipulative. Yeah, he’s malicious, but he’s also kind of a pussy man. Yeah, Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So you just got to, like, back him up, you know, show up as Simba or whatever you want to do.

00;32;02;23 – 00;32;04;29

Aaron

Didn’t have it. If you didn’t have his words, he’d be nothing.

00;32;04;29 – 00;32;22;19

Jeramiah

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And he’s you just. He’ll manipulate you all day. So I want to back him up, even if I’m just a little tiny cub, Right. Like, yeah, I want to back him up into a corner and then go about my way. Right? So that’s my goal. And so I’m fighting him over and over again. I have a mentor that comes into my life and he sees something in me that I don’t see myself.

00;32;22;19 – 00;32;41;20

Jeramiah

He’s like, you know, he basically confirms the path. He’s like, Hey, man, I think you can. I think you can in the special operations, have you heard of the Ranger regiment? And I really didn’t hear much about the Ranger regiment. I just saw Green Berets marketed everywhere. And so I was reading a lot of Special Forces books at the time as I started.

00;32;41;20 – 00;32;59;05

Jeramiah

Well, I would say I started researching. I wouldn’t say I was reading a whole lot, know I got into that later, but, you know, I’m studying Special Forces Green Berets. But then he comes in and I respected this, this mentor that I had in school, and he plants the seed and he was like, Have you thought about the Ranger regiment?

00;32;59;05 – 00;33;16;19

Jeramiah

And I’m like, What is that? He tells me about it. He’s like, you know, Premier direct action rate for us in the United States Army. You know, they’re the elite, the infantry. He’s like, I think you can do it. And I’m like, Really? Fuck, man. So he kind of plans to see you. And I’m like, Right. You know, I want to I want to pursue a career in special operations.

00;33;16;19 – 00;33;31;08

Jeramiah

The first milestone is the infantry, so let me try out for it. Um, at the end of college, they ask you, what? What do you want? A branch? You know what? What branch do you want to come into? And I wrote down literally infantry. Infantry, infantry. And they came back to me and they’re like, You can’t.

00;33;31;09 – 00;33;32;15

Jon

I was going to say they kicked that back.

00;33;32;15 – 00;33;57;16

Jeramiah

Yeah, I think that. But I was that guy. I was like, There’s nothing else. I don’t want any of this shit. Yeah, it’s I was I threw some stuff down and, you know, I’m naturally competitive at art. And so I worked my ass off and I failed a lot of tests in school, But I went back and I ended up qualifying and graduating in the top 10% of my my peer group for for ROTC students and landed the infantry contract.

00;33;57;21 – 00;34;18;22

Jeramiah

Yes. Got it. And then I don’t want to go to any detail, you know, bogged down with like the infantry story, but the next leg was getting into special operations. And I had another mentor that came in and did the same type of thing He he was my company commander, is an infantry platoon leader, and he was like, I think you can go on serve the the Ranger regiment, you should do it.

00;34;19;12 – 00;34;39;01

Aaron

That’s that is such a place of low. I feel like when you can take a challenge and you got you did the challenge and then all of a sudden there’s more opportunities open to you. Yeah, but those opportunities also equal weight. You know, it’s sort of I don’t know if it’s like if you’re climbing a ladder and you just learn how to even climb the ladder, it’s like, Oh, great, All right, now try doing it with one leg.

00;34;39;02 – 00;34;54;15

Aaron

Oh, hey, now try with this pack of rocks on your back. How can I do these things? Yeah, but you don’t know it until you weren’t even qualified to get to that level. Until you made the first decision. The next one. The next one. This is kind of what’s happened. It’s sort of like, Hey, good job. Now let’s do something even harder.

00;34;54;18 – 00;35;14;12

Jeramiah

Yeah, well, I think. I think you need to listen. I like to say you like you need to listen to the whispers. Yeah, right. And with the whispers are you’re positive self-talk? Yeah. Your positive self-talk is usually kind of quiet. Yeah, right. You could do more. Yeah, but the negative self-talk is super loud. Yeah. Why is that? You suck.

00;35;14;13 – 00;35;36;06

Jeramiah

Yeah. Yeah. You can’t breathe. Yeah. So. Yeah, yeah. You kind of listen to the whispers, which the whispers are like, Man, I wonder if I can do this right. And then the whispers are also the people that come into your lives, you know, your life that says, Hey, I think you can do this. Yeah. So there’s been these times in my life where I didn’t in me necessarily, but I had some people that did.

00;35;36;12 – 00;35;40;18

Jeramiah

Yep. So for everybody listening, if you don’t believe in yourself, find somebody else that does that.

00;35;40;19 – 00;35;44;00

Aaron

So it’s like borrowing ego. Yet I need to, I need someone to tell me.

00;35;44;02 – 00;35;55;10

Jeramiah

Yeah and and and that can give you the nudge I think that a lot of people need. Yeah. And they’re they’re they’re there in your life. You just got to listen for them. You got to listen to the whisper right? Yeah. That’s good. I think that whisper, that’s. Yeah.

00;35;55;26 – 00;36;10;09

Jon

There’s a few things that just scream at me from this part of the conversation, right? So, like, you’re sitting and you’re like, I have to shut scar up that giant. Yeah. Pussycats. Just like, trying to tear me down every step of the way. Yeah. And then at the same time, you have to discern the positive whispers which are even quieter.

00;36;10;10 – 00;36;20;26

Jon

Yeah. So like that a task. The task is you have to listen to yourself enough to be able to begin realizing who’s scar, who’s this negative voice, and who’s the positive voice. Demanding more of myself.

00;36;20;26 – 00;36;21;10

Jeramiah

Yeah, Yeah.

00;36;21;15 – 00;36;39;13

Jon

And then the third piece that fuels that, right? And I think that there’s a light and a shadow to it as well is those who will invest in you because they see the fight for the better in you and they see what your potential, what you can become. So they pay that forward in an encouragement in like to me that’s true.

00;36;39;16 – 00;36;55;11

Jon

And if I see someone struggling and I think I can offer a word of encouragement, I need to make sure to do that because I don’t know how dark their fighters and who’s winning their mind. But also I need to be able to receive that at the same line. Talking about discernment, right? Like with your self, listening to yourself, the introspection.

00;36;55;22 – 00;37;11;27

Jon

You’ll also have voices that are not positive in your life, and that’s another filtration process you have to learn to evaluate. Is this someone that believes in me in the ideal I’m pursuing or someone who wants to see me fail or doesn’t like me? And what do I do with those four voices?

00;37;11;27 – 00;37;12;04

Jeramiah

Yeah.

00;37;12;12 – 00;37;32;24

Aaron

We added. I would say the people that are fighting are qualified for the the advice of the voices, the encouragement around them. Because if I feel like if, if you know, if you’re not challenging yourself at all and you go, Yeah, no one really believes in me, well, it’s kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like you’re not even in the fight, so people don’t even know to say something.

00;37;32;25 – 00;37;49;23

Aaron

Yeah, like, I can’t. I can’t cheer for someone who didn’t step in the ring. Yeah, Even if it’s getting beat, the hell you know, I. I if I’m a friend, I believe. I’m just glad you’re doing it, man. Yeah, Like, I see you’re failing, and this is hard, but I do believe in you. But I didn’t even know you’re ready to fight.

00;37;49;24 – 00;37;50;04

Jeramiah

Yeah.

00;37;50;17 – 00;37;55;03

Aaron

So you invite that into your life when you when you do challenging things? Mm hmm.

00;37;56;17 – 00;37;56;27

Jeramiah

Yeah.

00;37;57;05 – 00;38;13;12

Jon

So you see, you have you have scar, you have your positive whispering voice. You have people who are encouraging you along the way, giving you just enough hope to say, why not? Maybe I can write, maybe I can. So I’m going to try. And that just continues the rollercoaster of self-doubt. Yeah, yeah.

00;38;13;21 – 00;38;39;00

Jeramiah

Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of days in between achievement, right? Yeah, like that. From the time that I went, I enlisted in the military to the time I landed my dream job as an infantry, as a Ranger platoon leader in the 75th Ranger Regiment that took ten years. Man, That’s ten years of going through it. There’s a lot of days worth of days, man, Stacked up and you’re going to go through some days are going to feel good, like you’re caffeinated, you’re motivated or slept in.

00;38;39;00 – 00;38;54;24

Jeramiah

You’re like, Yeah, I can conquer the world the next day. Like, Dude, I feel like there’s no way I can do this, right? Yeah. So that goes on and on and on. So staying the course becomes difficult. And for me, you know, I got this new dream at the time. Yeah, that’s to get into special operations and kind of prove myself once again to myself.

00;38;55;01 – 00;39;17;25

Jeramiah

Hmm. Serve in a unit that I can. I, can I can, I can give to, you know, serve to or serve with and just provide value to fulfilling. Just just it just, just be of service to people. You know, that was really driving me at the time. I wanted to I wanted to make my time in service matter and and challenge myself at the same time.

00;39;17;25 – 00;39;52;26

Jeramiah

So yeah, that evolution goes on for quite some time. And I ended up applying for the 75th Ranger Regiment. They approved my packet again. I’m like, Holy shit, I can’t believe they said yes. Yeah, right. I get there and I go through the Ranger Assessment Selection board and I perform well. You know, they select me within 15 minutes, which was pretty quick for the time a lot of guys were in there for maybe an hour or more, and I got blessed and they selected me and I come out and it was like one of the biggest highs I’ve ever had in my life, man.

00;39;53;00 – 00;40;17;21

Jeramiah

I was like, so emotional. I went to my room, I texted my my pupils were just like super excited. I was like, Oh, my God, know, you put this thing on a pedestal for how long? And you get there and then that that lasts a moment in time, right? And then you kind of crash and now you’re thinking, okay, I got a long way to go till I can become now that I’m qualified to go to the Ranger regiment.

00;40;18;15 – 00;40;34;26

Jeramiah

Now the next step is I need I want to get a Ranger platoon. That doesn’t happen overnight. You got to go. Basically do a staff position and work your way down. And even then, it’s competitive. If there’s a guy that’s at the Ranger regiment or the Ranger officer that’s better than you or senior you. They’re going to put him down first.

00;40;35;08 – 00;40;39;11

Aaron

So you’re pushing on the throttle. You can’t coast at this point if you’re going to make it.

00;40;39;12 – 00;40;39;27

Jeramiah

Yeah.

00;40;39;27 – 00;40;45;19

Aaron

So so if you’re tired at all, it’s like, too bad. You got it. You got to push even harder. Yeah.

00;40;45;19 – 00;41;07;24

Jeramiah

So, you know, I’m throughout this period of time, I’m just I’m hoping for the dream job. I want to lead Rangers in combat. Right. And as as we’re moving through time, the wars overseas, you know, and the war in Afghanistan is getting smaller and smaller. You know, there’s less US soldiers there and less rangers are getting a chance to go and serve in combat overseas.

00;41;08;24 – 00;41;27;21

Jeramiah

And so there’s a lot of there’s a lot of time in this. In this chapter, I was a Ranger where it looked like I was going to get pushed down to becoming a Ranger platoon leader and it wasn’t going to happen. And then I did. And then same thing with the deployments. I did multiple deployments with the Rangers, but I wanted to be the Strikeforce one platoon leader.

00;41;27;21 – 00;42;02;03

Jeramiah

I wanted to go overseas and do some raids and live that dream. Right. And again, the chances are getting smaller and smaller because there’s less people overseas. And so I was through through that all my my platoon, the Bad Mothers platoon, ended up getting selected to be the Strikeforce one platoon overseas and out of so out of the entire Ranger regiment, there was two platoons out of all the battalions, all three battalions and the headquarters of four before you want to call for, there’s two platoons that go overseas to do high value target raids.

00;42;02;06 – 00;42;22;04

Jeramiah

Yep. And little Jeremiah Sullivan from Training Center in California becomes the Strikeforce one platoon leader to go lead those missions. So there’s there’s me and one other Ranger officer, the entire army that have been granted this this responsibility and get to serve with the other amazing heroes that get to go do this mission.

00;42;22;05 – 00;42;28;01

Aaron

Do what do you what do you think made you different than all these other highly qualified people that were going for it?

00;42;28;01 – 00;42;48;27

Jeramiah

You know, uh, it’s it was a lot like winning the lottery, man. It felt like luck. It felt like opportunity. It felt like. I think, you know, when I look at it that I should not have been in that position through all the adversity, through all the just the way that things lined up, just just the odds were just it seemed like they were against me the whole time.

00;42;48;27 – 00;43;12;21

Jeramiah

And I know a lot of my guys probably felt the same way that they ended up going overseas. Do they feel like they were never going to go live that cool guy deployment dream? Right. And if I had to pick something that, you know, it’s hard to say, man. I mean, it’s I’ll I’ll just tell you what I actually think.

00;43;12;21 – 00;43;48;10

Jeramiah

So I when I when I decided to get started, when I decided to switch from enlisted to to a infantry officer, I prayed every single night. I prayed for living a you know, having a successful career, helping others along the way, fulfilling my purpose. And I asked God, you know, if you make me successful in this field as an infantry officer, I promise I’ll pay it forward tenfold every single day of my life.

00;43;48;28 – 00;44;13;25

Jeramiah

And I visualized and prayed every single night after I made the decision to switch. And in that that prayer came with conviction. And so every single day I made my goal to focus on paying it forward in advance, you know? And I feel like and I was imperfect, man. I made a lot of mistakes, you know, I failed.

00;44;13;25 – 00;44;33;17

Jeramiah

I all types of leadership failures. But I had I had good intention. And if you had asked me, like, what if there’s any reason why you landed that job of against all odds, I would say it’s because I was fulfilling that purpose. At least that’s the beliefs that I have. And then, yeah, I just I think that’s what I think that’s what it was.

00;44;33;26 – 00;44;46;16

Jeramiah

And I stayed the course. You know, a lot of my a lot of my peers, they wanted to go do real cool guy shit overseas, too. Like all the infantry officers I graduated with in college, they were all like, I want to I want to be in, you know, Green Beret, I want to be a Ranger, all this stuff.

00;44;46;19 – 00;45;07;19

Jeramiah

Yeah, but then when discouragement set in later on, like, Hey, doesn’t look like you’re going to go. Maybe they got to the Ranger regiment. Okay, they made it that far, but then for some reason, it didn’t look like they were going to be assigned to a Ranger. But soon, in the exact time that they wanted to back off a bit, they back off and said, You know what, I’m going to go over here.

00;45;07;21 – 00;45;22;22

Jeramiah

The grass is greener over here. I’m gonna go to the set up, I’m gonna go to the FBI, I’m going to go and I go actually switch over and I’m a go off now. And so they go off course. And so I think a lot of it was consistency and persistence, even when it didn’t look like I was going to get that job at all.

00;45;23;23 – 00;45;41;23

Jeramiah

And I and a little bit of, you know, just having gratitude and trying to fulfill that purpose every single day. And here’s the weird shit, man. And I don’t know if I’ve heard this on a podcast is I went and did this a high value target rate overseas. Okay, I was a Ranger. We were over there with the bad mothers and I come off this mission.

00;45;42;02 – 00;45;58;08

Jeramiah

We had some guys that got killed on the objective, not not us. We had some. It was a capture or kill mission. We had some enemy combatants that were killed and we got in, we got out, we had mission success. But I got home and I lay down, I say home. It was my barracks room over and overseas.

00;45;58;08 – 00;46;25;03

Jeramiah

Right. And completely exhausted. Adrenaline dump just happens. I lay down. It’s like 8:00 or 9:00, maybe 10:00 in the morning, because it was a night raid. And I lay on my bed and I close my eyes and I had this like, holy shit, all that visualization that you’ve done prior, all those prayers, like so leading up to this, when I would do those prayers and that visualization, there was this one image that I saw every single night.

00;46;25;07 – 00;46;41;21

Jeramiah

It was it was fighting in combat in this valley with, you know, these leaders around me. And there was just chaos. And I’m not going to go into the specifics, but certain people were doing certain things and there was a little bit of fear there. There was me trying to rise to the occasion. There was my guys getting hurt, and this was just an image that I didn’t create.

00;46;41;21 – 00;46;59;27

Jeramiah

It was just in my head. And then I lay down years later, I come off this mission and I close my eyes and I’m like, Holy shit, I just live the exact fucking image that I’ve had in my head for like seven years. And so I don’t, you know, you guys asked, what do you think caused you to get that position?

00;46;59;27 – 00;47;09;23

Jeramiah

I mean, I don’t know, man. I don’t know if it was divine intervention or whatever, but it was just a crazy feeling. It feels weird to even say it on here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;47;10;10 – 00;47;18;27

Aaron

You didn’t I mean, you didn’t close the door on yourself either. I mean, you talked with these guys that backed off like it sounds like you to me. You were surprised over and over again.

00;47;18;27 – 00;47;19;25

Jeramiah

Oh, the whole journey.

00;47;19;26 – 00;47;38;18

Aaron

They said yes. And you could have easily said they’re not going to say yes, I’m going to back off. Yeah, but you were willing to go all the way to the end and let them make the decision. Yeah. So you’re kind of you’re walking in this like I’m praying, as you say, Like I’m praying as if this is going to happen until someone says no, I guess.

00;47;38;18 – 00;47;41;01

Aaron

Really? Yeah. And then what happens? You’re like, Great.

00;47;41;01 – 00;47;59;17

Jeramiah

Like, I’m gonna run the play till. Till I get pulled off the line, right? Yeah. It’s like if I can get it, Great. I kind of detached from the outcome, too, so to speak, Like I wanted it. But I also felt so discouraged that I had to let up on it, because if I was, that was the only way I could reach fulfillment.

00;47;59;17 – 00;48;07;11

Jeramiah

So I detached it from the outcome. I said, You know, I probably won’t even get this assignment that chasing. Let me just focus on doing a good job and trying to fulfill my purpose. Yeah.

00;48;07;22 – 00;48;26;23

Jon

I just love that because that right there, it’s it’s you adjusted your satisfaction to being entitled to the work, not to the fruit, not to the reward. Yeah, right. And you used some words that really stood out to me. Like you just were grateful to be there, giving your best in the pursuit of that goal, of that idea of the opportunity.

00;48;26;23 – 00;48;43;03

Jon

And ultimately it got you into the position that was just good enough to give you the chance to maybe get to do it. Yeah. And then each day was just that chance to maybe show up and get to do it. But that’s all it was, is you didn’t earn anything except the opportunity to try again harder and to be grateful.

00;48;43;03 – 00;49;09;24

Jon

And in the thing that stood out to me the most, I’m so grateful you shared everything you just did because it was awesome. Yeah. And incredibly, I think, encouraging, right? It’s just it was raw and genuine. But you talked about you made it your goal because your promise to yourself in your promise to God, right, was if I can get to this place, I’ll pay it forward for ten years in advance instead of waiting to get there to start paying for it.

00;49;09;24 – 00;49;10;02

Jeramiah

Yeah.

00;49;10;13 – 00;49;15;01

Jon

You made it your goal. I’m going to pay for it everything I can in advance. Every day to day.

00;49;15;06 – 00;49;15;21

Jeramiah

Yeah.

00;49;15;22 – 00;49;26;19

Jon

Talk about good stewardship. Yep. And talk about taking ownership. But in selling yourself out, like, in a good way, like I’m sold out to this ideas. I want this. I’m promising this. I’m going to do it with what I have now.

00;49;26;19 – 00;49;52;05

Jeramiah

Yeah. I mean, I believe in proving what you say you’re going to do with action, right? So why would I talk about something I’m not actually going to do? And actually, that gets me in a little bit of trouble sometimes. I actually ran 103 miles because of that problem. I was I was sitting on my couch on a Sunday, and I’m looking at this certain person’s Instagram and I’m like, Man, this guy runs ultra endurance races.

00;49;52;06 – 00;50;00;27

Jeramiah

It looks so cool. And I was like, Man, I really want to do that one day. And then I start, you know, because the desire is there. I have this rule myself will prove.

00;50;00;27 – 00;50;04;28

Jon

It You said while sitting on the couch you had that desire, right? It’s funny how those two are. Sit on the couch.

00;50;04;28 – 00;50;22;21

Jeramiah

Yeah, exactly. And I guess those course I had a desire. Yeah. Yeah. You’re all nice and comfortable. Yes. This is a great idea. Until you get into it, like, Oh, my God. So I’m sitting there and I’m like this. Whenever I want something, I want to back it up with, like I said, the action right? So this job, I mean, prove it to you in advance, right?

00;50;22;21 – 00;50;37;20

Jeramiah

That type of thing. So I take some action and I go on social media excuse me, I go on Google and I look up races and I’m like, this guy’s doing the guy that I was looking at was running basically a marathon a day. He had done some hundred milers and I was like, That looks so cool. I got to try some stuff like that.

00;50;37;20 – 00;50;37;27

Jeramiah

Once I.

00;50;37;28 – 00;50;38;12

Jon

Went to shoot a.

00;50;38;12 – 00;50;57;07

Jeramiah

Bow, I can’t say, okay, there’s like he may or may not follow me on Instagram to Nice again. So, so I’m looking at his stuff and I’m like, I’m like, I think I want to do something like this. So I go on Google and I look and I find out, you know, I look at the race schedule. I’m like, Is there anything around me any time soon?

00;50;57;07 – 00;51;19;12

Jeramiah

And there’s a race and it’s it’s the following Saturday. And so I’m like, again, yeah, I don’t want to do this. Like, this makes me nervous. Okay, I’m clicking it. I’m signing up. Yeah. So I click, I sign up and then I’m immediately like, Fuck what I get myself into. Yeah. So I call a friend of mine who I knew had ran a few hundred miles before, and I’m like, Hey, just reality check, man.

00;51;19;12 – 00;51;25;19

Jeramiah

Like, am I going to die out here? And this day, not only is it a hundred mile race, but it’s, it’s in Silverheels, Colorado. Oh, good.

00;51;25;19 – 00;51;26;14

Aaron

So reservation.

00;51;26;15 – 00;51;45;25

Jeramiah

Yeah. So it’s 11,000 feet an average. Oh, no. We go from 9 to 13000 feet, the whole race and a 36 hour race. First one I’ve ever even thought of doing, and I’m signing up for it. Right. Ignorance is bliss, I guess. But second, my buddy, I’m like, Is this suicide? Yeah. And I’m like, he’s like, he’s like, what your running mileage been at?

00;51;45;26 – 00;52;01;07

Jeramiah

You know? What’s the longest run you’ve done? He’s, you know, if we’re going back and forth and he’s like, here’s my honest opinion. He’s like, he’s I think you can do it, but it’s not going to be pretty. Yeah. And he’s like, I think you’ll get through it just just based off of mental toughness. Yeah. And I was like, All right, it’s on me.

00;52;01;08 – 00;52;21;09

Jeramiah

And so I committed to and I drove it was Saturday morning or see me Friday. My wife had business, so I took a fuckin Uber to like almost 2 hours drive from my house with a grocery bag full of shit, like an extra pair of shoes and some snacks. Like I had no idea what to pack or bring, right?

00;52;21;27 – 00;52;36;13

Jeramiah

And I had figured out I’d done a little bit of research prior to the event. Not super detail stuff, but I asked my my buddy like, what’s the most if you had any piece advice, what’s the piece of advice you give me to complete this thing? Great question. He’s you know, he said, hey, just prepare for mile 70.

00;52;37;10 – 00;52;54;06

Jeramiah

And I said, why seven? He said, Well, because if you if you think about Miles 70, he’s like, you’re going to pace yourself a little differently. You’re going to eat differently and you’re going to pass the hardest part. And I said, okay. So I, I built my whole plan around at Mile 70. The how I had my my bag set up on the course was a complete disaster.

00;52;55;04 – 00;53;13;03

Jeramiah

And I ended up driving from my house to that Uber. I showed up Friday night. I woke up at 2:00 in the morning. 4:00 was the start time and we start taking off. And I mean, it was a nasty it was a nasty 100 miler, not pretty. And they almost had to pull me off of the mountain like Mile 20.

00;53;13;17 – 00;53;19;06

Jeramiah

Oh, no. So it was, it was gross. I can go into detail but didn’t finish it, so I did finish it. So yeah.

00;53;19;10 – 00;53;28;01

Jon

Let’s have some fun. Like if we’re like Waterman, we’re going to go where it makes sense to go right with the flow. So you’re you sign up a week prior.

00;53;28;04 – 00;53;29;07

Jeramiah

Yeah. Yeah.

00;53;29;07 – 00;53;33;14

Jon

I think you can do it based off mental toughness and you have the basic conditioning to say you probably won’t die.

00;53;33;14 – 00;53;33;22

Jeramiah

Yeah.

00;53;34;07 – 00;53;39;03

Jon

So you go, you’re preparing for mile 70. It doesn’t sound like you have race support. Yeah. You just have a bag.

00;53;39;03 – 00;53;43;06

Jeramiah

No, no team, which everybody has a team when you’re out there and I know.

00;53;43;12 – 00;53;44;13

Jon

It’s a solo Uber.

00;53;44;18 – 00;53;58;12

Jeramiah

We’re not even right. You know what a drop bag was? Somebody said, Hey, what’s your Roger drop bag? I said, What the fuck is that? Yeah, It’s like you’re going to like, I got a grocery bag full of snacks. I put it into smaller bags and you’re going to die. Oh, seven mile 22.

00;53;58;20 – 00;54;02;28

Jon

Why? Why did they almost pull you off? And then what happened? Did you finish it? I’m assuming you did I say, Hey, Todd.

00;54;02;29 – 00;54;22;20

Jeramiah

Yeah. So I think I did finish the race. So what happens? I’m I’m wearing a pair of like $50 pair of under armor shoes. Yeah. Okay. I brought a second pair of shoes there to transition into after the first night iteration. So I show up and we start racing. You know, it’s. It’s 4:00 in the morning, and I have no idea what I’m doing.

00;54;22;20 – 00;54;37;14

Jeramiah

So I run next to some more experienced guys and I basically start learning how to complete 100 mile race, 100 mile race. I’m asking them questions like, Hey, what do you guys eat when you do these things right? Like, how often do you eat those type of things?

00;54;37;17 – 00;54;39;16

Jon

And they’re like, Dude, we’re running.

00;54;39;16 – 00;54;52;21

Jeramiah

We’re like already going uphill. And so we’re I’m and, and these guys are experienced. Yeah. Come to find out. One of the guys I was running with was the only person. History is the only person in history that’s ran 100 consecutive 100 milers so different.

00;54;52;22 – 00;54;54;11

Aaron

So you got lucky picking and like that. Yeah.

00;54;54;19 – 00;54;55;07

Jeramiah

I didn’t know the.

00;54;55;07 – 00;54;56;07

Jon

Executive by what.

00;54;56;07 – 00;55;07;25

Jeramiah

Weekends. Okay. He ran every weekend for 100. He ran 100 miles. Only person history has ever done that. And I didn’t know anything about this guy. I’m running next to him and I’m like, trotting next to him for the first ten miles. That’s a problem.

00;55;07;29 – 00;55;08;24

Jon

Yeah, that’s cool.

00;55;08;24 – 00;55;23;13

Jeramiah

You guys running too fast? Like I should not be. So I’m, like, asking him questions, and he’s telling me how he eats. I’m like, What about sleep? Do you guys not sleep out here? Is that cool? Or how do you do it? I never forget. He said you’d be surprised. 5 minutes can buy you an hour. Hmm. And he.

00;55;23;13 – 00;55;41;10

Jeramiah

What he was saying is that if you need to take a knee for 5 minutes, do it because you’re going to get a whole hour of energy after that. So I would use that technique throughout the night and stuff. But anyways, I’m running with these guys and I blow up because I’m running away too fast. We’re going uphill and there’s some you know, there’s some hypoxia in there probably as well, because I’m running a little hubris.

00;55;41;12 – 00;55;59;00

Jeramiah

Yeah, exactly. So I get nauseous in the first five miles. I don’t have the nutrition stuff on me like I need. I know this all sounds like this guy’s an idiot, right? I guess that’s what people are thinking. But I just made some simple mistakes a little quick and. I’m learning as I go and I’m adjusting on the fly.

00;55;59;19 – 00;56;17;28

Jeramiah

When I get to mile like 15, it’s still straight up. This is for, you know, ten, 20 miles uphill the whole time. And I’m at mile 20 and I’m my stomach’s turned upside down. I have the worst headache I’ve ever had in my life. I’m sick. I’m like, dizzy, have sunburn, and I’m like, There’s no fucking way I can finish a hundred miles.

00;56;18;02 – 00;56;34;05

Jeramiah

Yeah. And and so I’m like, Just get to the aid station, recoup and then and then decide whether or not you’re going to pull forward. And so I get out there and I hit that aid station and I kind of like a wounded animal. I basically, like, hide out, right? I’m like, I go to find a shady spot.

00;56;34;06 – 00;56;48;00

Jeramiah

I take off my shoes and I just, like, collapse. And I’m like, Dude, I’m so fucked up. They have to pull me off of this mountain with, like, the litter is what I’m thinking, or a helicopter or something. I can’t get all the, you know, scars, screaming. Yeah, yeah. And so I’m sitting there and I’m like, in pain.

00;56;48;00 – 00;57;03;23

Jeramiah

I’m like, Why are you doing this? Or You can’t complete this thing. You still have 80 miles to go. And I’m laying there. And one of the things I did before the race was I got a clear why, right? I’m like, Why are you doing this? Why are you going to honor my race? And I said that I have these goals that I’m working on, okay?

00;57;03;24 – 00;57;30;24

Jeramiah

I have business goals, family goals, real estate goals. And like, if you’re really, truly committed to these things long term, prove it by sacrificing and committing to this 100 mile race. So that was my y proving proving that I’m I’m invested in my goals, real world with action. Right? And so I’m laying there and my wife is coming back up and I’m like, I’m like, if you’re serious about these goals, you don’t quit, right?

00;57;30;24 – 00;57;47;18

Jeramiah

You do not quit. That’s what you’re proven right now. And if there’s ever a moment like God spoke to me, it was in this moment where at that 20 mile marker, I got hit with this energy and it was like game time. I’m like, I don’t I do not fucking they’re not pulling me off this mountain. And those voices started again.

00;57;48;01 – 00;58;07;20

Jeramiah

So scar on one side, symbol on the other. And I was over there are Simba telling Scar like, You’re going to get up and we’re going to move forward or I’m, I’m going to drag your corpse for the next 80 fucking right. It’s not like you’re close, right? It was the it was one of the most darkest experience I’ve ever been I’ve had in my life where I’m just in this.

00;58;07;20 – 00;58;25;02

Jeramiah

And for the next, like, 20 miles. Okay, I’m in this. It was almost like this cloud was around me. Yeah, it was dark. I’m by myself. Nobody’s around. It’s just one foot in the front, the other. And climbing up this hill. I get to the top of the 40 mile marker. And when I get to the top of this thing, it’s like the cloud.

00;58;25;02 – 00;58;47;15

Jeramiah

The sky is clear, and I have this new energy and I’m like, Holy shit, dude, I think I can finish this thing. And so, like, Scar basically goes away there. Simba and I start trotting again and I keep pushing and I push into the night the nights, another dark time. It’s basically I’m in ranger panties in a fucking t shirt up in the elevation elevation.

00;58;47;15 – 00;58;48;10

Jon

It’s the time of year. It.

00;58;48;27 – 00;58;51;07

Jeramiah

It’s, it was like August timeframe.

00;58;51;07 – 00;58;52;25

Jon

So okay so it’s still gets chilly enough.

00;58;52;26 – 00;59;08;29

Jeramiah

It was it we got down to 30 degrees. Yeah it was 30 degrees up there. And not only that, but when you’ve been movin for 24 hours, your body temperature drops and so I’m, I’m in ranger pants and a t shirt and just trekking through the night like sleep like Ranger school. Sleepy, tired.

00;59;09;13 – 00;59;16;01

Jon

In real quick, just over Ranger panties are essentially like a man thong. You know, it is like the bare minimum. You think Speedo.

00;59;16;01 – 00;59;17;23

Jeramiah

They’re loose boxer shorts? Pretty much. Yeah.

00;59;17;27 – 00;59;20;19

Jon

Very short there. They’re a lot of pride in there.

00;59;20;28 – 00;59;25;18

Jeramiah

As you earn that, you go to Ranger School, you earn the right to wear Ranger panties later on. Right.

00;59;25;18 – 00;59;29;22

Jon

So I just want make sure everyone had that. So they had the visualization of you dying on the side of the mountain.

00;59;30;07 – 00;59;31;05

Jeramiah

In the dark.

00;59;31;13 – 00;59;32;07

Jon

In short shorts.

00;59;32;07 – 00;59;55;02

Jeramiah

Yeah, I did. So it’s like I push and I go through the night and that’s a nasty fight. It’s just me constantly fighting, falling asleep, waking back up one foot in front of the other, like sleeping while you’re walking, you know, like hiking and shit. So I push and then the sun rises. Actually, yeah, the sun rises and one of the guys tells me, Hey, there’s your good bro.

00;59;55;02 – 01;00;11;27

Jeramiah

Like, there’s no more gates left on this race. Meaning you just have to finish the course. There’s no checkpoints that. You have to meet. You have to be on time for. Okay, okay. So I’m like, since that’s a sense of relief, I can go at my own pace. I just got to finish this thing according to what I think makes sense.

01;00;11;27 – 01;00;13;00

Jeramiah

I don’t have to race to the next.

01;00;13;00 – 01;00;14;24

Jon

Checkpoint to not get disqualified, essentially.

01;00;14;24 – 01;00;15;05

Jeramiah

Exactly.

01;00;15;05 – 01;00;21;25

Jon

So that’s how that was there, because I know that for a lot of these races there’s qualifying events. Yeah. So for this one, you had to meet the checkpoints or they pull you.

01;00;21;25 – 01;00;24;20

Jeramiah

Yeah, exactly. So if you’re behind a certain time, they pull you from the course.

01;00;24;20 – 01;00;27;02

Jon

Gotcha. Just as a liability thing. Yeah.

01;00;27;02 – 01;00;43;24

Jeramiah

Yeah. And they can’t spend the weekend cleaning up people that are super super far behind. Yeah. It’s just, it’s a big nightmare. So they draw the line. Okay, But the guy comes in and he, you know, I’m at the one of the aid stations and he’s like, Hey, bro, you’re good. You know, you have to finish the rest of the it was basically, you know, 12 hours or something like that.

01;00;44;09 – 01;01;07;24

Jeramiah

And I’m like, oh, since relief, I just kind of walk and jog and and walk and jog. And so I’m going I’m closing in on on mile think it was 70 if I remember right like I’m in the sixties, right? I’m in the going towards where my buddy told me you know to be prepared for mile 70 and I get to the next checkpoint and I run into that guy that I told you about, the one that completely it was the game of Honda’s 100 consecutive hundred miles.

01;01;07;24 – 01;01;22;04

Jeramiah

Yeah, I bump into him. He’s like, Bro, are you going so slow and I was like, We’re good. This guy told me there’s no checkpoints. He’s like, No, you have to be on time for all the checkpoints. We have like 20 minutes before we got to get to the next one. And I’m like, fuck. So and we were.

01;01;22;08 – 01;01;25;24

Jon

How did he find you? Was that just circumstantially circumstance?

01;01;25;24 – 01;01;41;10

Jeramiah

Yeah. Yeah, like I was. Yeah. He, he had, I think he, like, caught a power nap and he was on like number 40 of these, so he’s pretty experienced. Just timing himself. Yeah. And so he caught a power nap and then he caught up with me. And when he saw me, I’m, like, taken. I’m, like, casually walking down the road, like, no care in the world, right?

01;01;42;06 – 01;02;01;19

Jeramiah

He’s like, We’re behind schedule. I’m like, Fuck. So we run. No more like, no, we run four miles, you know, 60 towards 70, you know, I don’t know. We’re somewhere in there. But it was basically almost a full hour of straight sprinting when you’re already past mile 60. And it was most painful, one of the most painful legs of the journey.

01;02;02;09 – 01;02;16;26

Jeramiah

And so I get to the next checkpoint and there’s one minute to spare and I cross the line and they’re like, you don’t have time. You’re not allowed to stay here past the cutoff time, so you’re going to grab a drink. You have to leave your drop bag, your shoes, and you have to get out the get the fuck out, and.

01;02;16;26 – 01;02;19;05

Jon

They’ll carry it to the next checkpoint. No bag. It’s just gone.

01;02;19;05 – 01;02;28;02

Jeramiah

It’s gone. Okay. It’s gone now. Fine. So my a change of shoes. You know, I had a new set that I was going to wear and new socks and all that shit. I didn’t get access to any of it because why did.

01;02;28;02 – 01;02;29;18

Jon

They make you drop it out? Curiosity.

01;02;29;18 – 01;02;55;09

Jeramiah

So they the drop they have, it’s basically a resupply bag that they put at mile 70 for everybody. And they stage it there because you’re going to go through a night evolution. Yeah. And that’s the place that makes the most logical sense for you to, you know, get new shoes and everything. So anyways, I didn’t get I didn’t get to put mine on and, and I saw more of the same 50 pair under armor shoes, same socks end up run finished in the last leg of the race and the last five miles.

01;02;56;16 – 01;03;11;24

Jeramiah

You know, I came out there to push myself, came out there to see what I had to prove myself to myself, show that I’m committed to my goals. And the last five miles, people were basically kind of, you know, being complacent and they’re like, Hey, we’re good. We’re on time, we’re on track. And everybody’s kind of walking casually towards the finish line.

01;03;12;12 – 01;03;29;06

Jeramiah

And I catch myself kind of conforming to that, you know, And I and I’m like walking with them and I am going on and it’s maybe, you know, I got four or three more miles left and I realized, bro, you’re taking it easy right now. You’re acting like you’ve arrived already. And I’m like, Fuck that. And I saw I came here to push myself.

01;03;29;06 – 01;03;48;28

Jeramiah

And so I start sprinting and that last three miles, what I was basically in tears, like off and on, running 400 meters, stopping, walking, running 400 yards, stopping, walking, like trying to fight back, you know, the emotion. And I cross the finish line with that, that pace. And my wife is there and I didn’t realize I was going to tear up as I was coming through.

01;03;48;28 – 01;04;03;17

Jeramiah

But I did. I teared up. I was holding it back because she was filming me. She good and I hugged her and got in the car and within fucking 3 minutes I fell asleep in the passenger seat just drawing on myself. Yeah. Do you have any.

01;04;04;01 – 01;04;07;04

Jon

Well, that’s. That’s awesome. Do you have anything, any thought?

01;04;07;04 – 01;04;09;02

Aaron

Oh, my gosh. That’s. That’s an incredible.

01;04;09;02 – 01;04;30;08

Jeramiah

Story. Yeah, it was. It was tough, but I guess, you know, somebody is listening right now, like it’s we’re sharing my story. I’m nothing special. And what you guys what I would just, you know, maybe give to the audience is that one of the things that got me through that honey was connecting while I was doing what I was doing with my action, with with future stuff that I was working on.

01;04;30;13 – 01;04;40;02

Jeramiah

But I’m doing this for this that help me out of time. Another thing I did was, you know, I got ahead of the inner dialog in advance. Okay. So that week before the event.

01;04;40;03 – 01;04;40;23

Aaron

Anticipated.

01;04;40;23 – 01;04;59;21

Jeramiah

It. Yeah. So went and I called what I call my power people. So I got about five people in my life, maybe little more where I know, like your parents, you probably have a parent who’s like this, you call them and it doesn’t matter what’s going on in life. They’re like, super encouraging. Oh, it’s okay, sweetie. Right? Like, they’re always, no matter what or friends are like this, they always talk good things to you.

01;04;59;21 – 01;05;15;15

Jeramiah

So I automatically called those people before the event and I said, Hey, man, how you doing? I want to catch up almost like a farewell, right? And how are you doing? Like, why are you calling? I’m just like, I just want to see what you’re up to. Just shot the shit. And then I’m like, Oh yeah. And I signed up for 100 miles and they’re like, Oh, when?

01;05;15;17 – 01;05;36;00

Jeramiah

Today. Yeah. Yeah. What is it? It’s in three days. Yeah. Well, hey, man, I want you to know that you’re going to, you know, you’re tough as nails, blah, blah, blah. All this, they’re saying positive things in my years. And so when I was out there, I was thinking about all of them and not like the scar that had been on my shoulder at those weak moments, you know, those voices kind of came back and prepared me internally for the route forward.

01;05;36;00 – 01;05;40;21

Aaron

Yeah, yeah. You’re kind of creating a bank of encouragement that you know, you’re going to rob from.

01;05;40;21 – 01;05;52;10

Jeramiah

Yeah. Oh, yeah. You need that. I mean, like I said, power people. You want power people in your life be selective and just and know that they’re, they serve that purpose in your life, right? Yeah. Do you feel that dialog so good.

01;05;52;10 – 01;06;13;23

Jon

There’s a, there’s a legion of voices that talk about when you have that goal that you want, that you start pursuing and you really hit a breaking point for yourself. A barrier. Yeah. The question of why am I doing this comes up, you know, if you’re not prepared for that question, that’s yeah, that’s a make or break and it’s for some reason all these challenges, I completely relate.

01;06;13;23 – 01;06;27;27

Jon

It’s when I’m fed fat and happy in a comfy spot and like, Oh, I should do this. I don’t want to. Oh, I have to. And then it’s terrible. And at some point and here’s how I know if it’s not hard enough, if you don’t get that, why am I doing this point? Yeah, you’re like, okay, I’m not pushing it.

01;06;28;06 – 01;06;33;11

Jeramiah

Like those fucking burpees today. Yeah, I was like, Why am I?

01;06;33;11 – 01;06;50;19

Jon

But that’s like one of those great like signals that you’re on the right track, right? You’re, you’re on the path. It’s like, Yeah, I’ll go a little bit further. So like, a lot of what you’re talking about, third life navigational tools. Yes. So it’s like, okay, why am I doing these suffering Saturdays? Because it will help keep me on the right path.

01;06;50;19 – 01;07;17;11

Jon

I will know I anyone can know if they don’t start screaming at themselves to lie to themselves. I don’t want to do this hard thing. And if I just conditioned myself repeatedly over time, invest in myself to trust that I’ll say yes to do those are things that will create some momentum. Yeah. And if I can think in advance why and answer that question than when I don’t have anything else, I can at least say I am doing this because it’s proving to me whatever your why is.

01;07;17;18 – 01;07;35;26

Jeramiah

Yes, this is where people get jacked up a lot of people or have this false illusion that you’re why should almost be like planted like your purpose should be given to you, like it should be this gift that comes to you in this enlightened moment. Right. And it’s not it’s a little it’s the whisper. Why am I doing this?

01;07;35;26 – 01;07;58;29

Jeramiah

The whisper plus choice. Mm. It’s. It’s the decision. You’re going to command it. This is my fucking. This is. I don’t know if you guys allow me because I have to do it the whole time. You get. I’m sorry for that, but I get. I’m getting out. So amped is good. Let’s go with it. Yeah. So You know, when you make it, when you put purpose, when you decide on what your purpose is or what your why is, it’s 50% whisper calling.

01;07;59;15 – 01;08;18;03

Jeramiah

Okay, well, you’ve got this kind of telling you to do and then 50% choice. Yeah, this is what I’m going to choose as my purpose. This is what I’m gonna choose. And then when you make that decision that, okay, this is why I’m doing it, then what happens As you’re pursuing the goal, you reinforce the why and then you basically build it over and over and it compounds and compounds.

01;08;18;03 – 01;08;23;01

Jeramiah

It come on stronger and stronger, stronger, right. Until it’s conviction. This is why I’m doing it. This is why me. That’s good.

01;08;23;02 – 01;08;31;04

Aaron

Yeah. You’re kind of you kind of creating a rut in your mind. Yeah, that. That Now this is how we react when we make wise in our in head. Yeah.

01;08;31;23 – 01;08;53;04

Jon

In, in, in even more So that’s all your internal stuff, right. So it’s like, okay, I’m conditioning myself to do the hard things. I’m giving myself reason to rely on when I’m depleted. That to help me answer that why? But then I have to prove it. That’s the action piece, right? I do. Okay. I know it now. I have to do it or I’m going to have this huge existential problem I have to deal with, right?

01;08;53;04 – 01;09;06;14

Jon

So I’m going to do it. And then the third. So those are all like just for navigation. It’s kind of like trying to get from point A to point B, you’re just navigating your own mind in the pursue these goals. And then I love how you talk about your Power five or your power circle are.

01;09;06;15 – 01;09;07;00

Jeramiah

People Yeah.

01;09;07;01 – 01;09;07;25

Jon

You’re thinking power.

01;09;07;25 – 01;09;09;20

Jeramiah

People, power people and dream team.

01;09;09;24 – 01;09;10;07

Jon

Power people.

01;09;10;16 – 01;09;27;05

Jeramiah

You want out. You want power people what you’re like if you’re thinking if you’re like an MMA fighter or something, you’re thinking, these are the people that are in your corner. Yeah, right. And you need to have a dream team to dream team are like, is your advisors, your counselors, these people in the kind of the periphery that you seek advice from and wisdom from.

01;09;27;21 – 01;09;43;25

Jeramiah

So you know, maybe it’s a financial advisor in some people’s life or maybe it’s you know somebody is in real estate or somebody that you build these people, this dream team and then you can you can leverage them as you’re trying to go through life, you know, too many times. Like it’s a poor mentality to try to do things alone.

01;09;44;06 – 01;10;00;06

Jeramiah

It really is. I grew up like that thinking that I should do everything myself. I’m going to build my life and myself and I do all this stuff myself. But if you really want to succeed, you got you want that dream team and you want those power people because you’re going to need it. If you’re if you’re really, truly trying to push yourself to the next level, you’re going to need that specific requirement.

01;10;01;06 – 01;10;01;26

Jon

Because you’re not going to have.

01;10;01;26 – 01;10;02;14

Jeramiah

Enough. No.

01;10;02;22 – 01;10;03;10

Jon

You’re not going to need.

01;10;03;10 – 01;10;21;16

Jeramiah

Every advantage you can get to get through that stuff. Yeah. Every advantage you can get just when you’re overseas, you know, you’re doing missions or raids, like the stuff that gets you through that is not your ego. And you’re like the goal that you’re after. It’s why you’re doing it, it’s for the people to your left and right, your wife back home, your friends, your left and right.

01;10;21;16 – 01;10;25;06

Jeramiah

You need those people to you perform for them. Yeah.

01;10;25;17 – 01;10;36;28

Aaron

Yeah. Because otherwise you’re going through your whole life. You’re just hoping the storm will never come and you realize that’s not life. There will be difficulty. And at that point, do you have people in your corner to weather that storm?

01;10;36;28 – 01;10;37;11

Jeramiah

Exactly.

01;10;37;20 – 01;10;54;15

Jon

You know, we talk a lot about as parents, we want to prepare our children for the road, not make the road easy for them. It’s kind of like when the storm hits, I’m at the end of myself. Have I done a good enough job? Have I been humble enough to actually build the support systems around me to be prepared?

01;10;54;15 – 01;11;06;20

Jon

Because like what you’re talking about, like it takes humility and vulnerability to have that power circle, to have that dream team. It’s like, I don’t have enough to do this where you help cover my gaps, man. You know, we always get courage.

01;11;06;20 – 01;11;07;23

Jeramiah

Yeah, it takes courage.

01;11;08;03 – 01;11;16;22

Jon

And it’s beautiful, though. It’s good. There’s a quote we’re really fond of on this show. It comes up every few episodes, but I think it’s an old African proverb. You go further together, right?

01;11;17;18 – 01;11;18;27

Jeramiah

Yeah. Thank you.

01;11;18;27 – 01;11;22;22

Jon

Further together. I know. I was like, Oh, yeah, we say it all the time and I completely botched it. Yeah.

01;11;23;09 – 01;11;24;08

Jeramiah

Yeah, that’s it.

01;11;24;08 – 01;11;28;17

Jon

Thank you for the correction, but it just ties directly into that.

01;11;28;22 – 01;11;45;09

Aaron

Yeah, that’s, and that’s a lot of what we talk about on the podcast is like we know like when the difficulty comes in sometimes you’d self-inflicted. It’s almost like you, you’re creating your own, you’re making a test too for yourself. Yeah, it’s like, hey, I just want to get really familiar.

01;11;45;09 – 01;11;51;21

Jeramiah

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what you mean. You about like a building, like building an ecosystem around you to perform through the thing that’s that.

01;11;51;21 – 01;12;10;19

Aaron

But also, when you’re doing these, like, these suffering Saturdays, it’s like, this wasn’t. This isn’t something I have to do, but I’m creating it because I know there’ll be a feeling that’s like this in the future that I didn’t choose. And when it when it does happen, I’m very familiar with what it feels like to be uncomfortable and afraid.

01;12;10;20 – 01;12;25;29

Jeramiah

Yeah, Yeah. And I would also say you’ve got to be clear about who you’re trying to be and what you’re to do in life, right? Yeah. Like, like my, my suffering SATs are always tied to my goals. Like, I want to be in better shape. So I’m ready. Physical things. I want to move my business forward so I do business things on Saturdays sometimes.

01;12;25;29 – 01;12;46;06

Jeramiah

So, you know, for me, when I made the commitment for suffering Saturdays, let’s just say I asked myself, What is this going to do for me? And does this help me get to where I want to go? Right? And I said, okay, if I if I’m if I’m designing this thing to help me get to my goals and I’m committed to it and do it every single weekend, it’s going to make me better.

01;12;46;06 – 01;12;55;25

Jeramiah

It’s going to make me get there. So it just it just becomes that logical step, right? It’s like, yeah, it’s a clear path that is true. Tied to the vision state of the vision for myself.

01;12;56;00 – 01;13;04;26

Jon

I want to go back because I think we left something on the table because you got to care about ecosystems. Yeah. So? So that sounds like maybe a mental framework or tool that you use. Can we talk about that? What is.

01;13;04;26 – 01;13;34;08

Jeramiah

That? Yes. So an ecosystem is essentially like I think a lot of people don’t know, but it’s where life is created and and is formed, right? So human we all live in an ecosystem, but an ecosystem is also a strategy for improvement. Okay. The Amazon rainforest has an ecosystem, right? Pretty harsh environment, but so does maybe the Sahara Desert right to ecosphere stems with different life forms there.

01;13;34;20 – 01;13;55;00

Jeramiah

So in what happens in the Amazon rainforest, you have tons of humidity, tons of heat, and there’s tons of vegetation. Yeah. And in the harsher terrain there isn’t much life form. So human beings will become a product of their ecosystem. So I’m always thinking about how can I improve my ecosystem to produce better, quote, like very good plant or make myself better?

01;13;55;18 – 01;14;15;04

Jeramiah

Like when I went to the Ranger regiment, that was a great ecosystem. Those guys demanded a lot. Yup, man. And I like to use the 12 Mile Rock March as an example of how that ecosystem transformed me. When I came into the military as a private, I was doing 12 miles with five or £45 rock in around 4 hours.

01;14;15;10 – 01;14;34;13

Jeramiah

Okay? And I was it was brutal for me. And as my career changed, I started seeing other people performing at a higher level. And when I got to the Rangers, I saw guys doing subs, you know, basically sub to our 12 milers. And so I started studying them and I’m starting to mentally raise the bar of what I think I can do.

01;14;34;13 – 01;15;00;12

Jeramiah

I study their habits and the next thing you know, I get after I left the Ranger regiment, I did my fastest ruck march time in, one hour and 57 minutes. I came in at 4 hours. The effort was the same every single time. But the only thing that changed among those chapters was my ecosystem. I was rising to the level of the people around me when I first came in, and then as I went through my career, I started adapting and adjusting to the people that were doing better than me.

01;15;00;12 – 01;15;16;25

Jeramiah

And I started competing with them. And then I create. I do the better time. I didn’t even know sub 2 hours was possible. Yeah, when I was when I was a private, you know. But then here I am, I get into Nissan and I see guys doing it and I’m like, and then I rise up. So your ecosystem will, will cause you to perform and cause you.

01;15;17;05 – 01;15;21;14

Aaron

That’s brilliant. That’s brilliant because you’re using, using peer pressure to your advantage.

01;15;21;25 – 01;15;35;10

Jeramiah

Yeah. Like my cage fight that I had in January, right? Guys were talking about the cage fight that I did and they were like, Talk to me. You asked me questions about worries, concern and one of the things I tell them is like they’re like, what was the fear that you had when you went in there? And I was like, I don’t wanna let people down, man.

01;15;35;17 – 01;15;50;24

Jeramiah

Yeah, that’s what drove like my preparation for the fight. I didn’t want to let the people let the people around me down. So every day I’m, I’m showing up and giving my best because I know when I go in there and it’s me versus him and my friends, my family, my ecosystem sees me lose, I’m going to be disappointed.

01;15;50;24 – 01;15;55;07

Jeramiah

So let me rise the expectation and perform for them. That pressure is good, man.

01;15;56;00 – 01;16;15;08

Jon

And is it very good? I want to just so now talked about, you know, listening to your inner voices so that you can actually start to tell, oh, here’s something hard I need do to get better. Oh, I need a specific intentional group of people that I can go to who believe in me and who will invest in me positively.

01;16;15;08 – 01;16;31;10

Jon

Right. Just encouragement. So so you know, you’re doing that. And then you’re not just engineering, like, okay, I’m going to do this thing because it helped me achieve this goal, but how can I create my entire ecosystem, the world in which I live? Yeah. So that it, even on a bad day, will force me to become better? Yep.

01;16;31;10 – 01;16;34;10

Jon

Yep. And that’s kind of fun. That’s a lot of fun.

01;16;34;15 – 01;16;51;15

Jeramiah

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so. So as I started improving physically and got into some endurance stuff. Yeah. On my lazy day, to your point. So I’m having a lazy day and I’m like, I don’t want to train, right? Yep. And I’m thinking, fuck me, I just take the day off, blah, blah, blah. So What do I do? I’m like, How do I, you know, maybe I can call a friend and see what they’re doing?

01;16;51;15 – 01;17;07;22

Jeramiah

So I call one of my friends who’s just an absolute animal. Again, the ecosystem. I said, Hey, man, what are you up to today? And it was a Saturday, right? It was. But this is way before suffering, okay? And I called him and I and he’s like, Oh, I just I got a half marathon that I’m running today or something like that.

01;17;07;22 – 01;17;20;17

Jeramiah

And I was like, I was thinking about sitting on the couch. And when he says he’s doing a half marathon, then I’m like, Crap, Now I got to rise to the level I get up, I put on my shoes, I go perform. Yep. Right. So that that’s the power of the ecosystem. It helps push you up and get you to do the thing.

01;17;20;23 – 01;17;21;03

Jeramiah

You know.

01;17;21;24 – 01;17;43;20

Jon

It’s really it’s really hard to climb out of sludge, right like that. Yeah, right. Like if if you’re surrounded and and this is we’re being intentional about the what you’re in, it’s like you’re going to start wearing part of what you allow around yourself. So if you’re in an environment where people are two days ago, they’re accepting the bare minimum, they’re doing that type of lifestyle.

01;17;44;14 – 01;17;53;13

Jon

You’re not impervious to that. It’s going to like this is the shadow of the ecosystem, right? Like if you’re not intentional in creating what you’re, what is influencing you.

01;17;53;13 – 01;17;53;21

Jeramiah

Yeah.

01;17;54;09 – 01;18;16;18

Jon

Like, yeah, you may able to go spend a couple of hours in a situation and intentionally guard yourself from being degraded. But if you’re living in that situation, then then over time it will slow you down. Yeah, even if it’s marginal or even just starts seeping into your mind and Scar’s voice starts to get louder and you’re doing so much more than what’s around you, you’re demanded to do less, and it becomes that way.

01;18;16;18 – 01;18;35;27

Jon

So that’s the counterbalance what you have to like. I love the the analogy of the ecosystem. It’s such a great way to frame it because you have to create the stimulus around you. You have to engineer it so that it forces more. Because over the course of time what you find is your laziest day is better than what your best day was.

01;18;35;29 – 01;18;36;06

Jon

Mm hmm.

01;18;36;16 – 01;18;58;13

Jeramiah

Yeah. And being around those people, that ecosystem, it it caused you to make these 1% improvements across time that compounds. And you just get better and better and better. You know, the Chicago Bulls are a great example, right? If I, if you’re if you’re playing for college team, then you’re the Bulls. What happens? You get you’re going to get better the team you know especially in the nineties right like we’re going to talk Michael Jordan the Chicago Bulls right.

01;18;58;17 – 01;19;13;09

Jeramiah

You show up to that team. Michael Jordan’s going to demand a lot of you and hold everybody there. They’re going to be pulling their weight. They’re going to want you to rise up. So There’s two sides of performance. Okay? There’s what you what you there’s your ecosystem that’s that that is going to demand that you need a design to demand more of you.

01;19;13;19 – 01;19;24;11

Jeramiah

But then the next level is how do I become a michael Jordan? How do I be the driving factor in my ecosystem? How do I how do I increase the average of the people around me? That’s that’s the next level.

01;19;24;15 – 01;19;42;18

Jon

I just read it. How do you become uncommon amongst uncommon men? I just turned that way. Yeah. And I was like that. That’s a great way to put it. Yeah, right. So what chapter you in now? So you accomplished a bunch of those goals in the military, then you’re out, you went, did 103 mile race, you proved you have these goals you’re doing.

01;19;42;28 – 01;19;59;16

Jon

You mentioned that for the rest of your life you will pay for tenfold what you can to the best of your ability. You started doing that. You’re doing it now. It’s clear when you look at Conquer Academy, when you look at your Instagram feed and how you’re encouraging and working with people that you’re doing the best, you you it appears that you’re doing the best you can with that.

01;19;59;22 – 01;20;04;06

Jon

But how would you define this chapter, this challenge this part of your life?

01;20;04;27 – 01;20;27;14

Jeramiah

Yeah, I mean, I’m in I’m in a I mean, I’m always in a pay it forward chapter, right? Yeah. But basically, after that 100 miler was I was at a crossroads in my military career. I had to decide, Hey, man, are you staying in the military again now? Mm. And I realized what I was chasing all along in the military while I was on that hundred mile race, I was like, I’m chasing significance.

01;20;28;00 – 01;20;47;10

Jeramiah

I’m like everything I’ve done since the time I, you know, went to Iraq to become an infantry officer. It’s all tied towards making myself feel better about myself. And I realized that on the 100 miler. And I said, okay, so what is going to make me feel good about myself moving forward? And I my crossroads was, do I stay on the course that I’m on in the military?

01;20;47;10 – 01;21;09;02

Jeramiah

Go do the next, like, super secret squirrel assignment, or do I transition and get into entrepreneurship? I had already been coaching people at this point in time, so I had proof of concept to that. So that was my crossroads double down and go into coaching and teaching people leadership and performance or stay in the military. And so I asked myself some tough questions.

01;21;09;02 – 01;21;28;27

Jeramiah

I said, What’s the hardest path in front of me? You know, what is my gut say to do? And then I asked myself, what would my mentor tell me to do in this situation? And those that checklist told me to get out, I said the hardest thing that I can do right now is to leave a career where I literally built myself up from this little boy, this little shy man, very shy kid.

01;21;29;11 – 01;21;37;14

Jeramiah

And to a position where I kind of feel decent about myself. Right. Let me just give all that up and let me just jump into this unknown over here.

01;21;37;15 – 01;21;39;09

Jon

Yeah. Let me get naked and go into the dark.

01;21;39;10 – 01;21;47;13

Jeramiah

Yeah. So four months after that, I was out of the army and I started an entrepreneur. I doubled down on entrepreneurship.

01;21;47;16 – 01;21;55;07

Jon

So real quick, just, just for reference. So in August 21 year 20, 2021, when, when that decision.

01;21;56;05 – 01;22;14;28

Jeramiah

Yeah, that was at the end of 2019. Okay So my last day in the Army was December 31st, 2019. So 2020 was my first year out of the Army. Yeah, first full time in my business. So pandemic strikes and I’m a, I’m a business owner there and that was an interesting time.

01;22;14;28 – 01;22;16;29

Jon

Do you want to add resilience?

01;22;16;29 – 01;22;40;06

Jeramiah

Yeah, we brought in a lot of people that year. Well, I say we brought in a lot of the right people that year. We brought in people during a pandemic that chose to invest in themself and do hard things during a time when everybody else was fucking quitting. Like my clients, like one lady, she’s a geologist. She came in, she never ran more than eight miles in her life.

01;22;40;11 – 01;22;57;24

Jeramiah

She she ran a marathon in a blizzard just shortly after she joined Conker Academy. Mm. Well, she’s I ran her life eight miles to transform. She’s running a marathon in a blizzard. That’s crazy. Yeah. The geologist. Yeah. Okay. She’s an absolute animal. Not only that, but she takes a 12 month goal. She collapses it down to six weeks.

01;22;58;12 – 01;23;16;11

Jeramiah

The marathon was one of them. She went to buy another property and she was like, Yeah, I’ll do that. 12 months. She she ends up doing that six weeks. I have a friend who’s a business owner, does property management. He in. So I all these people came in to Conquer Academy that were tired of the world around them, tired of people in their shell.

01;23;16;21 – 01;23;22;15

Jeramiah

And they came in and they improved on themselves. And it’s been phenomenal because they renew and it’s just like these guys are warriors man.

01;23;23;03 – 01;23;49;11

Jon

In which beautiful So, so that’s beautiful. And I think that there’s something that highlight for everyone listening. And us here is like when, when things hit the fan, you engage with the trouble around you and one of two ways. Either it’s going to be an excuse to accept that things are hard and continue to by or be. You’re going to say no and you’re going to see it as some form of opportunity or is a breaking point to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.

01;23;49;23 – 01;24;07;22

Jon

And it could become a catalyst for something that may even give you the chance to see opportunity where everyone else sees disaster. And in I’m not trying to be overly specific with like two types of people there, but those are two ways that you can engage in those circumstances. In years. It’s like, okay, the hardest thing I can do is get out these start a business.

01;24;07;22 – 01;24;19;29

Jon

Then the pandemic hits and everyone’s freaking out and you’re finding yourself blessed to have the right people come in and say, No, I’m not going to let my life get ruined by this. I’m going to make something better. We’re going to get more into.

01;24;20;04 – 01;24;37;05

Jeramiah

Who came out of COVID and in the pandemic in better shape than they went in. Very few like 99% of the people I got did phenomenally that. But they they all improve on their their professions, too. But that’s just we focus a lot on fitness is a core component of the coaching. Right because if you do that, you can do the other stuff I.

01;24;37;05 – 01;24;52;19

Jon

Don’t know about you, but like over to me was such a great filtration center to see like what people were like because those did if they started getting like if they started, you know, packing on the pounds and stopped pursue goals and got all depressed and isolated, I was like, okay, I see your I see what you’re doing.

01;24;52;29 – 01;24;54;02

Jon

And then those three are like.

01;24;54;22 – 01;25;06;04

Jeramiah

We going, Yeah. And the same thing that you see in business too. Yeah. I didn’t have a stomach for it. That was enough for them, you know, to get pushed out and kind of go to the side. And the people that did those guys are battle proof and now, you know.

01;25;06;04 – 01;25;26;04

Jon

Yeah. And the reason I’m highlighting is it’s just so encouraging, like no matter the circumstances, fighting right. Going back to the beginning of our conversation, it’s like if it makes you uncomfortable, if it scares you, if you’re on the right path. Yeah, fight harder, push it. Absolutely. So let’s see if I got your current chapter because, like, it was very clear, right?

01;25;26;10 – 01;25;42;22

Jon

You were a failed athlete, so you wanted to do the army as you’re you’re changing. And then, you know, you had these chapters. It’s like okay. Well now I’m scared of school. That’s the hardest thing. So you go back to school and you become the officer, and then you go on that entire journey. And then here you’re like, okay, what’s the hardest thing I can do?

01;25;43;00 – 01;26;01;27

Jon

What would it how would it line up with the wisdom of my mentors with what my guts telling me as a, you know, think and talk and pray about it, all these things. Okay, I need get out into this business and you’re already to the best of your ability in a lifelong pursuit of paying it forward. So here you are now, it’s been just over a year, right?

01;26;02;07 – 01;26;16;15

Jon

Year and a half ish to coming on to you and you’re building your business. You’re paying it forward. What demons are you fighting, man? Like, how does that cause, you know, like you’ve had a demon every step that you’re like, I’m hunting guy to kill him. Yeah. And then you’ll find the next one.

01;26;16;17 – 01;26;37;10

Jeramiah

Yeah. Good question. And I’ll. I’ll answer it. So I love impossible tasks. You know, if the more at this point in my life, I’m chasing the impossible. So for me, that’s committing to my company and growing it as big as possible. And honestly, that doesn’t even feel like it’s impossible at this point. It’s it’s so we get we get the results.

01;26;37;22 – 01;26;56;08

Jeramiah

People are improving. My my goal with Conquer Academy is to produce the rangers of the civilian sector. Right. Like, I want to build these leaders that, you know, like this guy came from Conker Academy. You know, he’s tough. You know, he doesn’t quit, You know that He’s not afraid to have tough you know, that he’s a problem solver.

01;26;56;23 – 01;27;23;24

Jeramiah

This is this is the person that you want inside of your formation in the civilian sector in order to lead your teams. Right. I want to produce that. And we will. And we already have it. Just the world doesn’t know yet. And so I’m doing that. And then additionally, it’s mixed martial arts for me. Okay, So the odds are against me and I’m older, you know, guys that start out in them and try to do their, you know, achieve, achieve success, they’re usually start pretty young.

01;27;24;18 – 01;27;46;28

Jeramiah

And for me, it’s it’s been a place where I can chase a new personal impossible task. How far can I go? How good can I get And you know, it does shit out of me all the time. Going in the cage with somebody is nerve wracking. The training camps nerve wracking that get that in itself gives me I need to challenge myself and all the components that built me into, I guess, who I am now.

01;27;47;03 – 01;27;47;10

Jeramiah

Yeah.

01;27;47;28 – 01;27;52;01

Jon

Well, I’d ask what your next chapter is, but then you’d already be doing it. So I know that this is the way.

01;27;52;08 – 01;28;23;07

Jeramiah

Yeah. All there’s a saying. I think Zig Ziglar said it. He said go as far as you can see when you get there, you’ll see further. Yeah. So for right now it’s, it’s, it’s business and fitness business and. Mm. Yeah. Push these things to their limits and then when I’m at that crossroads, I’ll make the decision. Hey what’s, what’s the tweak here, What’s the modification that I can and I try to do things I think everybody should do this because it’s I found value in it in and to roll your experience over like to compound it on to the next thing that you’re doing, I think a lot of times people go a lot of

01;28;23;07 – 01;28;36;12

Jeramiah

different directions in life, like maybe they do something for 20 years and they go, they turn around, go the other direction. I like to kind of roll that experience into one thing. So when I when I got out of the military, I’m like, okay, I’m starting you know, I started a business when I was in the military first.

01;28;36;12 – 01;28;54;24

Jeramiah

And when I started that, I said, How can I take my experience and roll it into this thing instead of like starting some do it right? Yeah. So I was like, okay, what do I know? I know performance because I’ve done some harsh it. Yeah, I know leadership. I feel a lot of that before. So let me just bring all this stuff together and then create a business around it where I teach people my lessons learned.

01;28;54;28 – 01;29;02;01

Jeramiah

Yeah. So that rolls and I’ll just keep doing that over and over. Go as far as you can see. I’ll get there and then I’ll see further. I’ll make the next thing.

01;29;02;01 – 01;29;03;14

Jon

And that’s the macro view.

01;29;03;17 – 01;29;04;24

Jeramiah

Great, great advice.

01;29;04;24 – 01;29;22;19

Jon

Yeah, that’s like the macro strategic view of what suffering Saturday looks like on what do I not want to do today? I’ll do it. That’s just the big lifestyle. Absolutely. So do that’s that’s awesome. I think I think that’s been one heck of a conversation. I want to do a bit of shameless plug because see that you’re wearing our friend iron apparel shirt, right?

01;29;22;19 – 01;29;22;25

Jon

Yeah.

01;29;22;27 – 01;29;31;07

Jeramiah

Great company veteran owned. Yeah. Phenomenal person, human being. I only wear stuff that I stand behind like he’s a good deed, man. The company’s.

01;29;31;07 – 01;29;50;27

Jon

Great. So you guys check out iron apparel. And a big part of their mission is our entrepreneurs are in to sharpen yourself sharpen others. And that’s, you know, part of what we’re pursuing in these conversations. On the grit theories, how can we normalize and encourage people to create devastating ecosystems easier were to create the best human beings possible and change society through that?

01;29;50;29 – 01;29;58;01

Jon

Yeah, Ryan, this has been a conversation in my mind that’s had some fun. Let’s cut some iron off of you if you’re weak and make you stronger type of thing.

01;29;58;02 – 01;30;19;22

Jeramiah

Yeah, I would say, you know, we covered a lot to men and it can be probably for somebody that’s just starting out on trying to improve themself. It can be overwhelming to be like, Oh, you. We’re talking about 15 plus years of my life that we’ve kind of like pulled these lessons from that have helped out and somebody that’s on maybe day one of like I’m sick and tired of my situation.

01;30;19;22 – 01;30;36;21

Jeramiah

I want to change. They’re probably wondering, like, what do I do? There’s you know, I don’t want to just jump off into the unknown. They need to build themself up a little bit. Yeah. You know, And so I would say just just start small and just start right. Like everybody has a different threshold for how much they can stomach in terms of fear and uncertainty.

01;30;37;03 – 01;31;00;25

Jeramiah

And I think it’s yeah, So in psychology, there’s there’s two types of ways to desensitize yourself to like fear and whatnot. One is a basically called immersion, which is like just complete jump in, right? And then the other one is, I think it’s called progressive overload, where it’s like basically like incremental exposure. Yeah. So if I’m scared of snakes.

01;31;00;29 – 01;31;15;08

Jeramiah

Yeah, right. Immersion is I’m going to fill room for snakes and push myself in and figure it out. Right. And then there’s I’m scared of snakes. Well, let me just stand in the room and have a snake come in and just kind of like, look at it and then maybe let it in the room. Right. Kind of build yourself up.

01;31;15;11 – 01;31;30;03

Jeramiah

Yeah. So everybody, I think you just need to pick which one’s better for you, and then just start and figure out where your sweet spot is to do things that are uncomfortable. Or if you don’t, you’re going to basically you want to know what the next five years of your life looks like, exactly what you’re doing now in whatever.

01;31;30;11 – 01;31;47;10

Jon

Well, you just said, What I love about it is you’re giving people freedom to you because a lot of people of either camp are like, this is the way. And you’re saying, well, no, assess what you are and then do what’s right and you know which one you are. Do you need to just throw yourself in full bare knuckle brawl style or do you need to set up a plan and just start consistently?

01;31;47;10 – 01;32;04;15

Jeramiah

Not now what you want to do, but what works? Yeah, yeah. Like like you need to get the off the fact you need to create the result that you’re looking for too many times in life we say, Oh, this works for me. But in reality you’re just, you know, you’re justifying going the other direction, right? Excellent. Whatever it is.

01;32;04;15 – 01;32;16;08

Jeramiah

Right. So what, what produces the effect and just start a little bit and just build yourself up and you can get used to doing things that you’re you don’t want to do across time build like a muscle. I think you.

01;32;16;08 – 01;32;22;10

Aaron

Call it the little winds you start experiencing after joining the military. Yeah, it’s okay. Yeah, this is what it feels like, you.

01;32;22;10 – 01;32;40;21

Jeramiah

Know, if you want to do it on a daily basis, I do a what I call an action plan. I’m actually kind of starting to call it an attack plan. But basically, you write down five things that you don’t want to do for the day that are congruent with your goals. All right. So if you’re like, hey, I’m training in better shape, what do I not want to do that I don’t want to do morning cardio, Write that down, check.

01;32;41;18 – 01;32;55;03

Jeramiah

I’m trying to grow my business. What do I not want to do? Day freak and talk to people, man. Yeah. All right. Let me make ten contacts. Write, check. So just like you can, you can literally just write that down and just start working on this good little bit every single day or wake up Saturday. Hey, man, do I not want to do and start there?

01;32;55;06 – 01;32;56;13

Jeramiah

Yeah, that’s great.

01;32;56;19 – 01;33;01;05

Jon

That’s a great way to put what we’ve talked about today into action and start invoking change now.

01;33;01;07 – 01;33;01;17

Jeramiah

Yeah.

01;33;02;06 – 01;33;05;06

Aaron

Excellent. So where can we send people? They want to know more about what you’re doing.

01;33;05;12 – 01;33;27;18

Jeramiah

Yeah, Instagram. So go straight to Instagram. Just if you’re going to check me out and connect with me, I’d love to talk to you guys the DM. Just make sure you spell my name right so you don’t get lost. It’s g. R. A m. ihs0lve. N Okay. So Jeremiah saw when there’s an A in the middle of the Jeremiah in.

01;33;27;18 – 01;33;34;00

Jon

Forever on situational awareness, his name is correctly spelled behind him on the whiteboard. You’ll see that if you look at YouTube soundbites.

01;33;34;20 – 01;33;35;18

Jeramiah

You’re just, you’re.

01;33;35;18 – 01;33;38;05

Aaron

Just teetering on the edge. There’s like, Oh, I hope he’s No.

01;33;38;06 – 01;33;41;03

Jeramiah

No, you got a.

01;33;41;03 – 01;33;54;04

Jon

Friend. Help make sure I was on point there. And then we will also have your Instagram and some of your other stuff in the bio for the show. So people can just click on that if they’re lazy and they’ll take it or they want a shortcut and they’ll take them right to you. Yeah.

01;33;54;12 – 01;34;08;23

Jeramiah

I got a link in my in my bio on Instagram that can drive you towards either my podcast or whatever. But yeah, just hit me up on on Instagram. I love it when I get a message that says, Hey, I came, I listened to this podcast, heard you on the story, I’ll connect with you right out the gate, get to know you a little bit.

01;34;09;03 – 01;34;20;09

Jeramiah

I’ll try to lead with value. You know, I’ll find out a way to help you. Whatever you’re going through as much as I can inside of a text message situation. So I’ll do my best to make it worth your time to.