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Joe Rogan Experience #1771 - Andy Stumpf

Andy Stumpf is a retired Navy SEAL, record-setting wingsuit pilot, BASE jumper, public speaker, and host of the popular podcast "Cleared Hot."

Joe RoganhostAndy Stumpfguest
Jun 27, 20243h 2mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 6:55

    Shadowbans, “prepper” stereotypes, and how platforms throttle discovery

    1. JR

      (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

    2. NA

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

    3. JR

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (heavier rock music) Um, y- we were just talking before we started rolling about Mike Glover, who's, uh, a guy online who, uh, he does a lot of-

    4. AS

      He's also real life.

    5. JR

      ... He is a real-

    6. AS

      (laughs)

    7. JR

      ... life person too. He's not just, he's not just an animated character.

    8. AS

      (laughs)

    9. JR

      (laughs)

    10. AS

      I've met him.

    11. JR

      He gets, uh, he gets a lot of censorship, right? Don't they censor the shit outta him? Don't they, uh, shadow ban him and fuck with his posts?

    12. AS

      (laughs)

    13. JR

      He, he, he teaches-

    14. AS

      I, I hear-

    15. JR

      ... preparedness, right?

    16. AS

      Yeah, so he owns Fieldcraft Survival, which I would describe as preparedness, not to be confused with-

    17. JR

      Preppers.

    18. AS

      ... which I don't think is, has to be a pejorative term. There's a fine line-

    19. JR

      But it is. (laughs)

    20. AS

      ... Okay, yeah, it is. (laughs)

    21. JR

      It's a lot of the end of the world people, right? It's a lot of, you know-

    22. AS

      If you're burying a school bus in your backyard-

    23. JR

      (laughs)

    24. AS

      ... and you have, like, fields of fire and fucking bazookas hidden everywhere, it's, you've taken it too far.

    25. JR

      Yeah.

    26. AS

      Having a medical kit in your car and some first aid training, like, "Hey, I can stop bleeding until a higher level of care arrives-"

    27. JR

      Yes.

    28. AS

      ... I think that's great. So, that's pre- preparedness. But Mike owns Field cla- uh, Fieldcraft Survival. He talks about getting censored. A lot of people talk about getting censored and shadow banned. I can't make heads or tails as to whether or not that is... ho- how true it is.

    29. JR

      Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you on that, 'cause-

    30. AS

      Some people's stuff is fucking boring.

  2. 6:55 – 9:04

    Aging into new “lifetimes”: identity shifts, maturity, and self-awareness

    1. JR

      ... to people who don't know you that you're a Navy SEAL too, so-

    2. AS

      I am not a Navy SEAL. I was a Navy SEAL-

    3. JR

      Former.

    4. AS

      ... in a different lifetime.

    5. JR

      Former Navy SEAL.

    6. AS

      That's correct.

    7. JR

      A different lifetime. Isn't that interesting? 'Cause it is kind of a different lifetime. If you th- like, uh, you think of things you've done in your past, those are different lifetimes. Different relationships you've had, different jobs that you've had. Those really kind of were different lives.

    8. AS

      It was almost 10 years ago.

    9. JR

      Yeah.

    10. AS

      Yeah, I got out the last day of June 2013. So, in about a year, it'll be-

    11. JR

      Are you even the same guy?

    12. AS

      ... like, a decade.

    13. JR

      You think you're the same person as, from 10 years ago?

    14. AS

      Emotional intelligence, I'm still the same idiot.

    15. JR

      (laughs)

    16. AS

      Um, obviously some more laps on the body, like some wear and tear for sure. But, uh, I mean, I look back into my 20s, I don't recognize the person I was.

    17. JR

      No.

    18. AS

      When I look back into my 30s, and I think I was getting a better understanding of who I was. But now, approaching my mid-40s, I think I'm finally coming into a place where I'm more comfortable with who I am and things make more sense.

    19. JR

      Hmm.

    20. AS

      It's a completely different person every decade, I would say.

    21. JR

      Yeah, I would agree. And for me, I'm in my 50s. This is the most mature I've ever been as a person. Obviously most mature in terms of, like, actual real age mature, but it's also the mo- most I've gotten my emotions and my brain and everything, my discipline, all of it dialed in, under control.

    22. AS

      What age would you give yourself, maturity wise?

    23. JR

      54. I'm actually really a 54-year-old. (laughs)

    24. AS

      No, I mean, like, the inside Joe, the-

    25. JR

      No. I'm like, yeah, I know I'm 20, 21. (laughs)

    26. AS

      I'm like 12. So you got a little bit... (laughs) There's the driver's license age-

    27. JR

      But, but then there's how I act.

    28. AS

      ... and then there's how I act.

    29. JR

      It's, in terms of how I treat people, I'm, like, 54. But in terms of like, my childish, uh, like, I like to poke fun, I like to have a good time, I like to talk shit, that's like still very immature.

    30. AS

      But awesome.

  3. 9:04 – 17:27

    The cost of high performance: careers that demand sacrifice and the family trade-off

    1. AS

      What's scary when I look back is in my 20s, I also feel like I am making up for a little bit of lost time because I was so focused on my old job for a very long period of time-

    2. JR

      Hmm.

    3. AS

      ... to the exclusion of everything else. And-

    4. JR

      Yeah.

    5. AS

      ... a lot of things suffered. And it's taken me a long time to come back around and realize, um, I forget who, who had said it, um, but it was, we were s- having a conversation, they basically said, "Hey, here's the bottom line. The job suffers last always. You'll sacrifice personal relationships. You'll sacrifice, uh, marriages and loved ones. You'll miss birthdays, you'll miss holidays because the job suffers last." And when you're living that life, you don't realize it. In my 20s and early 30s, it was just completely front side focused. And then now looking back, it, uh, you miss out on some stuff for sure, and there's some consequences that you're gonna have to make amends for.

    6. JR

      I think that's something that a lot of people find if they're obsessed with whatever their career is, whether they're a pro athlete or whether you're a Navy SEAL or e- I mean, I would imagine any- anybody that works in business at a very high level, you make sacrifices that... I- if you have a family and you're working 16 hours a day as a CEO of a company, what kind of family do you really have? I mean, what kind of-

    7. AS

      Paper family.

    8. JR

      Yeah. What kind of connection are you-

    9. AS

      Yeah.

    10. JR

      ... able to really truly have with your children? Are you really there when they get home from school? How can you be? You know, are you, are you aware if your phone is constantly ringing and you're, you are obligated to answer those calls and... You ever see that show Succession on HBO? Do you ever watch it?

    11. AS

      No.

    12. JR

      It's a very good show. I love it. We just finished it today, uh, third season. Um, but it's basically about this billionaire family, and they're all dysfunctional. And it doesn't sound good on paper, but in real life it's fucking awesome. It's like one of the best written, best acted shows I think I've ever seen. But th- like, the life that these people live, it's like some g- it's like a Rupert Murdoch type character who runs this gigantic media conglomerate. If you are that kind of a person, your life is that, that's your life. There's no other way to do that job. And I think that's probably, in your old line of work, very similar. And for anybody that wants to excel, if you want to be a high performer at any very difficult job, very competitive job, you're gonna, if you're gonna really be at your best, you're gonna give up a lot of stuff. You're gonna miss out a lot of stuff.

    13. AS

      Yeah. I think the mistake is not realizing that you're missing out on it.

    14. JR

      Hmm.

    15. AS

      Which is the lie that I told myself, I think, looking back in my 20 and 30s. You know, "Oh, my kids are young, it's gonna be fine." Like, "I have to go on this deployment."

    16. JR

      Hmm.

    17. AS

      Like, you, you know?

    18. JR

      Right.

    19. AS

      Complete focus in that direction. And, uh, yeah. I think if you're gonna be a high performer, like you said, you ha- there is probably a lot of sacrifice. I wonder though, if those people, the Robert Murdochs, do they, on their deathbed, are they happy? I mean, are they looking back with regret and wishing they had spent more time with their family?

    20. JR

      It's a good question, because what is success? Like, r- what it, uh, it's a relative thing.... because success without happiness is not really successful. But a certain level of success plus happiness is probably more successful than more financial success and no happiness. Like, you're probably better off being in the middle than being at the top, for a lot of things.

    21. AS

      Most people don't want to be in the middle.

    22. JR

      Well, y- f- certainly when it comes to competitive endeavors, they don't want to. Like, I was watching this documentary on, um... There's a great documentary on, um, Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray... It's called The Kings. I think it's called The Kings? It's on Showtime. It's on (sniffs) Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Tommy Hearns, and it's all about when they were, um, all battling against each other when it was, you know, the- a really golden era for b- both the welterweight and the middle weight divisions. Yeah, that's it. It's The Kings. Great. I can't recommend it enough. When I was a kid, uh, I was just a gigantic Marvin Hagler fan. I'm, I'm- I love Duran, I love Sugar Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns too, but Hagler, when I was a kid, was the man because he was from Massachusetts, as I was. And, uh, I would remember, uh, reading about what he would do, and he would go into complete isolation. Obviously, these are pre- this is pre-cellphone days. But he wouldn't see his children at all during training camp. He wouldn't see his wife. He wouldn't see any- he didn't-

    23. AS

      Hmm.

    24. JR

      ... no idea what was going on, so he would miss birthdays. He'd miss some of his children's births. He wouldn't be there for- when his, his kids were born. He just was focused completely on being the champ. And he goes down in history as one of the greatest of all time because of that. But it's like, is that what you want? You know, do you, do you want... Do you... I- if you want to be Marvin Hagler, you want to be that guy who was just... When you would see guys, when they'd step into that ring and they would look across the street, look across the ring at pure determination, pure will, pure discipline, and championship discipline. It's like, that- that's why he was who he was.

    25. AS

      Yeah.

    26. JR

      I mean, there's, there's only one Marvin Hagler. There's only one guy like that.

    27. AS

      Yeah, I would never discourage anybody from doing that. My advice would just be pay attention to what it is you might be missing and make an effort to-

    28. JR

      Yeah.

    29. AS

      ... maybe close that circle later on in life. I'm in a- I'm in a different phase. I- I'm, uh... Right? I'm living a different life at this point, and I have the opportunity, (breathes deeply) at least in theory, (clears throat) you know, to try to close some of those gaps that I might have missed, um, because my kids were younger. So I, I think I was able to get away with a lot. I mean, I remember the last deployment I did, I kissed my daughter goodbye in a crib, you know? That's how, how young she was. She doesn't have any memory of that. My boys do. But there's still, uh, there's still work that needs to be done to close that circle up.

    30. JR

      Mm.

  4. 17:27 – 25:02

    Why people pursue SEAL/SOF now: motives, fame incentives, and ‘bro-vet’ culture

    1. JR

      Is there a l- l- a... Like, in terms of, like, qualified candidates, is- are there less now than ever before or more?

    2. AS

      I'm a little bit detached from the process, so it's, like, second- or third-hand, but I don't think there is a lack of people signing up to do the job. Um, it-

    3. JR

      But qualified candidates?

    4. AS

      I mean, (sighs) qualified physically? I mean, a good-

    5. JR

      It's more than physical, right?

    6. AS

      But the initial pipeline is a very... It's very physical. You know, people say, you know, the, the physical part is 10% and the mental aspect is 90, and you can put whatever ratio you want to it. It's challenging for both, but the first thing the program does is it grinds people into dust. That's what it's designed to do physically, and that will expose a lot of, uh, mental weaknesses. And all I can really say is that the big end of the...... the siphon is very full. The bottom end, the smaller end of the siphon, is still spitting out the exact same number of people, so I think it's working. Um, I would say there's not a l- I don't think there's a lack of qualified people. My concern would be, and this is not based on anything that I have necessarily seen but just kind of watch in the world, that I think people may be perhaps pursuing that type of occupation for very different, perhaps more self-serving reasons now.

    7. JR

      Like, let's, what kind of reasons?

    8. AS

      (sighs) You ever seen a movie or a book about the post-9/11 era, Joe?

    9. JR

      Yeah. Do you think that people really enlisting and, and, and trying to go through the process so that they could eventually write books?

    10. AS

      I don't know if that would be in the forefront of their mind. I think people might be enlisting and pursuing those jobs for the fanfare that could potentially come from them.

    11. JR

      Oh, Christ.

    12. AS

      Uh, well, when you reward them-

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. AS

      ... on a national ... And here's the thing, I found more information about the SEAL teams through a documentary called Navy SEALS starring Charlie Sheen than any other movie.

    15. JR

      (laughs)

    16. AS

      (laughs) It's the fucking greatest SEAL movie ever created.

    17. JR

      I found that out through Dick Marcinko's books back when I was a kid.

    18. AS

      So that's actually what led me to, uh, the movie, Navy SEALS.

    19. JR

      (laughs)

    20. AS

      And I would just recommend people go and look at the hair on those gentlemen. Fucking top-notch.

    21. JR

      Mm.

    22. AS

      Just constantly manicured. I don't know about the, uh, you know, the telemarketer headsets that they're wearing that don't respond well to water or sweat, I would probably pass on that.

    23. JR

      There he is. Look at him.

    24. AS

      Oh, God.

    25. JR

      Look how good his hair looks. My hair's never looked that good, ever.

    26. AS

      What's that scarf supposed to match? Let's talk about this for a second.

    27. JR

      It's whatever it is, it's dope as fuck-

    28. AS

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      ... and I need one in my life.

    30. AS

      No, you don't.

  5. 25:02 – 28:53

    Failure as a teacher: resilience, mental toughness, and keeping your world small

    1. AS

      I completely and utterly support that, and I think that you ha- I think that everybody should go through that phase in their life-

    2. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    3. AS

      ... where you see where you wanna go, and you're getting just your dick stomped into the dirt, and you're not being rewarded for it in any way, and you have to struggle and fight and just grind your way to that end state.

    4. JR

      Yeah, I'm a firm believer that those uncomfortable experiences of failure are- they are so critical to your development as a human being. And not just your development in whatever the endeavor of choice is, but your development as a human being. That if you don't have those, the people that seek too much comfort, if you don't have those rough experiences, you don't develop properly. Those people who seek too much comfort, they don't develop right. They're like a salamander that never becomes its mature form. There's something missing-

    5. AS

      Yes.

    6. JR

      ... because that unco- the uncomfortable experience of, of failing or of being smooshed, uh, of being overwhelmed by the competition, like, being completely inadequate, completely unprepared, completely, uh, insufficient to get the job done. Like, that's important to know, because otherwise, you go through this life with like... How many guys out there who have never had any physical altercation with people have this completely distorted perception of what they're capable of doing? But it's-

    7. AS

      They're called game time player joes. They don't need to train.

    8. JR

      (laughs)

    9. AS

      They just-

    10. JR

      It's my mentality, bro.

    11. AS

      They see red-

    12. JR

      Yeah.

    13. AS

      ... when the, when the, the body flips.

    14. JR

      When the switching starts dropping.

    15. AS

      Yeah, usually after about a 12-pack.

    16. JR

      Yeah.

    17. AS

      They just see red, get after it. (laughs)

    18. JR

      There's a lot of people that really believe that.

    19. AS

      (laughs)

    20. JR

      A- and that is precisely because they haven't experienced it.

    21. AS

      Resilience can be taught. Um, you know, to go back to, again, you know, the-

    22. JR

      (laughs)

    23. AS

      ... my old job, people will equate, uh, or they talk about mental toughness with it a lot, and everybody has some degree of mental toughness, right? Like you're- you're born with some, but I'm a firm believer they can actually be taught as well, and we've talked about this offline. I think we were at the Deseret talking about the theory of keeping your world small, right?

    24. JR

      Yeah.

    25. AS

      Little small chunks and stuff like that. The way you set your goals drastically will i- impact, I think, the statistical odds of success, but also seeking difficult things and finding failure. Resilience, the only way you're gonna build resilience is if you push up against things that are hard. You know, the definition of resilience is an object being pushed from its normal state and returning to that state. I think the goal should be return to that state plus .01%, but if you always avoid those things, how are you ever gonna expect to be capable of handling the challenges of life?

    26. JR

      Yeah.

    27. AS

      And I think that's where the mental, the mental toughness aspect of not the SEAL community, but I would say the military to a degree, but specifically, because I can speak to the special operations world, your- the pipelines, they are just wrought with failure. I mean, the curriculum is designed to find your weakest point and then exploit it and get in there with a rake and just fucking dig around in your head. And it's failure after failure after failure after failure, not catastrophic, but small failure, small punishment. And there are people who see that as a roadblock and they quit, and there are people who see that as a motivation and they move forward. And if you can- if you can grasp your head around those principles, I mean, it puts you in a place where y- you're able to accomplish things that'll make people scratch their head.

    28. JR

      Yeah.

    29. AS

      And, but it can all be taught. It-

    30. JR

      It can be.

  6. 28:53 – 52:22

    Jiu-jitsu as a laboratory: incremental progress, addiction, and injury realities

    1. AS

      I think that's why I like jujitsu so much, not because of the 10 classes and you get a stripe on your white belt, but you- it's- the growth is incremental at best.

    2. JR

      At best.

    3. AS

      At-

    4. JR

      Yeah.

    5. AS

      ... best. (laughs)

    6. JR

      The best- the best way to ensure more than incremental growth, though, is to do the difficult stuff. Um, drilling.

    7. AS

      Roll with a dude who know- you know is just gonna hand you your lunch.

    8. JR

      I don't know if that's the best way.

    9. AS

      No, I don't mean like, like rough hand you your lunch. The dude, e- everybody, to include myself. Like, you go to the gym and you're like, "Goddammit." Like-

    10. JR

      Right.

    11. AS

      ... Bob's- Bob's here.

    12. JR

      Right.

    13. AS

      It never goes my way when I roll with Bob, so-

    14. JR

      Right.

    15. AS

      ... I'm not gonna r- It's like, no, you need to go roll with the guy that you know is probably gonna beat you.

    16. JR

      Right.

    17. AS

      Accept the fact that you're gonna get beat. I don't mean getting mauled, even though I do believe there's a time and place for that too. But that's- your body will tell you, like- and this happens, I think, professionally as well too, uh, 'cause it happens to me. I'll fire up the inbox and like, "Goddammit, I don't wanna answer that email 'cause I don't wanna talk about that topic." So that's exactly what I actually should probably be attacking.

    18. JR

      Right, right.

    19. AS

      Jujitsu, I think, is just more of a physical expression.

    20. JR

      Yeah, I think, um, being with a guy like the Bobs of the world, it's- it's, uh, a great litmus test too. You need those tests. You need to know. (clears throat) You need to have, like, a real idea of where you're at. Like, there's- I remember when I was a white belt, there was guys that I would roll with that would just smoosh me.... and then by that, the time I got to be, like, a brown belt, I could either stalemate them or could occasionally tap them.

    21. AS

      Yeah.

    22. JR

      And the same guys who used to smoosh me, I could tap. And that's a crazy feeling of knowing that it's this long journey of over a decade of getting strangled and your fucking ass handed to you, that you do-

    23. AS

      (laughs)

    24. JR

      ... you do make progress, but-

    25. AS

      Willingly go ask another man to choke you nearly unconscious?

    26. JR

      Yeah.

    27. AS

      It's not kinky.

    28. JR

      But that's, that's what it is. It's the de- and it's not a decade for everybody. I didn't, I didn't train as much as some folks do, like, like, you know, some folks are training every single day. Like Bourdain, when he was, uh, really into jujitsu, he was telling me that he was taking a private every day for an hour, and then he was taking a class every day after the private, every day.

    29. AS

      So, about two hours of training a day?

    30. JR

      Two hours plus every day.

  7. 52:22 – 1:09:53

    Tabata intervals, CrossFit shocks, and what conditioning actually does

    1. JR

      I'm just fucking, "Aah." Have you heard of Tabatas?

    2. AS

      It's amazing how those-

    3. JR

      You ever do Tabatas?

    4. AS

      Oh, yeah. 20 on, 10 off, for eight rounds.

    5. JR

      Th- It's so effect- ... Whoever figured that out, I guess his name was Tabata.

    6. AS

      Ezzuti? Dr. Ezzuti Tabata.

    7. JR

      The ... What is it ... What a genius way to expand your cardiovascular capability, 'cause it really is genius.

    8. AS

      You can do it with anything to include body weight. So, I used to work for-

    9. JR

      Mm-hmm, yeah.

    10. AS

      ... CrossFit, and one of the first things that they would do is they would give every- get everybody out, air squats. Tabata air squats. And your score was based off the maximum number that you could hold through the eight rounds. So, if you did 30 air squats in the first round, but four in the eighth-

    11. JR

      Mm.

    12. AS

      ... your score is four.

    13. JR

      Oh, really?

    14. AS

      And so ... And most people, I think, around 20 would be pretty good. If that was your first exposure to that, though, you are gonna be, you're gonna be either looking for a wheelchair the next few days or walking like you have no fine motor control over your legs.

    15. JR

      Mm.

    16. AS

      You can do it with the kettlebells, Tabatas with the dumbbell. You can do it sprinting. It's, it's one of the most effective protocols that I've ever touched.

    17. JR

      I wonder how he figured that out, how he figured out that 20 sprint, 20-second sprint, 10-second rest, 20-second sprint, 10-second rest.

    18. AS

      Have you ever played with, like, 30/15 or 30/10?

    19. JR

      No, I've only done 20/10.

    20. AS

      I haven't either, and I don't know why, 'cause maybe ... I don't know. I would imagine he messed around with it until he found the optimal ... I think he was working with racers, actually.

    21. JR

      Mm.

    22. AS

      Endurance racers. My, my memory might be off on this, but I'm ... I think it had something to do with increasing cardiorespiratory capacity without doing long, slow distance.

    23. JR

      Mm.

    24. AS

      Pretty sure.

    25. JR

      Mm.

    26. AS

      I also could be completely wrong.

    27. JR

      Well, it's, it's a weird protocol, right? Like, the f- 20 seconds of going all out, and then 10 seconds of rest, and 20 seconds of all ou- But I found when I d- was doing that for a while, I had an injury, and I couldn't hit the bag for quite a while, and then I was d- but it wa- uh, uh, I was still okay to do that. And then, when I went back to hitting the bag, I lost very little in terms of cardiovascular capacity. I was like, "That's pretty impressive."

    28. AS

      It's pretty commonly accepted, I think, now, like, long slow distance runners, they can maintain what they have, if not add to it, by doing shorter interval work.

    29. JR

      Really?

    30. AS

      Yeah.

  8. 1:09:53 – 1:21:12

    Canada trucker protests and COVID-era control: fear, mandates, and social credit anxieties

    1. JR

      You see these fucking truckers that are still camped out in Ottawa, in, in Canada right now? It's like, 20 below zero.

    2. AS

      (laughs)

    3. JR

      And they have everything clogged up with their trucks up there. And Trudeau is now hiding in America, apparently.

    4. AS

      No way.

    5. JR

      Yeah, yeah. They, they... Apparently, he escaped Canada.

    6. AS

      I don't know-

    7. JR

      Now, whether or not he made it to America, whether or not that's true, I think he's in an undisclosed location 'cause they're worried about threats of violence from these, uh, truck drivers. But-

    8. AS

      I don't feel like that what they're threatening is violence. I think they're trying to have-

    9. JR

      Uh, yeah, I haven't seen any threats of violence.

    10. AS

      Yeah.

    11. JR

      I mean, but maybe they know, maybe they're privy to things that we don't know.

    12. AS

      I mean, I'm, I'm sure if you get a large enough group of people together, there's gonna be some wahoos in there. But to me, and I'm not following it incredibly closely, it seems like people expressing their opinion on the situation that they're living through.

Episode duration: 3:02:33

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