Navy SEAL: “Not Killing People Is Hard” - DJ Shipley

1. 0:00 – 4:21

   Why It’s So Hard to Leave the Military

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      You've done a lot of hard things in your life

   2. DSDJ Shipley0:03

      Couple

   3. CWChris Williamson0:04

      Why was getting out of the military the hardest thing that you've had to do?

   4. DSDJ Shipley0:12

      No one ever prepared you for it. When you get in the teams, any military, but especially special operations, it becomes your identity. It becomes the only thing you do, and it becomes a justification for everything you don't do. Like, why don't you do this? Oh, because it'll affect the end state. When you transition away from it, you never thought it was going to be hard. You thought you were gonna transition, you were gonna find that same love and passion, the energy you had for being in the military. And then when you don't find it, it's a huge fall from grace. But I mean, you hear these fairy tales of this billionaire's gonna pay you hundreds of thousands of dollars to live on his ranch and to do nothing but tell war stories and shoot coyotes and whatever. You know, any, any place you want to go, they'll pick you up because of your background, because of your resume and all these different things. And when you get out, you quickly realize that's all a lie. No one's gonna pay you to do a compound assault. No one's gonna pay you to skydive. No one's gonna pay you to assault a cruise ship or whatever else you did. They don't exist. So I've spent my entire adult life developing a skill set nobody wants. What am I supposed to do now? I don't know how to do anything. You want me to go to Home Depot? Like, what am I supposed to do? I've avoided getting my picture taken for 20 years. I've avoided conversations with normal people. I don't have a Rolodex because I've never opened myself up to anybody who wasn't inside of that 12-man team.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:28

      Yeah.

   6. DSDJ Shipley1:28

      I don't have anybody. I don't know the CEO of Apple or Google. I don't know any of these people. There's nothing for me to do except contract. That's it.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:38

      Which just keeps you in the same system.

   8. DSDJ Shipley1:39

      It's the exact same thing. You're with the same people, the same deployment schedules, same routine, and you just chip away until you're too old to do it anymore, and then you just fizzle out.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:49

      That must feel to a lot of special operators like they basically can't ever leave.

   10. DSDJ Shipley1:54

       Exactly. Even the guys who do leave, the majority of them, they're either miserable or they transition to a job that's so similar to the military, it's like they're still in.

   11. CWChris Williamson2:02

       What like?

   12. DSDJ Shipley2:03

       Contracting.

   13. CWChris Williamson2:04

       Hmm.

   14. DSDJ Shipley2:04

       Agency work, Blackwater, Triple Canopy, stuff like that, where you're basically doing a very similar job, just you get paid a little bit more. Or the guys just come right back in. We've had guys get out and go to Goldman Sachs and try to reinvent themselves. They make it six months, three years. Nope, right back in.

   15. CWChris Williamson2:20

       No way.

   16. DSDJ Shipley2:21

       Oh, yeah. They miss it that much.

   17. CWChris Williamson2:26

       I mean, Wall Street trading feels a lot-- It's probably the closest thing that you can get to war in the finance world. But, uh, yeah, if the adrenaline of million-dollar movements every couple of seconds on a market isn't good enough for you, you gotta get back into something with a bit more of a kinetic energy.

   18. DSDJ Shipley2:43

       Kinetic energy is what it is. You need something where you have a little bit of risk of dying, right? You've never felt more alive than when you're right on the teetering edge of death. And once you feel that and you survive it, okay, more of that. Whatever that was, I need to feel that again. Doesn't matter if it's skydiving, if it's combat, if it's whatever else. You're, you're chasing the adrenaline dump. I need, I need to feel the adrenaline, whatever I'm doing.

   19. CWChris Williamson3:08

       What does-

   20. DSDJ Shipley3:08

       And you don't feel it.

   21. CWChris Williamson3:09

       What does that feel like?

   22. DSDJ Shipley3:12

       You ever been in like a, a bad car accident or almost in a bad car accident?

   23. CWChris Williamson3:15

       Yes.

   24. DSDJ Shipley3:16

       When you get done, your hands shake a little bit.

   25. CWChris Williamson3:17

       Mm-hmm.

   26. DSDJ Shipley3:18

       Like, "Oh, I can't believe I made it through that." It's one of those. And then it becomes, "Of course I made it through that. I've been training to make it through that." And then it's almost like an ego check, like, how close can I come or how successful can I be with, with everything you do? How much can I plan? How much can I dedicate my life to buy down as much risk as humanly possible to be effective on the battlefield, whatever that battlefield might be?

   27. CWChris Williamson3:42

       Are you saying that being a soldier, being a special operator is essentially a war equivalent of an extreme sport that people decide to do recreationally?

   28. DSDJ Shipley3:54

       Exactly. Exactly. You'd be surprised how many guys do extreme sports while they're in, or that was what they did when they came in. Like mine was skateboarding. You got guys-- Andy was big into skydiving, BASE jumping, wing suiting, all of that. How many guys come from the MMA world, ultra-competitive worlds, and when we get inside there, it's, "Okay, well, if I mess this up, there is no bronze medal. If I mess this up, I'm gonna die or worse, you'll die."

   29. CWChris Williamson4:19

       Other people too.

   30. DSDJ Shipley4:20

       Other people die.

2. 4:21 – 6:31

   The Pressure of Putting Others in Danger

   1. CWChris Williamson4:21

      How much of a different energy does it give things if you're someone that's an adrenaline junkie that's happy to do dangerous things for yourself, but your decisions and your actions are almost going to put somebody else in danger too? Does that make it more exciting?

   2. DSDJ Shipley4:42

      When you're putting your friends' lives in danger, that's where it's not exciting. You're trying to buy down as much of that as possible, and that's really what they want you to do is just obsess over your craft to where you can control all the variables because it makes it safer. And that's where a lot of the, the leadership really don't buy off on that. If you want to make skydiving safer, make it mandatory to skydive more. Like, right, Andy will tell you the same thing. The most dangerous person in the military is a skydiver with 180 jumps that thinks he is a ninja. He's not. If you want to make it safe, have thousands of skydives and jump every single week, jump every single month, and stack those years over years, and then you buy down majority of the risk. It's the same thing with CCTV shooting-

   3. CWChris Williamson5:22

      Andy said he'd done like 3,000, something like that. Maybe even more.

   4. DSDJ Shipley5:25

      He's, he's got to have more than that. I'm at 4,000. He's been jumping longer than me.

   5. CWChris Williamson5:28

      Yeah.

   6. DSDJ Shipley5:28

      Yeah. I mean, but that's how you buy down the risk. Gotta do it more. Gotta fight more, gotta shoot more, gotta jump more, gotta operate more. So me and him, we had this conversation two days ago, and he goes, "Do you think if we limited how much combat people saw, you wouldn't have such a huge fall from grace, you know, anxiety, suicide ideation, all those things when they leave it? If you could compartmentalize them and not let them burn the candle at both ends, do you think that would be better off for them?" I said, "Absolutely not. They need it. That's how you get really, really good." Could you imagine if, if I locked you in a room, I never let you play another team, and then you just played on the Super Bowl?

   7. CWChris Williamson6:04

      Mm-hmm.

   8. DSDJ Shipley6:05

      But in this Super Bowl, if you lose, you die. That's not very good. I want to play every single day. We're doing two-a-days the entire time, getting ready to go. Buys down the risk, and it increases your confidence and the confidence of the entire team. That's where you see level two unlock, when everybody truly believes that you have covered all your bases. I couldn't burn another rep. I couldn't spend another hour.

   9. CWChris Williamson6:27

      Yeah.

   10. DSDJ Shipley6:27

       We are as good as you could humanly be. We're good. We're unstoppable.

3. 6:31 – 9:53

   Are All Navy SEALs Built for Combat?

   1. CWChris Williamson6:31

      How many times have you been on deployment and seen somebody that shouldn't have been there based on expertise-

   2. DSDJ Shipley6:39

      Mm

   3. CWChris Williamson6:39

      ... or disposition? You know, Andy came through and explained an awful lot about what his selection was like, and then he went back and was the guy with the bullhorn as opposed to facing it. Um, and you think, "Well, this is supposed to weed out people that aren't supposed to be there." It's incredibly rigorous, but it can't be perfect.

   4. DSDJ Shipley6:57

      Mm.

   5. CWChris Williamson6:57

      It simply can't be perfect because it's unable to replicate what you're actually there to do. So yeah, have there been any times when you've got out there and thought, "That guy's not... You shouldn't be here with us"?

   6. DSDJ Shipley7:11

      There's definite times where you get people inside the team you wish were not there.

   7. CWChris Williamson7:15

      [laughs]

   8. DSDJ Shipley7:17

      You just do. Like, you get there and you're like, "Man." But it goes back to, you know, I had a mentor. He used to talk about being cloneable. Would we be better off if I had five of you? If the answer is not yes, then you shouldn't be here at all.

   9. CWChris Williamson7:30

      Mm.

   10. DSDJ Shipley7:30

       I don't even want one of you. So while they might not be the best guy for the job, if you can compare him to all the other guys you've worked with, they're so much better that it doesn't really matter.

   11. CWChris Williamson7:39

       Mm.

   12. DSDJ Shipley7:40

       The group and, you know, the strength of the overall collective is gonna make up whatever deficiency he might have. If it's a cultural thing or a personality trait, those are harder to navigate, believe it or not, because everybody can perform, and you're not gonna find a guy that can't shoot, move, communicate, skydive, dive, do all the things. He might not be a 10 where this guy is, but he's a solid eight no matter what. His personality, I just don't like.

   13. CWChris Williamson8:03

       Mm.

   14. DSDJ Shipley8:03

       And nobody else does either.

   15. CWChris Williamson8:04

       So I was learning about, uh, the way that bands form. I've been thinking a lot about music over the last couple of years and, uh, many times you might have someone that's a savant guitarist-

   16. DSDJ Shipley8:16

       Mm

   17. CWChris Williamson8:16

       ... or an unbelievable bassist, but they're a shit hang on the tour bus.

   18. DSDJ Shipley8:22

       Yep.

   19. CWChris Williamson8:23

       And what you don't see, I suppose, um, the job is not finished in the bounds of what you do professionally. It's, well, how do you impact the morale of the team? And what's the energy that you bring when you're on your way to a job and on your way back from a job? And how do the debriefs-- And are you keeping in touch when you're not on tour, whether you're a musician or a comedian or a special operator? Like, are you WhatsApping every so often? Are you kind of keeping that connection? And what's the sort of vibe that you get? Or do you just low-key irritate everybody? Or is it just a mismatch of this one particular type of personality, and maybe if you were with a different group, your annoyances wouldn't annoy quite so much? Uh, you know, you could have people-- There are certain people that are universally annoying, and there are some people that are specifically annoying, like idiosyncratically annoying.

   20. DSDJ Shipley9:11

       Yep.

   21. CWChris Williamson9:12

       Um, but whatever it is, it's like, hey, this particular node doesn't slot into this particular network.

   22. DSDJ Shipley9:19

       You get that. At a certain level, we do a draft. So when you get to the tier one organizations, they draft you. No different than you do in football or anything else. They break you off. Performance, performance culture, trust, all those different things, and you might get a guy that checks into your team. He's there for six months, two years, whatever. It's just not working.

   23. CWChris Williamson9:39

       Mm.

   24. DSDJ Shipley9:40

       Sometimes they will lateral transfer him to a different team. Perfect. Like, his personality is perfect. The cultural doesn't clash, and just everything makes sense for them. You see that, I won't say often, but often enough to where you remember it.

4. 9:53 – 20:57

   Why Going Pro Early Changes Everything

   1. CWChris Williamson9:53

      Can you explain how the different tiers and things work? I have an understanding of this from the British side, but I've never really learned it when it comes to-

   2. DSDJ Shipley10:00

      Very similar.

   3. CWChris Williamson10:01

      Okay.

   4. DSDJ Shipley10:03

      So you think baseline, and everybody will say they are higher tier than they actually are, right? So a lot of people say that the SEAL teams are tier two. They're not. It's a tier three. It's-- A lot of it's based off your parent unit and your response times to catastrophic things. So-

   5. CWChris Williamson10:22

      Okay, so if you're anywhere on the planet within 36 hours, you're quite high.

   6. DSDJ Shipley10:26

      Yep. Or sometimes you're on a 30-Minute Recall, and that's where you live for months throughout the year. 30-Minute Recall, that page goes off, that text goes off, you're on an airplane. In 30 minutes, you've got to go.

   7. CWChris Williamson10:37

      No fucking way.

   8. DSDJ Shipley10:37

      Oh, yeah. And anxiety just boosts you in.

   9. CWChris Williamson10:40

      [laughs]

   10. DSDJ Shipley10:41

       And I mean, like, you know, really, it isn't much, and I was just talking about this not too long ago. It-- You get more funding, but really what they do is for the tier one organizations, they cover all the logistics. They put you inside of Disneyland, all the ranges, all the assets, all the intelligence folks, the human performance, the best gyms. Everything you could imagine is inside of a compound. They stick you inside it, and they try to lock you inside it.

   11. CWChris Williamson11:04

       Mm.

   12. DSDJ Shipley11:05

       Just come here and only focus on the craft because as soon as we tell you to go, you're gonna have to go at 100%. Go. Get ready to go. The other ones, it's a very similar workup routine. It'll be a year, two years long sometimes, and then you'll forward deploy, do operation for X amount of months, three, six, nine, 12. W- whatever the unit deployment cycle is, you come back, rinse and repeat. In tier one organizations, it's just a constant revolution over and over and over again. It's amazing.

   13. CWChris Williamson11:32

       How long were you doing that?

   14. DSDJ Shipley11:34

       I joined the Navy in 2002, and I retired in August of 2019, so right at 17 years.

   15. CWChris Williamson11:41

       And how long-

   16. DSDJ Shipley11:42

       The tier one side-

   17. CWChris Williamson11:43

       Yep

   18. DSDJ Shipley11:44

       ... um, 2010 till 2019.

   19. CWChris Williamson11:46

       So you did nine years of being on call within 30 minutes, basically.

   20. DSDJ Shipley11:49

       Not the entire time, but every year you spend a significant block of that on the alert schedule.

   21. CWChris Williamson11:54

       Right.

   22. DSDJ Shipley11:55

       It's amazing.

   23. CWChris Williamson11:56

       Why?

   24. DSDJ Shipley11:57

       Because you matter, and you wake up every day, you're watching the news, you're hearing all the intel briefs, and you have a dude stuck up in your locker up in the team room that you're actively just hunting with your friends all day long.

   25. CWChris Williamson12:08

       [laughs]

   26. DSDJ Shipley12:08

       And you're just waiting for some dude to send out a text, and you're gonna go, "Yes." So, like, you know, have little code words with the wife like, "Going fishing with the boys Where are you going fishing at? I have no idea. Take off and go. That is, that is the coolest thing you can do in the military. Why? 'Cause it's just like in the movies. You've seen the greatest war movie ever made, Navy SEALs, in the middle of that wedding. That's what everybody wants. I want to be in the middle of that. The pager goes off, gotta go. Right now? Right now. Leave.

   27. CWChris Williamson12:38

       And three people from the party leave.

   28. DSDJ Shipley12:39

       Yeah. It's a lot of pressure, but it gives you a reason why. On those days you don't wanna get up-

   29. CWChris Williamson12:44

       Hmm

   30. DSDJ Shipley12:45

       ... you're gonna get up. The team deserves it, the mission deserves it, the nation deserves it. Get up and go. And now that I'm out, I get to see these savants throughout their craft. Like, I got to go down and talk to Houston Rockets, Kevin Durant's over there, and you get four gold medals. I mean, one of the greatest-- is the greatest scorer in, um, in Olympic basketball history, and you get to see what they do day in and day out. The Steph Currys of the world, the LeBron James, Michael Phelps, Tiger Woods, all those people.
5. 20:57 – 24:54

   Inside Life on 30-Minute Recall

   1. CWChris Williamson20:57

      Is it exhausting to have that on at all times and be unable to switch it off?

   2. DSDJ Shipley21:04

      I've been working the last couple years gonna dial it down. I talk a lot about dials, not switches.

   3. CWChris Williamson21:07

      It really doesn't sound like it. [laughs]

   4. DSDJ Shipley21:10

      You should have seen me before.

   5. CWChris Williamson21:11

      [laughs] Tell me what, what was before like?

   6. DSDJ Shipley21:15

      You wanna see a panic attack, grab somebody who is living that alert. Surgeons have it, ER docs have it. Like, if that phone rings, you have to go. Watch a dude who lives his life like that go to zero bars or his phone dies. Panic at the disco, 'cause if that thing goes off and your phone is dead, there is no excuse for it. You're just constantly checking it all day. If, if your phone goes off in the next room, I jump and grab my phone. Everybody else does too. Put it back away. 2:30 in the morning, brr. Try to fall back asleep. It's so hard to sleep because you're such on edge. You're waiting for that moment to come. You're waiting to spring out of it.

   7. CWChris Williamson21:49

      Mm.

   8. DSDJ Shipley21:50

      Just gotta learn how to power it down. It takes a long time, though.

   9. CWChris Williamson21:54

      How, how exciting is being on a plane going out to do an operation when you've only had 30 minutes to get ready, but you've been thinking about it for a couple of months or years?

   10. DSDJ Shipley22:02

       It's amazing. I mean, even on the helo flight on a normal deployment, it's the greatest thing you'll ever do. It is. Like, there is nothing more sat- nothing that I've found so far that can replace that feeling of sitting on the helo, flying 30 seconds out, you get the call, and you just watch all the guys. Thousand-yard stares. I mean, they might as well be smoking cigarettes with their feet kicked up. They are so calm, so ready to send it. It makes you feel eerily comfortable. I don't care what happens. When that ramp drops, we are golden. This is great. But the pressure to get there, that's all it is. Like, a lot of it's... It's kinda like meditating. You sit on that helo, the whine of the engines, the smell of the fuel, nobody's talking. Guys will put in iPods, or if they won't, they'll just sit there and they'll kind of just blank stare out, and you'll think about everything you're about to do. The moment you land, when you get off the helo, where you're gonna sit, the helo back blast blowing all the dust all over your hair, everything. You think about every single detail, so when you get there, if anything happens, I've rehearsed this 50,000 times. It feels like I've-- It feels like you're omnipotent at a point. There's not a single detail you have not thought of that I haven't thought of that we all collectively have not thought of. So if anything goes wrong, switch. Just make it happen. But you have to think about it a lot. You have to be obsessed. You don't find a lot of guys that do that job who have extracurricular activities. I mean, when I got there, they make you sign a piece of paperwork. You're not gonna try to get a college degree. You're not gonna try to get a real estate license for your first four or five years. I forget what it was. We just want you to do this.

   11. CWChris Williamson23:37

       Mm.

   12. DSDJ Shipley23:37

       Nothing else.

   13. CWChris Williamson23:37

       Mm-hmm.

   14. DSDJ Shipley23:38

       Right?

   15. CWChris Williamson23:38

       So they realize the price of obsession and the benefits of obs- of obsession.

   16. DSDJ Shipley23:43

       And even if you don't, once you get there, when you see the guys that have been doing it, it confirms it. They are amazing. They just are.

   17. CWChris Williamson23:50

       Mm.

   18. DSDJ Shipley23:51

       You think growing up, you know, in that community, spending all that time in the teams and then getting to the, you know, the varsity level, that it would be roughly the same? It couldn't be further apart. Everything they do is purpose-built. Everything they don't do is purpose-built. Their morning routine, the workouts, the recovery, what they drink or don't drink, and then how they compartmentalize stress. I've never seen anybody do it better.

   19. CWChris Williamson24:16

       How so?

   20. DSDJ Shipley24:18

       They can block it out, no matter what happens. You're on, you're in the middle of an op, you come back, you've been gone for four and a half months, and you have an email. Your wife just left you, took two kids, and moved to Missouri. You go right back to work. I'll solve that when I get home. They won't even care. They don't even think about it.

   21. CWChris Williamson24:35

       You've seen that happen?

   22. DSDJ Shipley24:36

       Oh, sure. [laughs] More times than I can count. Compartmentalisation is like the number one strength. How bad's it going right now? I don't know. I don't even think about it. Just block it out. It's hard to do, though. When you get a family and you get all the other people that are drawing your time and attention, your bandwidth, it becomes hard to block out.

6. 24:54 – 26:56

   Should Navy SEALs Have Families While Serving?

   1. CWChris Williamson24:54

      I'm surprised in some degrees that there isn't a rule that you are not going to get married or start a family while you're inside of the, the forces.

   2. DSDJ Shipley25:03

      I said that for years. In a perfect world, they wouldn't. In a perfect world-

   3. CWChris Williamson25:07

      You know the K-pop, K-pop stars aren't allowed. They-

   4. DSDJ Shipley25:10

      Mm

   5. CWChris Williamson25:10

      ... sign away on their contract when they go- get created as a, a group. Um, I think it might even be to be celibate, but it's certainly to not have a partner, absolutely to not get married, absolutely to not have kids. One of the interesting things, South Korea's got the lowest birth rate in the world.

   6. DSDJ Shipley25:27

      Hm.

   7. CWChris Williamson25:27

      And one of the reasons that some demographer friends of mine think that that's the case is that the single most powerful cultural export and cultural influence in Korea is K-pop, and all of the K-pop stars are by contract unpartnered and childless.

   8. DSDJ Shipley25:46

      Mm.

   9. CWChris Williamson25:46

      But if you can do it to people that do f- coordinated dances on stage, I would expect that there would be a tier that you would get to where the government says, "Hey, while you're here, I'm afraid you're in K-pop mode."

   10. DSDJ Shipley26:05

       I used to always say, if you could build a lab and you could build nothing but premium assaulters, what would you want them to be like? James Bond. Orphans, no wife, no kids, no external commitments, just focus on this craft. I mean, that's why when you look at James Bond, he's not-

   11. CWChris Williamson26:20

       Ah, he's focused on fucking women.

   12. DSDJ Shipley26:21

       He is, but he's not, he's not getting married. He has nothing-- So you get the hybrid between him and Neil McCauley from Heat. Can't get attached to anything. You can't walk away from 30 seconds, you feel the heat coming around the corner. It's that kind of comparison. But then what do you want him to be able to do? Because you can't have it both. You can't have people that have no empathy because you want this Captain America, this superhero figure that saving babies and killing the bad guy and rescuing the princess and all this nonsense. Is that really what you want?

   13. CWChris Williamson26:49

       Yeah.

   14. DSDJ Shipley26:50

       It's not what the enemy have. They don't have that at all. What do you want? And I feel like people can't make up their mind.

7. 26:56 – 37:20

   The Ugly Reality of Collateral Damage

   1. CWChris Williamson26:56

      It's really interesting, you know, the last few years we've seen war-- Get that in you. Go on. Uh. [laughs]

   2. DSDJ Shipley27:04

      I've been waiting so long to drink one of these damn things.

   3. CWChris Williamson27:05

      Okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna allow you to enjoy this without me distracting you. Get it in.

   4. DSDJ Shipley27:09

      Just in case you're wondering, you can't find these in Virginia Beach. Oh.

   5. CWChris Williamson27:16

      There it is.

   6. DSDJ Shipley27:16

      Cousin, that's good. Good for you. Congrats.

   7. CWChris Williamson27:19

      Thank you. Um, you know, we've never seen kinetic encounters be as widely broadcast as Russia, Ukraine, Middle East. I mean, even this year, this year, fucking rockets going through Dubai hotel windows and, and stuff being shot down over airports. I'm kind of fascinated by the collateral damage that is-- has always been a part of, uh, war. Uh, uh, the... Or another way to put it would be sort of the, the ugliness. Even forget the collateral damage, 'cause I'm aware that with modern war techniques, you would like to think we can minimize those. There can be precision that's done, and I think you get into a, a discussion that, that's probably pretty, pretty honest there. But another one would just be there are certain elements of war, many elements of war, that are, are just messy and very ugly, and that includes the people that are doing it. Uh, and it's strange now to think that there's a level of sort of sanitization that many people from a country who want to-- who wouldn't want to be invaded or attacked are also unhappy with the, the people who are doing it on their behalf, who are the shield, uh, or the spear that are ensuring that they stay safe. I don't like the way that they're doing it. It's being done in a, a manner that seems uncouth or barbaric or, uh, insufficiently empathetic. And, um, I, I'm just interested in what you think about this additional level of, of scrutiny around not just what happens, which is one part of it, but the way that it happens, too. Like, well, I, I, I want you to, I want you to care more about this. And you go, "For every percent that I care, my effectiveness goes down by however much." More than a percent, I would imagine. Um, how do you come to think about that?

   8. DSDJ Shipley29:34

      From the US side, and I'll say from the Five Eyes side, so UK same way, you put these soldiers at such a disadvantage tactically because you're trying to mitigate all the risk to civilian populace. They put that first and foremost.

   9. CWChris Williamson29:50

      Yeah.

   10. DSDJ Shipley29:50

       So anything, like collateral damage, that is the number one thing they're concerned with. They don't want to kill women. They don't want to kill kids. They don't want to kill innocent bystanders, and they put you at significant risk to try to avoid that. They didn't do it in World War II. They didn't do it anywhere else, but they're doing it now. I just wish people would shut their TV off and just say thanks. Like, you don't really want to see what happens. You don't. You're not gonna pick up a gun and go do it. You wanna sit here and shine a bright light at us and point fingers. I see what they're doing in Australia to Ben Roberts-Smith, and I've watched them-- I watched the UK do it to my buddy Jamie.

   11. CWChris Williamson30:20

       Mm.

   12. DSDJ Shipley30:20

       And just, you string these guys up like they're criminals.

   13. CWChris Williamson30:23

       What, what is it that's happening with those examples?

   14. DSDJ Shipley30:26

       Oh, just war crimes and stuff like that. Like, my buddy Jay, 22 SAS, him and his whole team got wrapped up on a triple murder charge, saying they killed innocent Afghans who had AKs, were shooting at them, and enemy fighters, and they spun up this whole campaign. They gave him a Silver Star equivalent for the operation, and then two years later, they-- He can't come to the US.

   15. CWChris Williamson30:46

       Because he's got a record?

   16. DSDJ Shipley30:47

       Yeah. So we've been trying to fi- we're trying to fight it right now. We're trying to get someone to give him a visa to let him come to the US, and right now they won't. It's crazy. Now, Ben Roberts-Smith in, in SASR in Australia, they're doing the same thing. He got the Medal of Honor. Like, he is a, he is a legitimate war hero, and they're trying to string him up because they're saying he murdered Afghan civilians. [sighs] I haven't seen any- anybody get... I've never seen a murder, never. People don't do that.

   17. CWChris Williamson31:18

       Mm.

   18. DSDJ Shipley31:18

       It's not a thing.

   19. CWChris Williamson31:19

       Yeah.

   20. DSDJ Shipley31:19

       And people think it is. In World War II it was a thing. World War I it was a thing for sure. Vietnam, probably a thing. It's not a thing now.

   21. CWChris Williamson31:25

       Why?

   22. DSDJ Shipley31:25

       It's just too much technology, too many eyes in the sky. You can't do it.

   23. CWChris Williamson31:30

       You feel like you're under CCTV surveillance the whole time?

   24. DSDJ Shipley31:32

       One hundred percent you are. You can't get away with it.

   25. CWChris Williamson31:33

       So you're saying that it's not, it's not necessarily the guy [chuckles] that guys wouldn't want to-

   26. DSDJ Shipley31:37

       Oh, yeah

   27. CWChris Williamson31:37

       ... or that guys wouldn't. It's that the likelihood of you being caught is so high that you know, "If I do this..."

   28. DSDJ Shipley31:44

       Yeah. And I don't want to confuse murder with actual war, but what you would classify as murder, to me, isn't murder. That guy has an AK. He's shooting out of a second-story window at us, and if we go in there and kill him, and he threw the gun six feet that way, you're saying he's unarmed. No, cousin, he was just shooting out that window. He just shot one of our dudes, and now you're saying because I plugged him and that gun's six feet over there that he's not an enemy combatant. Yes, he is. They know how to play the game.

   29. CWChris Williamson32:12

       Mm.

   30. DSDJ Shipley32:13

       They're screwing with you because you've never played them.
8. 37:20 – 42:27

   Is the Modern World Incompatible With War?

   1. CWChris Williamson37:21

      The, like, m- mutual level of danger that you need to be able to match on both sides.

   2. DSDJ Shipley37:29

      Mm.

   3. CWChris Williamson37:29

      Um, but if you are made to adhere to a particular set of rules that basically makes you less effective at your job and more likely to be injured or killed, uh, all in the name of optics. It's a weird one, man. It's a weird one because I understand that you're supposed to be better, right?

   4. DSDJ Shipley37:56

      Mm.

   5. CWChris Williamson37:56

      You're supposed to go in adhering to the law. It's the same reason that, um, seeing a police officer who's texting while he drives feels particularly egregious. Like, "Hey, dude, you enforce the law, okay? I feel like you're supposed to adhere to it."

   6. DSDJ Shipley38:10

      Come on, baby, you're better than that.

   7. CWChris Williamson38:11

      Yes.

   8. DSDJ Shipley38:11

      Put the phone down.

   9. CWChris Williamson38:12

      Yes.

   10. DSDJ Shipley38:12

       No.

   11. CWChris Williamson38:12

       Uh, however, uh, I wonder whether or not the modern world is incompatible with some of the ugly things that need to happen in war.

   12. DSDJ Shipley38:27

       Mm-hmm. And anybody who's been to Afghanistan, anybody who's been to Iraq or any of the wars, they know if we really wanted to win that war, we could win it fast. They don't want us to win it fast. I don't know who doesn't.

   13. CWChris Williamson38:42

       Tell me more about this. What do you mean?

   14. DSDJ Shipley38:45

       If you grabbed all the Five Eyes, so US, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand. If you just grabbed us and dropped us into Iraq and said, "You have six months to close out the entire thing," could we? 100%. They don't want us to, and I think that's for a bunch of different reasons, but one of them is you don't wanna see what that actually looks like. Like, you don't wanna watch special operations and all of this, the, the whole military might push through Fallujah and clear it all out. They don't wanna see what clearing Fallujah actually means. Like, when you hear the Marines cleared Fallujah, they don't know what that means.

   15. CWChris Williamson39:23

       What does it mean?

   16. DSDJ Shipley39:23

       They went door to door and killed every single male that was still there. Everybody who's willing to fight, they killed them all. That's how you clear the village.

   17. CWChris Williamson39:31

       Mm.

   18. DSDJ Shipley39:32

       So they gave them, told them the time, "Get out by this day. If not, we're pushing through, and anybody who's left to fight, we're gonna kill."

   19. CWChris Williamson39:38

       Mm.

   20. DSDJ Shipley39:38

       And that's what they did. That's how you do it. People don't wanna see that. People don't wanna live that. They don't wanna realize that's the reality. So while your grandfathers were fighting World War II, I promise you they weren't handing out Hershey Kisses and handshakes. That's not what they did. They had flamethrowers, for God's sake. You think they're giving us a flamethrower now?

   21. CWChris Williamson39:57

       Mm.

   22. DSDJ Shipley39:57

       No.

   23. CWChris Williamson39:57

       Mm.

   24. DSDJ Shipley39:58

       We can't even use Claymore mines. Just a whole bunch of stuff we used to use back in the day, and because it's now, it's too cruel and unusual, Geneva Convention threw it out. A bunch of munitions you can't use, rounds you can't shoot people with, a bunch of different weird stuff.

   25. CWChris Williamson40:11

       Is that being adhered to by the other side?

   26. DSDJ Shipley40:13

       No. No. They're blowing you up. They're doing whatever they want to. Suicide vest on children. Like, they do whatever they want to. That makes it very, very hard to fight. So for you, you run in, you're a dad, you're a husband, you're a friend, you're an uncle, little kids all around. You have no idea if they have a suicide vest on now. Are they holding grenades for their fa- You have no idea. It really makes you lose trust in people, 'cause now you don't know. As soon as you drop your guard, one thing happens. You're like, "I'll never let that happen again." Technology advances, you get new pieces of tech, and now you can see through clothing. You can buy down the risk a little bit, but they get very, very smart. See the smart bombs, they try to sneak through TSA all the time. They understand exactly what we're trying to do, and you're trying to counter it every single day.

   27. CWChris Williamson41:01

       How frustrating is that as someone whose life's on the line and also is trying to dedicate their career to doing this well?

   28. DSDJ Shipley41:07

       It's a big cat and mouse game. I move my piece here, you move your piece here.

   29. CWChris Williamson41:11

       So you've just, you've kind of accepted this as the cost of doing business-

   30. DSDJ Shipley41:14

       Mm
9. 42:27 – 48:38

   How Could We End the Iran War Quickly?

   1. DSDJ Shipley42:27

      you don't need to.

   2. CWChris Williamson42:28

      What would you do if you wanted to end the war in Iran quickly?

   3. DSDJ Shipley42:32

      Oh, you don't know what I'd do. [chuckles]

   4. CWChris Williamson42:34

      Well, you're allowed to. This is hypothetical only. We're playing Sid Meier's Civilizations, and you need to end it quickly.

   5. DSDJ Shipley42:44

      Nobody's gonna like my answer. There's just not. It's not. If I say one thing, then I'm on the Israel side. If I say this, then I'm against it.

   6. CWChris Williamson42:54

      Okay.

   7. DSDJ Shipley42:54

      You're always gonna get-

   8. CWChris Williamson42:54

      Let's forget that. Let's forget that. Let's say, uh, imaginary country-

   9. DSDJ Shipley42:58

      Mm

   10. CWChris Williamson42:58

       ... in somewhere that's in the Middle East that doesn't exist.

   11. DSDJ Shipley43:04

       Are they building nuclear weapons?

   12. CWChris Williamson43:05

       Sure.

   13. DSDJ Shipley43:06

       Threatening to use them?

   14. CWChris Williamson43:06

       Sure.

   15. DSDJ Shipley43:07

       And we know they have them.

   16. CWChris Williamson43:08

       Sure. Press the button.

   17. DSDJ Shipley43:11

       Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. There's no other way. Just isn't. Get- drawn into a 20-year campaign doing the entire thing, or all the countries all come into alignment like, "We can't let this happen. We can't. We can't." Everybody in agreeance? Okay. Can't do it anymore.

   18. CWChris Williamson43:35

       And what if you, what if that's not a threat?

   19. DSDJ Shipley43:41

       How would it not be a threat?

   20. CWChris Williamson43:42

       It w- they don't have it. They don't have the materials. They're not able to make it. The nuclear, uh, armament's on the other side's not a concern.

   21. DSDJ Shipley43:48

       The Iran, the bomb, what you mean?

   22. CWChris Williamson43:49

       It seems to me like if you're unable to use that, un- unless you can drop the, uh, Fat Man equivalent, uh, then it becomes a much more difficult operation because then it does look a lot more like presumably door-to-door stuff.

   23. DSDJ Shipley44:06

       Or you could just fly in Black Ops with some really cool dudes in multicam and snatch a president out of their house in the middle of the night and call it a day.

   24. CWChris Williamson44:12

       That's happened recently.

   25. DSDJ Shipley44:14

       Pretty cool job.

   26. CWChris Williamson44:16

       Do you know much about... Did you, were you e- excited sort of tracking that?

   27. DSDJ Shipley44:19

       Oh, I was... No, but nobody jumped up faster out of their chair and cheered than I did. I was so stoked for them. That is a, that's a cool op to do.

   28. CWChris Williamson44:27

       Why?

   29. DSDJ Shipley44:29

       Snatch the president out of his house in the middle of the night, like, no one else is pulling that off. Nobody. Do you think anybody's gonna fly a Black Hawk and land it in the White House lawn and run in and grab Donald Trump and bring him out? No.

   30. CWChris Williamson44:40

       I think lots of people have probably thought about doing that.
10. 48:38 – 50:37

    Would Trump Make a Good Navy SEAL?

    1. CWChris Williamson48:38

       I don't... Based on what I know about Trump, he's not the picture of health, uh, from a, a, a physical training standpoint.

    2. DSDJ Shipley48:44

       No.

    3. CWChris Williamson48:45

       Psychologically, do you think that he would make a good special forces operator?

    4. DSDJ Shipley48:49

       No.

    5. CWChris Williamson48:50

       Why?

    6. DSDJ Shipley48:54

       His ego gets in trouble quite a bit. I don't know if, if he wasn't a leader, I don't know how good he'd be as a follower. If you don't have overall say, how well can you get in line and perform?

    7. CWChris Williamson49:10

       And that's why the ego gets in the way.

    8. DSDJ Shipley49:12

       Yeah. If it's not your plan, will you still adopt it as your plan? That's a, that's the thing a lot of guys have an issue with, and that's where you see the ego come in. And I had a mentor, actually really good friend. His name's Brad Gary. Retired out of the teams not too long ago. An amazing guy, but he says the quote, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast every day." It does. You can have the greatest-

    9. CWChris Williamson49:33

       Does he run the mind gym? Does he run the Navy SEALs mind gym?

    10. DSDJ Shipley49:37

        Um, he was definitely there when it-

    11. CWChris Williamson49:39

        What's his name?

    12. DSDJ Shipley49:39

        ... when it came on. Brad Gary. He was on Sean Ryan not too long ago.

    13. CWChris Williamson49:43

        I want to say, is it Brad Jacobs that did some-

    14. DSDJ Shipley49:47

        Oh, yeah

    15. CWChris Williamson49:48

        ... mental training stuff? We had, we had a-- No. Who's the guy that, uh, works with PsyCom? Rob Moore helped to publish his book. Fuck. Brad someone. Anyway, um, yeah, culture eats strategy for breakfast is so true. Well, it's just aligning the incentives, but it's aligning the incentives at a group level.

    16. DSDJ Shipley50:04

        Mm-hmm.

    17. CWChris Williamson50:05

        Right? Hey, this is how we do things, not we need to just enforce these things. This isn't happening top-down, it's happening bottom-up. But we also have the routines that are built in top-down.

    18. DSDJ Shipley50:17

        Exactly. I don't know how well he'd do if he wasn't the one coming up with a plan. If he disagreed at all, how loud would he vocalize it?

    19. CWChris Williamson50:24

        Look-

    20. DSDJ Shipley50:24

        I don't know

    21. CWChris Williamson50:25

        ... as an only child, I can fully empathize with Donald Trump in that regard. Uh, if it's my way or the toys are going out of the pram.

    22. DSDJ Shipley50:33

        Yeah.

    23. CWChris Williamson50:33

        I- I've had to learn to, you know, desensitize and deprogram that.

11. 50:37 – 56:56

    The Biggest Myths About Special Operations

    1. CWChris Williamson50:37

       Uh, what do you think's the biggest misconception that civilians have about what special operations looks like day-to-day?

    2. DSDJ Shipley50:49

       I think a lot of them watch "The Expendables" and think that's what you do all day. Picking your teeth with a Bowie knife, throwing stuff in there. Or it looks like Zero Dark Thirty, walking around playing horseshoes with popped collars and cammies just... More routine than you think it was. More structured than you think it was, but a lot more lawless than you think it would be. Like, more like a, um, more like a professional sports team than a military organization.

    3. CWChris Williamson51:18

       That's what it feels like.

    4. DSDJ Shipley51:19

       Oh, yeah. I mean, you're rarely in uniform unless it's a promotion or unless you're at a funeral, you don't put them on. Most guys are in relaxed grooming standards, long hair, big beards. You don't take your photo, you're not on social media, you're not writing books, you're not-- You just live that life. And to them, it's no different than playing on a professional baseball team, football team. They show up every single day trying to earn their seat at the table every single day, and they put the group before themself in everything they do. If you do that, you'll be a successful player. And I've never met anybody that was worth his weight that was not obsessed. Nobody that I would ever clone that didn't wake up every day and go, "I can't believe I get paid to do this." You don't get paid a lot, but if I'm honest now, and I think everybody would say it too, 90% of the time, if you had the financial means, you'd pay to do that job. Like, if there was a, if there was a club you could join and do that-

    5. CWChris Williamson52:11

       Yep

    6. DSDJ Shipley52:13

       ... I'd swipe plastic so fast. It's an amazing experience. But I think a lot of people think that, um, you're kind of like a caveman. There's no empathy. You know, people aren't well-educated, they're not well-read. They're just grunts. Too many tattoos, say too many cuss words.

    7. CWChris Williamson52:36

       Yeah.

    8. DSDJ Shipley52:36

       Dip too much Copenhagen spit on your floor. They're kind of just brutes. All the guys I worked with, all the guys I looked up to, they are, they're more philosophers than anything else. Some of the conversations we've had around those tables have absolutely changed my life. Just training methodology, just thought-provoking conversations, like the way they analyze targets and people and navigating human terrain. Like, I've never seen anything else like it.

    9. CWChris Williamson52:59

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    10. DSDJ Shipley54:06

        I have seen that chart.

    11. CWChris Williamson54:07

        I'll explain it to you. So it's the, uh, prevalence of, uh, violence, uh, perpetrated by, uh, IQ, uh, standard deviation, so 70 to 79, 80 to 89, all the way up. And basically, it's, uh, asking the following question: Have you been in a physical fight or deliberately hit anyone in the past five years? That's the question.

    12. DSDJ Shipley54:32

        Mm-hmm.

    13. CWChris Williamson54:32

        And the prevalence as a percentage is linear going down, and when you get to the middle of the distribution, it's somewhere between 11.4 and 7.9%, so what's that? Let's call it 10%, something like that. 10% of people with 100 IQ have hit somebody or been in a physical fight within the last five years, and it goes down and down. But if you're talking about wanting somebody who has got quite elite mental capacities as well- 5.2% between 110 and 119, 2.9% between 120 and 129. And I saw this tweet that said the percentage of guys with 130 plus IQ who both enjoy books and bar fights is incredibly small, and that is why you can't mass produce elite special operators for the military.

    14. DSDJ Shipley55:22

        Yeah, it tracks. I don't have a hun- 130 IQ for sure, but I do like reading books and punching people in the face for sure.

    15. CWChris Williamson55:29

        [laughs]

    16. DSDJ Shipley55:30

        You know? Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that. They're way more constrained than you would imagine, and then sometimes they, um... A lot of times you don't want them to be. Like, to me, my special operations guys don't have flat top haircuts. They don't blouse their boots. They don't say sir. They don't salute. They have all the ability to do those things, but the job's filthy. Like why would, what I... I don't want a Ken doll doing that job.

    17. CWChris Williamson55:56

        Is it seen as sort of unnecessary, uh, pomp and circumstance and, uh, ritual that doesn't contribute to the outcome? Like to, to jump through those hoops to do the-

    18. DSDJ Shipley56:14

        Oh, you mean play the song and dance?

    19. CWChris Williamson56:15

        Yeah, of course.

    20. DSDJ Shipley56:16

        Do the dog march. Yeah.

    21. CWChris Williamson56:16

        Yeah, yeah. Yes, sir. No, sir. The, uh, clean shaven, the no tattoos and stuff like that.

    22. DSDJ Shipley56:21

        They only do that as a punishment. Anytime anybody does anything wrong, cut your hair, shave your face. It's why we hate it. That's why most guys when they get out, they grow a beard, grow their hair out. They're like, "I am sick of this. I'm never doing that again."

    23. CWChris Williamson56:31

        Okay.

    24. DSDJ Shipley56:31

        They run that for a year and then they shave it all and whatever. They go back to normal. But no, I mean-

    25. CWChris Williamson56:37

        It's the you can't tell me what to wear, Mum, equivalent of being in the special forces.

    26. DSDJ Shipley56:42

        Have you ever seen the meme? It's got a bunch of Green Berets sitting around, hands in pockets. "Hands in pockets, the only reason I went through selection. I wanna be able to put my hands in my pockets and spit Copenhagen on your floor and grow a beard and..."

    27. CWChris Williamson56:52

        [laughs]

    28. DSDJ Shipley56:52

        No. Like I, I wanna be a one percenter.

    29. CWChris Williamson56:54

        Mm-hmm.

    30. DSDJ Shipley56:54

        You know?
12. 56:56 – 1:00:34

    How Lawless Is Special Ops?

    1. CWChris Williamson56:56

       special things. You said, uh, it's more lawless than people might realize. What'd you mean by that?

    2. DSDJ Shipley57:03

       Everything's black and white. Special operations find a way to live in that gray area. Call it gray area navigation towards running every 30 minutes. We will find a way to navigate through the gray area to get to the end state. As long as we know what the why is, what we have to get accomplished, we'll find a way to get there, and sometimes that's not pretty. But I mean, I'm, I'm pretty honest. I'll break every rule in the book right now if it puts the team in a better position, even if it puts myself at a disadvantage or threatens my career, maybe even my life. If it's good for the group, I'll do it anyway. But not lawless in a sense like people aren't, people aren't murdering people. There's no rape, not a lot of drugs anymore. Like, but not, uh, there's not a whole lot of guys who transition to be police officers.

    3. CWChris Williamson57:51

       Too constraining?

    4. DSDJ Shipley57:52

       Too constraining. I don't wanna be constrained. I, I don't like it 'cause everybody asked me when I got out, they're like, "Well, why don't you be a cop? You can go to FBI." Absolutely not. I love those guys. They're amazing. Nothing but respect. I can't do that job. I'm in the gray area too much.

    5. CWChris Williamson58:07

       Mm.

    6. DSDJ Shipley58:07

       You know what I'm saying? But I'm open and honest about it. I don't hide that a bit.

    7. CWChris Williamson58:10

       I think this is what I was trying to get at before when I said, um, the modern world being incompatible with some of the ugly parts of war.

    8. DSDJ Shipley58:15

       Mm.

    9. CWChris Williamson58:16

       That, um, if you're focused on outcome, uh, if you're focused on the ends, the means can sometimes become up for debate, and the ends are often not scrutinized, but the means are by people. Does that make sense?

    10. DSDJ Shipley58:32

        Mm-hmm.

    11. CWChris Williamson58:32

        Yeah.

    12. DSDJ Shipley58:35

        And I'm trying to think about a way to word this. I've never seen anything in my military career that I would even put morally questionable on any level. Not for a cop, not for a fireman, not for a school teacher. Everything has always been above board, but there are times where you just want to hoist a black flag and start slitting throats. You just do.

    13. CWChris Williamson58:59

        Right.

    14. DSDJ Shipley58:59

        Like, I can't believe we're gonna put this dude in the back of his helicopter and let him loose. I, I, I can't believe we're gonna let him do it. Some-

    15. CWChris Williamson59:06

        Because you know that he's a bad guy.

    16. DSDJ Shipley59:07

        Yeah. Or some of the things you see, some of the things you know that you're doing, you have-- Because it's not an assault on you, but some of the stuff they do to children, it's just, it's so disgusting that if I, if I didn't have that flag on my arm and I was just a tourist, I'd kill you. If I could get away with it right now, I'd just kill you. But because I have this flag on my shoulder, now I can't, and now I resent the flag because I can't do to you what I know needs to happen to you.

    17. CWChris Williamson59:31

        How does that feel-

    18. DSDJ Shipley59:32

        And opposing-

    19. CWChris Williamson59:32

        ... that, uh, systemic constraint when you've got righteous anger?

    20. DSDJ Shipley59:41

        It's hard, man. It is. It's hard, especially when you've lost friends or, you know, Extortion One Seven happened in August of-

    21. CWChris Williamson59:52

        What's that?

    22. DSDJ Shipley59:52

        Uh, Extortion 17. Had a, a whole troop get killed. Helo got shot down, killed everybody on board, 31 guys. Having to back those guys up on deployment in that exact same place, living in their beds. If I'm being totally honest, I just wanted to kill everybody, and to not be able to do it, it's hard because you have the opportunity. It's like, "He's not doing anything bad now. Okay, I guess I gotta put you in handcuffs. Throw you on a helo, drop you off here. They'll put you in a detention center for 10 days, they'll release you."

    23. CWChris Williamson1:00:23

        Mm.

    24. DSDJ Shipley1:00:23

        I'm like, "Okay. They wouldn't do that to me. If they wrapped me up and put me in handcuffs, they would saw my head off in 15 minutes. Now we all know it. It's not fair."

13. 1:00:34 – 1:11:11

    Should the Bin Laden Raid Have Stayed Secret?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:00:34

       Have you been tracking this, uh, fallout after Rob was on Andy's show talking about the Osama raid?

    2. DSDJ Shipley1:00:42

       Yeah.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:00:43

       What do you make of that?

    4. DSDJ Shipley1:00:48

       I hate the fact we're even talking about it, if I'm being honest. Like, they did such a good job about not talking about it. I mean, Rob was my first team leader. So I know Rob. I owe a lot to Rob because Rob drafted me and brought me in. I wish nobody would have ever said a word. When they left to go on the raid, I didn't know where they were going.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:01:12

       Were you on compound or whatever it's called?

    6. DSDJ Shipley1:01:14

       Mm-hmm. I was in his team. Yeah.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:01:16

       So you didn't get chosen?

    8. DSDJ Shipley1:01:17

       No.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:01:18

       Motherfuckers.

    10. DSDJ Shipley1:01:18

        Too junior. No.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:01:20

        Uh, how-

    12. DSDJ Shipley1:01:21

        You know, we'll say we rack all the teams. We'll say there's seven guys, one to seven. They took twos and above, and took them all from every team. Those are the guys that went on the raid.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:01:29

        Oh, interesting.

    14. DSDJ Shipley1:01:30

        It's the first time they ever did it.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:01:32

        So it's closer to being... And how many, how many people in total are-

    16. DSDJ Shipley1:01:38

        Can't talk about it. Not-

    17. CWChris Williamson1:01:39

        Okay, fine

    18. DSDJ Shipley1:01:40

        ... We'll talk about it off screen. Way less than you think.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:01:42

        Cool. Um, and so it's closer to me what it sounds like. I'm, I'm loving the sports analogy. Uh, it's more like having a league of teams-

    20. DSDJ Shipley1:01:51

        Mm-hmm

    21. CWChris Williamson1:01:52

        ... and then you've got the Steph Curry or the Kevin Durant from each team.

    22. DSDJ Shipley1:01:57

        Yep.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:01:57

        And then you're able to take the top filtering. Does that not create... That, surely that must create a, um-

    24. DSDJ Shipley1:02:04

        A lot of animosity, a lot of resentment

    25. CWChris Williamson1:02:07

        ... Uh, some of that, but-

    26. DSDJ Shipley1:02:08

        Jealousy

    27. CWChris Williamson1:02:08

        ... uh, complex- Yeah, yeah, because you know, hang on, who the fuck? What? I'm n- number fucking six, am I? Um, more so complexity that the verticals of the teams have got culture-

    28. DSDJ Shipley1:02:20

        Mm-hmm

    29. CWChris Williamson1:02:21

        ... baked in, and as you start to take people... I'm, I mean, perfect example, when players come together to play for their national team when they've played for rivalrous-

    30. DSDJ Shipley1:02:33

        Mm-hmm
14. 1:11:11 – 1:16:48

    How Britain Treats Its Veterans

    1. CWChris Williamson1:11:11

       This I need to... It is unbelievable to me. I remember the first time that I started coming to America, and the first time that I got on an internal domestic flight from somewhere in America to somewhere else in America, and you hear them come over the tannoy, and they say, uh, "We would like to invite, uh, active military and first responders, uh, uh, to, to"-

    2. DSDJ Shipley1:11:31

       Yeah

    3. CWChris Williamson1:11:31

       ... or whatever it is, "to get on the plane first." And I'm thinking, I have never, ever heard that. The idea of a veteran community. Uh, I once wore a, a Black Rifle Coffee shirt-

    4. DSDJ Shipley1:11:43

       Mm

    5. CWChris Williamson1:11:43

       ... g- getting onto a plane. This was a few years ago. And, um, it's, uh, k- khaki green with gold print, like classic sort of military-come thing. And it's got the American flag on one arm, and as I walked past, there was an older gentleman, really nicely dressed, one of the early rows, and as I walked past, a bigger guy, short hair, said, "Thank you for your service." I'm like, uh, and, you know, there's all of these people behind me.

    6. DSDJ Shipley1:12:08

       Yeah.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:12:08

       And I'm like, I-- My T-shirt has just given me stolen valor, and I have no idea-

    8. DSDJ Shipley1:12:11

       Nah, dude

    9. CWChris Williamson1:12:11

       ... how to fucking wipe this. I'm wanting to apol- I, I must remi- I'm actually British. Like, there was no way for me to... But I remember thinking there is such a, a reflexive response, especially maybe among older generations, to just revere people who served in the military. And it is whatever the opposite of that is-

    10. DSDJ Shipley1:12:34

        Hmm

    11. CWChris Williamson1:12:35

        ... like actively ignored, uh, or kind of looked down on as if you did something a bit stupid. Like, um, you weren't smart enough to go into whatever else.

    12. DSDJ Shipley1:12:46

        That's why you joined the military.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:12:47

        That's precisely-- That is exactly how the British military veterans are seen. Exactly how they're seen. It sucks.

    14. DSDJ Shipley1:12:54

        Big population in America, same thing. Like, but now they appreciate it because we got attacked here in nine eleven. A lot of people have forgotten about that. But I mean, I try to remind the guys often, the only reason we're not speaking German is because of the military. Like, we are. The only reason we're all actually free is just because of the military. Nobody really wants to uncork that. So the reason we're free right now is because nobody really wants to fly over here and find out

    15. CWChris Williamson1:13:17

        [laughs]

    16. DSDJ Shipley1:13:18

        That's it.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:13:19

        Yeah.

    18. DSDJ Shipley1:13:19

        They just don't. If we did not have the military that we do, we would've been taken over a long time ago.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:13:25

        This episode is brought to you by Whoop. According to my Whoop, I've tracked nearly 2,000 days of my life, and the thing that still gets me is that I could have predicted almost every bad day before it happens. That's because Whoop gives you a complete picture of your health every single day. Your sleep, your workouts, your recovery, your breathing, your heart rate, even your steps. And over time, you get to see what's working and what isn't. And the Whoop 5.0 is the best version yet. It's 7% smaller. You get more than two weeks of battery life from a single charge. It's got healthspan tracking to see how your daily habits affect your pace of aging. It's even got hormonal insights for the women that are listening. I'm a huge fan. This thing rules. It's been a huge part of my health journey, and it's why it's the only wearable that I've ever stuck with. And best of all, you can join for free, pay nothing for the brand-new Whoop 5.0 strap, and you get your first month for free. And there's a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can buy it for free, try it for free. If you don't like it after 29 days, they just give you your money back. Right now, you can get the brand-new Whoop 5.0 and that 30-day free trial by going to the link in the description below or heading to join.whoop.com/modernwisdom. That's join.whoop.com/modernwisdom. Can you try and find-- It's gonna be a little tough to find. It's a Short, a vid- a, a YouTube Short, and it's a guy talking about do you know who has the number one navy in the world? And do you know who has the number two navy in the world? And do you know who has the number three air force in the world and the number one and the number two? It's a guy kind of ranking all of the different, uh, things. He's on a podcast, and it is so fucking cool. I, I think the US Coast Guard-

    20. DSDJ Shipley1:15:00

        Hmm

    21. CWChris Williamson1:15:00

        ... is the fourth-biggest navy in the world, and then the Navy is the first-biggest navy in the world.

    22. DSDJ Shipley1:15:06

        Yeah.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:15:06

        And then the something else is the second biggest. It's like this country has got... And he basically makes the point, uh, the reason w- America as a country is so overpowered militarily. Uh, and every time that I think about that, I also think about that video. I can't remember who the admiral is, uh, but the, "Someone else will raise your mothers and daughters for you."

    24. DSDJ Shipley1:15:31

        Hmm.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:15:32

        You know that video?

    26. DSDJ Shipley1:15:33

        Heard it, yeah.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:15:34

        It is-- There's a, a Metro Boomin like hip hop edit of that, which is kind of a bit gratuitous, but it's... Holy shit. I mean, if you want to talk about what the sort of best elements of American culture. Uh, yeah, let's go, let's go on that one, actually, with the Black Rifle edit. I'm sure this will be good.

    28. SPSpeaker1:15:56

        We have been honed into a machine of lethal moving parts that you would be wise to avoid if you know what's good for you. We will not be intimidated. We will not back down. We've seen war. We don't want war. But if you want war with the United States of America, there's one thing I can promise you, so help me God, someone else will raise your sons and daughters.

    29. DSDJ Shipley1:16:19

        [laughs]

    30. CWChris Williamson1:16:21

        Bro, bro, I got goosebumps. Oh, burn them to the ground, dude. Oh, I love that.
15. 1:16:48 – 1:22:42

    How Combat Changes You

    1. CWChris Williamson1:16:49

       What are some of the adaptations that normal people might not realize Special Forces operators go through when you become hyper-optimized for combat?

    2. DSDJ Shipley1:17:00

       Depends on how far they take it. Some guys adjust their entire lifestyle, everything. People they associate with, the time they wake up, the time they go to bed. The majority of the guys are suffering through something. It could be alcohol. It could be prescription pills. It could be injuries, everything.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:17:18

       And what are they typically coping with? What, what, what's the thing that is causing them to use... Injuries obviously make sense, but psychologically.

    4. DSDJ Shipley1:17:29

       Um, I'd say for me, I'm probably the quintessential dude. I kind of represent everybody. I'm, I'm not a unicorn by any means. I'm a product of the culture. Hard time sleeping, so you start taking Ambien every night, and then that doesn't work. [sighs] Your memory starts getting shot. Too many TBIs. You get put on Adderall. Now you're taking uppers and downers and then all the pain elements and start avoiding surgery and then... You have a hard time trying to balance being a full-time husband, a full-time father, being a full-time Navy SEAL or pilot or whatever else you're trying to do, so you start to compartment- compartmentalize everything. I can't be a husband. I can't be a father right now. I can't be a best friend. I can't be an uncle. I can't be a son. I can only do this one thing, so I'm gonna compartmentalize everything else. I'm gonna shift it away, and then when I get done, I'll reintegrate. As soon as you try to reintegrate, you can't. The wife's off her routine. You're late for the bus stop. She's got her whole schedule set, and now you drop back in, and you just screwed it all up.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:18:31

       Hmm.

    6. DSDJ Shipley1:18:31

       Now you don't feel like you're at home, so what do you do? You just run back into work. You start pouring all your time back in there, and you feel this big dissociation between the thing you're actually fighting for-

    7. CWChris Williamson1:18:39

       Hmm

    8. DSDJ Shipley1:18:40

       ... because now I can't even be around it because I don't feel at home there. I, I feel like I'm staying in an Airbnb, or I feel like I'm staying at my aunt's house. Like, I'm trying to like keep, creep through the kitchen. Like, I open up the refrigerator. It doesn't have anything that I want in here 'cause I haven't been grocery shopping in eight months. Well, now I'm too ashamed to ask her to buy this or buy that. And you're like, "Ugh," and you're on another trip. I think people would be shocked with how much the guys are on the road. Minimum 270 days, 325, 350 a year. I mean, they are gone, gone. Gone. And even when you're there, like that typical morning, we'll call it a day in the life, random Tuesday in Virginia Beach, up at 5:00 Clear in the gym 5:30. Workout 5:30 to 6:30, eat breakfast, go do a recovery session. That could be a float tank, a cryo chamber, E-stim, cold plunge, whatever. Go back up, 10:00 AM briefing. Train for three, four hours, eat lunch. Train three, four hours, eat dinner. Drink a couple beers in the team room. Go back home, 9:00 PM, kids are already in bed. Your wife's already taking a shower. She's watching Netflix. You go in, you're asleep in 20, 30 minutes, or at least half asleep. You wake up four, five, six times a night, can't really fall asleep. Wake up 5:00, do it again, over and over. So your kids don't see you for pretty much the entire week.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:19:56

       Hmm.

    10. DSDJ Shipley1:19:56

        If you're lucky, you'll come in 6:30 at night. They're in bed by 8:00. You're two-hand texting, frantic. You're trying to pack your stuff, trying to do laundry. You're about to leave in a day. You're like... You're just never really, truly present, and that's when everything else starts to happen. The injuries stack up. Sleep deprivation stacks up. You're on a shitty diet. Now you're drinking too much. You're popping these pills, and it doesn't feel like you're doing it to excess. Like, the doctors have given you this stuff, you just keep eating them. Like, "Oh, I feel better." Three or four days, you feel worse. And like, eat another Adderall, wake up and do it again, do it again, do it again. And a lot of it is... It is egocentric, because everybody around you is better than you are, and you feel like, "I have to see them see me work." Like, I want you to notice that I am in here before you, I'm staying here after you, and I want you to know that I know I'm not great, but goddamn, I'm trying.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:20:46

        Hmm.

    12. DSDJ Shipley1:20:46

        It won't be for a lack of effort. It won't be for a lack of commitment or discipline. I'm gonna show up every day trying to be better than I was yesterday, and that's what everybody has. You just get really used to just being inside of that thing, and you sacri- Guys become the best at hiding injuries, catastrophic injuries.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:21:04

        What are the most common injuries?

    14. DSDJ Shipley1:21:05

        Shoulders, hips, knees, TBI, neck, low back.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:21:09

        And what's this from? From shooting? From-

    16. DSDJ Shipley1:21:11

        Everything

    17. CWChris Williamson1:21:12

        ... load?

    18. DSDJ Shipley1:21:13

        Skydiving. Skydiving, climbing, the boats, everything. It just... It's rough, man. It's rough on the body.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:21:18

        Hmm.

    20. DSDJ Shipley1:21:19

        And now you don't sleep. And when I say don't sleep, I mean realistically, like actual sleep, two hours a night. Like, you j- you don't sleep. And a lot of that is, you think when you get overseas, we're on vampire hours, so you don't see the sun for-

    21. CWChris Williamson1:21:35

        Mm

    22. DSDJ Shipley1:21:36

        ... three to six months, however long you're gonna be overseas. But you wake up at 5:00 in the afternoon and you drink coffee all night. You get back home at 5:00 AM, you eat breakfast, and you try to go to sleep. Now the sun's up. Your body gets that dose of vitamin D, and now you're just chasing it.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:21:49

        Are you using, uh, light therapy, uh, SAD lamps or any sort of equivalent when you're over there?

    24. DSDJ Shipley1:21:55

        No. Dude, we didn't have Wi-Fi for my first three or four deployments, no. Like, s- it should be better now, but back in the day, they couldn't even, they couldn't even prescribe you vitamin D because it was a hormone replacement. That's the way they classified it in the military.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:22:07

        Hmm.

    26. DSDJ Shipley1:22:07

        Now it's different. But I mean, fingernails falling out, hair falling out.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:22:11

        Why?

    28. DSDJ Shipley1:22:12

        Not seeing the sun for six months. Like, literally not seeing it.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:22:15

        You turn into a bat.

    30. DSDJ Shipley1:22:16

        Yeah. And you feel like death. Face all sucked in. Food's terrible. Like, you got a food allergy or like... Dude, I can't, I couldn't eat a, a boiled egg right now if you gave me a million dollars. I've eaten thousands and thousands of hard-boiled eggs.
16. 1:22:42 – 1:25:03

    Why Isn’t Sleep Optimised in the Military?

    1. DSDJ Shipley1:22:42

       But-

    2. CWChris Williamson1:22:43

       It's surprising to me that everything would be so optimized-

    3. DSDJ Shipley1:22:47

       Hmm

    4. CWChris Williamson1:22:47

       ... in the buildup, and then seemingly so, like, under-optimized once you get out there. Like, a- and also why, why is no one c- the, probably the single biggest performance enhancer for anybody is sleep. Uh-

    5. DSDJ Shipley1:23:02

       Because you don't always get to dictate when you're gonna go.

    6. CWChris Williamson1:23:05

       But when you're at home and you're training, how come that's not more prioritized?

    7. DSDJ Shipley1:23:10

       You gotta think about... So say you're on a training schedule. We'll say you get up at 5:00. You run through the entire day, and we'll say you're doing a night profile that night. You're not even gonna get geared up for that night profile until 8:30 at night. That's gonna go until 2:00, 3:00 in the morning.

    8. CWChris Williamson1:23:24

       Hmm.

    9. DSDJ Shipley1:23:24

       So when you wake up, you're still gonna clock in and do a full normal day. So you can either come in at 6:00, you can come in at 7:00, or you can come in at 5:00 and just live the exact same routine.

    10. CWChris Williamson1:23:33

        Yeah.

    11. DSDJ Shipley1:23:33

        So a lot of guys have hammocks in their cage area. They'll just sleep in a cage. They'll come in 2:00-

    12. CWChris Williamson1:23:38

        What's the cage?

    13. DSDJ Shipley1:23:40

        Probably a quarter size of this room. Everybody has their own, so all your gear's in it, guns, bullets, bombs, all the stuff is in there. But they'll string up a hammock and they'll just sleep in it. Got Tempur-Pedic mattress on the floor, and they'll just sleep in it.

    14. CWChris Williamson1:23:51

        Because it's easier than having to commute to go back home to then come back, 'cause you're losing half an hour each way or maybe more.

    15. DSDJ Shipley1:23:57

        Exactly. I go in, I wake up my wife. My alarm clock goes off. She's like, "Why are you getting up?" You gotta have this awkward conversation, jump back in the car, just drive back in, rinse and repeat again.

    16. CWChris Williamson1:24:05

        Hmm.

    17. DSDJ Shipley1:24:06

        So a lot of time guys just stay there. You get used to it, but when it's happening in the moment, you don't realize what it's doing. Like, you'll watch your weight fluctuate. Like, you know, everybody gets overseas, everybody tries to get big and jacked on deployment. You come back home and it's like, "I can't maintain this. I'm not sleeping. I'm not eating right." Just all the stuff starts to happen to you. You start to erode a little bit of yourself, and you go on these stints where you get really, really jacked, like, in great shape. Like, "Oh, I can maintain this," but your sleep is garbage.

    18. CWChris Williamson1:24:34

        Hmm.

    19. DSDJ Shipley1:24:34

        And like all-

    20. CWChris Williamson1:24:35

        Like you're pushing too hard.

    21. DSDJ Shipley1:24:36

        Yeah. And it's one of the... Like, if I talk to anybody else, they'll be like, "You're doing too much. You need to break it down. You need to take two weeks off. Don't do anything physical." My mental health will just spiral out of control so fast.

    22. CWChris Williamson1:24:47

        Hmm.

    23. DSDJ Shipley1:24:48

        I have to stay on the routine, 'cause if not, then my confidence drops. So I know I need to sleep. I know I shouldn't do anything in the gym today. I know I shouldn't, but if I don't, my confidence drops. Then what? Then what do you want me to do? Just constantly chasing your own-

    24. CWChris Williamson1:25:01

        Vicious feedback loop.

    25. DSDJ Shipley1:25:02

        Vicious.

17. 1:25:03 – 1:41:06

    Does Compartmentalisation Ruin Relationships?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:25:03

       Is your mood and health better when... Because it seems like being overseas in some ways might be a little bit easier.

    2. DSDJ Shipley1:25:10

       Hmm.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:25:10

       Because there aren't the distractions. You're sort of locked in.

    4. DSDJ Shipley1:25:13

       Yeah.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:25:14

       But you're also vampire mode-

    6. DSDJ Shipley1:25:17

       Yeah

    7. CWChris Williamson1:25:17

       ... uh, with shitty food and g- all of the other issues.

    8. DSDJ Shipley1:25:20

       Best time you ever had in your life Being overseas, most guys will tell you they sleep better now when I-- now because I'm out, I've got a bunch of different modalities that help me sleep better now, but I sleep way better overseas than I do when I'm in town.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:25:33

       Even now?

    10. DSDJ Shipley1:25:34

        Yeah.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:25:35

        [laughing]

    12. DSDJ Shipley1:25:36

        Way better. Always. You just do.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:25:39

        I can't remember what movie it is. Maybe it's Rambo or maybe it's The Expendables or something, and I know it's a cliché, but it sounds like it might be true that there's a guy who comes back home after he's been on deployment or he's been on some sort of operation, and he's struggling to sleep in the bed, so he decides to sleep on the floor and just put his arm under his head, and it kind of feels a little bit like that. You become conditioned to have one particular type of environment and one that's objectively better-

    14. DSDJ Shipley1:26:08

        Yeah

    15. CWChris Williamson1:26:08

        ... is subjectively, like, alien.

    16. DSDJ Shipley1:26:11

        Yeah. Man, I miss it. You make me time travel right now. God. It is the most fun you'll ever have in your entire life. It is. Like, even all the bullshit, the sleepless nights, Ambien, whatever else, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Give me $10 million right now to erase those memories. I wouldn't touch it. Not a chance, dude. But in the moment, it all seems like it's worth it. I just wish I was able to find a better balance point, because for me, I wasn't able to. I had, I had too many things that were weighing on me, too many things in the family, and it, it became so much easier to be overseas and to isolate, not throw up family photos. Limited times you're gonna FaceTime, limited times you're gonna call home.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:26:51

        Yeah.

    18. DSDJ Shipley1:26:51

        Because in the moment, the last thing I want is for that window to light up. I've got to run over there and deal with it, and I don't want to think about orphaning my kids, making my wife a two-time widow. I don't want to do that.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:27:03

        Mm.

    20. DSDJ Shipley1:27:04

        I can't have that inside of me. So it sounds selfish, but I've had a, a lot of amazing mentors that have said the same thing. If you think that I'm thinking about my wife on that helo flight in, I'm not. If you think I'm wondering what my kids are doing, I'm not. I'm only thinking about that dude because I've been staring his face for the last 72 hours. That's the only thing I'm thinking about.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:27:24

        Mm.

    22. DSDJ Shipley1:27:24

        The helo flight in, the walk in, the patrol, atmospherics, everything. That's the only thing I'm thinking about.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:27:30

        It's like compartmentalisation again.

    24. DSDJ Shipley1:27:31

        Mm-hmm.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:27:31

        There's an interesting study that I learned about, um, that was looking at attachment styles, and they brought people into a lab in a classic psychological study fashion. The study began before people realized the study began.

    26. DSDJ Shipley1:27:44

        Mm.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:27:44

        They're in this waiting room together, and over the far side is a computer, and the computer begins to just drift a little bit of smoke out, just a small amount, like it might be about to catch fire, something like that. Before they'd gone in, they'd done an attachment style assessment on e- all of the people that were in there, and there were some that were anxious, some that were avoidant, and there were some that were securely attached. What was interesting was the anxious people were the first ones that noticed that the smoke was coming out of the computer, but the avoidant people were the first ones out the door.

    28. DSDJ Shipley1:28:12

        Hmm.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:28:13

        And that explains why you need, in a, you know, Dunbar number 150-person tribe, why you need a variety of attachment styles. You need someone the type of vigilant who's always watching that ridge where sometimes the animals or the enemies come over, but you need other people that are decisive. And one of the skills that the avoidant side seem to have is an ability to compartmentalize. So the anxious people would be more likely to think, "Um, is it okay? Should we-- Can we leave? Are we allowed to?" Whereas the avoidant people are like, "It's just a Wile E. Coyote. It's just a puff of dust."

    30. DSDJ Shipley1:28:48

        Mm-hmm.
18. 1:41:06 – 1:43:56

    The Most Impressive Operator DJ Ever Met

    1. CWChris Williamson1:41:06

       You don't need to say who it is. They might be active or out now. Who is the person that-- What is the archetype of the person that's been most impressive to you, the single operator that you've seen? What are they like?

    2. DSDJ Shipley1:41:21

       Probably the most clonable. Oh, man, I can't even say that. Like, the best guy? I don't know how, um, I don't know how they are at home. You think you know how they are at home because of how they interact. Because you gotta think, man, the majority of those people you spend a decade together with. New guys will come in and out, but most of the guys, man, you're spending seven to eight years unbroken just together. Hopefully, you get to the 10-year mark, and then you have to rotate out. The best guy I have ever seen, the most well-rounded, in amazing shape, an amazing high school wrestler, transitioned over to MMA, an amazing skydiver, amazing shooter. Culturally, if you could mass produce and make 1,000 of him, I would press that button right now, and I'd drop him on every corner of the earth. Just the best. But he lived that routine. His routine-- And here's where you know the difference. Everybody-- You talk to anybody who's ever worked with a SEAL. If we get overseas, we come to a new base. Very first thing we ask for, "Where's the chow hall? Where's the gym?" Chow hall and gym. I'll figure out everything else after that. Chow hall and gym, where is it? Everybody shows up, and everybody does a lift. Everybody. I don't care if you're a marathon runner, whatever. They all do fitness first thing in the morning, and then we focus on hard skills the rest of the day. That dude and a bunch of other guys would show up. They would get that lift in. They'd go straight over to Fight Club. They'd do Muay Thai or BJJ for an hour. They'd jump in a cryo chamber. They'd jump in a float tank. They'd get E-Stim work done, soft tissue work. They'd go eat breakfast, then go upstairs to the 10:00 a.m. meeting, then do CQB for a four-hour block, eat lunch, another CQB for a four-hour block, eat dinner, and go home and be a husband or a father. They did that unbroken the entire time I've known them, long before it was cool, long before you could look at guys like Michael Phelps or Steph Curry for inspiration. They lived that routine unbroken. Because you go on these pockets, like you go on these trips, shooting trips, jump trips, whatever, and we'll say you go to Arizona on a three-week trip. The guys who hate jumping might do 50 to 75 jumps in three weeks. The guys who are really into it will do 250. They jump all weekend, 10, 12 jumps a day every single day unbroken, and they're just stacking their resume. Over and over and over. So when you call them, you're like, "Hey, I need for you to pull this off," there's no warmup. There's no mulligan. I can't go back and re-jock. Like, I can just send it all day long. That's how they lived. And when you look at them, you're like, "If I could just press the clone button and make 1,000 of you, I could do anything."

    3. CWChris Williamson1:43:50

       Yeah.

    4. DSDJ Shipley1:43:50

       Like, do you wanna end, do you wanna end the Iran war?

    5. CWChris Williamson1:43:52

       Topple a regime.

    6. DSDJ Shipley1:43:53

       Done. Right there-

    7. CWChris Williamson1:43:55

       That's a good, that's

19. 1:43:56 – 1:45:20

    The Formula for Building Elite Operators

    1. CWChris Williamson1:43:56

       a good question

    2. DSDJ Shipley1:43:56

       ... I mean, 1,000 of him, it's over.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:43:57

       That's a good question. For most, uh, for most conflicts, what is the number of special operators, tier one special operators that you need to be able to topple pretty much any regime in the world?

    4. DSDJ Shipley1:44:10

       How big's the regime? [chuckles]

    5. CWChris Williamson1:44:13

       Uh, let's say the size of... It, it can't be Russia or China 'cause that's gonna be insane. Like, the size of any normal midsize c- country with a, like, semi-competent military, like Middle Easty-type stuff.

    6. DSDJ Shipley1:44:27

       It's not even really operators. It's supporting assets. It's the helo pilots, it's the drone pilots, it's the air coverage overhead. It's everybody in between that makes the whole mechanism roll, but when we get off camera, I'll tell you how many guys there are.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:44:38

       Mm-hmm.

    8. DSDJ Shipley1:44:38

       It's so very small. Like, if people knew how small it was, they wouldn't even think it's cool. They're like, "It c- can't be like that."

    9. CWChris Williamson1:44:43

       Yeah.

    10. DSDJ Shipley1:44:44

        Like, it's somewhere in between astronauts and F1. There ain't many, dude. The, I mean, there's not. If you look at the whole scope of the military, 0.0001%. Like, we're not talking hundreds of people.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:44:56

        Hmm.

    12. DSDJ Shipley1:44:56

        It's very small.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:44:57

        Wow.

    14. DSDJ Shipley1:44:58

        So when you get them in there, it's like you don't need a whole lot. I mean, on your typical, you know, I'm dating myself with Afghanistan and Iraq, but I mean, your typical assault on however many people in a four-story compound, 12 people. 12 people, you can do anything. You don't need a lot. You just need 12 really badass dudes.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:45:17

        Mm-hmm.

    16. DSDJ Shipley1:45:17

        They can get it done. Just let them loose.

20. 1:45:20 – 2:04:18

    The Drug Detox That Ended in Electrocution

    1. CWChris Williamson1:45:20

       Who were you the day after you retired?

    2. DSDJ Shipley1:45:24

       Hmm?

    3. CWChris Williamson1:45:25

       Who were you the day after you retired?

    4. DSDJ Shipley1:45:28

       Lost and alone. I was coming off a pretty bad injury. I had a really cool transition. Got out on a Friday, and on Monday morning, I was starting a contract with the Air Force. Three weeks before that, I'd been electrocuted, so went through a bunch of surgeries and got really-

    5. CWChris Williamson1:45:45

       You've been electrocuted?

    6. DSDJ Shipley1:45:46

       Oh, God. Have you not heard that fucking story?

    7. CWChris Williamson1:45:48

       No, tell me the story.

    8. DSDJ Shipley1:45:49

       God. Okay. I get in a bad jump accident, dislocate my shoulder. It spins through, shreds the entire thing, and now I'm on a medical retirement board. So I've gotta get all these surgeries. In the process of that, they found out I was taking all these medications, a bunch of them you couldn't take together. So this new doc comes in and he's like, "Hey, we got a serious problem, dude." I was like, "What is it?" He goes, "You can't take these four medications together. It'll give you a stroke and you'll die." I'm like, "Well, I've been taking those for nine years now. I ain't had a stroke yet." And he went, "Okay, here's the deal. I'm gonna send you to Walter Reed. It's this nice program. You'll love it. It's a, it's a medical detox facility, so you're gonna go there. We're gonna wash you out all the meds. We'll put you on a couple ones you can maintain long term. We gotta get you off these meds." What it really is is a psych ward. So I show up there, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, really just a shell of myself and not realizing what I'm gonna do, and they start taking my shoestrings, take all my stuff. And I'm looking around. I'm like, "What is going on here?" And then, you know, had these nice nurses, but they, they were fighter pilots in there. There were Green Berets in there. There were all these people in there, and you could see them. Like, one of the guys had really bad Parkinson's. He had an injection right out of a fighter jet. I mean, jammed up, like couldn't speak, non-verbal. And I'm looking around like, "Why am I in this room?" Like, "I'm good, dude." Like, I didn't realize how far I had fallen, like what I looked like at the time. Face all sunk in, 185 pounds, just, like, not who I used to be. So they put me in this hospital bed and essentially strapped me down for 31 consecutive days, and I do a full med washout. By day three or four, I'm in full detox mode. I don't realize it. I think I have food poisoning. I'm throwing up in the bed. I piss all over myself. They're changing my sheets, blotting me with the wet napkins. I mean, doing the whole thing. I just keep apologizing. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what I ate. I don't know what I ate." You know, day four, five, six, get this pretty Black nurse and she's like, "Oh, honey, you don't know what this is?" "No." And she's like, "It's gonna be okay." I was washing out of all those medications I was on.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:48:01

       Can you say what the meds were?

    10. DSDJ Shipley1:48:03

        Everything from Adderall, Cymbalta, Zoloft, prazosin, um... Ah, what are the big pain meds? Tramadol, Toradol, Percocet, Vicodin, everything. E- everything and anything you could be put on, I was taking.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:48:18

        That sounds like something that might give you a stroke, yeah.

    12. DSDJ Shipley1:48:21

        Yeah. Well, I wasn't taking them in excess. I wasn't chewing them up. I wasn't snorting them. But I'd wake up and I'd take them all day long. But I had such bad TBI after this injury, really photophobic. I wore sunglasses basically all day, every day. If I looked up at those things, I'd get a crazy headache. I'd get sick. I'd throw up. So we're going through all these different protocols. They washed me out of these meds, and I wanted to die. When I finally felt what true sobriety was, and because I was under this illusion, because I'm not drinking in excess like I did when I was in my teens and 20s, I'm good. I didn't realize popping all these pills is the equivalent of drinking a 12-pack every three hours, and that's what it is. I was stoned under the influence of a narcotic or under a prescription medication 24/7, 365-

    13. CWChris Williamson1:49:01

        Hmm

    14. DSDJ Shipley1:49:01

        ... from 10 until 22. So this is, this is, uh, 2018, 2019 now, something like that. We get washed of these meds, and while I'm in there, it's probably day 15 or 20, the Red Cross comes in. They're bringing in dogs, I mean, dog therapy, all this stuff. And she goes, "Can I get you anything?" And I was like, "I don't know." She's like, "Hey, we're doing art therapy next door." I said, "What about a skateboard? Can you get me a skateboard?" She's like, "Yeah." She brings me a change of clothes. They sneak me out of the hospital, and there's a skateboard shop right outside of Bethesda, Maryland. I can't remember the name of it. I think it's Siren or something. We walk in there. She sees my arm bandaged, and she's like, "What's going on?" I was like- You have a skateboard in here?" He gave me two off the wall. I sanded them down, went back, painted them, papier-mâché, all this stuff, and that's what started into what Tribe Skates was. It was my transition out of the military. I'm gonna make... My mental health version was instead of painting masks or anything else, I'm gonna paint skateboards. So gonna get a skateboard team, gonna start mass-producing these things, all this stuff. But for me, it was the creativity of doing that. In that process, I found fracture burning. You ever seen that? You take a microwave transformer, you pop it out, and you splice jumper cables into it, and then you hook it to an octopus outlet, and you flick the switch. So if I sand down all the lacquer off this table, and I drove a 10 penny nail in there and there, I clip these two things on, and I poured Coca-Cola across this table, it would burn the wood grain and they would all connect, right? You ever seen that?

    15. CWChris Williamson1:50:32

        It would make a cool pattern.

    16. DSDJ Shipley1:50:33

        Oh, a sick pattern.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:50:34

        Right.

    18. DSDJ Shipley1:50:34

        I burnt everything. So I'm burning these skateboards, and I am, I'm knocking out some of the coolest pieces I've ever seen, ever. Getting really good at it. I don't realize how dangerous it is, though. I'm not an electrician. I don't know.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:50:48

        I'm not an electrician either, but it sounds dangerous.

    20. DSDJ Shipley1:50:50

        It looks more dangerous than it sounds. If you see the machine I was running with, it is so sketchy. But, you know, I'm not on Google, I'm not on YouTube, I'm not looking how dangerous it is. There's no ChatGPT.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:51:01

        Where were you doing this?

    22. DSDJ Shipley1:51:03

        Anywhere and everywhere. In my garage, in my backyard, everywhere. I'm just burning hundreds of skateboards at this point, and I've got my retirement date. It's supposed to be, like, August 31st, 2019. We're on Father's Day. So what is that? July? June, July? Whatever that is. June. It's Father's Day morning. I've been burning since 4:00, 5:30 in the morning, something like that. Got up early, knocking them all out. I mean, I got stacks of these things. And around, I'll call it 8:00 in the morning, m- my mind isn't the sharpest anymore. I get a call from an EOD guy, he's a bomb tech in the Navy, explosive ordnance disposal. They have a retirement ceremony that's going on, and he's got these huge paddles, like these eight-foot oars, and they wrap them all up with this decorative string and do all this stuff, and he's like, "Hey, can you burn them for me?" And I was like, "Yeah, dude, come over." He comes over. One of the critical elements on fracture burning is you can't have lacquer. No stain. It's got to be bare wood. If not, it'll melt the lacquer. It screws up the entire piece. He comes over with this eight-foot oar. I'm like, "Oh, brother, you gotta, you gotta sand that off." So I unplug my machine. He plugs in a sander and starts sanding it down, getting it all off. I'm cleaning up my boards, and part of that process, I've got them on easels, and I'm spraying them with the hose. I got a big wire brush, and I'm knocking off the ash out of them to clean them all out. Hose them off, hose them off, hose them off. So you can imagine my backyard. I've just got skateboards everywhere drying in the sun. I've already washed off. There's standing water all over it. I'm essentially sitting on a concrete pad burning these things. And we get done, my wife bangs on a window, and she's like, "Hey, it's Father's Day. Gotta go eat breakfast." I said, "Last burn." Both my kids are in a bay window from me to that TV away watching me. [sighs] I turn around. He had finished sanding. He'd unplugged his machine and plugged mine back in, and it flicked the breaker. So they're laying on the ground live. I don't know it because I never let anybody be around me when I burn something. You can put these things in your mouth. It's not hooked to any electricity. So I grab them, I go to readjust them, and lights me up. I got them in both hands. I contracted so hard, it shattered my collarbone, it shattered my scapula, it blew out of my finger, blew out of my palm, top of my head, came out of my thighs, one next to my ass, and right when I held it, right when it popped, I took a step back, and I landed in that giant pool of water ankle-deep. Blew me up in the air and shot me across the yard, still holding onto these things. Him, because he's an EOD guy and he's smarter than me, had the wherewithal to unplug the machine. So when I wake up, I'm on the flat of my back. He's right in my face, and he's like, "Do you know where you are?" "On the ground." And I remember exhaling and seeing smoke come out of my mouth. My hair was real long at the time. It's all standing up, hair smoking. Hands are all smoked out. I'm like, "Jesus Christ." He's like, "How do you feel?" And I was like, "Shoulder's dislocated something." I mean, shoulder's, like, hanging down the hair. The whole thing shattered, pieces. I stand up. I try to walk, uh, I try to walk around for a bit. I tell the old lady, "Go get my keys. I'm gonna drive myself to the hospital." Typical team guy fashion. She's like, "You're an idiot." She's yelling at me. I'm telling her to shut up. Kids are running around, everybody's screaming. He's trying to break down the machine so my kids don't run out. We get around to the corner, and I've probably got to walk maybe 30, 40 feet to my car. Not far. Date myself with a movie quote. You seen Kill Bill?

    23. CWChris Williamson1:54:28

        Mm-hmm.

    24. DSDJ Shipley1:54:28

        Do you know the Five Finger Death Touch he does? He takes five steps, and he falls over and dies. That's what happened to me. I stood up. I walked on the side of my house. I took one big step. She's inside. I can hear her running around with the kids trying to tell them all like, "Hey, Dad got hurt. Gotta take him to the hospital. Your mom or grandma's gonna come over." He's trying to break down the machine. I take a step, and everything goes jet black on the periphery. I'm like, "Fuck, fuck, fuck." I take another one. Close in again. I'm like, [sighs] "I don't want to die in Virginia Beach." If you ask anybody who's ever met me, that is my number one fear. I do not want to die in Virginia Beach, no matter what. Don't let me die there. I take my third step. I'm in a toilet paper too. This is gonna be it. I take one more. Total blindness. I can't see anything, and my eyes are as open, as big as I can get them. I can't see anything, dude. Ears start roaring. I'm on the side of this house, panic at the disco. I'm not screaming. I'm just freaking out. Like, I'm looking up. I can't see an ounce of daylight. I'm, "Oh, my fucking God. This is it. I'm blind. Oh, my God." I start hyperventilating over and over and over, as loud and as deep as I can. Probably 30, 40 seconds and my mind's kind of drifting off, and I see a little pinhole of light. Yep, I just stare at it. I keep power breathing. And it opens up, opens up, opens up, and then boom. Like I have superhuman vision. I can see everything. I can see the texture from the brick from 40 feet away. I mean, I can see anything and everything, and I can feel everything. Like, I can feel my wife walking through the house. We live in a big brick house. I can feel her walking through it. Like it's... Ask anybody who's ever been electrocuted. You start to feel weird stuff. He gets me up in that car, not let me drive to the hospital. We drive. It's probably three miles from me to our local hospital, like the big one. Hit every single pothole in Virginia Beach. It was like he doubled back to try to get it. If you ever had a collarbone broken or shattered, that's the move, man. You can feel it. You move around. The whole thing's just hinging. Your arm's basically just swinging around. It's terrible. We get in, get into the burn unit, and that was a time during COVID. So everybody in there has a mask on. Virginia Beach has probably the most gorgeous nurses at, on the planet, but you can only see their eyes. Beautiful mascara, crystal blue eyes, and now I can see it all now, so I'm processing it. Fingers are inside of you. I mean, they're doing all this stuff. They're moving my shoulders around. I'm screaming at them, telling them to stop. And I'll never forget. [chuckles] I tell them this. They all laugh at me. This nurse swings her beautiful eyes in front of me, and she goes, "Mr. Shipley, I am so surprised you still have a penis." Jesus Christ. And she's like, "Oh, honey, when guys get electrocuted, everything comes off. Fingers go off, your nose, your ears. Like, if you hit it with one side, your whole opposite arm will get blown off. Like, it opens up your rib cage." And she goes, "From what we can tell right now, outside of what's blown up on you, like, y- you're good." So I make it through that, make it three or four more hours. They've gotta lift me to a different burn unit. Very specific. And when I get inside that one, this, um, this ER doc comes in. He's like, "Hey, dude." I'm probably two, 230 pounds at the time. I just rebuilt from this gnarly shoulder surgery. Been in the best shape I've been in very long time. So I feel like Superman, except now I'm in a hospital bed. He comes in, he goes, "Hey, do you know what Rhabdo is?" I said, "Yeah." And he goes, "When you get electrocuted, your body goes through... It produces an enzyme very similar to Rhabdo. All your muscles liquefy. They go septic. I gotta cut them out, or you'll die." "All right. Okay." And he goes, "So I gotta come back every hour, and when your blood marker, that enzyme hits a certain level, I gotta start cutting you up." And I'm sitting there. I'd been through so much, so many injuries, so many surgeries, and all this stuff. I'm like, "When you say cut me up, what does that mean?" He goes, "Pecs, lats, quads, hamstrings, delts, biceps, triceps, shoulders, everything has to go. The bigger, I gotta get it out quick, 'cause once it liquefies, it's gonna go fast." I'm like, "How sure?" And he goes, "As sure as I know the sun's about to set in three hours." I'm like, "Happens to everybody." I'm like, "Oh my God." He leaves the room. I start hysterically crying. My wife is bawling, and I just wanted a gun next to me so I could shoot myself. I'd... The lowest I'd ever been. I was already struggling with depression, everything. I laid in that hospital bed. Comes back in an hour later, checks my blood, and he's like, "So far so good. Be back in an hour." Back in an hour, back in an hour, back in an hour, doing the whole thing. And he came back in probably five, six hours later, and he's like, "Hey, dude, for whatever reason, not only is your enzyme marker not getting better, um, there's not a trace of it in your whole body." He's like, "We scheduled you for surgery next Tuesday. Gonna put in a plate and, like, 15 screws in your collarbone. You can go home." I mean, I was in the hospital four or five days, but yeah. Survived that, survived the electrocution, did all that stuff, and that was really kind of the premise for Tribe Skates. That's how the whole thing started. It was all art therapy and yeah. That, um, that was the worst, man. I had to rebuild my thumb. My tendon got attached to the nerve bundle, so my thumb got fused like this for about a year. We had to do a Z lengthening, open the whole thing up so I could actually move my thumb again. Caught my shorts on fire. Like, it was, um, it was dicey, dude. That was, um, that was my transition. So when I transitioned out of the military, that's what I had to do. So by the time I actually got my DD214, you are retired on a Friday. Here's your retirement paperwork. I started a job the very next Monday. I couldn't even put on body armor 'cause I had just had surgery. So I had foam plates and trying to teach these guys CQB, arms in two slings, just trying to pretend like it wasn't there. So I'd, I'd show up with double slings. I'd take them both off, and I'd just stand there holding my kit like this 'cause I couldn't move my arms.

    25. CWChris Williamson2:00:25

        Mm. Mm.

    26. DSDJ Shipley2:00:25

        That's how I had to teach. That was my transition. Just hiding injuries.

    27. CWChris Williamson2:00:30

        About as gold standard as you could get for making it worse than it already was.

    28. DSDJ Shipley2:00:33

        The worst thing that's ever happened to me. I had the best transition. You know, working with the Air Force was this amazing experience. That transition, that fall from grace was nothing I've ever seen. No one ever told you about it. I thought it was gonna be the best thing to ever happen to me. Grow your long hair. I'm gonna smoke weed. I'm gonna do whatever I want to. Military doesn't own me. Yes, yes, yes. I've never craved anything more than I wanted to be back in. I knew exactly what everybody did. I do not want to be a civilian. I need to get back into work as soon as humanly possible, and it wasn't an option. Now what do I do? What do I do now? I don't know how to do anything else, and that's when you really realize I've been developing a skill set that is useless to everyone else. Nobody needs this. You think Elon Musk gonna call me like, "Hey, I'm thinking about building a, a Tier 1 assault team. Wanna be on it?" I'm like, "That phone call's not coming, dude. Nobody needs you." And now if you get out and you get on social media and you ever talk about what you did, then you get bastardized by the community.

    29. CWChris Williamson2:01:30

        Mm-hmm.

    30. DSDJ Shipley2:01:30

        You write a book, now everybody hates you.
21. 2:04:18 – 2:08:40

    The Psychological Challenges of Life After Service

    1. CWChris Williamson2:04:18

       And what about the psychological changes? You know, I, I understand that physiology and psychology are-

    2. DSDJ Shipley2:04:24

       Mm

    3. CWChris Williamson2:04:25

       ... very closely linked for you, but I think, uh, 50% of pro athletes get divorced within one year-

    4. DSDJ Shipley2:04:34

       Mm-hmm

    5. CWChris Williamson2:04:35

       ... of retiring from their sport.

    6. DSDJ Shipley2:04:36

       Mm-hmm.

    7. CWChris Williamson2:04:37

       Uh, I would imagine that the same thing is true for bankruptcy. I would imagine that the same thing is true for drug use, for reckless driving, uh, incidents or deaths. Uh, w- what were the biggest challenges that you were facing psychologically?

    8. DSDJ Shipley2:04:56

       I wanted to kill myself from probably 2013 up until 2020, 2021, every day. Every day, all day. And I didn't have a reason for it. I didn't know why. I was always a guy... I always looked down on people who committed suicide, just always. I'm like, "What a selfish thing to do." Like, "Cry me a river." 'Cause you see these guys, and you're like, you've got your dream job. Your wife's a 10. 10 fingers, 10 toes on both your kids. Like, they're star athletes. Like, there's nothing for you to be upset with. Like, how could you do that? Why would you do that? And they never leave a note, so you never know. Until it happens to you, it's just so hard to wrap your head around. I just woke up every day. I just didn't want to play the game. I want to hit the big reset button on a Nintendo and start over in a different life.

    9. CWChris Williamson2:05:42

       And that was both in service and-

    10. DSDJ Shipley2:05:44

        Mm-hmm

    11. CWChris Williamson2:05:44

        ... out of service, and during transition?

    12. DSDJ Shipley2:05:47

        The medication helped for a little bit, so it was like, it was that quiet noise in the back of your head just kind of subsided. It was always there. I'd wake up in the morning, I'm like, "Nope. Nope. Just override, go to the gym. Override and go to the gym. Go to the range. Do this. Stay active." Like a shark, just keep swimming. Every time I stopped, things got bad. Don't stop. Just keep going.

    13. CWChris Williamson2:06:05

        Yeah.

    14. DSDJ Shipley2:06:08

        But once everything happened, we came off all those meds. I still had to be on quite a few of them. I wasn't... It wasn't a full med washout. We came off the hard, like, painkillers, so I could feel all the pain. I was still on Cymbalta, still on Adderall, still on a bunch of these things. Blood pressure medications to stop nightmares, all this stuff. It's hard to quantify with how bad it was. Just everything you loved before you didn't have anymore. Didn't have the group. There's no group chat. No one ever gonna tell you to put it on again. There's no purpose.

    15. CWChris Williamson2:06:39

        Mm-hmm.

    16. DSDJ Shipley2:06:40

        And now I, I don't have a job. Like, what am I supposed to do now? I never planned on getting out. I never planned on not doing anything less than 30 years. I was just gonna do it forever, 'cause there's nothing else for me to do. I don't like anything else. I don't have another hobby. I'm not a scratch golfer. I don't want to be an entrepreneur. Like, I don't want to do a podcast, don't want to write a book. I don't want to do any of that. I just want to do this, and now I can't.

    17. CWChris Williamson2:07:00

        Yeah.

    18. DSDJ Shipley2:07:01

        What do I do now? I don't know. Circle in the drain over and over. But, I mean, now that you're out, smoking a bunch of weed, doing a bunch of stupid shit. Started cheating on my wife. Started doing all the things that I, I shouldn't have done, and all the things I didn't do in the past, I started doing during that transition, and it just, it ruined everything. Everything I tried to avoid my whole time in, I did as soon as I got out, right? Like, everything, like, everything that everybody does to get them divorced, they've usually been doing their whole career. I'm the opposite. I didn't do any of it until I got out, and I was like, "Meh, I have no purpose. Might as well just burn it to the ground." I wanted to be divorced because I didn't know how to reintegrate with my family. I loved her, loved the kids. Didn't want to lose what I had, but I didn't know how to integrate because I didn't have any practice, and I never looked at it like obtaining a skill set. Like, when you talk about being a good husband, being a good father, being a good friend, it's a skill set. You need repetition to, in order to be good at that. Like, how are you gonna How do you raise kids? You gotta be there. You gotta show up. How are you gonna be a good husband? You have to be there. Like, the pen pal thing doesn't work in reality. You have to live together, and I didn't have any experience doing it. So when I transitioned, I'm like, "What's a job I can get right now that is gonna get me out of Virginia Beach and away from this?" Not because I don't wanna be there, but because I don't know how. And in my... In that version of myself in that moment, the easiest thing to do was to separate. Let me get a job that's got me back in Arizona skydiving as much as I can, working these contracts. Like, let me just stay busy, busy.

    19. CWChris Williamson2:08:37

        Safe space.

    20. DSDJ Shipley2:08:37

        Yeah. It's safe. Let me get out of here.

22. 2:08:40 – 2:19:25

    The Trip That Changed DJ’s Life

    1. DSDJ Shipley2:08:40

       Worse thing could happen. Mm, started to spiral. She got to the point where she was gonna shitcan me. Like, she was over it, all inside of a year, just like everybody else, and that's when I found out about Mexico. Ibogaine, 5-MeO, DMT, and all the things, and that was really, like, her last call for prayer. If you love me, you'll go to Mexico and do psychedelics.

    2. CWChris Williamson2:09:03

       She find it or you?

    3. DSDJ Shipley2:09:04

       She found it.

    4. CWChris Williamson2:09:05

       No way.

    5. DSDJ Shipley2:09:06

       Mm-hmm. She sent it over to me. It was a friend of mine, uh, Markson Amber Capone, amazing. We were in team together, and he went out to the West Coast and started preaching the gospel about ibogaine and 5-MeO, and everybody on the East Coast said the same thing. You know, we're all wearing Carhartts and flannels, dip in Copenhagen, and we're like, "Typical West Coast."

    6. CWChris Williamson2:09:24

       [laughs]

    7. DSDJ Shipley2:09:25

       "Yep, he left the East Coast. He left the motherland. He went out west, and now he's crazy." No. I'm so glad I went. So glad I went. We sit there, and we watch this little infomercial, and we knew their whole story. Like, we knew the ugly truth and everything they had been through, and he was so open, so honest, so transparent. You're like, "Okay. Well, he seems okay. He seems like he's got a really good balance point," and you call him on the phone, and he sounds amazing. He was one of those dudes back in the days when I knew him, his eyes were as black as your shirt. If you wanted to topple a regime with just a single individual, like no rules, no mercy, you just launch him.

    8. CWChris Williamson2:10:03

       Mm.

    9. DSDJ Shipley2:10:03

       He was vicious. Like, one of those things like y- y- you ever walk through the SPCA and you see these pit bulls, faces all scarred up? You're not gonna stick your hand in that cage and try to pet it. That's what he was. He ain't like that anymore. He can still be that guy, but he has full control over it, and I think that's what everybody wanted. Like, I don't wanna lose my edge. I don't wanna be a pacifist. I don't wanna regret everything I've done, but I can't control this version of me that I've now created.

    10. CWChris Williamson2:10:30

        I just don't wanna be at the mercy of it.

    11. DSDJ Shipley2:10:31

        Exactly. He found control. Man, if I go down there and lick this poison dart frog or whatever they're doing, maybe it'll work for me.

    12. CWChris Williamson2:10:39

        Mm.

    13. DSDJ Shipley2:10:39

        So, so I went.

    14. CWChris Williamson2:10:41

        What was that experience like?

    15. DSDJ Shipley2:10:43

        Um, my life was unraveling in the moment. Like, everything that could be going wrong in my life was going wrong right then. Like, everything. I was leading multiple affairs. One of the girls was pregnant. Everything that could be going wrong in my life was happening right then at that moment. I went down to Mexico with no intention of coming back. I didn't want to. I have a picture on my phone post-Mexico of me standing on a cliff's edge looking down about 80 feet, jagged rocks underneath it. I came this close to jumping. That's after Mexico. After... Because I knew what I was going home to. I was like, "This isn't gonna work. I'm just gonna jump. There's no reason. If I slip and I fall right now, she'll get all my, all my medical. She'll get my life insurance. It'll just be an accident, 'cause I am not going home to face this music." But we went down there. I went down with a bunch of heavy hitters, probably eight, 10 guys, this little compound in Tijuana. They had a bunch of team guys call it holding space. They're cooking the meals. They're sitting with you, kind of walking you all through it, but it's a five-day process. You get down there the first day, they give you a drug test, which is kind of ironic. They wanna make sure you're not on Adderall, stimulants, so you have to come off of all the meds. That was the thing that I didn't realize was gonna be just like being back in that detox hospital. Coming off Cymbalta, if you've ever been on-

    16. CWChris Williamson2:12:04

        What is that?

    17. DSDJ Shipley2:12:06

        It's an SSRI, but it's, um, it's really for pain management, for everything else, but I was on that, heavy doses of Gabapentin. So when you're on that combination of Gabapentin and Cymbalta, they call it the jolts. When you come off of it, your nervous system starts firing again, so you'll sit there, and you'll just do this.

    18. CWChris Williamson2:12:22

        Mm.

    19. DSDJ Shipley2:12:23

        Just driving around, you're just jolting.

    20. CWChris Williamson2:12:24

        Like hypnic jerks in a way.

    21. DSDJ Shipley2:12:26

        Yeah.

    22. CWChris Williamson2:12:26

        Yeah. Yep.

    23. DSDJ Shipley2:12:27

        But it's super frightening because you can't control it, and you don't know they're coming on. So you'll, like, go to get a cup of coffee, and you'll just jolt, and she's like, "What the f- is going on with you?" And I was like, "I, I don't know. I don't know." It's happening. But now there's no Adderall. There's no stimulants. There's no pain meds. There's no Ambien. There's nothing. So now I am a shell of who I thought I was, and now I know I am really truly dependent on these meds. I was probably on... At the time I went down there, probably 40 or 50. The overall, I was taking 60 pills a day. We weaned off a couple of those things, the Prazosin for nightmares, a couple of those things, but the core remained.

    24. CWChris Williamson2:13:03

        Mm.

    25. DSDJ Shipley2:13:03

        A lot of pills.

    26. CWChris Williamson2:13:04

        And this is after you'd been washed out of them previously.

    27. DSDJ Shipley2:13:06

        Yeah, because a lot of them, you have to stay on them. Like, for them, like you're never getting off Adderall. You're never getting off Cymbalta. You're never getting off this, never getting off that. So we're still on them all. But now I have washed off of everything completely, and when you're truly sober for the first time, you get to realize the life you've lived and the injuries you've taken because now there's nothing masking it. Feeling myself get up in the morning was humbling. Gimping around, limping, just everything hurt. Fibromyalgia. I could barely hold a pencil, like hand just shaking all day. Like I... It was embarrassing. From who I was a year and a half ago to who I am now, a shell. Like, I don't wanna do this, dude. I don't. I didn't wanna go to Mexico. I kind of went just to, to shut her up. But yeah, I had no intention of going back. But we get down there. They give you the piss test. You get one night of sleep. The very next day you're gonna do ibogaine. So it comes from the iboga plant in West Africa, ground up this little shrub. You take these two pills. You write down some nonsense on a piece of paper you wanna burn, like things you're trying to get rid of and I can't write down any of my stuff because nobody in my group knows that I've been cheating on my wife.

    28. CWChris Williamson2:14:15

        Mm.

    29. DSDJ Shipley2:14:15

        Nobody. They don't know I got a girl pregnant. They don't know any of this stuff. It's just me now. I drop that thing in the fire.

    30. CWChris Williamson2:14:21

        Can you remember what you wrote?
23. 2:19:25 – 2:39:26

    How DMT Led to Redemption

    1. DSDJ Shipley2:19:25

       You ever done 5-MeO-DMT? You should. You should. It's not like anything on this planet. It is, uh, it's super fast. It takes no time to build up, but they sit you down, and it's supposed to be a purge. And knowing everything I know now, and I've been down quite a few times now, and I've taken guys down and hosted a medicine for them, everything that conjured up from ibogaine, if I would not have done 5-MeO and I would have went home in that state, I probably wouldn't be here. I had not come to terms and accepted everything that I did. I wanted to go home and confess and do all this stuff. I was disgusted with myself. Every, every vile thing I had ever said to my wife or my kids or relationships I had sacrificed and compartmentalisation, I felt so guilty for it, and it was like that yard of beer, just trauma. It was coming out of my mouth, and it's like You know, those moments where you're sitting there brushing your teeth, looking at yourself in the mirror and you're like, "DJ, I can't believe you've done this. I can't believe this is your reality. Like you've actually done this and you have to live with this shit now. How? How did you get so far off track from where you were to this point now?" And you're sitting there literally staring in the mirror just like this in disbelief like, "I can't believe you fucking did this. Like this is-- You're really gonna have to live through this." I'm like, "I can't. I can't do it."

    2. CWChris Williamson2:20:48

       Yeah.

    3. DSDJ Shipley2:20:48

       "I don't wanna go home. I don't wanna look at her. I don't wanna break her heart. I don't wanna lose the things I have right now. I don't wanna face reality." And it kind of gets you worked up into 5-MeO-DMT and we laid back there and you smoke out of this crack pipe and it looks so intimidating. Like it's in a little glass vial. I mean, you're heating it up like you're smoking a crack rock. And as soon as you lay your head back when you exhale, it's like your whole body consolidates into a single spark and then it explodes. It feels and it looks like, you know, when Star Trek is taking off those trails, it's like that and then you end up in the stratosphere just surrounded by whatever. It is the craziest thing. But the guy told me when you go, he's like, "Hey, whatever happens, let it happen. If you think you're gonna die, die. If you think you're gonna explode, explode. If you think you're gonna drown, just drown. Just one big exhale and let it take you." In the moment, you don't do that. In the moment, you're like [grunting] you're trying to hold onto it, hold onto it. So I would throw my arms out, I would scream, and then I'd ball up and I'd cry. 10, 15 minutes of like the ugliest crying you've ever seen. Uncontrollable, like throwing up crying. Like cry so hard you throw up. I woke up and I sat up and he looked at me and he went, "That wasn't it."

    4. CWChris Williamson2:22:04

       [laughing]

    5. DSDJ Shipley2:22:06

       "What do you mean that wasn't it? Like that was everything I had." And he's like, "Hit him again." I was like, "You want me to do that again?" He's like, "Hit him again." I did six rounds of that dude back to back to back over and over. And on the sixth one, this nurse came over, little Mexican nurse, super cool, and there was a team guy sitting off to my left or right, and he's like, "You wanna die, right?" I said, "Yeah." And he goes, "Then kill yourself. Do it right now with the medicine. Like stop messing around, stop with all the theatrics, stop crying, just do it. Kill yourself right now." I'm like, "It is true. I don't wanna go home. I don't wanna confess this. I am. I, I'll do it right now. I'm gonna smoke this with the intention to kill myself and I'm gonna hold my breath until it kills me 'cause I'm not going home."

    6. CWChris Williamson2:22:51

       Yeah.

    7. DSDJ Shipley2:22:51

       "Give me that thing again." And now I went through with the intention, I'm gonna close this whole chapter out. So I envisioned the smoke was purple and as I'm smoking this thing I can feel it going through my whole body. I'm trying to push it down to my tippy toes. I'm trying to coat my whole self. [inhales] I held back and I held that thing as long as I could. I could feel my eyes starting to flutter like it's really coming on. It feels like there's a, it feels like there's a cell phone this big behind your sternum and the whole thing starts to vibrate and you're like [gasps] you can't take it anymore. As soon as you exhale, the whole blast-off happens and when that one happened, it killed me. Killed my ego. It reset the whole baseline and when I opened up from that one, he looked at me and he goes, "That was it. How you feeling now?" And I was like, "I've gotta get home. I gotta get home right now. I gotta see my old lady. Gotta see my old lady. Gotta see my girls right now. I've gotta get home. Gotta get home right now." And then everything else kind of fell apart from there and we brought it all back together and... It was rough, man. It was so rough. It was so worth it though. If I wouldn't have gone down there, I wouldn't be here, 100%. There's not a chance. Not a chance. You gotta go. You gotta try.

    8. CWChris Williamson2:23:59

       [laughing]

    9. DSDJ Shipley2:24:00

       You gotta go. You gotta-

    10. CWChris Williamson2:24:00

        You're really not selling it to me.

    11. DSDJ Shipley2:24:02

        Bro, it-

    12. CWChris Williamson2:24:02

        O- okay, let's say somebody's, somebody's listening and they go, "I'm not on 60 meds a day."

    13. DSDJ Shipley2:24:08

        Nor was me.

    14. CWChris Williamson2:24:09

        "I'm not a ex-war veteran with a ton of PTSD from being shot at and shooting at people and stuff like that."

    15. DSDJ Shipley2:24:16

        I don't have PTSD from that at all. Not an ounce of my experience, not a single piece of it had anything in the military. It went from my childhood, zero to 16, gapped it, and then it picked me up when I transitioned out. Gapped the entire experience. I've been down, I've done Ibogaine four or five times and 5-MeO-DMT. I've never had a military experience, ever. Nothing. Trauma's trauma. Last time I went down there with, down with co-ed, males, females, civilians, women, everybody. Everybody's on the exact same path. You got trauma, that's how you get through it. That is 15, 20 years of therapy in five days. It's unreal.

    16. CWChris Williamson2:24:55

        We've recently seen Trump sign that bill-

    17. DSDJ Shipley2:24:58

        Mm-hmm

    18. CWChris Williamson2:24:58

        ... to fast-track research and he's got, literally got ex-SEALs-

    19. DSDJ Shipley2:25:02

        Mm-hmm

    20. CWChris Williamson2:25:03

        ... stood around him while-

    21. DSDJ Shipley2:25:04

        Did you not watch our film?

    22. CWChris Williamson2:25:06

        Not yet.

    23. DSDJ Shipley2:25:06

        That's who-- Okay. So Marks and Amber, they're all part of that thing. They're really the one that kicked off that whole initiative. We did a documentary, it's on Netflix called In Ways and War, and that's really where the whole thing started from. Everybody got hooked up on there and got a bunch of Green Berets and a bunch of regular military fighter pilots are all in there, and we just keep success after success after success. And you see it and you're like, "Why are we not doing this?" They've been doing it for thousands of years. Like why are we not letting this go? And it's often a bunch of spillover stuff from the '50s, '60s, and '70s about psychedelics are bad and they'll rot your brain and... [inhales] I don't know, man. I-- but I know it works, and I know that I'm not on a single medication. Nothing. Not a pain pill, not an SSRI, not an Ambien, nothing. Nothing.

    24. CWChris Williamson2:25:53

        What do you think happened?

    25. DSDJ Shipley2:25:55

        It killed everything I had inside me that was bad. [inhales] All my addictions, everything. So I'm not addicted to anything. Anything I do now, it's 'cause I want to, which isn't necessarily always a good thing 'cause I like to do some bad shit too, but it resets the whole baseline. Like everything that I was struggling with, it, it swipes it all away. That becomes an issue if you try to reintegrate, and that's what I tell the guys now. The version of me that came back from Mexico was so far out from the person that my wife had become accustomed to for the last 10 years-

    26. CWChris Williamson2:26:25

        Uh-huh

    27. DSDJ Shipley2:26:26

        ... she didn't believe it. If you watch the film, you'll get to see it in real time. When I was going through the ibogaine, my wife hacked my phone and found out about all the affairs simultaneous. So I don't have my cellphone for five days. So the whole time I'm going through, she's getting lawyers and divorcing me. Boxed all my stuff, took it to the shop, dropped it off, drew up divorce papers, the whole thing.

Episode duration: 3:00:39