118 Brad Ritter | Unlock Potential with Purposeful Adversity

Today’s guest is Brad Ritter – one of the world’s leading experts on performance.  He is the author of the best-selling book, School of Grit:  Unlock Your Potential Through Purposeful Adversity. After graduating from Kokoro camp in 2015, he wanted to find a way to serve others,  help people take control of their lives, and get unstuck. He accomplishes this through a proven system that focuses on your physical, mental, emotional, intuitional, and warrior spirit. His mission is to build a “warrior class” community.  That is why he created the School of Grit.

And that is why I’m excited to bring you this conversation with Brad. You might need a daunting challenge or event to fire you up! For many people it’s always a good reminder to train mentally and emotionally for the real hardships life throws our way. We all have that warrior spirit within and could all use a bit of extra grit!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

• How adversity unlocks potential
• Parenting the most comfortable generation ever
• Your first purpose must be you
• Training for the world’s hardest civilian event
• Goon squad and hamburger hands at Kokoro
• Learning when and how to ask for help
• Warrior community and accountability

BRAD RITTER
Brad Ritter is one of the world’s leading experts on performance.  He is the author of the best-selling book, School of Grit:  Unlock Your Potential Through Purposeful Adversity.

Transcript

Michael: 0:00

Coming up on this one, we're talking to a man who survived and thrived in the world's toughest military style training available to civilians. In just a moment, we'll meet Brad Ritter, a leading expert on human performance and how adversity helps men unlock their full potential.

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Star Wars Main Theme Star Wars Main Theme

Michael: 0:36

Hey guys, welcome back to the men to mastery podcast. I am your host and founder, Michael Bullock on this show. We deep dive with experts from various domains to learn how they handle challenges, hurdles, failures, and apply that to better themselves, their family, their relationships, and their businesses. Speaking of which it's been a bit since we got one of these episodes out in your hands. And for a number of months, the reason is I've been formalizing my business owner and executive coaching that extends from what I do in the corporate consulting world. I combined three decades of C suite experience with the tactical precision, teamwork, and leadership I've learned from guests here on the show and in the grit of real world training from the same kind of guys. Ultimately, it's about your next level business success. Not only growing your profit, but your freedom, fulfillment, life, and health. And in doing that, I've found the three most important areas of any business that needs focus to realize all those things, growth, profit, fulfillment, freedom, health, all of it, not just some, but the full equation. I've been doing this stuff a long time and it's just a blast to bring that kind of impact to a, to a business, to a man, to a family, to a person. So if that may serve you and where you're at right now, go hit the website. It's a new site at mastery. coach and let's set up a call www mastery. coach. And if you're watching this one on YouTube, make sure you like, subscribe and click the bell to get notifications. Okay, let's get into it with Brad Ritter. He's the author of the bestselling book, School of Grit, Unlock Your Potential Through Purposeful Adversity. After graduating Kokoro Camp in 2015, Brad wanted to find a way to serve others, help people take control of their lives, and get unstuck. He does that through a proven system that focuses on your physical, mental, emotional, intuitional, and warrior spirit. Over there at School of Grit, his mission is to build a warrior class community, and that's why he created School of Grit. And as you may know, Kokoro camp is that training I was referring to earlier. In fact, the latest class just took place here last weekend in Southern California, where a small handful of men and women had the courage to show up, put themselves out there, way outside their comfort zones, much like Brad did eight years ago, and undertake that adversity by design, that engineered chaos, that no matter what, will leave them changed forever. All right. Today I have Brad Ritter, founder of the School of Grit, which he created after graduating from the seal fit crucible called Kokoro. It's an infamous training, which is renowned to be the toughest civilian training in the world. Brad's also the, the author of... Book by the same name, School of Grit, subtitled, Unlock Your Potential Through Purposeful Adversity. I know he's also a husband, a father, an entrepreneur. Brad, a psych to have you on today. I appreciate it so much. Welcome. Yeah, I've been looking forward to this one, Michael. Thank you. I have too. Hey, let me just dive right in the subtitle and you know, I read the book. I loved it really. There's, there's a ton we could take away here, but I got some stuff I really want to dive into today. What do you mean by purposeful adversity? Yeah. So adversity comes in many forms. A lot of times we can't help it. Adversity is just gonna kind of punch us in the face sometimes, whether that's, you know, unfortunately like a death in the family, cancer, disease, nature, mother nature being crazy. What I'm really talking about here is stuff you can invite into your life. That's hard, but it's going to make you better in the end. So an example of that could be public speaking. I thought people were very scared of, of, of speaking publicly in front of a bunch of people, but it's good for you. And the more you do it, the better off you are. So that's kind of where I'm going with that is just, as I look at. The culture and kind of the generation we're in, we're, we're in the, the most comfortable generation probably ever. And it's a little too, a little too easy at times. A little too comfortable. Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. Okay, cool. So adversity sort of by, by design versus by, by circumstance. By design. And what you'll find, I think, is the, the more you invite purposeful adversity into your life, you're going to be able to train yourself physically, mentally, emotionally. So that when. Unfortunately, an event happens that's completely out of your control. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but I think you're going to tackle it and have a little bit of an easier time with it. If you got some sort of foundation built up. Yeah, definitely. My son and I do Spartan races together and I saw a little clip from founder Joe DeSanto Spartan race the other day, kind of speaking to the same thing. He goes, you know, I had all these years of training of getting kind of metaphorically punched in the face and then got punched in the face. 350, 000 times during COVID with this business. And if I hadn't sort of trained myself that way, I wouldn't have survived. Exactly. How old's your son, man? That's so cool to be able to do that. Yeah. I was going to mention he's he's just about to turn 15. So he's now crossing over into the adult category. He ran kids races for a number of years and crushed that. So now it's his chance to go into the 14 to 17 sort of first tranche of, of adult racers. And you and I were talking a little bit off air about. Seal fit crucibles. I you've obviously done the big daddy that we're going to talk about. I did a mini one, but I was, I was anxiously looking at their website the other day to find out how soon I can take my son to one of those, you know, he's in that comfort generation. I think he's got, I think it's 16 before I can get him out to a six or a 12 hour seal fit. It'll be so good for him. I wish I would've had that at 16. Are you kidding me? A ton of fun. How did you prep for this thing? I mean, for, for people that may not know about Cokoro, this is a 50 plus hour. It's, you know, to the outside world, looking in. Physical crucible. Obviously, it starts to peel back a lot more than that, but it is very, very physically demanding for more than well more than 48 hours. So how do you physically as well as mentally and emotionally prepare for something like that? What did your training schedule and on ramp look like? Yeah. So when I First signed up for it, I was working out, let's say, but I wasn't doing the volume necessary that would require you to just be up on your feet basically for 50 hours plus doing every calisthenic imaginable and all the other evolutions and stuff they throw at you. So I pretty much dedicated my life for about six months and was working out. So six days a week, Sunday was typically recovery day, but I mean, those six days, it was, I was pretty regimen, man. I, I would work out two, three hours a day. Sometimes that was all together. If I, if I could carve that much time out, a lot of times though, I had to split it up and kind of do an hour or two in the morning and the rest in the evening. So I would equate it probably to those folks who have done a triathlon and have trained for that. Similar, well, similar training in regards to the amount of time you spend is what I'd say. It was gnarly. I mean, I was talking to Mark Devine, the founder of it shortly after I had secured it and he's like, dude, you pretty much did this totally ass backwards. Like usually you go, you know, experience the six hour, then the 12 and then you work your way up. And I just. I just went in with both feet blindly. Nice. Yeah. I think I know you, you mentioned a lot of people in the in sort of the epilogue of the book. And one of those is coach Jim bro. And one of his books is sort of about his experience with CACOR. I think he mentioned something somewhere sort of two to three hours a day. And then a long day, you know, it might be a six hour rock or something on a, on a Saturday. I mean, that's a ton of time, especially, I think he mentions that when he was training, his kids were grown and he was overseas for work, so he wasn't really cutting into the family time. How did that look for you? I mean, this is back in 2015, but what did that look like in terms of getting your family to buy into the process for you and why you were going supporting you through the training? Yeah, great, great question. So it was, it felt very selfish because of how much time I was like, I knew why I was doing it. You know, ultimately it's for me to make me a better version, whether that's, you know, husband, father, brother, friend, whatever. Sometimes when you're trying to convey that to your spouse or other ones, you just, the words just, they aren't there. Right. But, but you know, you know, deep down, like I got to do this for me. Like I just something about it. Can't explain it. I know something's going to happen there. And she, she supported me after a couple of weeks of letting that sit and knowing that, Hey, this wasn't just like half marathon I'm signing up for or something like that. This is, you are, you're going to put in, be put into harm's way a little bit in a controlled environment. But I told her, like, mentally, this is the part that really got her, I, I, I, I literally told her you won't hear from me if you hear from me, like, something bad happened, like, they're gonna have, like, I'm gonna have to die, literally die out there, or they're gonna have to kick me out, because there's no way I'm quitting, like, I went out there with that mentality, and that was one of the first times, that was probably the first time in my life, looking back, that, you I jumped in with both feet on anything, whether that was a job, you know, you name it. I mean, completely committed to it, I guess, other than the relationship with my wife and kids. I guess, you know, that's definitely in there. But other than that, other than family, as far as something I signed up for that, that was it, man. I ate, slept and breathed it and thought about it all the time. Yeah, it seems like you'd have to. So I we're talking about the shirt you got hanging from the event in the background. I mentioned, so I went and did this it's a 75 hour event, but it is not 75 hours of physical. It's, it's a, it's ramps up and down. There's classroom time. There's self defense, other, other stuff. So it's, it's demanding in a, in a variety of, of kind of by design, different ways. And I know, so going into it, my, my wife was aware that a one gentleman had passed away at the event in the past, right? So that, that was kind of lingering there. Like it is physically demanding enough that there is, you know, you're in harm's way. There's, there is a risk. And you know, went black for, for 75 plus hours, although they stream some social media updates. So kind of, you know, modern world, you get glimpses of people. Oh yeah, he's still there. He's in one piece. Still going. Still going. Although she, she loves to joke around when I go do this stuff, whether it's an, an ultra or, or, you know, some kind of crucible event, she's like, why do you pay for these things and travel to go do them? Like, just give me the money and a hose and something to beat you with. And we'll do it in the backyard. I get it, man. My my, my wife doesn't quite understand it either. And they have hosed me down. In fact, on the drive and whatnot, that was part of my training. You asked about training. No, no kidding. I would go out there and, you know, the middle of the summer when I live in Indiana. So it gets. It's super humid usually and I'd be out there with. Working out and they're hosing me in the face and yelling at me, trying to simulate that. Absolutely. I love it. Hey, one thing I wanted to ask you I'm not sure if you sort of explicitly spoke to this as, as you wrapped up the story in the, in the book, I think you mentioned coming into it and we talked a little bit offline, I think, or you might've said it on air that, that the same information didn't exist. The same communities didn't exist. Around these kinds of events back when you went through it and you jumped in with both feet. But I think you, you mentioned that you'd started some training regimens that were, that you bought, I think, online from one of the coaches that was there, coach McLeod. And so he was there live at your, at your crucible event. And you kind of mentioned like a bit of a nod or a smile or this or that through the event, what how did it wrap up? Did you guys have a debrief or anything from him after you secured? From coach McLeod? Yeah, we shared a beer. I snapped a picture. Actually, I have it on my back on my other wall. You can't see it. So I still keep in touch with them. Cause yeah, funny story. This is about how social media can get you in trouble. Cause like I said back then, I mean, there were probably groups and communities, but the SEALFIT community and Unbeatable Mind community, they weren't what they are now, as far as how many people and how many cohorts and all that good stuff. So for your listeners out there, I had a Facebook account. I was, I didn't, yeah. I didn't post, I maybe had one post in like five years, that type thing. So I go out to California, which is where this event's at. I snap a picture of myself on the beach saying something like, yep, this is the last time I'm going to be taken in this view for the next, you know, 50 hours or however long I go dark. And I, and I send it and I don't, I don't know what happens afterwards. Well. Come to find out coach cloud ends up knowing someone who had responded to that picture. She was someone that worked at a company that I used to work for and it was an HR. And so it gets even better. Like they ended up, they went to senior prom together. Holy cow. They, yes, they, yeah, small world. They, they knew each other to that level. So I was basically a marked man from, from the second I stepped on to the, to the grinder, so to speak. And then like, he, he literally comes, you know, when someone's behind you, like, you know, someone's behind you, you don't know who it is. So he's behind me. I don't know it. And he's got this piece of paper and he puts it in front of me. And it's, it's, it's that Facebook interaction. And he's like, do you know me? And I'm like, no, sir. And he's like, you're going to get extra sauce this weekend. And I'm like, oh, crap, man. I'm already messing up. Dude, I just got here. I don't even know what I'm, like, this hasn't even started. I'm already marked. I love it. Mind games, man. Mind games. But yeah, he's a great dude. He's a great dude. You just got extra money's worth out of everything. Exactly. I mean, that's what I was there for when I get the full, full ride. Tell me a little bit about the, just the extreme sort of highs and lows that you went through. And I think one, one of the things that you mentioned near the debrief is sort of. And event like this and those coaches are so good at finding weaknesses. And so through, through, through your story, you mentioned some of the weaknesses that became apparent for you to take home and work on, but just talking about some of the highs or lows or, or kind of, you know, the strengths aren't as fun as the weaknesses sometimes. No, the weaknesses are fun, but I, I will, I'll start with a high, like the, the, the high was, I mean, obviously at the end after securing, cause we started with about 50 people and man, I was one of the oldest there. I was 35. At the time I had a little bit of gray hair. I got a lot more now, but they, they called me grandpa out there. That was their nickname for me. So I, I was one of 25 though, to make it, we lost half the, half the crew. And just when we, when we, when coach Vine said, you know, you're secured CACORA class 38, it was just. I mean, tears of joy, you know, grown, grown men. We didn't have any women in this class. Unfortunately, it was all men, but yeah, just men just hugging each other, embracing each other. I mean, that was, and still is the toughest thing I had done up until this point. Did your you know, usually you start off with a height line and that ends up kind of being one of your first swim buddies. Did your swim buddy make it all the way through? Yeah, he made it. Matt. Matt O'Kipney. Yeah. We unfortunately, every once in a while, I mean, I might like text him once, once a year type thing. So I don't, I don't know what he's gone on to do, unfortunately. I wish we would have kept in touch over the years, but yeah, it was height line and that was the other thing I was, I'm six two. So I was in the taller the taller group, the Clydesdales as they called us. So. Yeah. It was good. Freaking heavy. Yeah. Heavy. That, that was the one thing, like we could, we could carry heavy stuff. There's, there's no doubt. Yeah. So that was, you know, that was high point, low point. There were so many, I don't know where to begin, but I'm not a very good swimmer. I knew there would be some sort of water competency, had no idea. I mean, I can swim to save my life. But as far as, you know, being able to pull off the breaststroke or, you know, no. Do I glide in the water? Hell no. I drag in the water. And that just spends energy, man. So like the pool is definitely a low point. That was actually the only time I was. Ever in the goon squad that whole weekend, which the goon squad for your listeners is you don't want to be in the goon squad. That means you're not up to snuff. You're not keeping up with the rest of the pack and you need a little extra remediation. So they pull you over to the side and they remediate you. So but I, I was. I was actually happy because I was so tired in the pool. I could never catch my breath. I mean, I'm, I'm drinking water half the time. And when they're like, they're like, rid her out of the pool. And I see this small little group that didn't even know it was over there. No, you know, cause I'm so focused on myself and they're just doing, you know, calisthenics. I'm like, Ooh, yeah, man, I'll go. I'll go do as many pushups as you want me to do. Are you kidding me? I just don't want to go back in that pool. Out of the water, get me out of the water. No doubt. Near kind of near the end of, of your story of the journey through this, those 50 plus hours you guys are. So in this time Mark and the seal fit guys, they had a facility down in Sanitas, California near the beach. So they used to kick off and finish up down there. Badass facility too, man. It was awesome. That place is awesome. So you guys there's a place where you kind of get your, I think your PT gear back on and don't even have time to put socks on, but. You, you mentioned somewhere in there that you got to look at your, your feet and that they were in good shape that far into the event, and you almost seemed a little bit surprised by that. Had, and so I got a reason for the question, but was that something you had trouble with in the past or why did it surprise you that your feet? Yeah, I knew I would get hotspots from time to time on my feet. And that was the one thing that kind of scared me. I'm like, man, what if I get blisters all over my feet? And, you know, that would make a tough experience that much tougher. So I paid particular attention to my feet and really experimented around like with. Everything from, you know, what lubrication might work on my feet. What type of socks do I wear? One pair, two pair. I mean, these are little things, but gosh, do they add up through the course of being on your feet for over 50 hours? Right. Yeah. Obviously got to take care of your feet to the extent you can. I one of the reasons I wanted to ask, I'll share a little story with you. So that that event that, that I did an earlier. Class of it, one of the guys I met so I did, I did that event in April and it's up in Chino, California, right? So inland, it gets very hot there. So Andy Foe and these other guys, they went through, you know, what Todd Telkamp was in this class as well, if you know, Todd from, from the Kokoro community. And this is middle of the summer. And one of the instructors is from New York. So just had no clue. And right away, he gets these guys down doing, doing PT and the asphalt in the parking lot where they, where they went to pick them up. So they're bear crawling around this parking lot. And you know, if it's 105 outside, this asphalt is going to be like 130. And a bunch of them ended up with, you know, very severe burns on their hands. They had to get, you know, the medic to tape up and try to treat at the beginning of this crucible event. Right. But Andy, Andy's hands were completely fine. They weren't burned at all. And, and he attributes a lot of that to you know, we talk about it's more than the physical, it's the, the mental and other things that he's a tattoo artist and he's really tattooed up. And so he's got this whole. Routine of, you know, where you focus is, is where kind of things manifest. And if you don't give attention to that pain, then your body won't react by creating inflammation and other things in those areas. And so he was able to kind of use that technique to take his mind off of what was going on with his hands and they actually ended up in good shape. That's, that's awesome. We, we had a similar incident. It wasn't that hot, but it was, we, we had to, this was of course, after eating at an all you can eat pancake place, they did feed us and they took us, if you could believe this picture. 25 dudes rolling into a restaurant smelling like crap, dirty, tired. They've been up, you know, however long on a Sunday morning, we roll into a private room. We had, we had all you could eat pancakes. That was our breakfast. And then after eating and gorging ourselves, we had to do a burpee broad jumps in the back alley. So my, my hands were cut up from, from all the, the, the broad jumps and the burpees. So, man, if the asphalt would have been one Oh five, I don't know, that would have been pretty brutal. Yeah. You described him in the book as, as just being completely hamburger, hamburger hands. You got it, man. Yep. So one of the things I want to ask you about, you know, in a way, this is very much an individual event, but in a way it's very much a team event, just like it's physical, but it's also other things. And one of the points that you make in the book, I think you even mentioned in debrief with with coach divine. Sort of the ability to ask for help and when pride can get in the way of asking for help or maybe asking for help soon enough. So you no big spoiler here, but you had a teammate who was in bad shape at one point, needed help carrying his pack eventually accepted help and it was too late. Eventually it was too late at that point. He was, he was already burned out. So, you know, just all these events are a metaphor and training for life. Like you said, purposeful adversity to, to kind of train for other things. Where, where's that line? How do you know when, when to ask for help and particularly an event like this to, to use the event, you know, the metaphor itself, where's the line between needing help, just not putting out enough effort, or you just didn't prepare for the event whatsoever as an individual. Yeah, that's, that's a great question. I've actually never been asked that before. So that's awesome. I, I think, I think you only truly know. It's like that difference between an injury and a quindary. They, they prompted us on that, which you're smiling. So I think you probably had the same prompt. Like, is it, is it really an injury? Or is it just a nagging thing that's going to make you quit? Cause mentally you're just going to focus on it. And that's going to be your reason to get out of this because of all the pain you're in. You know, but as soon as you quit, give yourself, you know. 10 minutes, you're going to be like, damn, I wish I wouldn't have done that. I could have made it through. You know what I mean? There's, there's a difference. And on the outside, I don't think you can tell. I think it's just that internal. We all got that internal chatter, that internal voice that we're listening to. And you know, if it keeps coming up like, Hey, maybe I should ask for help. Maybe I should, maybe you should. So there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong for asking for help, especially at an event like that. Because to your point, this is a team event. One person's not going to get through it. Rambo, although a great movie is, is BS. Like there's just not going to be this one man show. You know, we need, we need a team and we're all in life. It is a metaphor because we're all on several teams, whether it's your family work whatever passion project you might have going on sports, we're all parts of teams and they all interact together and together. The, you know, the, the sum is greater than the whole time type of thing. So yeah, that was one of the big lessons I learned out there because up until that point, I'd say I was fairly selfish. I mean, I just was, even though I had kids and was married, like I had trained, you know, three hours a day forever. That's. Yeah, I know why I was doing it, but it still could be looked at as selfish. You know, I'm away from my family. I'm away from my kids, spending time doing that, this me, me, me type stuff. And, and out there, you just, you quickly learned you're, you're not going to make it through unless the team really comes together and gels. And, and that, that's hard to do. A lot of people's egos get, get in the way because they don't want to, they, they look at it as a weakness to ask for help and no, it's not, it's not. It's not a weakness. It's actually good. You should ask for help more. I, I generally think people like to help people. So not only is it good for you, it's also benefiting whoever you're helping asking, cause it's like, cool. I get to help Michael out. You know? Yeah. That makes me feel good. You know? So it's pretty simple. Yeah. It's service. It's a service. Yeah. I always kind of wondered that particularly an event like this where, you know, the cadre is always looking, even when you've, you don't think they are. And I know I, I talked to one of them that I want to ask you about. And his, his, at the time, his comment was I forget, you know, what the topic was, but it's like, you just do the standard and that was it. Do the standard. Do the standard. So that that comment came from another, another gentleman you mentioned in your book, unfortunately lost to the, to the community in the world last year, master chief, Mark Crampton, cramps, cramps. Yeah. Yeah. Great dude. I, I had coffee with him when I, when I came back from this 75 hour event I did, you know, that I would call a crucible and you know, I was excited to kind of debrief it with him. And, and he was like, so how'd your, how'd your challenge go? I can see him saying that too, but man, I, I I'm so fortunate to have worked with him. Cause I, I went back to Kikoro camp last summer and, and actually worked it as a, I was basically helping the cadre, which he was, he was the lead cadre for the, for the evening shift. So, you know, whatever he wanted, I mean, you know, whether it was coffee, like I didn't care. I was helped. I was there to, to help him out. What a great dude. What a great dude. Lost, lost way too soon. Just, you know, you come across certain people and you just, you spend even just a little bit of time with them and you're like, man, that's a dude. I, I, I would literally run through a brick wall for him. You know, if, if he was my leader, you know, and it was such a joy and such a pleasure to get, to get to work with him. And I tell you what, I'll tell you a quick story. I haven't told a lot of people and so we're out there, it's summer, as you mentioned, it's hot. Okay, and I'm on the night crew, so the day crew is supposed to sleep in these RVs. Well, of course, our AC's broken. And there's five dudes in there, in this RV, and it is a hot sauna, man. It is a sweat lodge, like, we know we have to sleep, but we're, we're literally, we're in our skibbies, and we're just sweating, just dripping. And Master Chief Kramps, he, he stops in on us to check. He's like, what's going on? And we're like, our AC is broken. And he's like, I got to have you guys good to go for tonight. He's like, follow me. So we went into his RV. He cleared out space for us all, man. We had like, I don't know, seven, eight dudes cramped in this little RV, but it had AC and it felt amazing and I didn't care, but that's just the type of leader he was, you know, it was, it was you know, the mission, the men and then himself. Right at the day. But yeah. Yeah, no, I didn't realize you got a chance to cadre with him. So that's an awesome story. Thank you. And I want to, I want to ask you also if you, if you remember any stories of him, as you were, if he cadre while you were going through it share, share a quick one kind of in return. So I think when, when he and I, so this was April of 2021 when I did that 75 hour event. So, you know, came back and we debrief probably early, mid May, something like that. And there had been a Kokoro, I want to say that March or so Feb, March. So Vail Lake, you know, inland Temecula, California gets very, very hot in the summer, but it also gets, can get very cold in the winter. And so that was, there was like freezing rain that spring or whatever you want to call Feb, March in, and so like if you know, Brian rail, chef, he, he, he froze out of it, you know, Heather, a lot of people went down just, you know, due to the extreme, extreme cold that we're already physically very prepared, but just not necessarily prepared for that exposure. And I remember asking asking cramps, like two things, like to do the standard guy, but also the guy that will, you know, literally give the shirt off his back for you. I was asking him how that he had cadre that one and he goes, he's like, I went and gathered up every jacket, every fleece, everything we could find. We, you know, we rocked them to get them warm. You know, he gave them every tool he could to try to get people warm and give them the chance to succeed. But I also remember asking him, I go like, is there a special MRE? That you guys would use, like when you went to cold weather training in the military, you know, more fat or something like that, that'll keep your body warm in cold weather conditions. You know, did you guys switch out the MREs or anything for this for this event? He's like, it's only 50 hours. Just get over it. That's so true. I could see him saying that, man, and I know exactly that, that event, cause rich Peckham who got the nickname Frodo from another cadre, cause he looks like Frodo Baggins. He, he made it through. So he was in that class. He made it through, but yeah, they only had like, I don't even know, five people make it through. It was so bad, you know, they were supposed to, part of that is, and it's no secret, but you, you hike Mount Palomar in the middle of the night. It's one of the evolutions. They couldn't do it. Cause there was snow, there was snow up there. Yeah. That's how cold it was. Holy cow. Yeah, it does get cold up there. How about when you were going through, did you, you have any cramps memories or was he working that one? So my cadre the cadre I went through with completely. Rolled over, man. Yeah. I don't think there's anyone. Mark James, I think was the only one from that original that I went through. Cause I went through with like Lance Cummings and taco and a bunch of dudes. So yeah. A lot of guys. Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. Unfortunately I didn't have a cramps part of the cadre. I wish I would have. I mean, just just a solid dude. Yeah. I'll give you one more story from from somebody else. I want to say this was, so this is, I don't know if you know Jim Conquill, 50, 57 is his nickname. Yeah, I know. I know, Jim. So when, when Jim went and finally did his Kokoro, which I think got pushed off by personal stuff, got pushed off by COVID. So cramps had worked that one. So he told me a cramp story. I think this is when they were, might've been hiking or might've been when they went down to the beach. And, you know, he's also one of those guys that didn't have to scream. You know, he wasn't the guy with the megaphone or the screamer, right? You know, he gave him an order and the instruction was no talking and there was still chatter. And he just said, you guys are starting to piss me off. And that's all he said. That's all he said. But you know, they went in the book and there definitely was a price to pay. They're in the book. Yeah. You don't want to be in the book. That's that's definitely. Yeah. I know exactly that evolution. That was that on. Mount Palomar, yeah, that's the, it's the silent hike and and he leads that I got to, I got to take part in that because I was in the night crew and I drove the support, there's a support vehicle, you don't know it because I tried to stay out, headlights are off, but I'm, I'm way in the back picking up. Casualties is what we call them. If someone has to drop or they get hurt or whatever. So, yeah. How about kind of bringing all this together. And I noticed the, the, the, the book is coming off the event, which is the springboard for everything you're doing with school right now. So I want to, I want to jump into that. But I think you say in the book, the event left you forever changed pretty much in every way which, which may be obvious in itself. I guess the question I had on that is where, and when do you find yourself slipping? And, and what do you, what do you do to reel yourself in or stay accountable? I love that question because sometimes we look at, you know, big figures out there, like, you know, your Jockos, your David Goggins or whoever, right? And you just think these, these people have perfect lives. They don't. I certainly don't. I mess up just like everybody else. I caught, I catch myself slipping. I'll give you an example. Perfect example Christmas, Christmas break, that two weeks off company I worked for, it was kind of a slower period. And then most of my clients were off, especially that last week. My wife's a teacher. She's off for two weeks. Kids are home. So I work out of my house. So I'm used to having no one here. So my schedule is completely flipped. And I found myself sleeping in longer. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, okay, I mean, I'm, you know, I do try to wake up early, I do wake up early, but I get, if it's vacation or something I'll sleep in a little bit, sure. The sweets, man, I'm a sweet guy and with, Oh yeah. And with Christmas and like, we were hosting and my wife's a great cook. My problem is I only have so many willpower points throughout the day. So at the end of the day, like if all these pastries and shit are right by me in the kitchen, like it's going down. I don't, I don't have those points anymore. Right. I don't, I don't like that willpower is gone. So I basically got to have it away from me. And I just, I find my, I found myself sleeping in eating too much sugary crap and I wasn't working out. Like I normally do, I could feel it, man. I was just getting edgy. I felt it. I would snap a little bit easier, you know, maybe at my kids or, or, or, or what have you. Cause Hey, I'm not perfect. And I'm, I'm willing, I'll be the first one to admit that, but. I've at least practiced enough to where I can witness that and be like, Oh yeah, I was kind of an ass there or I shouldn't have handled that. So if I do stuff like that, I apologize, it's back to the, back to the routine for me. So, you know, especially with start of the new year, right. New routine or new year's resolutions. I'm not a big fan of that stuff, but I am a fan of doing a reset coming off of like a holiday in which you've. Hopefully experienced something like, and I said, hopefully, cause it's like, Hey man, we all got to live, you know, you got to have some fun. I don't regret it, but it's like, I got to get back to, to what I want to do and how I feel better. And I just, I feel better when I'm up early going through a morning routine, working out. Doing my day job, working on my, my, my passion projects, coaching, like that's what I'm, that's when I'm at my best, not just watching national lampoons for the fifth time and eating cookies. I mean, I love that movie, but dude, I just, I felt like a slob just don't feel good. No doubt. How how old are your kids? My son just turned nine, he's December baby, and then my daughter's getting ready to turn 12 here in a few weeks, so, yeah. Yeah, you got some fun years ahead. You know, people talk about how kids see everything, you know, and maybe when they're younger, they kind of pick it up a little bit more intuitively, or maybe they, you know, they'll model it, but they don't necessarily understand it. You know, my, my son, like I said, he's, he's 14 going on 15. Just in the last probably year or two, like he has just been sharp as a, as a hawk. So you'll start to see this with your daughter. Right. And I, I started slipping a little bit, probably sometime during, might've been during the, the new year's break or something as well. I've, I've been doing. Rounds of 75 hard with, with some other guys to kind of keep each other in check and just, you know, really keep the, the daily routine polished. And part of that for me also working from home and having a couple of businesses is getting up early, get the first workout of the day and early, you know, get my mind and my body set. And my son's getting up. Around, I don't know, 6, 6, 15 for school. And there were a string of days where I wasn't getting up before he was, I wasn't getting up and getting it done. And he called me out. He's like. But the point was he got up and I wasn't already in the garage gym, you know, getting it done and he called me out on it. I was like, all right, you know, he saw it. I already knew it, but time to, time to fix it. That's the best accountability partner right there is like your, your spouse or your kids. I was kind of similar. So my wife and I have been waking up early together, usually around five 20 and we'll either go for like a, Just a two mile ruck, or we'll just hop off. I have exercise bikes in the, I have a garage gym and we'll, we'll just do some exercise bikes and then we'll do like little plank, five minute plank. Routinely like clockwork, but. With Christmas, all that went by the wayside and it's funny, kids, kids said something similar, like, what happened to you guys, like doing stuff for the morning and we're like, Ooh, yeah, you're right. But we need, everybody needs that though. Everybody needs someone to call BS on them and. Or tell them, no, that's not such a good idea. We were talking about that about before, before this call, like just having some sort of accountability partner. I know that's quite a popular buzz term, but just, just someone that's going to keep you, keep you honest, you know, we all need it. Yeah. So how, how much of that happens with School of Grid or, or what does that community look like? Tell me about the coaching and the community. Yeah, man. So we're a community for men, women. I like to say we're, we're there for people that want to, you know, better themselves and I like to say we're developing a warrior class. That's what, that's what we're developing. I think everybody's got a little warrior in them. And what I mean by warrior is someone who can take care of themselves, someone who can take care of others, and then someone who knows their God given purpose and are not afraid to go after it. That's it. That's what we work on together. And we, man, we span the globe. We talk about everything from nutrition to of course, fitness. We have calls on that. We have calls on meditation, breath work. We have calls on situational awareness, self defense. So, I mean, we span, we span it all and it's set up like a school. So this is all done over zoom. It's virtual, small group. And most of our calls are on Tuesdays, Thursdays. And you attend the calls you can make, don't attend the ones that don't interest you. And everything's recorded. So it's housed in a repository, but it's pretty sweet. I love it. And, and we have some just awesome guest speakers that, that, that come through every, every month and just learn so much and then like the magic of it is kind of what happens offline. So we have a private Slack channel and that's where people ask questions or maybe they've got an issue they're dealing with and just seeing the tribe come together and And work with each other is awesome. And then I, I host A couple of calls to where you, some people call it masterminds. Some people call it hot seats, whatever. Hey, we're here. What do you have in trouble with or what's on your mind? And we all get together and kind of brainstorm and help each other out, man. That's so, it's so much fun. I love it. Cool. No, that sounds super valuable. How much of it, I know you're, you know, you're also a certified unbeatable mind. Individual and group coach. So how much of a, do you bring the unbeatable mind coaching and tools into it? How much of it is an extension of that with your, your own material? Yeah, I think it's, I think the stuff's like a good foundation. Cause I do, I do really like the like the five mountains, the physical, mental, emotional, intuitional warrior spirit thing, but then, you know, we, we bring in other things like, you know, growing grit and. Self defense and you know, you name it. So try to try to round out everything. We, and we do go into spiritual development too. So, Hey, I believe in God and we just, we explore. Our relationship with that and I just ask that everybody is open and everybody is, otherwise they wouldn't be part of it. So it's not, it's not for everybody. There's a selection process. So I interview everybody and there's a few things I'm looking for, but those are those are things for me to know. And you'll find out at the end where the thumbs up or thumbs down, you know, elections, election you know, I, I know one of the things you, you mentioned in the book is, is from the unbeatable mind. Catalog, if you, if you will, or that foundation, the big four of, of mental toughness. Oh, yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, about how it showed up in Kokoro or, or maybe more importantly, how it shows up in, in School of Grid or, or your life? And, and the one, I don't know if Jim Bro was kind of spinning this the same way back then, but. You know, in recent years, he also talks about the the sort of unwritten, unspoken fifth one, which is foo focus on, on others, teammates or the service aspect to keep you going through, through tough times. Yeah, that's, that's huge. I mean, so big four mental toughness, breath control, positivity, visualization, goal setting. I mean, so here's the funny thing. When I told you I did it kind of ass backwards. I did, because when I signed up for Kokoro, I didn't know anything about. Unbeatable mind. I didn't know it all. That's I, I was just crushing the physical stuff. I learned all that stuff out there. I'll give you an example. We were, we were in like a van and that was one of the very few times you had time just to sit and sort of reflect, except you're in a van. Windows are up, heaters on full blast, and you're trying to keep yourself from not going to sleep. And one of the cadre noticed that somebody was doing some tactical breathing. And I thought, what's this person doing? Why are they breathing like that? And I'm like, oh, they're trying to, you know, regulate their mind about that. There might, there might be something to that. So I really didn't get into that. Whole like self development piece until after that's what really opened up my eyes. And obviously I learned about focus on others out there because as we talked about it, it very much as a team thing, but there's not a day that goes by I don't use. The big four of mental toughness, and it really does start with your breath and, and just being able to take, I find that if you can, especially in stressful situations, if you can just find time to take a breath, you'll make a clear, more calculated decision instead of having a knee jerk reaction for all you parents out there, especially that's young kids. Try it next, before you go off and, you know, cry about spilt milk or whatever, like just try taking a breath and be like, I'm gonna breathe here. Just that one second, man. Sometimes it's all you need. Can, can make all the difference. Absolutely. Some, sometimes literally life or death. Life or death. And then, you know, visualization's huge. I mean, if you can't see it. You're probably not going to do it. So you really got to see yourself doing it, whether that applies to anything, whether it's sports related. I mean, it's something I talked to my kids about, cause we do martial arts together and we do Taekwondo. So I'll have them a lot of times close their eyes and perform the different poomsaes and forms and stuff. Cause it's like, If you could see yourself doing it, like no big deal when you go to actual promotion, there's a hundred people there and you're right. You're there. Spotlights on you, right? But you will have done it. You can access it at the subconscious level. It's no different than giving a big presentation or, you know, entrepreneurs who are starting that business. See yourself being successful, see yourself growing and how you'd interact with potential clients. And I mean, it's great. Also, you could take that the other way to see yourself failing. I don't think there's that much of a problem with that either, because it's easy to see yourself win. But if you can think about those failure points and those bottlenecks, you can solve for them ahead of time. Like, Ooh, maybe I need to sure this up, you know? Yeah, I could fail there. So what could I put in place as a backstop or how can I mitigate that? Nice. I last time I remember doing some tactical breathing before some public speaking, I went over to visit a client to speak to their board. It's televised. It's recorded. It's it's on a website somewhere. Now there were three remote audiences and an audience in person. And I was I was going to get gas on the way there. And the back of my my suit pants ripped open. That's classic. Not much I can do about it at this point. I hope the suit jacket covers most of it. Just breathe and let's go. Just breathe and let's, let's go through it. Nice. How I guess just in terms of your foundation or your founding of school of grit and all the work you're doing there, how. You mentioned purpose a few times. We talked about purposeful adversity to start. How did you know? So how did, coming out of Kokoro, how'd you know this was what was next for you or what you were going to create and the community you were going to build, how you were going to serve? Man, I didn't, it actually haunted me for a while cause coming out of Kokoro camp. Mark Devine, he addressed our class and he asked a simple question, two words. He said, what's next? I'm like, what's next? What do you mean, man? I just trained my ass off of this and secured it. Like, but what he was referring to is, okay, you've done this. Now, what are you going to do? Cause it is fairly common. You see it a lot. Like people will go after that first marathon train and then they quit running for whatever reason or what have you. And then they move on to like the next shiny object. Right. And I, like I said, it haunted me. I thought maybe doing more events could kind of cure that bug and there's lots of great events out there. And I've done a few, but it didn't come, it didn't come close to that experience that I had at Kokoro camp. And I thought, you know, what, what was it about that? And I started writing down an outline of everything I went through and. Service to others came up and I'm like, that's it, man. I got to find a way to serve others. I want others to experience what I'm experiencing at Kokoro camp without having to go through 50 hours of the, of the beat down, unless they want to, then by all means go for it. Well, let's face it. Not everybody wants to do that. Not everybody can do that. So long story short Mark Scott podcasts, you know, people of mine podcasts. I was listening to it. He had a dude on by the name of Larry Hagner, Larry runs a podcast called the dad's edge Alliance. And he, during that episode, I'll never forget it. Cause I was driving home from work and Larry was talking about how to come home as a dad, you know, taking that uniform off and. Being able to compartmentalize your job, leaving it at the doorstep and then, you know, walking through being, being that dad, being that, being that husband. I struggled with that for a while. And You ever listened to a podcast? You're like, man, this is talking to me. Like, yeah, that was, that was it at that time. So I reached out to Larry and long story short, had a dinner with him. Dinner lasted three hours. He was a big fan of Mark. Couldn't believe. I had gone through Kikoro camp was very interested and he was talking to me about his vision. This was five, six years, probably six years ago. His vision was to have this, this group called the Dad's Edge Alliance. And kind of like a membership type site. And he was going to need coaches to handle the, the amount of clients that hopefully would be poured in from the podcast. So I just, I was like, man, that's it. I raised my hand. I said, dude, I'll be your first coach. He's like, I'm wanting to, I'm waiting to find a way to serve others. Like, let's do it. So I became his first head coach and I coached, I coached men. It was men only group. I did that for five years. My, my call, I called my fight. My call team was a fight club. We met on Fridays at 10 o'clock Eastern. So shout out to any fight club members out there that might be listening. So that's really how I got my start. And then fell in love with it. Just fell in love with the coaching. I was sold on what having a conversation like this over zoom, what that can do. And I thought, this is it, man, more people need this. And then I had been working on my book too. And and launched the book and people just random people. People like you, like they just, Hey, I read your book, man. It was awesome. I'm like, really? Like, what'd you like? And they're like, well, and they, they tell me the specifics and I'm like, okay, there's something here. Like I need to take this somewhere. And I thought, okay. The PA I try to look for patterns in life. I thought, here's the pattern. I got the book. I've done coaching. I need to do my own coaching group, school of grit tribe. That's how school of grit tribe was born, man. And yeah, I love it. I do. I feel like I'm actually doing. You know, what, what God's plan was, was for me, because one of the what's the, I don't want to mess this up. Someone told me, I can't remember who said this, it doesn't matter, you guys can look it up, but definition of hell, definition of hell is on your death bed, death bed, meeting the version of yourself that you could have become, you know, or I just like, I've, I've, I've also heard it referenced as like, you go up the like the heavenly gates, and they're reading. You know, everything you've done throughout life and this person's just done amazing things. Right. And they're like, and you're like, who are they talking about? That's you. If you would have done X, Y, Z and had the courage to put yourself out there and fail, man, fail. That's failure is a good thing. We need to embrace that. Gosh, we need to embrace that so much. So people just, they strive for perfection and that's just not real. Just get out there and mess stuff up, man. A hundred percent. Hey, I know that story for sure. Yeah. So it's just been a long road, dude. I, I, yeah, but I've, I've kept my ear, you know, down and I believe in the power of putting positivity out there and it will come back to you at some point. I don't do it because of that, but mark my words, it will. And just I have a mentor of mine Vincent Puglisi. He calls it the hour of giving. I don't do it for an hour. But he spends every morning contacting people. Hey, how's your day? I was thinking about you today. How many times have you had that? Where you're like, man, I wonder how someone says to him. I should contact him. But, but you don't right now. I don't, I don't mess around. If I, if I have that thought, I immediately text them like, Hey, I was thinking about you today. Hope all's good. You wouldn't believe how many people respond back. Dude, I was thinking about you too. Or man, I really appreciated that. I was having a shitty day. And so if it pops up for you, you just reach out, I go with it. That's, that's the intuition piece, right? Yeah, I go with it. I'm, I'm heavy in intuition now, because now that I've aligned with my purpose, I'm clearing my principles and my passion now, my intuition's working on overdrive, man, I feel it's like, so if I really feel it, or if I start dreaming about it, I'm like, all right, someone's telling me to do this and like, I've. Obviously I believe in God, I've raised that several times, so I believe it's God telling me to do this, so I'm going to go down that path. But for you, and your listeners, you know, whatever that higher being is, or whatever you believe in, whatever that voice is, man, go for it. Right, or ignore it at your own peril. Or ignore it at your own peril. Now, I have to caution you, if you're one of those people where your intuition leads you down the wrong path multiple times, that does happen. It's like that episode in Seinfeld where George, what was it, opposite day or whatever. I don't know if you watch Seinfeld, but he basically does the opposite of everything. And you know, like that, that could work, I guess. But like, we need to take some steps back and really look at we need to peel back that onion and see why. Right. Yeah. The maybe the antenna is off a little bit. It could be off a little bit and there could be reasons for that, but we'll see. Yeah. Well, I love what you're doing. Can congratulations on the book, you know, the book itself, obviously no joke, the crucible of getting your thoughts on paper and getting that out there. I know that's super valuable. Just on that note I forgot to ask you off air, so I don't want to put you on the spot here, but are you still doing ebook versions of that for anybody? Yeah. Yeah. Still ebook versions for sure. Absolutely. And yeah, it's available. On Amazon, Barnes and Noble, all that, all that good stuff. Yep. And then also too, I'm doing a 30 day free trial too. So if anyone's interested in, in the coaching program, try it on for 30 days. Okay, perfect. Yeah, I definitely want to wrap up on, on that point. So 30 days awesome school grits coaching tribe. That's how does that line up with the selection process? Have the, have the intro call with you and then if everything's well, you've got the trial period. Yep. Have the intro call with me. So my email's brad at school of grit. org, not. com. org. I'm not going to pay for the domain, at least not yet. So just send me an email, say you're interested. We'll set up a call. And Probably take 30 minutes, but just see if it's going to be the right fit. And if it is, we'll get you onboarded. That's a zoom call with a PT test. Yeah. Zoom call. PT test is optional. We won't, we won't do that yet, but I, you know what, maybe I should though. That, that would be, that'd be pretty sweet. At least, you know, get the reaction. The reaction itself could be telling. That's right. Just do the do the whole interview in a plank. You know, that probably could, I probably could. Yeah, I tried to implement that. Yeah, I had, I had a small team at a company, a couple, a couple of stops ago, and it was just three of us. And I said, you know what? We need to make these shorter. Let's just, let's do plank based meetings. So we're only gonna, we're only gonna meet as long as we can plank. I mean, you get to the, to the real matter pretty, pretty quickly, right? Instead of all the pleasantries and stuff like let's get to the, like, what's the real reason we're on? Let's drop this 30 minutes down to like four. Get right to it. Yeah, I love that idea. So school of grit.org and Brad at, we'll get links up to all this stuff a bit. Yeah. The show notes. I know you mentioned social media and it got you in trouble back did in 2015, I think, when you went through, was it 2015 you went through Yeah, 2015. Yep. But are you on social media now? Where, where do people follow you and, and find you other than the website? Yeah, I'm, I'm on Instagram YouTube. And LinkedIn, so just check out School of Grit and you'll, you'll find me there. So we'll get you get, get your links up to all that stuff too. And of course the book, as you said, I got it off Amazon anywhere books are sold. Brad again, congratulations on the book and, and your tribe and what you're doing for yourself, your family, the business, the world. I appreciate you. I appreciate what you're doing. I thank you for coming on. Likewise, brother. Appreciate you. Yeah, man. Thanks for telling your story. Keep at it. And hopefully book number two, we'll get you back. Oh man, you just scared me there. Book number two, but absolutely. I'll come back if I got, if I got all right, lean into it. All right. Thanks brother. Thanks. Okay. That was episode one 18 with Brad Ritter. You can of course find the show and the show notes at men to mastery. com slash one 18 that'll get you links to school of grit. org and all Brad's social. So make sure you go check it out. What he's doing to build that warrior class community over there. I know a few of them personally, and they're just top, top quality people. Okay. And as a reminder on the coaching side of things, go check out the new site at mastery. coach. www. mastery. coach if that can be of service to you. All right, let's get out there and crush the rest of the week, guys. Go get after it.

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Yeah.