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If you want to change the world you must be a Waymaker

025. TGT: Iron Sharpens Iron _ David & Danny

025. TGT: Iron Sharpens Iron _ David & Danny – Be Relentless

Episode 25 from The Grit Theory. Today we sat down with David & Danny who are co-founders of Iron Apparel, veterans, entrepreneurs and brothers. The core thread of our conversation is one of encouragement, and the key take away is that if you are alive, you are capable of the extraordinary. Additionally we discussed Iron Apparels origin story, and how the pursuit of building their business has helped David & Danny to live more fulfilling and intentional lives. Highlights include: – Your body is a presentation of your mind. – People desire acceptance over excellence…- Iron sharpens iron. – The power of friction and discomfort. – You are capable of more. – We compliment each other. – Fork in the road, facing life changing decisions. – Don't ignore your unhappiness to stay comfortable. To learn more about David & Danny check out their business here: IRON APPAREL. Did you find value in today’s conversation? SHARE IT! Join The Grit Theory Community Here!

Episode 25 from The Grit Theory.

Today we sat down with David & Danny who are co-founders of Iron Apparel, veterans, entrepreneurs and brothers. The core thread of our conversation is one of encouragement, and the key take away is that if you are alive, you are capable of the extraordinary. Additionally we discussed Iron Apparels origin story, and how the pursuit of building their business has helped David & Danny to live more fulfilling and intentional lives.

Highlights include:

– Your body is a presentation of your mind.
– People desire acceptance over excellence…
– Iron sharpens iron.
– The power of friction and discomfort.
– You are capable of more.
– We compliment each other.
– Fork in the road, facing life changing decisions.
– Don’t ignore your unhappiness to stay comfortable.

To learn more about David & Danny check out their business here: IRON APPAREL.

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.

Episode Transcript

00;00;00;01 – 00;00;15;14

Jon

Well, hello. Good morning, everyone. Today, we’re joined with David and Danny, who are brothers, co-founders of Iron Apparel and veteran entrepreneurs. And one of you still your active Air Force Reserve.

00;00;15;16 – 00;00;15;26

Aaron?

Yes.

00;00;16;04 – 00;00;19;19

Jon

Which is about as geeky as you can get.

00;00;19;19 – 00;00;26;16

David

It’s probably the only job in the military. It gives me the maximum amount of time to work on a business.

00;00;26;24 – 00;00;27;10

Aaron?

Yeah, heck.

00;00;27;10 – 00;00;30;09

David

Yeah. It’s the most flexible job I’ve had. The whole time I’ve been in the military.

00;00;30;09 – 00;00;31;14

Aaron?

So that’s awesome. Yeah.

00;00;32;14 – 00;00;37;24

Aaron

You guys are so iron apparel. So who are you guys? What are you guys doing right now?

00;00;37;24 – 00;00;46;14

Jon

Real quick, if you don’t mind. Yeah, because I like to own things. Because I think that’s fun. So it’s really hilarious because we had the best five minute conversation no one will ever hear.

00;00;46;24 – 00;00;47;08

Aaron?

Ever.

00;00;47;09 – 00;00;49;12

Aaron

Oh, I thought he was just going to screw it over it. But you’re going to.

00;00;49;17 – 00;00;50;08

Jon

No, no, no.

00;00;50;23 – 00;00;53;11

Aaron?

Know we’re going to address the elephant in the room. It’s happening.

00;00;53;16 – 00;01;08;16

Jon

The elephant in the room is. Here we are. And all of a sudden we’re noticing it’s not recording for whatever reason, I’m not going to blame anyone except myself. And we had to jump back in. So instead of, like, trying to regain that rhythm, let’s just say, Hey, at least you’re not using the computer, Mike.

00;01;08;23 – 00;01;12;02

Aaron

That’s true. That’s. Yeah, that’s something we have actually done.

00;01;12;29 – 00;01;13;12

Aaron?

So.

00;01;13;12 – 00;01;19;06

Jon

80 times. So having called that spade a spade right. I can see we’re all smiles again.

00;01;19;12 – 00;01;20;26

Aaron?

Mike’s here. Yeah. Good.

00;01;21;04 – 00;01;32;15

Jon

Well, when we were Jeremiah, who you guys introduced us to, which was part of that great conversation, no one gets to hear. We asked him, Hey, does it look pretty legit? And he’s like, Yeah, you guys look super.

00;01;32;15 – 00;01;34;10

David

Logistics, like credibility established.

00;01;35;10 – 00;01;36;15

Jon

It’s not plugged into anything.

00;01;37;24 – 00;01;42;23

Aaron?

To get to the right audience. None of these mikes work. And yeah.

00;01;43;15 – 00;01;46;15

Jon

It’s amazing how close to not working they consistently are.

00;01;46;24 – 00;01;49;22

Aaron

So it’s like, okay, which one of you guys is the older?

00;01;50;16 – 00;01;51;10

David

I’m older, yeah.

00;01;51;11 – 00;01;52;25

Aaron

All right, well, how many how many years apart?

00;01;52;26 – 00;01;55;19

Aaron?

Well, so we’re three years apart.

00;01;55;19 – 00;01;57;00

Danny

Three and a half years.

00;01;57;00 – 00;01;58;28

Aaron?

Three half years for my brother.

00;01;58;28 – 00;02;00;23

Aaron

The same solid. Okay, We’ve.

00;02;00;23 – 00;02;16;27

David

Got six kids in our family, actually. So we’re. We’ve got kind of like you with your four sons. Four boys and two girls in our family. So we’re the two youngest. I’m five and he’s six. And it basically went every two years until we got to me. And then it was like three and a half for Danny. So.

00;02;16;29 – 00;02;17;21

Aaron

Oh, nice. Okay.

00;02;17;22 – 00;02;18;16

Jon

Yeah. It’s my wife’s.

00;02;18;22 – 00;02;19;11

Danny

Oddball. Yeah.

00;02;20;10 – 00;02;20;25

Aaron?

Nice.

00;02;20;25 – 00;02;24;09

Danny

Like, we’re going to do it scheduled and consecutive. And then they’re like.

00;02;24;09 – 00;02;25;00

Aaron?

Oh, God.

00;02;25;00 – 00;02;26;27

Danny

What happened? We have this one now.

00;02;27;22 – 00;02;32;10

Jon

And there’s no giving him back. That’s amazing.

00;02;32;29 – 00;02;54;10

Aaron

So you guys decided to get in business together. So, like, you’re doing this whole mission thing, Like, I can’t imagine, just even in early in my life, having to do one thing with my brother and staying on the same page. Like, it’s amazing that you guys are on mission together. What? What made you kind of made the gravitas come together and, like, able to do this together?

00;02;54;10 – 00;03;17;12

Danny

It was kind of organic. I mean, we’ve always just hung out a lot and been pretty close. But I think really you were off at college and I was still at high school and we still talked over the phone a lot and in like Facebook messenger or whatever. But I wouldn’t say that there was like any specific reason that we were like, Hey, let’s do this together.

00;03;17;12 – 00;03;18;22

Danny

It just kind of organically.

00;03;18;22 – 00;03;20;09

Aaron?

Like what? Yeah, it was.

00;03;20;10 – 00;03;20;23

Danny

Saying.

00;03;20;29 – 00;03;25;25

David

It was basically, I mean, like, yeah, yeah. We basically went against all conventional wisdom. Everything that you.

00;03;25;25 – 00;03;27;17

Aaron?

Read online about never.

00;03;27;17 – 00;03;29;22

David

Go into business with family.

00;03;30;18 – 00;03;32;06

Aaron?

And we did it. But it basically.

00;03;32;06 – 00;03;56;12

David

Started by I’ve been designing and printing t shirts my for since I was really, really young until the whole story. I’ll try to just highlight the the main points. But basically I fell in love at a young age with designing. I’ve always been like an artist, so I’d draw pictures and all that kind of stuff. And really what sparked the t shirt thing for me was in our middle.

00;03;56;12 – 00;04;16;27

David

When I was in high school on a wrestling team, we went to a real small high school out in eastern Colorado and we had a really good wrestling team one year and we were just annihilating everybody and all of the mascots from all the schools that we were competing with were all these animals. So like the bison, the tigers, the lions, the eagles, the hawks, you name it, we were the Indians.

00;04;16;27 – 00;04;21;25

David

So I drew this really cool, like comic book picture of this really ripped looked a little bit like Johnathan.

00;04;22;05 – 00;04;23;13

Aaron?

In the in chief with.

00;04;23;13 – 00;04;30;04

David

This spear with all these like dead animal carcasses piled up that we had like, annihilated. And.

00;04;30;04 – 00;04;34;20

Aaron?

Oh, because all the mascots. All the mascots. Yeah. So, so we had this really small.

00;04;35;05 – 00;04;42;14

David

School newspaper, whatever, and they were like, let’s put it on the front page of the high school newspaper. So, you know, I had a graduating class of like 80 people, like really small school was.

00;04;42;14 – 00;04;45;12

Aaron?

Like, Dude, my artwork made it on school paper. That’s awesome.

00;04;45;20 – 00;04;59;17

David

And then we had a dad from one of the one of my friends on the team was like, Can you put that on a T-shirt? We want to wear it. Like for the regional, all the parents want to wear that design to the regional competition or whatever. And I was like, I know nothing about t shirts. I wouldn’t know how to do that.

00;04;59;23 – 00;05;17;08

David

She’s like, All right, I’ll figure it out. So he went to Walmart and just bought this little iron on Transparent and he bought a bunch of blank red t shirts and ironed on this cool picture. And the shirts looked horrible because like after you wash them one time, it’s just like that. It looks like you have just a piece of paper.

00;05;17;18 – 00;05;17;27

Aaron?

Yeah.

00;05;17;28 – 00;05;37;19

David

So they looked horrendous, but everybody wore them to like our regional tournament. And I remember looking up and seeing like all these parents wearing that artwork on their shirt. And that was kind of from that moment I made t shirts for our football team. All the military units that I was a part of. I did ROTC through college and so I did them for my unit in school and all that kind of stuff.

00;05;37;19 – 00;05;49;16

David

And so Danny approached me while I was in college and was like, Dude, let’s you’re always making t shirts for all the clubs and sports teams and stuff that you’re a part of. Let’s make like a t shirt brand. And so this idea and.

00;05;49;16 – 00;06;10;22

Danny

You were doing all these like sidekick, like David’s always been a hustler and like really good at wheeling and dealing and getting deals on Craigslist and just always been a hustler in that regard. So he was making these designs and going on to like Facebook groups that were these niche markets and posting them. And just I just try.

00;06;10;22 – 00;06;21;00

David

To sell like, you know, the hierarchy a lot at the moment. You know, for a while it was yeah, one of them was like a bracket. When Peyton Manning was the quarterback for the Broncos and he was saying, Omaha, Omaha, I made a Omaha.

00;06;21;00 – 00;06;28;12

Aaron?

Shirt that may have focused right on Omaha. MF And a lot of part of my past.

00;06;28;19 – 00;06;43;06

David

Extremely proud of, but try to just sell, you know, I sold 100 shirts or whatever, and when I was in college I was like, Dude, it was this huge, huge amount of revenue that I was able to make real quick. I’d put together like a little Shopify store or whatever. I just take orders through PayPal and then I’d print them all up and then I’d ship them all out.

00;06;43;06 – 00;06;54;01

David

But it just wasn’t like a recurring business model. It was just like, Oh, you’re just trying to take advantage of whatever is high at the moment, make a quick buck. And then so Danny was like, Dude, let’s actually turn this.

00;06;54;01 – 00;07;10;07

Danny

Into I saw all these guys, you know, grunt style or like, Yeah, whatever YouTube channels that grew their business. I was really into the gym. I was always a weak little sissy and I was trying to get bigger. So on the off season for wrestling, I was always trying to lift weights and get bigger, which I never did.

00;07;10;07 – 00;07;11;21

Aaron?

But that was the goal.

00;07;11;21 – 00;07;12;22

Jon

You never lifted weights.

00;07;12;22 – 00;07;17;05

Aaron?

You never know. I never got back to weights all the time that a lot of weight just never got bigger.

00;07;17;25 – 00;07;37;09

Danny

But so, you know, it’s all those YouTube channels that were growing their channel and then they’d sell merch and I was like, Man, why don’t why don’t we just do that? Like, you’re always making these shirts, aren’t we? Like make an actual brand and sell recurring designs and stuff. And that’s kind of where it all started. And began.

00;07;37;09 – 00;07;39;12

Danny

And that was back in my senior.

00;07;39;12 – 00;07;40;24

Aaron?

Year of high school, I think.

00;07;41;27 – 00;07;47;19

Danny

And then things kind of went crazy from there, but that’s yeah, that’s pretty much the start of it.

00;07;47;27 – 00;07;48;07

Aaron?

Yeah.

00;07;48;14 – 00;07;53;16

Jon

One one thing I love is this is by far the best branded episode ever.

00;07;53;16 – 00;07;54;29

Aaron?

On the grid. They’re like all.

00;07;54;29 – 00;07;59;02

Jon

Over. We have swag one. Thank you for the shirts. These aren’t even released yet right now.

00;07;59;02 – 00;07;59;22

David

Yeah, those are coming.

00;07;59;23 – 00;08;02;00

Aaron?

I feel 29 super special.

00;08;02;01 – 00;08;03;04

Jon

Yeah, I’ll even just show it on.

00;08;03;04 – 00;08;04;18

Aaron?

The back of a quick to see.

00;08;04;18 – 00;08;05;05

Jon

It. I’m wearing.

00;08;05;05 – 00;08;06;09

Aaron?

Shorts.

00;08;06;09 – 00;08;09;15

Aaron

It is family country, solid.

00;08;09;15 – 00;08;10;24

David

God family, country.

00;08;10;25 – 00;08;23;14

Jon

Love it. And then I saw that you set that up there. I felt like it was intentional. So if we want in the shot, just pop that bottle to your you’re left a wee bit. Gotcha. I’ll tell you when it’s in the shot. There you go. Yeah. So you guys have some pretty cool stuff going with your brand.

00;08;23;22 – 00;08;25;15

Jon

Yeah. And thank you for the shirts.

00;08;25;23 – 00;08;26;10

Aaron?

Absolutely.

00;08;26;10 – 00;08;30;05

Jon

Yeah. Yeah. I’m going to do some crazy stuff with these gifts. That’s awesome. You just wait.

00;08;30;07 – 00;08;33;26

Aaron

I thought that was one of the conditions of their podcast appearance that.

00;08;33;26 – 00;08;35;09

Aaron?

I have to do. Yeah.

00;08;35;09 – 00;08;37;03

Danny

Yeah. Everything has to be in apparel.

00;08;37;08 – 00;08;37;13

Aaron?

Yeah.

00;08;37;18 – 00;08;40;27

Aaron

It’s a long email expectations before you came into the room today.

00;08;41;15 – 00;08;47;03

Jon

Yeah. I mean, 17 initial blocks before the signature that was insane. 17 were initial blocks on the contract.

00;08;47;19 – 00;08;47;28

Aaron?

Yeah.

00;08;48;28 – 00;08;53;08

Aaron

Sorry I couldn’t find the blue. Eminem’s guys.

00;08;53;08 – 00;08;56;09

Jon

Brianna, thank you. And. And this is good. I’m loving it.

00;08;56;09 – 00;09;18;10

Aaron

It’s really classy what you guys are doing and you’re putting out there. It’s funny. It seems like something so, you know, whatever. It’s a t shirt or whatever. But we were talking off air before we realized we were recording. Is that is that you’re seeing like hats at the zoo on random people like, oh, that’s our merch. Like where did that come from, You know?

00;09;18;10 – 00;09;37;14

Aaron

John Finding you guys kind of randomly through somebody else is wearing one of your shirts like it’s out there kind of making a message and making it kind of a it’s certainly attracts people, even conversation. I mean, that’s kind of provocative, saying God, family country like, yeah, that brings people together. There is a coagulate of effect to what you guys are doing is more than just merch, I.

00;09;37;14 – 00;09;53;26

David

Think, Right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well and the message so like we had this idea like let’s start a T-shirt brand, but then the next thing was, okay, what’s the message going to be? We’ve got to have an actual and I studied business in college and all my classes of time were about the thing that separates you as a business is brand.

00;09;53;26 – 00;10;11;25

David

Like there’s a reason that Pixar can, you know, sell X number of movie tickets versus these other companies that you never heard of. It’s because they’ve developed the Disney brand, the Pixar brand. That’s the reason that Nike can sell a shirt for $60 versus, you know, whoever else. So so it was all about, okay, we got to build a brand.

00;10;11;25 – 00;10;21;10

David

And what’s that message going to be? What’s that foundational message of that brand going to be? And it was iron sharpens iron. I don’t think it took us too long to really come up. It was like as a.

00;10;21;10 – 00;10;26;05

Danny

Day we were just throwing stuff at the wall and it immediately stuck between.

00;10;26;05 – 00;10;44;00

David

Fell in love with because we had heard it all our lives growing up. Our dad’s a pastor, so we heard it in church, both on wrestling teams. We went to separate high schools. Actually, when I graduated with college, my parents moved up to Washington. So Danny went to a different high school than I did, and we both were on my high school wrestling team.

00;10;44;00 – 00;11;03;09

David

We would do this thing every year. It was called the Intrasquad Scrimmage, where they were the first duel of the year was you’d separate our own team into an A-Team and a B team. They’d just go, You’re A, you’re B or B, And we were they rolled out the map, they had the spotlight. They had the cheerleaders. They treated it like it was a regular season duel.

00;11;03;16 – 00;11;26;11

David

And it was our team wrestling each other. It was us against us. And they gave a little medal. And on the back of the medal it said iron sharpens iron. And that was the whole idea of we are taking our team, separating it and we’re wrestling each other and we’re going to make each other better. And that same message was painted in the wrestling room at Danny’s High School, and their high school was extremely good.

00;11;26;11 – 00;11;33;29

David

There are all these Matt He went to some school in the middle of the mountains up there. All these, like all of his friends were loggers and all these crazy dudes.

00;11;33;29 – 00;11;38;06

Aaron?

They would have loved it up there. They every single dude was.

00;11;38;06 – 00;11;39;29

Danny

Exactly like, You’re just an absolute.

00;11;40;03 – 00;11;43;19

Aaron?

Psycho. Jon’s like, What do you say? Okay, okay, okay.

00;11;44;27 – 00;11;50;25

David

Like back to back state champions all the time. I mean, if you weren’t a state champion in this high school, you were kind of like the odd man.

00;11;50;25 – 00;11;51;29

Aaron?

Out like cougar, which.

00;11;51;29 – 00;11;52;21

Danny

I wasn’t.

00;11;52;21 – 00;11;55;21

Aaron?

So I was the odd man. It was just that message.

00;11;55;21 – 00;12;16;19

David

And then we heard of the military. When I started getting into the exposure of I did Army ROTC through college, and it was mentioned there. So it was like, what’s so special about this message, this theme that so many different Army fighters, weightlifters, wrestlers, military people in church are all like kind of like there’s this appeal to this message that iron sharpens iron.

00;12;17;12 – 00;12;37;25

David

And a lot of people don’t know that. It stems from a Bible verse, which is kind of cool because you can kind of like take like the we’ve kind of tried to take like and I think you guys are a little bit similar, like the Chick-Fil-A approach almost where like people go to Chick-Fil-A because they make really delicious chicken sandwiches and they’ve got phenomenal service, but they don’t really realize or always make the connection that you go in there and there’s Christian music playing.

00;12;37;25 – 00;12;43;01

David

They don’t play any lyrics, they just play the whatever the what’s that called? And there’s no.

00;12;43;01 – 00;12;43;17

Danny

Instrumental.

00;12;43;28 – 00;12;46;17

Aaron?

Instrumental. So it’s like if you know.

00;12;46;17 – 00;13;05;11

David

That it’s a Christian company, then like, you know, that’s super obvious, but they’re just out there. They’re not beating it over people’s heads. They’re this is our message. We’re making a great product. It’s kind of the same approach that we’ve taken with iron sharpens iron. We meet a ton of people that don’t know, and then it’s a great conversation starter because people are like, Dude, iron sharpens iron.

00;13;05;11 – 00;13;17;05

David

I heard that before, you know, yada, yada, yada. And it’s like, Oh, well, actually, did you know this comes from a Bible verse? It’s it’s just it kind of opens that door as opposed to just repeatedly beating people over the head with the Bible and trying to yeah, that type of thing.

00;13;17;05 – 00;13;23;21

Danny

We’ve kind of had numerous conversations about like we’re not necessarily a church brand, although.

00;13;23;21 – 00;13;24;25

Aaron?

A lot of people.

00;13;25;06 – 00;13;27;09

Danny

Resell our products in churches and.

00;13;28;03 – 00;13;28;26

Aaron?

A lot of people.

00;13;29;15 – 00;13;56;01

Danny

Know our brand because iron sharpens iron and come from churches. That’s a lot of our consumer base. But kind of the idea behind why we did it is because we want to reach people that aren’t church goers, right? We want to hit the different demographic and get them in that door if we can, or just get them to get to be good people and understand the message, not necessarily hit the same demographic that’s heard the same thing over and over again.

00;13;56;01 – 00;14;13;01

Aaron

Yeah, that’s a lot of the core message on the grit there is that we’re in, no matter what your backdrop is sort of your faith bases. Everyone could agree that sharper iron is more useful in this life, right? And that’s what we’re trying to get people to, is that I love it’s like it’s sort of a violent analogy.

00;14;13;01 – 00;14;31;18

Aaron

Iron sharpening iron. I mean, if you just think about that, we talked we’ve talk about the forge often. It’s like, hey, this, this hurts. This is difficult. Yeah, that’s part of the process of growth. Yeah, but, but I like what you said with the wrestling team. What a great analogy because now you have it’s iron sharpens iron, it’s not Styrofoam sharpens iron or whatever.

00;14;31;22 – 00;14;44;19

Aaron

It’s like you have both sides who say, Hey, look, we’re dedicated to getting better and stronger the same. We’re both iron, you know, different levels of maybe sharpening, but we’re going to do it to each other, right? And we’re on the same mission to doing it together.

00;14;44;28 – 00;14;46;07

Aaron?

Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

00;14;46;16 – 00;15;07;01

Jon

Because excellence is sexy, right? Like, excellence is a good thing. Like, you want to be competent, you want to be capable, you know, So and if you’ve never sharpened a piece of iron before, right? Because I’m just sitting here thinking it’s like, Oh, I know exactly. This is like grade. Like I sharpen things all the time and like, I see the metal shavings coming off what I’m sharpening.

00;15;07;01 – 00;15;25;14

Jon

And so just to kind of paint the picture, if you haven’t, maybe YouTube it, Google it, but it’s really interesting. You’re you’re quite literally taking two piece of metal in beating and rubbing and scraping off chunks of metal off the thing that you’re sharpening. So it’s not this like, you know, a stone, it’s super smooth and you’re sharpening this blade.

00;15;25;22 – 00;15;26;23

Jon

No, it’s violent.

00;15;27;04 – 00;15;28;07

Danny

You know, we in pain.

00;15;28;07 – 00;15;30;29

Aaron?

For this fly and it’s it.

00;15;30;29 – 00;15;49;10

David

Requires friction. It’s you and I were just talking about it on the way over here because on your episode of the Jeremiah, you guys were talking about all these amazing physical feats that you guys were doing in your hardcore athletes. You guys workout religiously. You guys are in phenomenal shape. And we were both a little uncomfortable on the way over here.

00;15;49;10 – 00;15;51;19

Aaron?

Like both of it. I hope they don’t bring.

00;15;51;19 – 00;15;53;04

Danny

Up anything about working out.

00;15;53;05 – 00;15;55;17

Aaron?

That can be terrible, but that even.

00;15;55;17 – 00;16;12;18

David

Just like that small amount of discomfort, like if you want to grow, if you want to get better, sometimes it takes that tough love approach of like, Oh, this isn’t going to be fun. This isn’t going to be even as siblings, when we’re trying to encourage each other and make each other better, it’s like we’re kind of challenging each other a little bit.

00;16;12;19 – 00;16;21;08

David

And there is that friction there is that he it’s not comfortable. It’s not a comfortable process when you’re sharpening metal know and yeah, it’s it’s on both sides.

00;16;21;08 – 00;16;38;01

Aaron

I mean, both sides have a degree of difficulty. It’s not fun to tell someone. It’s really not fun to walk with someone. And it’s certainly not to be it’s not fun to be the recipient. But both sides have some kind of sacrifice that are in it. And that’s we talk a lot about the difficulty and sacrifice not being the enemy.

00;16;38;01 – 00;16;43;18

Aaron

It’s part of the process. Yeah, Yeah. What a great message in three words. Like, yeah, the brevity of it’s beautiful.

00;16;43;18 – 00;16;44;28

Aaron?

That’s what we loved.

00;16;44;28 – 00;16;52;12

David

About it is it’s like a we didn’t make it up. So part of what’s cool about it is, you know, there’s so many I could talk about it all day, so.

00;16;52;12 – 00;16;53;17

Aaron?

Sorry I get.

00;16;53;17 – 00;16;55;11

David

Long winded and yada yada, yada.

00;16;55;11 – 00;16;56;00

Jon

We’re good, man.

00;16;56;19 – 00;17;18;04

David

I guess I won’t really go into that whole the the part that’s cool. One part that’s cool about it is that this isn’t something that we imagined or came up ourselves. It was something that was written in a book from 2000 years ago. And so by King Solomon in that book of Proverbs that are really even if you aren’t a faith person, if you just read the Book of Proverbs, there’s a lot of wisdom and knowledge.

00;17;18;10 – 00;17;18;28

Jon

It’s a wisdom.

00;17;18;28 – 00;17;41;23

David

But some God he’s often referred to as like the wisest man who ever lived. So there’s just great little tidbits in there and everything that if you apply your day to day life, like you just are going to end up being better anyway. But the fact that that’s something that was said 2000 years ago and we’re still repeating it today, just shows that what you do, it’s kind of like Gladiator, what you do echoes in eternity, like we really do.

00;17;41;23 – 00;18;04;09

David

You can do something today. You can have a message in your life today that if you do it right, if you are a good enough person, if you are legit enough, people can still be talking about what you did today, 2000 years later. So we’re taking something that’s borrowed. Yeah, that that has withstood the test of time because it is such a simple and profound message and has widespread appeal.

00;18;04;09 – 00;18;28;28

David

We don’t really know. We haven’t really talked about it too much. But the Olympics couple of weeks ago right. There’s the and I can’t remember. I know Sydney McLaughlin, I think was the and I don’t know all the events. They were runners for the U.S. Olympic team doing the hurdles during the hundred meter. Whenever they won gold and silver, the two US athletes won one gold and one won silver and they contain virtuously.

00;18;28;28 – 00;18;49;10

David

They just talked about they were on MSNBC being interviewed on a mainstream media news platform and they were just talking about their journey and experience through all the pre qualifying trials and everything they had consistently. One sets a record and then the other one beats that record and the other one beats that record. And they’re just constantly they’re both on the same team, but they’re just pushing each other.

00;18;49;10 – 00;18;52;15

David

Oh yeah. And they summed it up. They said Iron sharpens iron.

00;18;52;15 – 00;18;56;20

Aaron?

And I was just like, you know, silver Now I was like, you know, this is so awesome.

00;18;56;20 – 00;19;11;13

David

And it’s not our message. We can’t take credit for that. But it’s cool that that just demonstrates the widespread appeal that this really simple message has. And when you start peeling back the layers of the onion, it’s like that comes from a really, really profound source. So yeah.

00;19;11;15 – 00;19;29;11

Jon

What I like about it too, and I just kind of drew this well, I just drew this analogy. It’s it’s a gateway drug to burning off the parts of yourself that shouldn’t be there. Right? Right. So, like I, I really like the idea that there’s only a small percent of myself that if I really look in the mirror is worth keeping.

00;19;29;16 – 00;19;47;17

Jon

Yeah. And there’s a lot that I want to cut off. Burn off, get rid of. All right. Some call it like Deadwood. There’s all sorts of mentalities that go around it. It’s like, well, if you don’t know where to start, you’re on deciding, What do I get rid of in myself? Find someone who makes you better and who you can put yourself in that uncomfortable thing.

00;19;47;24 – 00;20;04;18

Jon

And that’ll start to cultivate the mindset of improving. Yeah, right. And then you’ll be in the position over time to be like, okay, I’ve seen enough from hanging out with you guys, from doing things with Aaron. That’s like, I’ve seen enough here that I don’t like this. And now when he’s not even here, I’m going to start attacking that.

00;20;04;19 – 00;20;09;18

Jon

Yeah, and it can grow into this personal evolution. Yeah.

00;20;10;03 – 00;20;24;00

Aaron

You guys are, you guys are brothers. And so you’ve been living the very iron sharpens iron. I mean, it’s amazing how many athletes and how many people who are who who know how to deal with adversity have a brother is able.

00;20;24;04 – 00;20;30;16

Aaron?

Yeah, that’s right about each other. Yeah. Well, you said you’re going to have an easy day. No, no, no, it’s yeah.

00;20;31;12 – 00;20;49;00

Danny

I’m not great at a lot of things, but I would say one thing that we’re both pretty good at is we really don’t take stuff very personally anymore when we’re like coming at each other or talking about things that need to be done for the business or even in our own personal lives. And that’s that’s a big part of our entrepreneur.

00;20;49;00 – 00;20;55;12

Danny

Learning, I think, is just not taking it personally and understanding like he he’s saying this because he cares. He wants me to be a better person.

00;20;55;15 – 00;20;56;13

Aaron?

Yeah, yeah. It’s the.

00;20;56;13 – 00;20;57;12

Jon

Constructive piece.

00;20;57;12 – 00;21;03;03

David

Exactly. Like once you kind of get in this frame of mind of just digesting what it means that iron sharpens and it’s like.

00;21;04;01 – 00;21;04;22

Aaron?

You just.

00;21;05;21 – 00;21;33;06

David

It helps you have thicker skin, it helps you have a better understanding of this guy’s saying these words to me not to be critical of me. It’s because he wants to challenge me. It’s because he wants to make me better. It’s because he sees an area that I’m struggling in or that I’m weaken, that he has a skill set to help make me better and yeah, it’s yeah, you find that really well it’s just that it is all constructive criticism and if you just take it in a negative way then you’re never going to get better.

00;21;33;06 – 00;21;40;00

David

You’re going to just dwell on that as opposed to if you just take it as what it is, you make yourself better with it.

00;21;40;00 – 00;21;43;22

Jon

And even scarier in my mind, you’ll lose the people who will be constructively critical of you.

00;21;43;22 – 00;21;45;17

David

Yes, and you’ll just be surrounded.

00;21;45;17 – 00;21;46;14

Aaron

He doesn’t want to be sharp.

00;21;46;20 – 00;21;46;27

David

Off.

00;21;46;28 – 00;21;48;16

Danny

Bad version of yourself forever.

00;21;48;23 – 00;21;50;14

David

You’re surrounded by a bunch of wood.

00;21;50;21 – 00;21;58;00

Jon

And this and this mentality just to be. You’re like, If you’re not sharp, you like blunt, you’re dull. Yeah, right. Mike Dolan Soft, Yeah.

00;21;58;00 – 00;22;00;06

David

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I can’t wait to.

00;22;00;27 – 00;22;01;03

Aaron?

See.

00;22;01;03 – 00;22;02;12

Aaron

That again. Surrounded by a.

00;22;02;12 – 00;22;06;23

Aaron?

Bunch of wood. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. As opposed to, I mean, weird. Yeah.

00;22;06;23 – 00;22;21;24

David

This is literally what we’re talking about this morning. That little discomfort that both Danny and I felt driving over here of, like, these guys are really challenging themselves physically. It makes us a little uncomfortable, but we were both like, That’s iron sharpening iron Like they’re literally. Yeah, by them being.

00;22;21;28 – 00;22;22;04

Aaron?

Like.

00;22;22;04 – 00;22;39;18

David

They are. It’s yeah, like we should. That’s a reflection for us like we need to. Fitness has been on the backburner for a little while. Like we got to get our crap together and you want to always be around and they say you’re the sum of the five people that you spend the most time around. So you always want to be around people who are challenging you in those areas.

00;22;39;18 – 00;22;58;10

David

And for us, it’s it’s multifaceted, right? So there’s not it’s it’s you want to be as sharp as you can, for me at least spiritually, physically, mentally, financially. I want to have a strong marriage. I want to have a strong family. I want to have a good relationship with my children, with my wife. I want to have a good, healthy bank account.

00;22;58;10 – 00;23;16;07

David

I don’t want to have a ton of debt. I want to be smart. I want to be a lifelong learner. You got a shelf of books back there of personal development, stuff that you’re reading all the time. It’s it’s all these different facets and aspects and that iron as time progresses, you’re always either you can’t stay the same, you’re either getting worse or you’re getting better.

00;23;16;07 – 00;23;36;13

David

And same thing with the iron. It’s either getting sharper as you’re actively sharpening it and the sparks are flying and it’s getting better, or it’s oxidizing, it’s collecting rust, it’s being used on a daily basis. So it’s getting more blunt, it’s losing its sharp edge and it’s not as effective. Abraham Lincoln said, If you give me 6 hours to cut down a tree, I’m going to spend 4 hours sharpening the ax.

00;23;36;21 – 00;23;56;16

David

Shows you the importance of having a sharp tool. Being sharp in your life to be effective. And it’s a constant process. So while we’ve been spending time getting sharper financially with some of our personal goals, Danny going back to school, using the GI Bill, things like that, we have put that aspect of our lives on the back burner and being around awesome guys like you were like.

00;23;56;16 – 00;24;00;20

Aaron?

Oh, we’re done, man. We got to get back to it. So yeah.

00;24;01;04 – 00;24;05;19

Jon

I am probably going to laugh at how many times you guys have made me turn red in this show.

00;24;07;01 – 00;24;14;19

Aaron?

But we’re very much flatter. Yeah, it is gracious. Well, dude, I mean, it’s when you wake up at four in the morning, you go run ten miles as the sun’s coming up.

00;24;14;19 – 00;24;22;07

David

Like, I mean, it does. I think you can do it when you’re doing it every day. Maybe you lose how special that is. But like you guys.

00;24;22;07 – 00;24;26;25

Aaron?

Yeah, that’s not normal. Like, you guys like it. No, it’s.

00;24;26;25 – 00;24;29;29

Danny

Not. It’s super. B.A..

00;24;30;12 – 00;24;44;27

David

I only learned how to challenge ourselves in that area. And it does by people just being around you. You have that effect of people are, like, kind of checking themselves and, you know, I want to have the confidence to be able to rip my shirt off and throw another shirt on, you know, come over and share.

00;24;44;27 – 00;24;47;25

Jon

A little bit of context. I did not just ripped my shirt off when.

00;24;47;26 – 00;24;52;12

Aaron?

The got here. They give up cause they think, hey, guys, RIP.

00;24;53;08 – 00;24;56;07

Aaron

It’s like it’s a power move and a weird social setting, and.

00;24;56;15 – 00;24;58;14

Aaron?

I just want everyone to know where I’m comfortable with now.

00;24;59;05 – 00;25;17;26

Jon

They gave me a shirt. I want to wrap it for the show. Right. There’ll be more to follow on that. And you know, one thing you commented on that I really want to touch real quick, because I think it’s it’s critically important. So fitness comes up a lot on the show. And one of the things that, you know, just continue to own and be very transparent on that, Erin and I were really worried about up front is like we’re not a fitness show.

00;25;17;26 – 00;25;32;03

Jon

Why does fitness come up so much? How do we make sure that we’re clear in what we are? It’s like, let’s give it time and see and we can adjust. Right? And and we’ll come back to this in a second, if you’ll bear with me. But like the more I listen and think about your guys company, I think of you as like you’re your mission is to encourage.

00;25;32;07 – 00;25;55;06

Jon

Yeah, right. That’s my perception. So I’ll bring us right back to that. But you were describing all these different facets of life that need sharpening, that need honing, improving building. And it is the whole human project, it’s the whole humanness. Yeah. And the reason that I think fitness comes up so much in my mind is it’s a keystone habit, right?

00;25;55;06 – 00;26;22;01

Jon

From like atomic habits. Yeah. It’s something that if I do this, the rest will start to fall into place a lot more easily than if I don’t. And that’s where for me, the physical aspect of it is neat, but it’s like it’s really the mental edge that comes from like adding 50% to doubling what I was expecting of myself on a whim because I was playing too much in my mind.

00;26;22;10 – 00;26;27;05

Jon

It’s not that moment, that exercise that matters, it’s how I’m going to feel. The afternoon when I’m tired. My kids want to play.

00;26;27;05 – 00;26;27;16

Aaron?

Yeah.

00;26;27;25 – 00;26;39;15

Jon

And I say, Shut up to the voice in my head and yes to my kid. Yeah, oppose to no to my kid so that I can flatter the voice in my head. You know, it’s the whole picture.

00;26;39;16 – 00;27;04;28

Danny

It’s the it’s kind of like you and Jeremiah were talking about, like the scar versus Simba or whatever. That good in the bad voices in your head. Just that mental fortitude that’s we talked about that over on the way here to just the discipline. It’s one thing you see recurring in every successful person that personally I idolize is just the discipline of being well-structured and going and doing it every day when you can make excuses.

00;27;05;18 – 00;27;21;15

Danny

I’ve made excuses for a year now. I know I don’t want to spend my energy on that. I don’t want to do that. There’s there’s a million reasons not to. But having the discipline to keep going back and doing what you don’t want to do every day, that’s that’s that mental fortitude.

00;27;21;20 – 00;27;40;24

David

And that kind of is like a which I hate this and I wish it wasn’t this way, but it kind of is like an outward expression of like, I don’t know if I necessarily I don’t know a lot of successful people say how you do one thing is how you do everything. And sometimes I like to try to justify to myself that that’s not necessarily true.

00;27;40;24 – 00;27;41;17

David

I think it is true.

00;27;42;04 – 00;27;44;02

Aaron?

And your body.

00;27;44;02 – 00;27;53;13

David

Is kind of like an outward observable. Immediately when you’re walking up on somebody, it’s kind of a reflection of like how much you tolerate, like if you’re a little soft, it’s kind of it’s it’s.

00;27;53;14 – 00;27;53;27

Aaron?

00;27;54;14 – 00;28;16;08

David

Visual representation of your iron, you know, It’s like, Oh, you’re a little rusty. Like you you eat a little bit too much. You’re a little bit not as disciplined as you should be with your workouts versus I’m really regimented. Yeah, That I mean, the successful people that we see, at least that we follow in everything are very disciplined, very regimental, and it’s it’s kind of like a you can’t really hide it.

00;28;16;08 – 00;28;17;07

David

It’s you know what I mean?

00;28;17;07 – 00;28;18;01

Aaron?

Like, yeah, yeah.

00;28;18;02 – 00;28;36;22

Danny

It’s, it’s funny because we were talking about like on the way here Andy for so, you know, he grew first form and at one point he was what, £350. Yeah. And it’s like where do you, where do you draw that line. Is there ever an excuse for like, Yeah, we’re, it’s on the back burner because we’re focusing on this.

00;28;37;02 – 00;28;55;13

Danny

And I think the the answer we both came to is like, now there’s always the time. It’s just you have to have the discipline to do it. But it is, it is kind of one of those things where it’s like, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s hard to know what the right answer is, right? Because you can’t be super successful in every single category.

00;28;55;14 – 00;28;58;00

Danny

No. So there’s it’s all balance.

00;28;58;00 – 00;29;20;15

Jon

And I’m glad he said that because it’s like you guys met Kenya. We had Cam Yeah. On the on the show. A lobster? Yeah, he’s a monster. And he one of his arenas that he wants to be successful in his fitness. Yeah. And you can tell because not only is he a monster, he’s earned that, he’s worked for that and he has goals that pursue that.

00;29;20;15 – 00;29;37;24

Jon

Yeah, right. So I, he really challenged me on the whole like being uncomfortable getting where you want to do one. I had to start back from beginning because he was laughing at me for my form being terrible and me being a stiff as a board and all these things. I learned a lot from him and I had to humble myself to say, okay, am I willing to keep a friend?

00;29;37;24 – 00;29;53;29

Jon

He’s going to make me better, but start from zero and something I’ve been doing for 15 years and as I think straight I am, I threw it out the window. I start swallowing that pride and it took me some time to get over if I’m being transparent. But I got over it. That’s awesome. We’re fast friends, but that’s one of his priorities.

00;29;54;11 – 00;29;59;22

Jon

But that’s one of his top goals. Yeah, right. And you can tell because the man’s like, thrown around six, seven, £800. Yeah, I.

00;29;59;22 – 00;30;04;07

Danny

Literally just saw a video of him squatting 515 like it was nothing on Instagram yesterday. I was like.

00;30;04;24 – 00;30;06;01

Aaron?

He’s just he’s just playing.

00;30;06;01 – 00;30;22;27

Jon

But, you know, the to the balance point, right? So you have that and that is in line with his goals, his why, his purpose right now for the season of life. And it’s like for me fitness is it you know yeah you know building a business Aaron and are doing the podcast we want to have these things family all this stuff.

00;30;22;27 – 00;30;49;03

Jon

So for me, fitness is my tool where I balance it for myself. I use it as a tool to ensure that, like you said, there’s no coasting. Coasting is going downhill. So I’m either improving or not. I use it as my reality check, my tool and a place where I can hold myself accountable to ensure that I’m giving my wife and my children, first and foremost, the best of myself and then those outside of that.

00;30;49;03 – 00;31;02;16

Jon

Yeah. So that, you know, there’s this kind of mentality and this has come up a bunch of when I’m on my deathbed, in the best version of myself, walks up to me. I don’t want to be ashamed. Yeah, you know, Yeah, I want to be like.

00;31;02;28 – 00;31;04;26

Aaron?

So, yeah, yeah.

00;31;04;28 – 00;31;06;14

Jon

As close as humanly possible. Yeah.

00;31;06;14 – 00;31;06;28

Aaron?

Listen to.

00;31;06;28 – 00;31;08;25

David

At my left or any of his stuff.

00;31;08;25 – 00;31;13;14

Aaron?

In my left arm. Yeah. Did you guys all right? Yeah. Write it down. Yeah, he he.

00;31;14;05 – 00;31;19;01

David

He must’ve gotten that analogy. So, Ed, Eddie, my elite.

00;31;19;01 – 00;31;22;01

Jon

I’ve heard a few people play with the idea, and I love.

00;31;22;01 – 00;31;34;27

David

It. Dude, he is an awesome. Yeah. And Andy facilitated those, too. Yeah. You guys will absolutely love him very much. Like, Jocko ask like, but more in the business. Yeah.

00;31;35;06 – 00;31;37;11

Danny

Ed My phenomenal super faith base too.

00;31;37;11 – 00;31;38;14

Aaron?

He’s just right.

00;31;38;22 – 00;31;57;22

David

He does it so tactfully to where you don’t really know, but he’s just an awesome individual. But he gives that analogy of he’s like, he calls it like heaven versus hell. He’s like, My version of hell is I. He’s like, you know, I’m a person of faith. I believe eventually I’ll get to heaven, whatever that I believe in that.

00;31;57;22 – 00;32;17;17

David

And basically he says, you know what I view or what I imagine as my version of hell is I meet this guy in the afterlife who is the the who I was created to be, who I had the potential to be, the example of my full human potential. And he’s awesome and he’s rich and he’s shredded and he just this phenomenal person.

00;32;17;22 – 00;32;25;10

David

And I meet him and we’re total strangers and I look nothing like him and I’m nothing like him. And my version of heaven is I meet that guy and we’re identical twins.

00;32;25;10 – 00;32;26;00

Aaron?

It’s like, Dude.

00;32;26;06 – 00;32;38;05

David

I’ve been chasing you my whole life. I finally met you. Like, this is a great measure for me because we’re really close to being identical. I got came really close to maxing out my potential. Yeah, it’s.

00;32;38;05 – 00;32;56;04

Jon

Funny because you said you say that, and I’ve played with the idea for a while, right? And I’m sure I heard it a long time ago. Like, I don’t think I created it in my own mind. And then heard it after. But as I played with it, here’s a spot on another person in his book he does is Goggins and his true true to form for him.

00;32;56;04 – 00;32;57;27

Jon

He’s like, I want to be better than the best version.

00;32;57;27 – 00;33;00;26

Aaron?

Of what I could. Just like. Of course you do.

00;33;01;05 – 00;33;11;09

Jon

And I love it. And his book was way deeper than I thought, right? Just as a quick aside, Ken actually recommended to me and I was like, I’ve seen his YouTube. I know what it’s going to be. You know.

00;33;11;15 – 00;33;12;29

Aaron?

Chicago can’t.

00;33;12;29 – 00;33;13;11

David

Hurt me.

00;33;13;12 – 00;33;14;07

Jon

Yeah, can’t hurt me.

00;33;14;07 – 00;33;15;02

David

I haven’t read about.

00;33;15;19 – 00;33;45;09

Jon

The audible version was amazing. And there is so much more depth and thought to it than I thought based off of kind of his brand on YouTube. That was it was a good thought perspective. And it also really helped with that whole journey of like, I want to keep ratcheting up because we’ve been doing challenges and contracts with ourselves since last Thanksgiving was since last October and I was doing one and it was helping with some of the mental aspects I wanted to work on, but not so much the whole human being.

00;33;45;09 – 00;34;05;27

Jon

Yeah, right. And I just threw it out a second day, 20 of 100, and just threw that stuff out and created something that’s really crushing me and pushing me. And I’m like, loving it because of that idea, right? I can’t that the idea of wasted potential is terrifying. Yeah. And especially when you have when you’re not in a vacuum, right?

00;34;05;27 – 00;34;15;04

Jon

If you have other people in your life, you’re either dolling them out, making their life worse, making them worse, pulling them down. You know? Have you guys heard the analogy of the crabs in a bucket?

00;34;15;04 – 00;34;15;17

David

Yeah.

00;34;15;29 – 00;34;32;27

Jon

If you capture a bunch of crabs in case someone hasn’t heard it, who’s listening in? If you you can put a basket with bacon in it in the bottom of the ocean wherever you’re crabbing, and they’re all just climate and you don’t have to put a lid on. It doesn’t close anything because whichever crabs did, this isn’t good.

00;34;32;27 – 00;34;49;01

Jon

We got to get out. They’ll climb out, get pulled down, and if they keep climbing, they’ll eventually kill the crab that’s coming out the rip apart and kill them because they don’t want him to get out. And I’m not sure it’s like for the crabs. It’s so thought out. But it’s a great analogy of am I doing that to people?

00;34;49;08 – 00;35;10;04

Jon

Yeah. Or am I calling out something better in them? Yeah. So that we can then throw each other together and in the mutual force and friction of that environment make each other better. Yeah. You know, whether it be business relationally, fitness, you know, it’s the whole picture. And the one thing we can’t get away from is what’s in between these like the, our temples.

00;35;10;04 – 00;35;20;05

Jon

Right. Yeah. So it’s, I want voices of, of passion speaking into my ears saying who I can be and calling that out.

00;35;20;05 – 00;35;20;26

Aaron?

Yeah. Yeah.

00;35;21;03 – 00;35;40;22

David

Which is not fun because the most comfortable thing, the most enjoyable thing is to be surrounded by a bunch of people who are just cool with you that just tell you how you’re fine, how you are. I like you, but they’re naturally not driven. And then you just you’re more comfortable, You’re probably more happy in the short term and your life is not as challenged, but you don’t grow at all inside of your comfort zone.

00;35;40;22 – 00;35;56;26

David

It’s just like tearing down a muscle like the only to make a muscle grow is to tear it down and make it very uncomfortable and then it grows back stronger. It’s the same thing If you want to get better, if you want to get sharper, you have to maintain internally. Put yourself around people who make you a little bit uncomfortable.

00;35;56;26 – 00;36;11;17

David

You don’t want to be the the smartest person in the room. You don’t necessarily want to be the fittest. Like if you’re the fittest amongst, your friends get some more friends who are fitter than you that are constantly pulling you up. Yeah. As opposed to that crab in the bucket of Oh, you’re trying to make yourself now don’t go make yourself better.

00;36;11;17 – 00;36;17;26

David

You don’t need to get smarter, you don’t need to read more books. Stop working out so obsessively. Like, it’s kind of weird that you wake up at four in the morning.

00;36;17;26 – 00;36;18;14

Aaron?

And, you know.

00;36;18;23 – 00;36;30;10

David

And if you get around that, they’re just going to pull you back to that softness and that complacency. And and yeah, you’re not talking about trying to maximize your potential. You’re not going to get anywhere near that full version of yourself.

00;36;30;10 – 00;36;54;05

Jon

Well, and it’s always an uphill fight, like building the business while both working different careers, different, you know, serving in different aspects of the military, doing all that stuff is it comes at sack. It’s a there’s a sacrifice. Yeah, right. And and some of the things that we’ve talked about just to kind of reflect a little bit as we continue forward is we got to find out that the genesis of like why a clothing brand.

00;36;54;13 – 00;37;14;17

Jon

Right. Which because you’re an artist, you fell in love with it, you had all these great examples. And then we start touching on the why of iron sharpens iron. And that’s what our conversations really exploded around, because it’s such a if you sit and think about it beyond just the three words and all the implications of making each other better and like that’s kind of part of the journey of life in my mind, right?

00;37;14;17 – 00;37;42;17

Jon

Of like, how do we just continue to grow? Because goodness, I don’t want to stay stagnant in that. And that’s what’s brought us here. And now we’re enjoying the fruits of that conversation. And I think the thing that I’m really wanted to highlight with that just little summary to help keep it so that everyone stone on tractors mentally, for whatever that’s worth, is what why is why is it so quarter only universal?

00;37;42;17 – 00;38;14;07

Jon

It appears time tested and proven to pursue growth right through who you are in community with who with all the choices you live with your life, right? Like we have so much abundance around us, it’s very easy to do little and be comfortable. Yeah. And yet we strive not to because we there’s not like there’s this crazy benefit we can it’s just this thing called peace or satisfy action in our minds that like, we’re doing what we can to grow.

00;38;14;07 – 00;38;28;29

Jon

And when you don’t, when you’re not doing what you can, we not giving everything you know how to get you get on that. You get you’re not happy about it. Yeah right. Like you guys said, come on over. It’s like for a year we’ve been saying we want to do this thing, the pursuit of this goal, and we have it.

00;38;28;29 – 00;38;44;15

Jon

And now we’re looking at that and like the thing that I always think about when I’m uncomfortable is it I’m not so much uncomfortable because of where they are, but because of a reflection of where I’m not. Yeah, yeah. It’s like, darn it, I feel like I got to do more.

00;38;44;18 – 00;38;46;21

Aaron?

Yeah, I, I’m giving everything already.

00;38;46;21 – 00;38;49;08

Jon

But now you’re not so saying no.

00;38;49;17 – 00;39;05;04

Aaron

Well, we have a, I think the culture we can tend to fight for acceptance rather than fighting for actually allowing ourselves to have the disciplines that are helping us be better.

00;39;05;05 – 00;39;05;19

Aaron?

Yeah.

00;39;05;25 – 00;39;24;14

Aaron

And because acceptance doesn’t, there’s no action in that. It’s sort of like just, just change your opinion of me. Yeah. So I don’t have to do anything, you know? And what we’re really seeking in the room with us is, Hey, I know you’re trying to impress me with your squat form, but I’m Ken Clarke, and you know I know better, right?

00;39;25;04 – 00;39;30;03

Aaron

And I’m in your glad he’s in the room. It’s like, Hey, you don’t want to have friends that you’re just trying to impress all the time.

00;39;30;09 – 00;39;36;29

Jon

Well, think of it with business real quick. I think what you just said, right, the acceptance piece, it’s people want acceptance over excellence.

00;39;37;12 – 00;39;37;25

Aaron

Yeah, that’s.

00;39;38;01 – 00;39;39;25

Jon

Right, Mike. Thank you. You just.

00;39;39;25 – 00;39;57;24

Aaron

You softball this season and you just sharpen me. Thank you. It’s a better way as a better articulation of what it is saying. Yeah, Yeah. Excellence is what we’re really seeking. And excellence is a difficult journey. And I love that you guys are creating a mission around this and then bringing people together because that is exactly the formula that is needed to make that happen.

00;39;57;24 – 00;40;04;28

Aaron

I mean, the larger the community of people saying, Hey, we need to get better, yeah, everyone wins. Yeah. And we get and we get there faster.

00;40;05;05 – 00;40;08;12

Danny

Yeah. And it’s, it’s kind of what you’re exposed to as well.

00;40;08;12 – 00;40;09;20

Aaron?

Like not.

00;40;10;22 – 00;40;32;06

Danny

Not everyone realizes that this isn’t a normal thought pattern or a normal way of living your life. And I’m cooking at things. Not everyone had an awesome older brother or older brothers that were hard on them their entire life to make them sharper and make them better. And make them smarter. And they didn’t. They weren’t always exposed to that.

00;40;32;06 – 00;40;41;27

Danny

So, you know, you’re 19, 20 years old, and no one’s ever told you, hey, you’re doing a bad job at this. Let’s do it this way so that you can do it better to make you better.

00;40;42;13 – 00;40;47;04

Aaron

David I got to tell the story. Just the brother thing. I’m sorry I Did you finish that?

00;40;47;04 – 00;40;57;00

Danny

No, no, I’m just, you know, making the point, like, it’s not a totally common thing. Always. And once you figure that out and walk like.

00;40;57;00 – 00;40;57;29

Aaron?

Yeah, hey.

00;40;58;15 – 00;41;07;15

Danny

I can be better at life. And here’s all of the categories that I need to be better at. It never really ends. It’s a constant, a never ending journey of I need to be.

00;41;07;15 – 00;41;07;26

David

Better.

00;41;08;09 – 00;41;09;02

Danny

And do better.

00;41;09;07 – 00;41;19;29

Aaron

It’s a lot of that. You guys are brothers and my kids live this, you know, and now you’re and now you’re getting the message out to other people. It’s like, Hey, if we create a brotherhood, we have a bunch of guys beating on each other, getting better.

00;41;19;29 – 00;41;20;19

Aaron?

Yeah, because a.

00;41;20;19 – 00;41;30;18

David

Lot of people don’t have the especially Yeah. Further we go along in our you know it’s it’s like I think in our parents generation it was a lot more common to have six or seven siblings, you know, And now it’s going to the point where.

00;41;31;17 – 00;41;31;21

Aaron?

00;41;31;21 – 00;41;46;21

David

Was talking with my, my wife’s uncle is a big business guy and he helps run ecommerce brands and everything, yada, yada. We got on the topic of like pet brands, like the number one our brother in law, Mark, I’m getting all over the place, but I’ll bring it back. But our brother.

00;41;47;00 – 00;41;47;20

Aaron?

Mark is just.

00;41;47;20 – 00;41;57;15

David

Out here. He’s on the launch team for the big Amazon warehouse that they’re building here in Colorado Springs, 4 million square foot facility. It’s stories, each stories a million square feet. And he was like, dude.

00;41;58;08 – 00;41;59;11

Aaron?

Like, what is it?

00;41;59;11 – 00;42;01;22

David

Our number one product out here is dog food.

00;42;01;22 – 00;42;04;05

Aaron?

Like, what’s going on and what.

00;42;04;05 – 00;42;20;00

David

Is happening in our culture is people are like, I can’t afford to have kids, so they’re treating their dogs like children. So I was talking with I mentioned my wife’s uncle is because he was he was like, dude, there’s this huge market for like dog bow ties and dog clothes and luxury dog accessories because people are not having kids.

00;42;20;06 – 00;42;43;26

David

They’re now treating their pets like they’re children. And what that’s painting the picture of is like more and more people are growing up without siblings and without that family aspect. So if we can develop this culture where we’re all pushing each other to be better, sharpening each other almost like we’re siblings, we’re just brothers and sisters making each other better, that yeah, that I guess that’s kind of where I was going with that.

00;42;43;26 – 00;43;01;00

Danny

I think that’s a massive appeal to the military too, and why so many people stay in for so long or why so many people make such great friends in the military and then get out and like for me, like I made awesome friends in the military, got out and like, man, I really miss those dudes because you go through some.

00;43;01;03 – 00;43;03;22

David

War and part of it is shared misery.

00;43;03;28 – 00;43;04;28

Aaron?

Like if you if.

00;43;04;28 – 00;43;27;22

David

You’re like, in college, I don’t really have great friends from college because we never went through anything really hard together. We just, like, coexisted. We had fun, everything a good time. We didn’t go through adversity together. Whereas some of my best friends are the dudes that I, you know, knew in the military where we went. The reason we’re such strong friends that I don’t think we really realize is, dude, we went through some extremely tough things together that we have.

00;43;27;22 – 00;43;34;08

Danny

Like a natural tendency to come together and bond when faced with adversity. Yeah.

00;43;34;08 – 00;43;50;15

Aaron

Strange. That’s a it’s a that is the formula for a strong friendship is Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I’ll tell you a phenomenon if you go up, if you do the incline, those strangers become your friends. Yeah. Everyone’s in it together. Yeah. This sucks. Yeah. You know, go do a Tough Mudder and watch strangers help you get over obstacles.

00;43;50;15 – 00;43;51;05

Aaron

And you never met.

00;43;51;09 – 00;43;54;20

Danny

Dudes that you’ve never met before. And everyone’s coming together because you’re.

00;43;54;20 – 00;43;54;29

Aaron?

Now.

00;43;55;11 – 00;43;58;04

Danny

Getting your stuff stamped in together, and it sucks.

00;43;58;04 – 00;44;16;00

Aaron

Yeah, I want a distro quick. You just run me a story. So you talk about, like, brothers, like making you better. So my brother was a he took second in the state and wrestling here, here in Springs. And one of the things he used to do, he started in middle school and one of the things before he started Matt, he and I would go into the alternate gym, you know, where they didn’t do the matches.

00;44;16;15 – 00;44;34;22

Aaron

And I was like, All right, let’s wrestle. Want I told you was three years older, my brother. So I had good £5 on him and we would wrestle and these poor kids, when he went out on the mat, he’d been swinging three bats for like 30 minutes with his older brother. And I just it was just fun. I just sat back and he would just throw them around like they were nothing.

00;44;35;01 – 00;44;49;29

Aaron

But it was amazing, like to load the weight up for him. The load, the adversity and the difficulty for him made him just so much stronger for the competition. That is not the reason why he’s second and say, you know, a lot of other things. But I just that’s my one little contribution to that.

00;44;49;29 – 00;44;50;03

Aaron?

No.

00;44;50;05 – 00;45;11;10

Danny

Yeah, that’s a great point. I mean, that’s why people never make cut weight, right, is because you get used to training with all of these dudes that are your same weight class and you’re you’re sparring with dudes that are £170 and you cut down and fight at 150 or whatever, you’re going to dominate, you’re floating. But I mean, it kind of sucks because then everyone has the same philosophy and everyone sharper.

00;45;11;10 – 00;45;11;29

Aaron?

It’s like, Yeah.

00;45;12;22 – 00;45;15;10

David

Yeah, these are that’s why you know. Yeah, most of the yeah.

00;45;15;23 – 00;45;19;06

Aaron?

Yeah, most of the best guys in the UFC.

00;45;19;06 – 00;45;32;02

David

I think. I don’t know, it just drives that continuous competition. It’s the same thing with the Olympics. I mean they, they’re just shaving seconds off of each other’s time over and over and over again. And it’s just perpetually getting better and sharper.

00;45;32;02 – 00;45;32;22

Aaron?

I mean. That’s right.

00;45;33;00 – 00;45;52;20

Jon

So what you just said reminded me of something we were talking about earlier, and it was the there’s a million I can’t remember, but it came up. There’s a million reasons to say no to doing something right. There’s a million excuses, mainly reasons. And that’s the power of a really strong. Yes. Yeah. Like a passion filled. Yes. That’s what’s so powerful about it, because it will it will cut the tongue out of every now.

00;45;52;20 – 00;46;15;03

Jon

Yeah. And you know the the goal to build a business that encourages people with your guys is mission was a a strong yes enough to say no to all of the things that would come and say oh you’re already working and you have families and you’re transitioning through life phases and you’re doing all these things and you shouldn’t even be working together.

00;46;15;03 – 00;46;21;18

Jon

You guys are family and yeah, you know, all of these things and you’re like, noted, Thank you. We’re doing this. Yeah, right.

00;46;22;02 – 00;46;45;01

Danny

Yeah. And what’s funny about that is, I mean, we at least I did. David never really did. But, hey I’ll admit, my downfall is right now. I said no for a while. I mean, David actually shipped out on almost the same day. David shipped to his first duty station of Korea after getting out of ROTC. And I shipped to Basic, like, the following day.

00;46;46;01 – 00;47;05;19

Danny

And for the next following, like four years of my Air Force career, I really I didn’t do anything for our apparel. It just kind of died in the water for me. I just I was like, Dude, whatever. Like, screw it to this. It didn’t work out. This is my career now. I’m just going to focus on this. And I never really died out for David.

00;47;05;19 – 00;47;07;13

Danny

David always kept, but.

00;47;07;13 – 00;47;26;25

David

I mean, I had the competing requirement of being in the active duty. You just didn’t have a lot of time and kept moving around. And every new place that you speaks to, you got to try to find a new screen printer and we just never really could get it going until we made it. We both made the I kind of made the conscious decision for myself of I am going to do this come hell or high water.

00;47;26;25 – 00;47;42;29

David

And so I’ve got to get out of the active duty and state. We’ve got a good screen burner here in Colorado Springs. We’re starting to I’ve got at least a little bit of foundation here. I’ve got to find some way to stay in Guard Springs. So I got out of active duty. I was able to it was kind of like, I think, God thing in my life.

00;47;43;08 – 00;47;58;05

David

My former Army company commander went to church with the guy who wound up being the open door to get in the Air Force Reserves. And that was my whole plan, was how can I stay in this culture? Because I want to I don’t want to take the uniform off. I don’t want to be done, but I want to pursue this business.

00;47;58;05 – 00;48;16;20

David

This is like my I feel like my calling in life is what I want to accomplish. So that was the sacrifice that I made. I’ve kind of given up. I don’t want to peaks again because then we’re just never if I never make this business a focus, it’s never really going to materialize. It’s been the single hardest thing that I think both of us have ever tried to do, and we haven’t made it yet.

00;48;16;20 – 00;48;41;29

David

But it’s going to require some sacrifice. And then it’s almost two years ago now, Danny got out of the active duty and he was like, You know what? I am going to move down. He he gave up his active duty Air Force career, moved into the guest bedroom of my home, brought like one truck bed full of all of his stuff, moved into my into my home for a year and a half and basically worked for free packing.

00;48;41;29 – 00;49;02;03

David

And he’s packed like 11, 12,000 orders by himself with basically before we could pay him, we finally back in January were able to start paying him a very small amount. But he’s been using the GI Bill to kind of complement that but go into school. Living with his brother, gave up, was living in his own home up there and just made sacrifices.

00;49;02;03 – 00;49;12;27

David

And to your point, it’s like if you want to really accomplish something great in your life, it is going to require, you know, you got to cut all those distractions and all of that one thing.

00;49;13;02 – 00;49;42;03

Danny

Yeah, what I noticed was I, I said, no at first and ultimately came to the realization of, Wow, all of this sucks. I should have said yes, I should have done the harder thing and said yes. So I was like, This is going to suck right now. It’s going to be a bit of a Band-Aid. Like I could stay in and maybe not be super happy, but like, be comfortable, stable, have that income, or I can say.

00;49;42;18 – 00;49;43;22

Aaron?

Screw it, let’s go.

00;49;43;22 – 00;49;47;21

Danny

Away and let’s do what we were trying to do four years ago.

00;49;47;21 – 00;50;07;19

David

And I’m so thankful that Danny was willing to do that, because I could never I could never humble myself to that point of going and living with one of my siblings. I just I’m like, I’ve got to have a job. I’ve got to have an income. I’ve got to live in my own. I’m not willing to give that up and do the suck that’s required to do that.

00;50;07;19 – 00;50;31;01

David

So and I don’t think that we could have been successful without Danny being willing to do that. So it’s just kind of illustrates that the whole point of sharpen yourself, sharpen others is all of us have gifts and talents and abilities and parts about us where areas we’re really strong, that other people are not as strong or weak and we can benefit them in that area.

00;50;31;01 – 00;50;40;26

David

And that’s part of that iron sharpening iron is yeah, recognizing where you’re strong and where you’re weak and how you can help people, you know, in that aspect.

00;50;40;27 – 00;50;51;16

Jon

Absolutely. And what you just said is exactly why I got excited a second ago. It’s like, yeah, that’s a whole other part of this. We’re not even talking about the beauty of partnerships. Yeah. Is covering each other’s with one.

00;50;52;00 – 00;50;54;23

David

Hundred percent, and especially even sorry to catch your.

00;50;54;23 – 00;50;55;20

Jon

Good man when you.

00;50;55;20 – 00;51;13;02

David

Get down in the dumps. When I was doing it by myself, I’d have a couple of months where I was doing really well, getting a lot of stuff done with the business, making progress, and then I’d get like, depressed, you know, we wouldn’t have a sale in a long time, yada yada. And when you start falling, to pull yourself out of that is really difficult.

00;51;13;02 – 00;51;26;11

David

I, I didn’t really have a formula to get out of that, but I have literally not had that problem since Danny got back in, because when he has a bad day, when he was like, Dude, this sucks. We should quit. Like, this is never going to happen. I’m like, No way.

00;51;26;11 – 00;51;27;29

Aaron?

We are totally doing this. And it’s just.

00;51;28;06 – 00;51;40;29

David

We’re able to almost immediately nip that stuff in the bud and just keep it going and yeah, when when the one person kind of starts slowing down a little bit, getting down in the dumps, the other person’s there to pick them up and pat them on the back and yeah, keep driving.

00;51;41;03 – 00;52;02;25

Jon

It’s a huge thing. I mean, Aaron is always pumping me up and stuff and I hope that we’re encouraging each other. Right. And I think one of the things that’s hard to when you’re building something and this is a slight step in a direction with what we’re talking about, it’s not even just complimenting your strengths, right? Because what we’re talking about is like, okay, I’m more like this, and Aaron’s more like that.

00;52;02;25 – 00;52;24;08

Jon

And we kind of really his strengths cover where I’m a little bit weaker and vice versa. And that is a huge aspect of that. That’s powerful, but it’s also just a force multiplier of energy, not even motivation. Yes, but really the drive to continue despite how you’re feeling. Yeah. And the ability to say like on those rare moments where you both realized, holy moly, we’re in a valley.

00;52;24;24 – 00;52;35;21

Jon

You say, Good, we’re both really bad right now. That’s when that mike the suck starts to turn to humor. Yeah, you hit that point where it’s like, Oh, this is horrible. Yeah, This I hate.

00;52;35;27 – 00;52;39;17

Aaron?

Totally. Yeah, we’ve been there multiple times.

00;52;39;28 – 00;52;58;27

Jon

And then it turns into a fuel. Yeah. To start climbing out again. It’s like that’s not going to happen. And for most people, if you’re sitting by yourself. Yeah. And one of the things that was a little bit, it’s kind of like a little shoot off and right back into the line of our conversation is there’s a book called Behavioral Investor.

00;52;59;08 – 00;53;18;14

Jon

And the premise is like, you want to remove your behavior, like your emotions from investing because it’s going to scream. So how do you do that? Will you set a plan that you believe in, right, that you think is logically and well informed? All that, and then you minimize your contact with it so that you don’t get the emotional rollercoaster of the ups and downs.

00;53;18;29 – 00;53;38;29

Jon

And the same is true, especially if you’re doing stuff like building a business or wanting to do something that’s influencing a lot of people. If you’re watching the metrics every day, you’re going to get just slammed. Bastard on your morale. And we set this thing up. It’s like, Yeah, we want to keep an eye on the metrics, but we are not going to sit down and talk about them until 50 episodes.

00;53;39;08 – 00;54;13;25

Jon

I mean, our first 18 episodes had terrible sound quality. Yeah, we’re still like we just now are using our mics and frankly trying to learn how to use them well, right. And it’s like, let’s give ourselves 250 to evaluate how we want to do the next 50 to get to 100, and then we’ll go from there. Yeah. And it’s just there’s something interesting to when you pick that partner who you complement with and that you’re working through life, when you build that culture around yourself, where you’re investing in a culture of iron, sharpening iron, you all of those yeses are equally met with strong no’s to the voices you’re not letting in.

00;54;13;29 – 00;54;27;11

Jon

Yeah, right. I’m not going to let in the discouragement of this or that, or I may have to let go of some relationships I thought were really neat. You know, it’s like you. The power of that. No. Starts to kind of thumb in a little more.

00;54;27;11 – 00;54;27;22

Aaron?

Yeah.

00;54;28;06 – 00;54;42;26

Aaron

You know there’ll be there’ll be some, you know, crabs in the bucket though when you’re doing this kind of stuff to outside influences. I mean just you’re, you’re dealing with the thoughts in your own head. That’s one thing for sure. You know, you still have all the naysayers around you and people are uncomfortable with you trying something new.

00;54;42;26 – 00;55;00;09

Aaron

And the gantlet of every business owner and those listening who have started business is that you have at some point you have to jump into the unknown. Yeah. And it’s something that most people just don’t do. It’s like, What are you doing? That’s that’s uncomfortable. Like, what if you fail? It’s like, don’t. Okay, I don’t. I don’t need that right now.

00;55;00;09 – 00;55;26;09

Aaron

You know, It’s like I’ve thought through it. I’ve made my decision, I’m going to do this and I’m looking for people that are going to help encourage me because I got enough of my own voice in my head. Yeah, but. But what can you do? Because this like what you’re saying. So, Danny, when you’re saying to yourself, like, I can only do this, like, I should have made this, this decision first, this is this uncomfortable decision because what’s the alternative?

00;55;26;16 – 00;55;30;19

Aaron

Comfort Yeah, that’s cool for a moment. But, you know, when you’re being honest with yourself.

00;55;30;24 – 00;55;40;14

Danny

The end result of it and it’s not. Yeah, it’s. I’m ignoring that. I’m not happy. I’m ignoring that I’m not reaching my full potential and not where I’m supposed.

00;55;40;14 – 00;55;43;12

Aaron?

There’s a brilliant because we chase.

00;55;43;12 – 00;55;46;26

David

Comfort and then when we have it, we’re not happy.

00;55;47;13 – 00;55;47;21

Aaron?

Right?

00;55;47;25 – 00;55;52;20

David

I mean, like, that’s what you think you’re working toward your whole life and then like, you get it and you’re like, Oh.

00;55;53;02 – 00;55;54;08

Aaron?

This isn’t actually what’s.

00;55;54;08 – 00;55;55;13

David

Going to make me happy.

00;55;56;05 – 00;55;57;15

Aaron?

Yes. Yes.

00;55;57;21 – 00;56;01;25

Jon

And because I was thinking about this this morning, because I was really bitter about going on my run.

00;56;02;05 – 00;56;04;29

Aaron

Super bitter that he told himself to do, by the way.

00;56;05;05 – 00;56;07;12

Aaron?

Yeah. But, you know, you.

00;56;07;12 – 00;56;11;24

Jon

Always make choices when, like, you’re sitting on the couch, you’re fed, you’re comfortable, and you’re like.

00;56;11;28 – 00;56;14;11

Aaron?

How could you do that? And then when.

00;56;14;11 – 00;56;15;08

Jon

You’re in the fight, you’re like.

00;56;15;08 – 00;56;17;13

Aaron?

This was stupid. Why am I doing.

00;56;17;13 – 00;56;25;10

Jon

This is unnecessary. But it’s because what you just said, because when you’re sitting there comfortable on the couch, you’re not satisfied with who you are. That moment you strive for more.

00;56;25;12 – 00;56;31;06

Danny

I was just watching that, and I can’t remember his name, but the guy that runs the meat eater show.

00;56;31;29 – 00;56;33;05

Jon

Okay, I know who you’re talking about.

00;56;33;05 – 00;56;56;21

Danny

I was just watching an episode of that the other day and they kind of had like just some B-roll footage. They went on this on this hunt that lasted weeks and they didn’t get anything. And they just had this footage of him after about a week and a half sitting out on this mountain. And he kind of just looks at the camera and he’s like, you know, I always really like the idea of just going out and and just doing nothing.

00;56;57;11 – 00;57;08;16

Danny

And then I get here and I hate it. And I’m a real poor sport about it because I’m not happy. I love the idea of a day off and then I take a day off.

00;57;08;28 – 00;57;09;03

Aaron?

And.

00;57;09;03 – 00;57;09;21

Danny

I hate it.

00;57;10;12 – 00;57;29;18

David

I think, Dude, I looked forward so much when I got out of the active duty army and was transitioning there. So when you leave the active duty and you cross branches, your commission has to go all the way up to like the SecDef office or whatever, for you to allow it to transfer into the over branch. And that takes a lot of time.

00;57;30;02 – 00;57;46;05

David

So they were like, You’ll probably be able to start like right when you get off active duty. But the closer we got to that, they were like, Hey, prepare to have like a month off. Prepare to maybe have like two months off. It wound up, I think I had like six months off, like I got out in June and I didn’t start my new job until December.

00;57;46;05 – 00;57;46;17

Aaron?

Which is.

00;57;46;17 – 00;58;02;09

David

Like six months, but I was really looking forward to it. I was like, Dude, I’m going to have a break. I don’t have nothing going on. My wife is working full time. Like, I’m just going to literally be chillin at the house and there’s not really like, I’m not going to have a lot of guilt with it because I’ve got a job lined up that I can’t start.

00;58;02;09 – 00;58;04;22

David

Everything’s out of my control. Yeah, it’s like the greatest.

00;58;04;22 – 00;58;06;25

Aaron?

Excuse in the world. Yes, lazy for.

00;58;06;25 – 00;58;17;27

David

A while. And I don’t think I’ve ever been more depressed. And I was during those six months there, like the first day was awesome. And then I sat on the couch and ate a ton of food and watched every Marvel movie.

00;58;17;27 – 00;58;19;02

Aaron?

That come out.

00;58;19;10 – 00;58;29;06

David

And I did nothing with iron apparel. I was like, I’m going to get all this stuff done with iron apparel. And I just I had no activity, I had no challenges. I had nothing but comfort and I was miserable.

00;58;29;15 – 00;58;30;06

Jon

You know, it’s so.

00;58;30;06 – 00;58;30;15

David

It’s.

00;58;31;15 – 00;58;54;05

Jon

There’s something powerful to that. And it’s just it’s the beautiful joy of freedom. Yeah, Freedom is hard, scary and difficult. And because I had, you know, when I left active duty, it was like, you get that shot of freedom. And with that freedom, there’s like, this, Yeah, I’m going to rest some. I’m going to recover finally. And then you sit in that for a little bit in your life, you start to get a little uncomfortable.

00;58;54;05 – 00;59;09;26

Jon

You’re what’s going on. And then there’s the friction of, well, how am I going to self drive my yeah, my purpose in my, my drive and all that stuff to something of value. And that’s where you kind of hit this freak out point until you accept, oh, I have to choose what I’m going to do and do. Yeah, right.

00;59;09;26 – 00;59;27;21

Jon

No one’s going to tell me. No one’s going to give me something that’s going to fulfill me. No one’s going to provide my day plan for me if whatever level of that I was relying on that for. I’m from a, you know, really heavy organization is gone and I’m going to pursue it, you know, And it’s like the couch is fun for a couple of days.

00;59;27;21 – 00;59;29;07

Jon

I’m sure. I’m sure for a few days, right?

00;59;29;07 – 00;59;30;16

Aaron?

Yeah, I was like, Oh, this is awesome.

00;59;31;00 – 00;59;39;17

Jon

Because you’re coming out of exhaustion. Yeah, right. So there’s a need for rest, but the rest is way shorter than we ever give ourselves. Like the need for, like, we don’t need a month of rest, right?

00;59;39;17 – 01;00;00;18

Aaron

We just. I mean, we had a social experiment in 2020 about having an excuse to say no to everything. Yeah. Oh, I don’t have to go to any parties, any obligations to travel for anyone. I don’t have to go into an office. We’ve become a it made efficiency, like at a whole nother level. Like you can get up in your jammies and get get on your screen and go to work.

01;00;00;19 – 01;00;03;14

Aaron

Yeah. It’s like, what are we doing with all this extra time? And it’s like.

01;00;03;14 – 01;00;05;08

Danny

Yeah, it’s a depressed yes.

01;00;05;15 – 01;00;12;23

Aaron?

Yeah, it is. But it’s not everyone’s. No, not everyone. You watch your tone to look at other people like you guys aren’t.

01;00;12;23 – 01;00;29;12

David

Are the people who, who had the self-drive. And that’s like Jocko. But discipline equals freedom. Everybody always says that discipline equals freedom. Like true freedom doesn’t come from just having nothing to do. It’s it’s and happiness is. Yeah. When you when you cultivate that discipline.

01;00;29;24 – 01;00;45;09

Aaron

But I’ve found I’ve found there’s other seekers out there this last, this last year for those who chose not to. Yeah. To just let slip into the lullaby of all these excuses those who were looking in, they’ll find each other and they’ll double down. Yeah, it’s like we need to do this.

01;00;45;09 – 01;00;48;13

David

This progress we’ve made was made this year by people who wanted to get out.

01;00;48;13 – 01;00;49;19

Aaron?

Yeah, a lot of people.

01;00;49;19 – 01;00;54;26

Aaron

That story, it’s like, Man, I did it harder than I ever had before because I knew how important this was.

01;00;54;26 – 01;01;14;20

Jon

Yeah, I was going to call it like I think 2020 was the great filtration, right where you could really see. And Jeremih talked about this in episode 23, and it’s what we’re talking about now. It’s like you had the excuse to say no to everything. Yeah. So you could really see the people who have just been waiting for the excuse and then the people who then found because it was less distracting, how to say yes to the better.

01;01;14;20 – 01;01;32;07

Jon

Yes. Yes. And it was pretty cool, right? Because it’s like because of that it was things calmed down enough that you and I actually start working out together here because you can go to your gym. Yeah. And then things will calm down just enough that we were like, Yeah, let’s do this thing, because we were liking the progress we’re making holistically from space in the.

01;01;32;21 – 01;01;48;28

Aaron

In the, in the evil of being like Idol was more apparent than ever. Yeah. Because then you get a bunch of it, you consume a bunch of illness, you go, Wow, like I was getting sick slowly before, but I got sick fast. Like, okay, why am I even nibbling on this stuff?

01;01;48;28 – 01;01;49;21

Aaron?

Yeah, Yeah.

01;01;49;28 – 01;02;10;01

Jon

And one thing you said when you were sitting there, like, I should have done this from the beginning, right when you were looking at Dany, looking at leaving the military to come back turned, apparently. I wish I did this in the beginning, but you never had that lesson till you did it, you know, and then you could come back to it with that passion, confidence of like I know beyond a shadow of a doubt this is where I want to be, Right?

01;02;10;05 – 01;02;29;02

Jon

And there’s a gift to that. But the other thing it made me think about is the forks in the road. In hindsight, are the most scary to me, though, covered with like not petrified but covered with gratitude. Because like, we all had these forks in the road and it’s rare we get to hit the same fork twice and make a decision again and have a second chance at the decision.

01;02;29;17 – 01;02;48;11

Jon

And what if we had said no or what decision? Forks in the road being decision points have I missed and gone down the wrong path and you know, lost out because of and and that’s where it’s like while because like you said yes I won’t invest in iron sharpens iron and now you guys are sitting here and you guys are doing it.

01;02;48;21 – 01;03;04;08

Jon

Yeah, it’s hard and there’s wins and there’s losses and the valleys are longer and darker than the wins feel. And, you know, all that type of stuff goes on. But you took that. Yes. And now you’re here, right? I imagine if you’re like, I’m just going to be comfortable and swallow and ignore my misery and stay warm.

01;03;04;11 – 01;03;16;27

David

And we did that for like four years. We were on active duty and we were like, We want to do Ironman eventually, but we’re just too busy with our data that we know what that was like. Like it’s like we were not happy and pursuing project.

01;03;16;27 – 01;03;20;23

Danny

I learned a lot in that process and that we’re like that for years.

01;03;20;23 – 01;03;27;27

David

It was a necessary part of the journey because otherwise you’d always be. If we had just done it initially, then you’d always be wondering, and maybe I should have.

01;03;27;27 – 01;03;29;12

Aaron

Just sort of slammed. I feel like.

01;03;29;16 – 01;03;36;20

Aaron?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or, you know, yeah, on.

01;03;37;06 – 01;03;55;16

Danny

On the flip. And if we would have never done iron apparel and only joined the military, then we would have never even known what that was like. So it was like, it was like everything happened exactly how it should. Like we started it. We fell away from it. We learned a lot. And then we realized, or at least I realized like, Yeah, I have to do this.

01;03;55;16 – 01;04;19;16

Danny

I have to challenge myself to to be happy and, and to grow. So I think I think you can kind of like go down that road of looking in the past and thinking like, Man, how many bad decisions have I made? And that’s a fair thing to like, ponder and look back at. But I also think that everything happens for a reason and you just have to learn what you can from the past.

01;04;19;16 – 01;04;30;18

Jon

And thank you for thank you because you’re helping me get more on target with what I was trying to say because I agree with you, like living in dwelling in the past in the mistakes you made doesn’t help you looking forward.

01;04;30;18 – 01;04;32;09

Danny

And a lot of people do. Yeah.

01;04;32;15 – 01;04;42;01

Jon

So like, I’m really appreciative that you said that because it sparked on. I don’t know if I have to clear my head. I mean, I know what I was thinking. It doesn’t always come out as clear as I as I want.

01;04;42;05 – 01;04;43;02

Aaron?

To be honest. Right.

01;04;43;20 – 01;04;44;25

Aaron

You were in the club.

01;04;44;25 – 01;05;04;02

Jon

But, you know, you just said, like things do happen for a reason. But when you do get to a point that you make a decision and you feel grateful, you made that decision and you look it’s like, Oh, man, I’m so glad I didn’t choose that wrong path, that that’s what I was trying to talk about. So like, yeah, I’m so grateful for the hard yeses over the easier more with the flow knows.

01;05;04;02 – 01;05;07;01

Jon

Yeah. And, and that’s what I was trying to say if I did it.

01;05;07;21 – 01;05;38;06

Danny

Yeah. No, you articulated just fine. I just when you said that, it made me think of all the dudes I know that really either continue to harp on how hard the military was or how hard the military currently still is while they’re in and all of the wrongdoings that have happened to them or whatever, you know, just the people that that like to complain about how life has done them wrong rather than I mean, is it.

01;05;38;08 – 01;05;57;11

David

Just usually it’s usually like the hardest thing in the right thing or the same, Like it really is. Like normally what’s going to make you happiest and most fulfilled is normally that harder, less appealing path. And if you just take the go where the water carries, you just end up fat and depressed and not happy.

01;05;57;11 – 01;05;57;20

Danny

Yeah.

01;05;57;29 – 01;06;20;05

Jon

And what’s interesting is looking at our conversation right, kind of looking back at everything we’ve talked about, I think I found a central theme that’s pretty exciting, right? If our entrepreneurs are is a means to encourage each other and to build a community that encourages others to grow. You talked about earlier about how some people don’t even know that they are capable of more because they’ve never encountered anything that would call that out of them.

01;06;20;06 – 01;06;25;07

Jon

Yeah, it’s like, well, with this episode to day that changes. If you didn’t.

01;06;25;07 – 01;06;26;07

Danny

Know there’s the calling.

01;06;26;19 – 01;06;31;03

Jon

Here’s the calling you are capable of. So much more than you ever imagined. All you have to do is begin to pursue it.