512. Special Ops To Breaking Records Ft. Dean Stott

We're from sleeping on the floor, now my jury box froze. Fuck up, oh fuck up, stole, counted millions in a coat. Bad bitch, booty swole, got a on bank roll, kang fold, dussa no headshot, case closed. What is up guys, it's Andy Priscilla and this is the show for the realest sake about it lies the famous and delusions of modern society. Welcome, you motherfucking reality guys. Today we have a full length podcast, I'm gonna get into the amazing guests that we have in just a second. If this is your first time listening, we have shows within the show, today you're gonna hear a full length show. But other times you tune in, we have Q and AF, that is where you get to submit questions and I answer them. There's a couple ways that you could submit questions. The first way is, guys you can email those questions and ask Andy at AndyFiscilla.com. Or now that we're on YouTube, you guys can go, watch the C or the Q and AF YouTube, drop the question in the comments and we'll pull some out of there. Other times we need to tune in, we have CTI, that's cruise the internet. That's where we throw up headlines on the screen, we talk about what's true, what's probably not true, we speculate on what's going on and then we talk about how we can all be part of the solution by bettering ourselves as individuals. Then sometimes we have real talk, real talk is just five to 20 minutes of me giving you guys some real talk and then we have full length, which is what you guys are gonna get today. That's where we have interesting people come join us and we have a conversation about them and what's going on in the world and all kinds of cool stuff. Now for all of that we do have a fee, we say pay the fee, what that means is share the show. If we bring value, if it makes you think, if it makes you laugh, but change your perspective, if you learn something, you learn some skills that are gonna help you with your life, your business or anything else. All we ask very simply is that you share the show. We don't run ads on the show, you're gonna notice that I don't have 30 minutes allocated for advertisements of shit that I don't use and in exchange for not filling your head with a bunch of bullshit, just value exchange, man. If we do good, please share it, that's real simple. So with that being said, we do have an amazing full length episode for you guys today with a good buddy of mine, Mr. Dean Stott. What's up, bro? Hey, how are you? How are you, brother? Yeah, good. I know it's been some time before we met. I actually got a diaries to align. Yeah, well, we've had a show on the books. Another time we had a reschedule and we're trying to get this done for a long time. Yeah, it's been a while here. It's been a while. Yeah. So how's everything? How was the trip in? Yeah, the trip in was good. Yeah, now currently in Orange County, in California, yeah, moved there two years ago with my wife and two kids at the time now have three kids. Congrats. I just took advantage of the COVID situation. I mean, my wife, we're very busy with life and we sort of blinked. We always wanted to move to America. Blinked to turn ahead and we had a nine-year-old and a four-year-old. And so while the world was paused, we thought we'd take advantage of this situation and, you know, take the leap. Otherwise, 10 years would pass and we'd probably be kicking ourselves if we didn't. So couldn't actually get into America straightaway as we had to go to Mexico for 14 days and bounced in from there. So you come across border? Came across the border. Yeah. Legally. Swable crash river. Yeah. All right. Cool. There's a couple of tunnels. But yeah, we didn't know where we were going to look to LA and then my wife was on Zillow. The school ratings were pushing us for the South in Orange County and we just, you know, we flew in and the embassies were all shut at the time. So your normal process of moving to the US would be get your visas and everything sorted first and then come in, but we did it the reverse. So we're there now. Everything's working out though. Everything's working out now. Green cards through and we, yeah, you've got no regrets at all. It's probably the best decision. And unfortunately, COVID wasn't great for many people, but for us as a family, it was a great move. Yeah, that's cool, man. Well, welcome to America, brother. Happy to have you. Need more like you. Bro, you lived a very incredible life and you've done a lot of incredible things. Just break down some of the things that, you know, I've gotten you to this point because I know we want to talk about some other things, but yeah, there's so much there could be a seven hour podcast. I mean, dude, special forces, you know, executive protection. Yeah, executive protection. You wrote the bike ride everything. So like, tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, quick summary. So I joined the UK military. My father was in the military, my grandparents in the military. I actually, as a young boy, always wanted to be a fireman. Never had any aspirations of actually joining the military myself. But I decided to cut college early and go surfing for a couple of weeks, which then extended into six months, long before the mobile phones. My father then found me working in a surf shop and he told me how I'd ruined my life at the age of 17 and what was I going to do. So to sort of silence him, I told him I joined the military and, you know, he told me I'd last two minutes. It wasn't the warm, comforting words of motivation I expected. But for me, I was like, you know, I've come across this same scenario many times in my life. There'll be those naysayers that tell you you can't do it. And there's no point in arguing with that person because if they believe, they believe and you believe what you'll believe, you're just going to, you're not going to come to a conclusion. So the only conclusion is that to go away and prove that person wrong and then come back to the table. And so that's what I did. I joined the military at the age of 17. I weighed, you guys working pounds. So I was probably about 140 pounds and five foot seven. So I could see where my father was coming from. But in a short period of time, I sort of grew physically and mentally. I got to 200 pounds within 18 months and was one of the youngest airborne commando divers within the military. So for me, my life, I never looked as a career in the military and then ended up joining the UK Special Forces. So I joined this special boat service, but coming from the army to the Navy was like one of your guys, your Delta Force guy is saying, well, actually, I'm going to go seal team six. So that's when the special boat service is like the equivalent. That's the equivalent. Yeah. The tier one, the tier one, the special force in the UK is the special air service for the army and the special boat service for the Navy. And then here you have Delta Force and seal team six. Okay. But unlike here in the US where Delta and DevGroove have their own selection, ours is actually joint. So not one is harder or easier than the other. Yeah. But you need to be the gray, they tell you to be the gray man on the course, you know, try and blend in. Don't stand out for the right reasons and the wrong reasons. And on a six month course, I was the gray man for two minutes. They literally call my name out and are like, why are you going to the SBS? I was a senior dive instructor for the army and I'd spent eight years with commando recce force. So for me and my love for the water as well surfing, SBS was that natural pull to me. So yeah, I wasn't the gray man for long, but six months later, you know, we start with 208 pass. I was one of the final guys, but what was great for me wasn't me passing is now looking back at the unit 15% of the special boat service now come from the army. So you sort of open up that pathway for others to follow. I joined at a height of time on the war on Terry. It was the busiest time in UK special forces and US special forces history. We had Afghanistan, we had Iraq. I was rescuing hostages off Somalia and I was diving on cartel boats in Colombia. I was ticking a lot of boxes in a short period of time. And so for me, I never looked beyond the militia. I'd reached my pinnacle in my career. I was now working with light minded individuals. I had that same drive, that same passion, that mission success. Unfortunately, I took a tragic turn after 16 years. I had a parachute in accident and that's shortened my career. My leg got caught up in a, it was actually on exit. The aircraft, my leg got caught in the line and pulled. And so I tore my ACL, my lateral meniscus, my MCL, my hamstring, my calf and my quadriceps for all the supporting muscles as well. And so I saw it. Oh, shit. Yeah. I landed one leg, it was a great landing. But you know, other than that, I was sort of then told, you know, thank you for your service, it's time to leave. So it's a bit like a professional, there's a lot of comparisons between special forces and professional athletes. It's like, someone going, watching the rest of the team go off on a tour. I mean, you've got to go to physio. It was a big part of your identity. Exactly. Yeah. And those guys went to Afghanistan and I was actually left the military. And as you rightly touched on, I didn't know it at the time. But you know, I got to where I had in the military because of my physical attributes. I now couldn't even run a hundred meters. I had an identity crisis, you know, knew what I was doing for the next two years. You know, literally next two years is planned out, knew my role, knew my purpose. And it's not how, what is my role now within society? How am I now going to fit in to what for me was an alien community? I didn't know much about the military. And thankfully, if you remember, my wife was very entrepreneurial and she sort of picked up those worries that I had. And as you know, DJ, you know, people with our skills, that without sounding like Liam Neeson, our natural progression is the security industry. What's great now in the special forces, they have transition programs. So a lot of guys and girls may not want to do that. And there's other options, but I didn't have that time. I literally was told, you've got to go. So all my friends were doing security of Somalia, maritime security was at its height. But I wanted to find a niche within the industry. I wanted to stand out. I wanted something that AO be comfortable doing. And fortunately for me, the Arab Spring was now kicking off in May 2011. And my first job within 48 hours to help set up the British Embassy in Benghazi. And when I was there, I soon saw these, I never name and shame him, but I call them the big five, these big, huge security companies. And they were winning these great big contracts with some of the oil and gas and the NGOs, just purely on their company name, everyone assumed because they're the biggest, they're probably the best, which over time in industry, isn't the case. But they were charging six, seven figures, some of these crisis management and evacuation plans, which weren't actually in place. It was just as good as the paper was written on. And so for me, I was a bit concerned with that because A, if something happens, I'm probably going to be relying on that plan. And so my wife was giving birth to our daughter. I flew back out and I said, I've got a plan. There was a huge proliferation of weapons in Libya at the time. And so I bought 30 weapons on the black market and I buried them between tuners in Egypt and designed my own evacuation plans and just sold that to the oil and gas sector. We lived in Aberdeen, which is the Houston of Europe. So I had exposure to the oil and gas company. And fortunately for me, my wife, she trained to be a CP operator. She did surveillance as well, which we didn't plan on having our first daughter. So she ran the business behind the scenes. And so I didn't go on certain contracts. I was working on ad hoc. I was every time the phone went off. It was a new country. It was a new type of security. But when you tell people in the security industry, people look like me and DJ. I think we're dormant from the local nightclub. I mean, yeah, right. The secure energy is so diverse is everything from executive protection, consulting, crisis management, surveillance, coaching, mentor, it's huge. And so I was learning a lot about this industry in a short period of time and ended up doing more sensitive jobs as a civilian than I did when I was actually in the Special Forces. 2012, your American ambassador got killed. September 11th. I don't know if it was right place, right time or wrong place, wrong time. You know, normally if I'm there, that something's gone wrong. And I was there that evening when he got killed in Benghazi. And I got an oil company, their engineers from Benghazi back to Tripoli through safe houses that I had in the desert. And then in 2014, I was in Brazil covering the World Cup and I get a phone call from the Canadian Embassy. It was the Tripoli War now, which is civil war between the militias and the government. All the big security companies couldn't do anything about it. And this young girl rings me and said, but your name has come up. Can you help us? So I flew back in and I single handed it back to the Canadian Embassy, 18 military and four diplomats, which sounds very sexy and very Hollywood. But my success in the security industry was understanding the ground truth, not what you're seeing on TV, understanding the politics, the tribal inferences, the demographics. And the demographics as well, not what's been relayed on the TV. No, Hollywood doesn't help matters with special forces. You know, I call it the bicep bullets and bombs. You see Dwayne Johnson's and you're Jason Statham's and Emlott, you know, doing triple backwards somersaults. We do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the it's got absurd now. Everything explodes. Yeah, you're catching a car. Yeah, I always wonder where they're going to change their magazine. I'm like, sure, that's 30 rounds gone now. But that's the offensive action. And in the special forces, that's 25% of what we did. And that should be our last resort. You know, 50% of what we do is. And actually that's sexy support and influence hearts and minds being embedded with locals. And I just took that skill set from my time in the special forces and adopted that into the secure industry. So for me, it was just chatting to the tribal elders, having respect for them, showing them communication, trust. Yes, palm in their hands with a few hundred dollars, maybe, but it just opened up a corridor for me to get these out. It wasn't eight guys looking like me trying to bully their way through with weapons. We just did it just a political work. A political work. Yeah, yeah, a nondiscrete approach. And so that's where I've been sort of successful in the secure industry and also where the other where I have been successful as well is that when I go to these countries, whether it's in Africa or Latin America, you have to remember your guests in their country. There's no known as better knowledge of that country than the locals themselves. So I try and give as much work to the locals as I can, because if you're putting food on their table and showing them respect, that comes back and they will respect you. They will look after you and yourself. There's certain roles that I can't give them, you know, for sensitivity reasons. But, you know, the majority of the work I can and I think that's where I've been able to have been quite fortunate in the secure industry as well to do that. But no, after the, this is a short intro about me. No, it's awesome. Yeah. But then after the Canadian Embassy, my wife sat me down and sort of highlighted. I'd only been home 21 days in the 365 day calendar. So what I was doing, I wasn't really aware. I was trying to match your Drenning Rush that I had when I was in the Special Forces without coming to terms with the fact that you actually left. So fortunately for me, all the missions were successes, but if they weren't, I didn't have the SBS or the SES coming to get me. I was on my own. And so, chapter 16 in my book is called Dead or Divorce. That was the conversation me and my wife were now having at this point. She just put a bottle of port down. Two bottles of port, actually, we drank until the sun came out and actually then realized that I thought my wife wanted me to go away. I felt I needed to support my family as much as possible. And she thought I wanted to go away for the Drenning Rush when in fact we didn't. We just miscommunicated them from that point on. No, we communicate all the time. We'll never get ourselves in that position. So my wife is a property developer. Said, no, come work with me. And this, this leg now was two kilos light in this leg. There's the muscle wastage. Where was that injury? The injury was in 2011. So you've been dealing with it for a long time? Yeah, dealing with it for a long time. We're now in two, where are we now? We're probably in 2014 after the Canadian Embassy. So I'd sort of neglected my own physical and mental wellbeing. I've been so fixated on work. And so I decided I will work with my wife and I bought a push bike off Amazon and just cycle to and from the office, only by eight miles each way. But as you know, being physically active, I just felt like there was a huge weight. I felt I could breathe again. You know, cardiovascular PT is very different from, you know, maybe in the gym. And so, no, I felt comfortable and I, but you can imagine with my backstory, I was working with my wife and we were in these meetings and I would, you know, she could see that glaze in my eyes, something had to change. And so I said, well, I, I've always fancied doing a world record. And I was about a month before my 40th birthday. And she said, well, what in? I said, it was cycling, not hampering my knee. And so my wife and found the world's longest road, which runs from Southern Argentina to Northern Alaska, 14,000 miles over two continents. And I never mean to sound arrogant and it can come across quite arrogant. Having only cycled 20 miles, I applied for the wheel record. I said, yeah, that would do. So Guinness came back, Guinness came back six weeks later, said, yeah, you've been successful on your application. And so, so I now had the challenge. Me and my wife do a lot in the philanthropy area. We've, we found a campaign that we were going to do work for, which was to promote mental health, but for not just veterans from young children, teenagers, postnatal depression, the whole sector. And the wheel record was 117 days, set a target of a million pounds. My wife ran the campaign, did all the fundraising, managed to get me sponsorship as a noncyclist. She managed to get me half a million pounds sponsorship. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, really. 17 days. The wheel record was 117 days. And I did it in 99 days. It became the first man in history to do it under 100 days smashing it by 17 days. Did you set out to do it under 100 days? Or did it just, you start halfway through or quarter way through, you're like, fuck, I could do this 100 days? No, what it was is, is I spoke to the previous record. I called holders, because when I was doing all my planning, there was a lot of stuff. And I was quickly learning about cycling through magazines and books, but I wasn't getting that crucial information I needed to plan this project. So the best people to talk to, those that experienced it themselves. So one of the things we do in the Special Forces is, one of the reasons we're one of the best in the world, isn't it because the caliber of the guys and the training, it's because we're always learning from our mistakes. We're always evolving and changing. And so what we used to do, not just on operations, but even on training, everything we do is called a hot debrief. So as soon as the helicopter lands or the plane lands or the boat comes in, before you go clean your weapon, go get food, we would have a hot debrief because it's still fresh in your mind. And the three questions you normally get were what worked, what didn't work. And if we were to do that again, what would we do differently? And you just get all that information from there. And because people do make mistakes, it's natural for people to make mistakes, it's not a problem. But as long as you learn from those mistakes and it doesn't repeat itself. So that's what we tend to do. So I asked those three questions to the previous record holders and they all started in Alaska and finished in Argentina, but all their issues were in South and Central America. So for me, being a military guy, I was, why would you not address those issues early? Get them in a way where it's bureaucracy, languages, spares for the bikes, get that out the way early and then once you're into North America, you're home dry. So I turned it on its head. I started from Argentina. And yet the wheel record was 117 days. I was aiming for 110 and it wasn't because I wanted to smash it by a week and show off. When I was doing my planning, there was things that were out of my control, like natural disasters, coups, fur, pie, influence. So if we encountered any of that while I was on the bike ride, if I was going for the 110, then at least we call it fudge in the military. I had that one week fudge that it could eat into that time. So 110 was the target. I did South America in 48 days, 10 days off the South America wheel record. My decision from going South to North was a good decision. I had nice tailwind through South America, but logistically it was slowing me up. And the fact that we had to, you could get a vehicle from Alaska to Argentina if you crossed the Darian Gap on a ferry. Coming up, you had to swap vehicles in every country. So that was what slowing us up. So my wife, we bought an RV in a four by four in Fort Lauderdale and was going to get shipped to Panama. When I was in Ecuador, my wife rang me and told me that the vehicles hadn't been loaded onto the shipping container and they're still stuck in Fort Lauderdale. My wife, my PA, thankfully had four-site. They flew over with a couple of my friends and drove the vehicles 4,000 miles in eight days from Fort Lauderdale through Mexico all the way to Panama. I broke the wheel record in Cartagena, flew over and an hour later they came in and handed the keys. But what's really important about that sort of situation is that, and it's relatable to the special forces, is the team behind the scene that people don't see. Your only is as good as your support team. Your support network. So in the special forces, for every special forces guy to step off a helicopter or jump into the plane or into the water, it takes seven other people you don't see. And so Elana was integral on that. Now did you have a team on the ground in South America with you? Yeah, so when I was playing for wheel record, there was no distinction between supported and unsupported. I was like, well, I'm having a support team because I don't know how to change a puncture or fix a bike. Yeah, I just didn't know. Yeah, yeah. So you were saying they met you. So I didn't know if you rode the first part. No, no, so I had a support team with me and then we had a documentary team with us as well. And what was really an eye open as well and is the supporting that weren't there at the end. We had volunteers from everywhere and because of the mental health side of things, I thought people wanted to get involved for the right reasons. It turns out when we're on the challenge, they had hidden agendas to self promote their businesses and had wrong reasoning to be there. So, but thankfully for me, I had a lana who was sort of managing that. I know the medic I had to send home on day 13 because he was bullying the documentary team. And I'm like, what a mental health challenge here. And then I'm going to get allegations of bullying. So I'm having to deal with these, me and my wife, having to deal with these situations when we're on the ground. I get to Mexico and the bike mechanic and tells me that he now wants to be the project manager. And he now the success of the challenge is I've already broken one wheel record. He saw the success of that and wanted to change the challenge name to replicate his company. He said, I couldn't do it without him. He sort of gave me an ultimatum in Mexico. So I flew him home and my friend carried on. And we, so actually the bike ride was the fun when people do that, isn't it? Yeah. It wasn't. You can't do this without me. I can't tell you how many times I fucking heard that. That's 24 fucking years. Exactly. And so for me, it's like, you know, the bike ride was the easiest part. It was dealing with egos. That was the housing behind the scenes, what people didn't see. But I got into, they left in Mexico and we only had a five days out before we got to America. And I thought, well, when we're in America is bike shops, there's Masuzzi and stuff. So I get into America on day 70 and I'm 14 days ahead of the world record. And I'm like, At that point right there, just at that point, that's crazy. At that point, I'm 14 days ahead. I'm like, perfect, you know, the world records in sight. Hopefully now, haven't spoken to previous record holders, all our issues should be behind us. And I am, I get an hour into Del Rio, Del Rio, I mean, in, in, in Texas and I'm cycling along and I have five missed calls of my wife and Atlanta is very good in keeping any sort of distractions away from me. So my, I knew it was obviously important, but my initial thought was our children. There's obviously something wrong. So I jump off and I, I phone her. I ask her, everyone's okay. She goes, Oh, no, everything's fine. She goes, what do you wear to a royal wedding? I said, sorry, what do you wear to a royal wedding? I said, what do you mean? She's good. Oh, we've been invited to Harry and Megan's wedding. She said, Oh, yeah, that's nice. She goes, no, you don't realize. You go, I've done the calculations for you to get back in time. You need to be finished by day 102. So going into the phone call, I was 14 days ahead, 10 minutes later, I'm now a day behind. So everything I'd done up until now hadn't really counted. And all my gains had been taken away from me. So the objective was still there. The timelines had now moved. The in South America, I was because my security, sorry, because my support team and my documentary and bit more risk averse in myself, I had to be mindful of their welfare. So we, I would only cycle from first light to last light. I mean, being the hotels, just for safety reasons. Coming into North America, you've got the luxury of the safety. And so I could cycle at night. I got to Lubbock the next day and we had 60 mile an hour winds and tornadoes. And I was grounded for another 24 hours. So I'm now two days behind my new target. And there's a, there's an app called Windy TV. It's quite popular with sailors and it gives you the strength and directions of the winds every hour. And so all I did was I just, just scanned, scanned this app, just moved every hour, looked at the winds. I was able to cycle 340 hours, sorry, 340 miles in the next 36 hours to miss the next weather window before the next winds came in. And so I just played chess with Mother Nature. Did majority of my cycling at night when it was dark, plenty of highway patrolmen stopping me at three in the morning, wondering what I was doing. And actually, of all the places that I travel through security situations, it was Colorado Springs that one of our vehicles got broken into. Yeah. So here's me thinking. That's surprising. Colorado's getting hot. But that is, that's funny. Yeah. I mean, fuck, the guy, the all south America, all the other issues. That's fucking horrible. Colorado Springs. Yeah. I thought you were saying like Oakland, California. Yeah. Now, one of my mates had driven down from Vancouver Island once I told him about the support team leaving. He said, well, I've got time off. He came down and he does a lot of fishing and hunting. So it obviously seems an attraction with his vehicle. But yeah, I also use those winds to my advantage. I got to Cheyenne in Wyoming and I picked up a 50 mile an hour tailwind. So cycle 270 miles in 11 hours. And so yeah, that's all I did for North America. We had 17 days planned from North America. I cycled in 11 and a half days from Texas to Canada. So I was now back on target where I should be. And I get to a town called White Horse. And I was in McDonald's and literally, you know, I'm burning calories. So I burned in nine to 12,000 calories a day. And so however much I ate, I was still losing weight. And that was one of the good things about coming into America was the culinary options. I could literally eat whatever I wanted. Yeah. And as much as I wanted as well. So I'm sat in McDonald's, you know, don't judge me, but I'm just eating about four big Mac meals. And I'm on social media. My friend tells me about this professional cyclist who's already got free other world records sponsored by Red Bull, all the big brands. And he'd come out on social media that day and told the world that he was going to cycle it in August and be the first man in history to do it under 100 days. So every time I thought I was at my objective, my objective kept moving. So for me, I sort of cycled away from that and I'm like, would I be comfortable coming in, whatever time I come in now, knowing I hadn't pushed myself even further or do I try and come in under the 100 days. And so I had to cycle for 22 hours in the last 30 hours and minus 18 degrees centigrade in the snow to get into Pudo Bay. So yeah, it became the first man in history to do it under the day. So it wasn't the original question. It wasn't the original plan. Yeah. It's just how things change on the ground. And I think my time in the Special Forces helped with that. You know, we go on operations and sometimes there's no infrastructure in place. You still have your objective, but you just need to bounce your way along there. You know, and so it's just been reactive to the situation changes on the ground, which was the success of this challenge for me. And I want to ask you because I was, there's a quote that I love. You talk about planning, right? And one of my favorite quotes when it comes to the stuff is like, you know, the perfect plan is imperfect, right? And like you have to be able to stay fluid enough to handle these different changes. When you break down in your mind, in your mindset, in your experience, what would you consider the foundation of a perfect plan? Yeah, I don't mean there is a perfect plan. You know, Mike Tyson has a good one. I mean, it's always a good plan to get punched. You know, we have one in the middle here. Your plan doesn't survive first contact. So when we're doing our plan, we didn't expect them to start shooting back. So for me, it's, you know, where I was lucky is you can't be experienced without experiences. I've never cycled 14,000 miles. But one of my old sergeant majors used to tell me when there was a big situation, the first question was, is someone going to die? If there is, then obviously we need to do something. Now, if not, let's have a cup of tea and let's talk about a make-up plan. And so, and that's how I sort of looked at it. I thought, well, you can't control the uncontrollable. That's what it is. You just need to be reactive. You know, plans are good. It's always good to have a plan, but don't be relying on that plan. You need to have, need to have flex. Don't get upset. And a lot of people get upset and don't know what to do when it doesn't go to plan. You know, we'll just say, well, objective is still the same. Obviously, that roots blocked. So let what we're going to do now. How are we going to still get there? Maybe I need to now cycle 18 hours rather than 10 hours. Well, that's a fundamental, I think that's a fundamental skill set, even in entrepreneurship, right? I was talking to a group of entrepreneurs, actually, R. Taysin, he could call last night. And the topic was, the question I was answering was, how, when you create this vision for your company, right? And then you trace the plan backwards, right? You're here. I want to get to hear. This is where I want to be. How am I going to get there and make the plan? And people were confused. Like a lot of people, not a few, like a lot of people, they're like, well, what happens when the plan doesn't work? And I'm like, bro, that's the game. Like, that's the art of entrepreneurship. We find another way around, you know, like the destination doesn't change just the way we get there. You know, and that's, I think that's, that skill set, which is autumn, like that skill set's kind of built into my mindset. And I know it is yours too, but like it's, I think it's hard for people to really grasp that concept. I think they do get frustrated man when like the thing doesn't go, like when things don't go to plan, like, you know this DJ's with me every day. Like when things never go to plan. I've never had one day. So like, we don't get pissed off though. We're like, okay, so what do we got to do? What do we got? We got to do this, this, this and we'll still get it done. And it does seem like a lot of people really have a hard time with that concept. Yeah. I think that people always look at the negatives. I'm not, we, we had a big, we did a big fundraising event in UK. We raised 70,000 pounds. And that was going, and that money went for us to put a deposit down on the hotel in London for the welcome back pie. So before I'd even gone on the challenge, we're planning this huge welcome back pie with raw family there, you know, some big celebrity names. And a good friend of mine, Amanda, she, she runs the events. You know, we had this committee and she would say, so, so what's, what's plan B? No, what? And I never used to answer her. My wife would answer it. She could plan B as we go to Dean's funeral. And I actually said to her when I got back, I said, the reason I didn't give you an answer is because I, I couldn't comprehend that we had an alternative option. I goes, because that's what people tend to do. People, if they realize there's a plan B or a plan C, when it gets hard, they automatically will naturally veer to that. So for me, I think that's a suicide of most people's dreams. It is. Yeah. And that's really, I know what you were saying. People are already telling you why they can't do it rather than why they can. So I used to block off them, you know, for me, it was like zero option. Zero option. We have to do it. But a challenge like that as well, you know, 14,000 miles, you know, I was saying about you can't be experienced with experience. I'd never cycled before, but I had done endurance challenge. Like our selection is, is, is nine months, six months selection and three months with the SBS. No, on day one, I'm not thinking about nine months later, getting my Berry and Bell. I'm thinking about what do I need to do today to get here tomorrow, you know, and so you sort of chipping away at the iceberg. And that's why I did this challenge. I looked at the 14,000 miles, you know, just consume me. I want to get on the flight. I broke it down into countries, broke it into days and broke that into stages. So as I talked about nutrition, I was going to always be losing weight. So nutrition was key for me to eat as much as I could. But as cyclists know out there, when you go for a bike rides from home, you tend to do a loop at some point you'll have a headwind, some point you'll have a tailwind. Well, for me, I'm going in one direction. So I would get on the bike in the morning and just cyclist fast as I could for two hours. And that would give me my average speed for the day. And then I would then be able to make a plan from that. I'd stop pause for 30 minutes, quite disciplined in my time. It was literally 30 minutes and I'm back on the bike. I wasn't having a selfie with Alama. I wasn't chatting to the documentary team or doing a tweet. And then I would just look at the next two hours. I wouldn't look at that afternoon the next day or look at any of ours. And so for me, I was just doing four training rides a day. Bro, don't you think, I mean, you know a lot of people who have done amazing things. Isn't that the way they all look at it? Like that's how I look at my entire life. I look at it day by day and then action by action. And anybody who I've ever met that's done extraordinary things like you have or let's say James Lawrence, right? I am kelvin. Yeah, like dude, it's just a system, man. It's just executing within what's right in front of you. And I think people overcomplicate it because they get so enamored with like the scale of the job. Yeah, the main objective. Yeah. That they think it's impossible. Like do nothing's impossible if you're willing to break it down into hourly actions that you must take. Yeah. And it's a bit of maths. It's a bit of discipline. Yeah. You know, I always always, I think the first week I was in the Ushawai in Argentina, we had strong wins. And so by the end of the first week, I was 39 miles behind target. But my target was still a week ahead of the world record. And from then on, it was all games. And so for mentally, I was always in a good place. People know how hard was it? But you see people when they're doing challenges and they're like, well, I'm 10 miles behind today, you know, what I'll do is I'll catch that up tomorrow. But you don't know what tomorrow's going to bring. You may have another bad day, you know, 20, 30 miles, right? And so mentally when you're going to bed at night, you're not in the right mindset. And so for me, I always say stay on that bike, you know, even in business, make those extra five phone calls because you'll wear your supposed to be for the day. I mean, you're in a good head space at night and starting the next day. And so it's just little, there's nothing, there's no art. It's just tricking, just tricking the mind at once. Yeah, that's all it is. Yeah, man. That's awesome. I want to actually did the guy who made that announcement saying that he wanted to smash. Did he end up like attempting it? He did. No, Michael Strassa. I met him in Vienna. He went and beat my, my world record. He actually went from Alaska to Argentina. And but when I met him, he said, yeah, but you, you are still the first man in history to do 100 days. The thing is I'm not a cyclist. And so I did my toe in cycling. I've enjoyed it. And now I'll dip it in another sport. How many days he'd do it? What do you, he did it in eight, eight, seven days. You got to do again, then. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. The hot debrief, what worked, what worked. And we can do it again. What would we do differently? Yeah. And no, what was great? And we're now actually, there's a young lad's, I say young lad's club 46. There's a young lad who's 46. I'm 46. Yeah. Yeah. No, I did. Yeah. So I started cycling at 40 and we'll record 41. But his young lad doing it next year. And so he's come to me for advice and I've given him everything that he needs. And actually Michael from who broke my world record, he was going to go a slightly different route. And what was comforting was the fact that he said, you, your route was perfect. I did exactly what you did. So for me, that was a nice comfort that, you know, he's a nice compliment. Yeah. Complement. Planning and execution. Exactly. Yeah. And we'll record. You set the bar for other people to try and hit that bar. And that's why I did a Michael hit that bar. I mean, now this young lad next year, me and Michael, and now giving him our input and information. I bet that makes you feel good, dude. Yeah, it does. Yeah. Yeah. I don't like when people are challenging other people or who are trying to beat their child. And for me, it's like, I'm not, fingers, I'm not a cyclist. Yeah. And so for me, I just, I just, I just took what I, you know, I was a successful in the military, even in the security industry. And then I've done it in, in a sport. It's all about education is what can people learn from, from your own experience? It feels good to see people win that, that you helped inspire or, or see them on a path. You know what I mean? Like I've been doing this long enough now where I've had a couple, you know, notable guys in business, you know, they say, Hey, bro, I watched what you've done. I went and did that and I, that shit always makes me feel good, even though I'm competing against the same people. You know what I mean? Yeah. No, it's cool. It's a nice, nice feeling. Yeah. Like, you know, but when I reached out to the previous record holders, I thought, non-end are going to speak to me. Every one of them spoke to me and gave me everything I needed. So why would I not do that the same to the next person? You know, it's cool. And, but what was more in the should be. Yeah. But what was more impressive, you know, it was great having the world record and, and doing that. And I had $1.3 million as well, which is probably more impressive than the byte ride. And so for that, me was, was that added comfort as well. Yeah. I wasn't doing it just self promote, you know, doing it. So I wasn't, you know, working, not working my wife, but just, Well, you're fucking badass motherfucking man. I think my wife is real dude. Yeah. Yeah. No, so, um, So this is a great intro. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I was going to be like, Hey, this is the show that Andy talked about this time. Yeah. Half people don't love it. So I, yeah, I never looked beyond, I did it. So I wasn't smuggling people across borders. I didn't see career and guest speaking TV or book opportunities. But for me, you know, I, you know, it's nice. I've enjoyed that. But security is still where I still wear my heart and passion lives. I liked to. So what are you doing with that? So, yeah, I was actually chatting to a head of station CIA in one of the Middle Eastern countries. Measure me. Sorry. He knows it. Where am I out of the list? I mean, that's, that's, that's this station. Oh, US. Yeah, it's not. It should be good over there. And he says, I've just googled it. I said, look, I said, don't Google me. There's two Dean stocks. There's the one that the world sees and there's one that's still very much enjoy helping people in, in, in the security world. So we, we got hundreds of people out of Afghanistan. We still are getting people out of Afghanistan. Although everyone thinks Ukraine's the main focus is still, is still Afghanistan. Excuse me, it was upsetting to see like some people took advantage of that situation to self promote their business in a business. And then as soon as Ukraine a week later, they're in Ukraine. I'm like, there's still a problem in Afghanistan. But my reason for that is I like to help people. That's where my skills. There were a lot of scams going around around Afghanistan. People don't. People aren't aware of that. Yeah, because I think comes because of the success of the Canadian embassy and everything I'd done before. My name, obviously, was, was, was pushed out there. And we ended up bringing out clients who, none of them were our clients. They were from other security companies who, again, some of the big five who actually didn't realize that they didn't have a plan in place, but actually weren't even insured. And so where I've sort of been successful in the crisis management evacuation plans, insurance companies will get an aircraft in there. They'll get an aircraft into the airport. But you're not covered from your start point to there. Right? So that's where I focus on. It's called the first mile. I thought, I'm not worried about the airport. That's the easy part. And how am I going to get you from A to B? So we had 10 years of connectivity on the ground. We were actually working with the Taliban intelligence. No, they were opening the doors. They were, they didn't want a situation happening on their watch. You know, obviously ISIS came in and got involved, but the Taliban were actually very proactive in helping us. But yeah, it was, it was, it was nice. It's hard for people to accept. It's hard for people to accept. But that's the wrong truth. I know. People have been told the whole entire time, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. And then when you hear those things, they get, people get like a set about it. Yeah, but they still did. Right. Okay. It's like, bro, you're not understanding the cultural dynamic in the country. Well, it goes back to your point. Like, I mean, there's a difference between understanding and seeing what you're seeing on mainstream media and actually knowing the ground temperature. Yeah. Actually, you know, it's usually the opposite. Yeah. Always. Yeah. The opposite. You know, with the, with the world of media, everyone's quick to turn. It's just certain community because of a certain bad group within that community. You know, I talk about some of my successes. None of that would have been possible. It actually wasn't for the Muslim community in Libya. Give me safe houses in Somalia and Yemen. And so it's, you know what's crazy dude? Is how hard they brainwashed. I was just talking to my, my friend who's actually from, he's from Kuwait. I was talking to him just yesterday. And I used to make jokes like, cause we were pretty good friends and I'd make, he'd be like, man, come see me in Kuwait. I'm like, bro, I don't want my fucking head cut off. Like you would joke shit, right? And then, but like I actually told him the other day, I'm like, bro, I, you know, I want to apologize for those jokes because what I realized is that I was being lied to about Middle Eastern culture the entire time, you know, and, and dude, these people aren't the terrorists that the American media has made them out to be. Very kind people with high standards of civility that don't tolerate any bullshit. I kind of like it. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And a lot of them, a lot of them, especially some of the Middle Eastern countries I go to, they don't like the extremists and they will quash it themselves. Yes. And actually, you know, so people ask me, you know what, especially the 20 years in Afghanistan, what's the difference between Taliban 1.0 to 2.0? And I said, we're at 1.5. They're very social media savvy. They're a bit more intelligent, you know, there's still issues with like education and stuff. But, you know, there's bad people there, but there's bad people here in our society. And so it's all over the world. But it's just really understanding that. But yeah, back to the Afghan we had, I don't know, 46 WhatsApp groups and everything from probably had theirs. Everyone saw an opportunity to try and get everyone out. And it's like, unfortunately, it's hard for us to say no to certain people because you had to fit a certain bracket. You know, I had like the British boxing association telling me the Afghan boxing team at risk. I said, they're not, you know, they've not worked with the Americans or the Brits. But yeah, the housewives of Orange County, actually what an Orange County, but you know, they'd raised like two million and they wanted to do good. So all these nonprofits were popping up. All these veterans were trying to help. But they soon all then are now being investigated by the FBI for human trafficking because they didn't understand the nuances of evacuations. They were getting people out with no passports and dropping them in Latvia, Romania. I'm like, have you heard about these places? So, so for us, it was hard for me because I never liked to say no, but we had to do it and we had to be methodical. There had to be the right paperwork in place. And that's why we continued to still still do it. But the, yeah, they're not sad to see that everyone's heads then started turning to Ukraine. But that's what's trending them. And all of a sudden these certain individuals took their TV crews and went over there and I was like, well, it's still an issue in Afghanistan. And the big difference between Afghanistan and Ukraine, sorry, is Afghanistan, the men left and the women and kids stay behind. In Ukraine, the men stayed and the women and kids left. That's the two distinctions and that shouldn't have happened. Yeah. So what do you, so tell us about what you're like, what you're actually working on right now. So working on a few things, didn't obviously the security stuff we're now working in Sudan. Obviously in the Sudan crisis now. How was that over there? It's not unlike some of the other situations. It's military or military. So they're not targeting the civilians and not targeting the Westerners. Unfortunately, with the time in, there was 10,000 Brits there and 17,000 Americans, because it was in the middle of Ramadan, they'd all gone over for Ramadan. That's why there's a high number of people there. But the American military went in, the British military gone in, they've taken out all their embassy staff. And I think they've learned a lot from Afghanistan is like, we'll take those critical. But it's been down to the private security companies to get the rest out. But I think, again, it's not as bad as what the media's making out. So there isn't a mad rush to get one out. There's a lot of lessons learned from Afghanistan. But it's different there. It's military or military. So as long as you can try and avoid, you know, unfortunately, this would be getting caught in the crosshairs wrong place, wrong time. But these are just some examples. This goes on all the time. There was an incident in Mozambique a couple of years ago where 70 Brits got killed, you know, by terrorists. That didn't even make the news. That's bigger than any deaths we had in Afghanistan. Any we've had in Sudan. 70? 70. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, they got ambushed trying to go from their hotel to the port, thinking it was a ferry there. It wasn't there. And a couple of vehicles made it through the rest of the rest got killed. And they got another example of an evacuation plan, which actually wasn't in place. A lot of them. It's just the paper exercise. It's like the shit they were doing in the gazee. Yeah. Exactly. And it's like, oh, yeah, we got a plan. Well, has anyone tested that plan? That's what we tend to do. We go out and we practice the first mile, we'll pen test it and make sure that you have a secondary plan, you have a tertiary plan, you have safe houses along along the way. And I've done it for a couple of the big organizations in South America, met their security team. And I said, oh, so it's the evacuation plan. And they've probably just gone on Google Earth and said, oh, this is the route. And I checked the weather the next day and it's like rain. I said, well, we'll go out tomorrow. It's impassable. And so it's like, so what's your secondary plan? We don't have one. So, so for me, I just like to educate security organizations is like, well, this is what you need to have. Again, just sharing that information. A lot of them think I'm a bit of a disruptive. I'm not a disruptive. I just a lot of security can understand they got to make money, but they make it hard for the rest of us in the security when they're charging far too much when they don't need to be. But what you tend to find though is those are charging too much of the big companies which have big overheads and lots of staff. And so, but the guys that are doing the work on the ground are me and my friends. So I always say that we can still deliver at 50% Are you still going out in the field on these things? I think my probably now, now my book and everything else, I'm not the one smuggling people across borders anymore. But the other reason I like to sustain the security industry is because we touch on the early that identity crisis. When you're leaving the ass broke, I want to go. I will get a job for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not a fucking awesome. Yeah, we'll get you in a turban dressed up. You know, yeah, there's a great image of me with a full on turban. And and that's one of the things I regret, dude, like, like the path. I'm very fortunate the path I took. But a lot of times, man, like I think about some of the cool stuff that, you know, the cool other stuff that I could have done. Yeah, I hear these stories. I'm like, fuck, that sounds awesome. Yeah, but I think also then probably people in the middle, she'd listen to your podcast. I love to be Yandy, you know, the grass is green on the other side, you know. I think I was, you know, when I did selection, there was guys I was on selection with who all they've ever wanted to be in the Special Forces from a young age. And they all failed selection because they got themselves that self-induced pressure. They put their whole life had been up until this point. I sort of went into it in the blase approach is like, well, we'll see what happens. I've seen guys, you know, and so, you know, your path where you end up is very different from when you're, I always want to be a fireman. I'm not a fireman. I look at fireman. I wish I could do that. And therefore we've looked at everything and I wish we could do what you do. So, you know, just, I think you appreciate what you've got in front. And yeah, no, I think you're in a good position. It's not terrible. Yeah. But those were worse than for sure. But the, yeah, the security though, the, I understand that identity crisis, that's a really difficult period when you're, or you've known as the military for 20, 25 years. And I mean, you're about to enter into the civilian sector. I think that's for anybody that goes through a major change. Yeah. You know, you know, I don't know if you know, you know, Phil Heath, seven time Mr. Olympia, or eight time Mr. Olympia, I believe. Good buddy of mine. We were him and I were chatting on DMs the other night, just talking shit. And he was like, you know, after he quit competing, he went through an identity crisis. And we were talking and I'm like, man, that would be like, if I sold my company, he's like, it's your whole thing. You kind of have to reinvent who you are and become that next version of that next evolution of who you are. Yeah. It's not just military as you rightly put there, you know, it could be sports, could be working for an organization. We like to be in a tribe. And then when you're no longer in that tribe, you're trying to find another tribe that you fit in. And that's, that's the dangerous part. You know, when I see these, these veteran suicides, you know, I learned a lot about mental health, you know, when I was doing the bike ride and getting introduced to these charities, you know, I'm very fortunate, I don't have post-traumatic stress myself, but 75% of those in the military post-traumatic stress has got nothing to do with the military. It's their childhood. It's just triggers in the military. And so when they come out, they feel lost, you know, that I, I might not relate to that group or, you know, I might not fit into that group. And so that's, that's the vulnerable time. And that's where I like the security because I know when they're at their most vulnerable and they're worried about, is there going to be work out there? How can I support my family? And I mean, I was, is that I can bring them work. So I've got a good pool of guys and girls getting out. And so if I can just help them on that initial phase, then I feel like I'm, I'm, I'm giving back as well. Yeah. Yeah. Are the, let me talk about like, you know, veteran, veterans mental health, suicide awareness, things like that. Do you guys see the same numbers in the UK as we see over here? I think in comparison to the size of the military, because you know, I was looking the other day, I do a lot of stuff, I did work here in the US with the honor foundation, which is a, a nonprofit, which is a transition program from special forces, men and women. It's like a 13 week program when they get out. And then I looked at so con special operations, I got 59,000. Our military is only 80,000 in total. So in comparison to numbers, they're probably similar. We don't have as many suicides, but we don't have as much of a large military. But yeah, I think it's the same throughout. What's the comparison on suicides for veterans versus just regular people? Percentage wise. I don't even know. That's massively different. Is it massively different? Yeah. I mean, I mean, that's where the whole 22 a day thing came from. I understand that, but like we don't know how many actual, like, that doesn't mean it's massively different. 1.5. Okay. Yeah. But I think again, I don't think it's, yes, there's those are post-traumatic stress and what they've probably seen in the military. And everyone's different in the military. And I see guys who are on the same operations and their reaction is slightly different from mine or whatever. But I think you don't get as many suicides when in the military is when they've left that community and they haven't got that support. They don't have the structure. They don't have structure. They don't know where they're going to fit in society. And that's where they're most vulnerable. And the military's, I've seen it now with the UK. There's a lot more to help and support. It's still not great. When I left, I got a phone call 10 weeks later asking if I had a job. I mean, that was it. It's the last time I heard from him. It's, no. I think people, you know, I have a lot to learn, obviously. But in my 43 years, what I figured out about myself is that, you know, who I thought I was at 20 is much or who I thought I was going to be at 20 is much different than who I actually was at 30 and who I thought I would be at 40 is actually much different than who I actually became at 40. And I think we struggle when we're young, which most of the people in the military are young with labeling an iron. It's sort of like what we talked about with the planning, right? You label yourself so hard. This one thing, right? I'm a special forces operator or I'm a business owner or I'm a bodybuilder and I'm an Olympia winner and you that becomes set in stone so much so that we don't recognize that life is a set of evolutions over the course of time. And there's going to be three or four, maybe even five times over the course of your life where that thing that you tried and worked and put all your effort into becoming is there's going to be an end of that chapter and there's going to be the beginning of a new chapter. And for some reason, and I don't think it will actually not for some reason, nobody ever tells us that. Like nobody ever explains that to us. Nobody ever says like, hey, you know, one day, man, you're probably not going to own these companies. One day you're probably not going to be jumping out of airplanes. One day you're not going to be able to compete on a stage. And because no one tells that it's very hard to adjust to the new identity and there's that time period and I think that's where people get vulnerable with the mental health. I think it's where they're confused, you know, because I've done a lot of speaking engagement with veterans that are transitioning out as a potential to be entrepreneurs afterwards. And it always feels like that like it feels like they're kids, like they're little just young kids and they're like confused. And it's like, bro, like you guys can do this shit. This is this is this is very reasonable things for you guys to do. And, you know, when we're in those transition phases, our confidence is low, we're unsure, we're insecure about who we are, our whole entire path is questioning. And you know, I think that's where people get mentally vulnerable. Yeah, I think we have to understand that it is a series of evolutions that we're going to go through. It is. Yeah, I think in each evolution, you have an experience you take into the next evening. A good point you touch on that is yeah, you're almost like kids when you leave, you know, I never felt more vulnerable than I was 33 leaving. I'd done some amazing things in operations, but I was so intimidated about this world that I was unaware of. Yeah. The military are great. They like your mother, your father, they clove you, they feed you, they pay you on time. I didn't know who provided the gas or the electric. I didn't care. That was dealt with those. So could I had a job to do so they keep all the distractions away from you. And so when I left the military, it was like they give you column resumes. We call them CVs. CV right in an interview technique. That's all they teach you. Well, I've never had an interview and never written a CV, but I want to know is who do I need to go to from local council for this advice or whatever. So the, but the guys get intimidated and gills when they get out because they, yes, they may not have degrees, but they have so many other skill sets, which are lacking now in society, being able to talk in public and being able to make decisions on the ground, make important decisions without worrying about kickback from the boss, being reactive to changes in the plan. That's something that naturally comes in the military, but in the corporate world, yeah, but in the corporate world, it's not. And so for them, it's just sort of explaining the, explaining that narrative and also the, the crosses, you know, for example, like J for we call is like stores. It's just like doing a warehouse check. Well, that's what J for is. And just explaining that to them. But I think a lot of them do get intimidated and feel they can't come out. I think they cut a lot of them come out and they're already above their potential peers. It's just explaining to them where they, where they can potentially fit. But yeah, it is. I was most vulnerable when I was getting out. I thought I, I can't do it. But my wife and my wife, I was lucky. I see people's transition quite turbulent or quite smooth and knows it. Smooth tends to have a good support network around them. And my wife sort of took, I still don't know who provides the gas or electric to house. My wife still, you know, she took that responsibility away from me. She does that. And my wife has a book out actually, you know, pitching for her now. It's called How to Ask for Money. And the way she explains it, when I was in the military, and this probably goes for some of these ones that are leaving is when I'm planning an operation. Now, hold on. How to ask for money and what's her full, what's her pen name on the book? So people can buy it. Oh, how to ask for money is Alana. Stop. Yeah, Alana.MBE. Yeah. So she's just now been honored to get this right. No, Sexlyn, or the British Empire, it sounds archaic. It's a services to vulnerable women and mental health because of the money that she raised on the on the on the bike ride. But the, but when I'm explaining when I'm in the military, I'm planning an operation in Afghanistan. I need two Chinook helicopters. I need two black hawks. I need some fast there, 40 guys. This amount of ammunition. No one gives me a bill. No one tells me how much that costs an NDA or a proposal. It's automatically done. So we come from a society where it's there for you. We don't know what the bottom line is because we've got a mission to do. And then you have to come into a society where it's all about money. And so that's where it gets quite intimidating. And I still don't, I still feel vulnerable asking for money and that's where my wife comes in. And I think a lot of people from the military, that's where they struggle is because they can't value their worth. You know, what is our worth compared to these? How do we translate? How do we translate? Yeah. And my wife says it with me is like, I tried $7,000 to evacuate the Canadian embassy. That was it. That's all I needed to get my, a couple of my fixes. And it was the right thing to do. Whereas, you know, my wife's like, we don't, from our background, our objective is to help people and get them out. We see someone, it's K&R, Kidnap Ransom, or, or evacuating people out of countries. I don't see a price on that life. I just need to get them out. There's actually my wife sees, well, no, there is a price on that life. And so that's where a lot of guys in Guillen military, they, they undervalue their worth. And, and, and people take advantage of that as well. What would one of the bigger companies charge for that job? Oh, you'd be getting hundreds of thousands per head. Yeah, per head. And, and, you know, they would probably have charged for a retainer for having the plan in place. And then when the phone call goes, then they upscale for the manpower. But for me, it was $7,000. And the reason for that was for us to get more money, it was going to take more time. And we were on a short time window. We had to go out. And for me, it was the right, the right thing to don't get wrong. Like 10 fold now, I'll get work from that because it's the right thing. But when you go back to Afghanistan, there's people flying in planes, charging, you know, not point to you, but there's people flying in planes charging $10,000 a seat. And I'm like, well, you know, you're doing it for the right reasons. If you can afford to get a plane in there, you know, I'm not saying. Break even or lose money, you can still make money, but, you know, don't take advantage of people whose vulnerabilities. And that's why I get upset sometimes in industry, but then my wife then brings me back down to her because yeah, but we need to still feed our kids. So, so that's where people in the military struggle is because they don't understand their worth. People see that they have great skill sets and can bring great things to the team and sort of take advantage of that. And so that's where I try and help when they're transition, give them work, give it explain to them what an NDA is, what a proposal is, you know, and stuff like that. And that's what the military should be working on is those skills, those skill sets in business. Yeah. For sure, man, dude, you've done some incredible shit, brother, like I'm sitting here thinking I'm like, special forces, bike ride, now you're running security. What's your favorite thing out of all of these things that you're doing? What's your, what is the thing that like you're most proud of besides your family? Because that's going to be the generic answer. Yeah, so these are everyone's going to say my kids, my wife, I'm not talking about that shit. We all know that. But like, what do you, what makes it tick for me, man? I think as you touched on the evolutions, when I was in the military, it was getting in the special forces. And then, you know, the evacuations that I've done, I'm proud of that in the security industry. And then the bike ride was great as well. So for me, there's a number of things that I'm proud of. But then I just look forward, I don't think I've written my legacy yet. You know, I'm just starting, what's the next evolution and what can I do for that? You know, great one. I bumped into my chief instructor on my selection at an airport once. And probably got with some of the guys and girls in special forces. They rest on their laurels from two evolutions back. And he's like, I'm not interested what you did them. What have you done? What are you doing now? You know, what are you doing next? You know, because it's easy for me to say, well, I'm special forces will record, done this and just sit back. But for me, I just want to, and I'm continually learning, learning from others as well, you know, what are we going to do next? Will I do another challenge? I need to get that cleared by the wife. But, but for me, it always comes back to the security. You know, I like each day is a different day, each time I get a phone call, it's a different task. It's a different country. It's a different challenge. I like to problem solve. And but I'm also mindful at the moment that I can spend more time with my family as well. And we don't have that conversation again on chapter 16, dead or divorced. Oh, shit. Yeah. So it's just trying to balance that yin in the yang. So there's a bad deal question. Special forces are the proud moment for me. The Canadian Embassy stuff was good. The bike ride, of course, was great and then raising the millions. But also my wife being honored with her MBE. That's the proud moment for me as well because I feel like now, because none of this would have been possible without her. And I feel like now she's been recognized for, you know, going forward and it gives her that credibility moving forward. Yeah. Yeah. So what's next? So what's next? You know, Jordan next week, right? Yeah. So I'm filming it. I'm doing a show with one of the mainstreamers. I got asked to do it a couple of years ago. And it's within my wheelhouse, you know, to do with the special forces, not a baking show or a gardening show. It's not because that's the next season. Yeah. You know, that's that will be coming out later on this year, eight episodes. So I'll be finishing that. I'm still doing a lot of the security stuff. As I mentioned, Sudan's still going on. My wife's got five books coming out this year, three kids books, how to ask some money, our own memoir. And we just launched our own podcast as well called Behind the Scene. There you go. But scene is in SWEN. So we're getting guests on those from either celebrities, sports, business. But as we touched on, I generally believe that anyone can break a wheel record if you have that support network around you. And so in any relationship, the success of someone, someone has to sacrifice or someone is doing work behind them. So the podcast is bringing a person on who ever the wheel sees and then bringing the person who actually does all the work. So a bit like my wife. So yeah, that's actually a really cool concept. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Behind the scene. Yeah. Dude, I think that's an awesome concept because dude behind, it's true behind every successful initiative or mission or company, there's people and there's people that get no light about the victory of the win. Like, you know, I get a lot of credit because I'm the face of these things and I'm like, people are like, oh, and I'm like, bro, you have no idea. Like I'm surrounded by all these fucking people who are amazing at what they do. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, all I have to do is show up and fucking open my mouth. You know what I mean? Like, it's, I love that. Yeah. Well, you're only as good as your support. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to be a fan of the game for my wife. And so it's an opportunity for, and I think it doesn't, anyone can relate to it, you know, like in the military, when the guys go away, the wives have to stay with the kids. Yeah. In law enforcement, when they go out each day. Bro, I love that concept. Yeah. That's something nobody's doing. Yeah. No, yeah. That's going to be big. It's going to be big. Yeah. So we've, we were just doing our first, first recordings now. Yeah. And yeah, we'll get that out. But I think a lot of people can relate to that. Yeah. You know, people think, oh, that person's doing amazing. But as you've touched on the team, he's surrounding himself with a good team. Actually, he can be successful if you have the right team around. You don't actually have to know anything. Yeah. And you know what also is crazy? And none of those people ever care about the credit. The best teams, nobody cares about the credit. No one cares now. No one cares. Yeah. Yeah. That's not one of the first special forces is humility. Yeah. It's all about humility. And so, so yeah. So I'm looking forward to that podcast. Yeah. That's going to be cool. And we'll get yourself in early on. Yeah. Yeah, be cool, man. Yeah. That's a real, I mean, when you said that, I'm like, well, fuck, dude, that's kind of my life. Yeah. You know what I mean? So I could immediately, that's what I thought of. Well, when I go into meetings and people will, we understand our strengths and weaknesses. Our wife can't cycle 14 miles, you know, but I can't raise 1.3 million dollars. So we know our strengths and our weaknesses. And we sort of work on that. So when I go into meetings, I'm like, well, you've only met 50% of the team. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool, bro. I'm a cop, bad cop because people would fall in love with me. I, you know, I'd, I'd chat to them and then she'd just swoop in with the contract. That's where you go. That is totally the fucking dynamic. Is it? Is it? He knows three years ago. I mean, times you got the fire of memory, bro. I only get the fire. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People think it's me, bro. And eight B. Oh, man, that's funny. Oh, you fuckers know in here, don't you? Fuck, dude. That's cool, man. Before we end the show, because first of all, thanks for coming out here, man. You guys are in California now and you were talking before the show that you're looking at maybe not staying in California and maybe looking at some, you know, some places with some land, be able to do some of the things that you enjoy doing. What's the, what's the list of possibilities? The list. What's the short list? What's the short list? We've got the short list. Missouri, Tennessee. Bro, listen, Tennessee and Missouri are very similar. I told you places. The only thing is Tennessee's cool right now. Missouri's still not cool, so nobody's coming here. Which is great. Yeah, it's great. It's great. Yeah. And we own me and Tanya. Yeah. Actually, don't move it. Yeah. We'll take Dean. Yeah, right. We love yellow stones, so Montana's right on the list as well. Yeah. So, yeah, a few of my friends are pulling me towards Texas. Yeah. So now we've been here for two years. It's, no, Orange County is great when we landed, but I don't even mean Orange County. It's like a, it's almost like a false bubble. Yeah. And it's like a false security bubble. Everything's landscape. It looks like Disneyland on steroids. And so for me, I just want to sort of bring my kids back to reality, no taking back to the wildlife and things that. So whether we... Lots of people are doing that now, dude. It's really cool to see. Like, I see a lot of people who have, you know, who have never been introduced to like any kind of outdoor skill or any sort of like nature at all, like taking interest in it so that their kids can learn it. Yeah, we... That's cool, man. One of the charities back in UK that we were raising money for, we went to one of their schools in London. It was a school where the kids had all been kicked out of school and none of the schools wanted them. So we went there and there was no air condition. It was hot summer's day. And I went and did a presentation about what I was doing. And then afterwards, this young lad came up to me, Ahmed, and he said, what are you doing for us? I said, I'm cycling. He said, none of what are you doing for us? And I actually thought about it, these kids will never have a bike. So this story doesn't even relate to them. So I rang my friend who was the regimental sergeant major from a military training camp about 30 minutes down the road. And we hosted him for a day, had him out on the boats, had him out. And I remember one of the young kids come up to me and he said, oh, what's this? And it was an acorn. I said, oh, it's a conquer. And he'd never seen a conquer before. And that for me was like, wow, you know, how people, especially in these cities, experienced nature, but no, back to it with our kids, you know, my children, I tried to, they're born into a digital world, you know, they know no different. And so you can't really shout. And when we've got the iPad and things that, but if you can spend time, so we're taking them to Mexico in the summer and we're going to build some houses down there. That's awesome. Yeah, just sort of ground them a bit. Yeah. You're not robbed their noses in it. But it's not all rainbows and unicorns, like Orange County. Yeah. And when you're doing good, you have an obligation to do good for others. Exactly. Yeah. And they're all about giving back. So yeah, we'll probably do that. So as long as we can do that and then escape somewhere with them. So yeah, we're looking at a few of the states. Yeah, that's cool. That'd be cool for them, Zuri, bro. Yeah, no, yeah. And Miss Hui, yeah, like I said, I now get sponsored by some of the Leopold's scopes and sticker. Those are good. I can't use them in Orange County. I told him I hear you should have the back porch, bro. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, you can. Well, brother, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing all that, man. I'd like to have you on again and talk some more. Cool. Yeah. We'll definitely make that happen next time you're out here at 1P and we'll figure that out. But anything like that you would say, you know, you're a big mental health advocate, you know, you've raised a lot of money for that cause, you know, as we close the showdown, what would you say to someone out there who's struggling right now with their mental health and they're struggling to find their identity and they're, you know, they're struggling with the things that we identified that contribute to these problems. What would you, what would you have to say to them? Well, there's three ways of dealing with mental health, what I learned. One is the farmer, which I avoid completely. I'm not a fan of the farmer. That should be the last resort. You know, communication is always the key. One, if no one knows there's a problem then, you know, but for me, while I was trying to promote with this bike ride, you know, when I got introduced to the Royal Foundation, so worked with Prince Harry and William and Kate was their campaign. And when I got sat down in the, in the Royal Foundation, they said, what's the message you're trying to promote with this challenge? I had, I didn't really have a message. I came in because my ginger friend told me to come in. But then actually when I sat about and it looked in turn and I said, well, physical activity helped with your mental state. And then I got told that this, I got challenged in 2016. They said, I know you can't use that. I said, well, why not? They say, because it's not being scientifically proven. I said, well, it's fine. I don't need a scientist to tell me that I feel good when I'm training. So I ignored him anyway. Now years later, he's recognized as one of the coping mechanisms. So two answers really is, talk to someone and get active. Yeah. Dude, you know, I say I've said this recently on a show, but I want to note it again since we're on the topic. You know, something that's tremendously, tremendously improved my life from my mental health is doing cold plunges. I just, it has nothing to do with our conversation, other that we're on the topic and I want to talk about it just for a second. But if you guys are struggling, dude, and you're having trouble, just understand that there is actual science behind putting cold immersion therapy on your vagus nerve, which increases the hormones that make you feel alive and make you feel happy and like a normal human being. And I'm going to do a whole episode of video on YouTube about my protocol for mental health with the cold. Dude, it has fucking transformed in like a short amount of time, like 30 days. So if you guys are out there struggling with that, you know, think about starting to implement that in your morning routine as the first thing you do and you got to get in the water all the way up to your chin. Okay. And you got to do two to six to eight minutes somewhere in there you work up. But I can't speak enough good about it about how much is done for me, dude. Completely fucking changed me as a human being. Like I didn't even realize how bad I was. I had no idea. And I had gone the farmer out. I went the farmer route for 11 years, bro. And it fucked me up real bad. And I just want to put that out there because no one talks about it. No doctors talk about it because they can't sell you fucking cold water. Okay. If you're not cold plunge, you can you're suffering mentally right now, figure out a way to fucking do it the right way, spend the fucking money. It'll be the best money you ever spent and get your fucking ass in there every single day due to change your life. So I just want to leave people with that. And that's cost effective works very well. And I promise you, you if you do it consistently, it will change everything for you. So bro, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, that's really cool. So guys, that's the show. Where can people follow you at? Where are you doing most of your content and social and how can they how can they support you? Yeah. So I'm on Instagram and Facebook, you know, I'm teaching an old dog new tricks with social media. What's it to boo when I was in the special board? So yeah, Dean's Dot on on Instagram and Facebook. I mean, my website is www dot deans.com. Cool. Guys, make sure you support this man. He's a good man doing really good things in the world. And there's a lot to learn from him. So brother, thank you so much. Thank you again. All right. That's the show. Make sure you pay the fee. We're from sleeping on the floor. Now my jury box froze. Fuck up. Oh, fuck a stove. Count it millions in the cold. Bad bitch. Booty slow. Got a on bank roll. Can't fold. Dusse, no. Hit. Shot. Case. Clove. ♪♪♪♪