Men to Mastery Podcast
Being a quality man, father, and leader is harder than ever! We help men unfu@k the past and unlock the best future version of themselves. Get actionable advice for personal growth, thriving relationships, successful fatherhood, and financial freedom.
The world is at an inflection point, desperate for authentic leaders – men ready to grow and serve. Start the journey to life on your own terms.
Men | Marriage | Fatherhood | Freedom
Men to Mastery Podcast
120 Wylie McGraw | God Country Family
Wylie McGraw is a former Star Pitcher, Competitive Bull Rider, and 3-Tour Combat Veteran.
Through those intense experiences that he discovered his crazy superpower of being able to expose blind spots, erupt & eradicate stress, and fully unleash the untapped potential of high achievers.
He’s the founder of Radical Performance Acceleration and for well over a decade now he’s been behind the scenes doing life-altering work with powerful CEOs, entrepreneurs, Leaders, and Public Figures accelerating their performance both personally and professionally.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
- Distinguish achievement from high performance
- Embrace the power of uncertainty and ambiguity
- Prayer and meditation for pain
- Bulletproofing your life
- Restoring service and sacrifice in American values
CONNECT WITH TODAY’S GUEST
Episode 120, God, Country, and Family starring bull rider, baseball pitcher, soldier, and patriot Wiley McGraw. Welcome back to the men to mastery podcast, the show where I interview experts and high level performers from multiple personal and professional domains to help improve ourselves. As you guys know, it's a constant process and really a never ending journey to that end. Funny story. I was recently called arrogant and shallow. I really don't think I've ever been called shallow before, but arrogant. Well, I like to think I'm one of the more humble people out there, but I'll take it. I'll take it. Because, I admit, I definitely have a chip on my shoulder when it comes to working on myself, when it comes to holding myself to a higher standard. Everything is me versus me, and I am protective as hell of myself, of my family, of my time, of my energy, and about the caliber of people I'm willing to surround myself with. And look, when I say family, I also mean those high quality, high caliber friends who are as much family as anyone else. If you're in that circle, you know I am your biggest fan, and I will be your biggest cheerleader and supporter. So this episode really is all about exactly that. The importance of that community that is so important in battle proofing your life for performance now and for taking action to prepare for what may come. So I'd like you to listen to this episode today. With an ear to whether you are prepared or preparing, whether you're an asset or a liability and whether you're ready to explore the uncomfortable to take action and to trust and surrender yourself to the process. All right. Hey, today it's my pleasure to welcome Wiley McGraw, performance accelerator, professional or competitive bull rider in his past, former star pitcher, three tour, maybe four tour coming up, combat veteran, army, SF community all kinds of stuff, but really interesting guy. Wiley, welcome to the show. Looking forward to talking today. Pleasure to have you.
Wylie McGraw:Yeah, brother. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Michael Bulloch:Yeah, man, it was, it's been a little time. I apologize to you off air of actually getting this thing together. It's one I've been looking forward to for a while. You got some just really interesting past. I love the work you do. You know, you're the guy that works with pro athletes, CEOs, entrepreneurs, all these sort of high performers in life in maybe I'm gonna say this the wrong way, kind of getting them to the next level. And that's one of the first things I just want to dive right in and ask you about looking at your material. One of the things you say. is why high achievement is not enough and how to accelerate into high performance. What's the difference?
Wylie McGraw:Well, first it's, I didn't just jump into the realm of working with leaders and working with these significant folks that have a lot of influence and impact. It naturally evolved from there because of getting to the basics of who I am once I got out of the military. So I just want to throw that out for the audiences. Like, you know, people hear that and go, why does he only work with leaders? Why not just, you know, helping everybody as much as he possibly can. And it's fine. There are folks out there that are built for that. I discovered over the years of doing my work, not only on myself, but then understanding my, my own gift, if you will. Yeah, I was made for at a higher level, higher intensity level for these types of people that can handle. What it is specifically they need to go to that next level because we're all at a different level of capacity So expecting the small business owner to be able to perform under the type of tasks You would ask them to do or challenges you put them through As the let's say the successful ceo of a billion dollar company is going to be completely different Not everybody can handle those things. So that just, just to throw that in there for you, Mike, but the reality is I've discovered through being military, being out in sports was one world, but being the military specifically going to war, learning and understanding the difference between achievement and performance changed my outlook on life itself. It, it really helped me understand how we approach what we do and who we are in relationship, not only to ourself, but to others, and that's In the things that we set out to accomplish. What I found is especially working for 14 years with some of these higher level people, some celebrities, some athletes, whatever their job is, it really is irrelevant. It's really just these high capacity people who have influence is that most of them have gotten lost in the grind of. Getting things done to create those byproducts, which are the money, the notoriety, the fame, and the growth. But they have circumvented or often sacrificed the other element of their life to get there. They have let their performance in relationships, if you will, and I use that word with quotes, Suffer inexplicably, sometimes unnecessarily often. What they've done is they have basically said, well, I, I want to go get things done. I'm going to achieve as much as I can, and then I'm going to turn around and I'm going to buy my way out of the problems that I'm sweeping out of the rug. So when I started to see this contrast, working with these people intimately behind the scenes, one on one, I live with them. I travel with them. I'm with them upwards of a year. I only work with two people, maybe three years, very intimate. I see the inner workings of their entire life, their, their family dynamics, their personal dynamics or health things. They don't show the public things. They don't even show their own business partners. What's really interesting is that they have been caught up in the world of checking boxes, getting stuff done and achieving things. And their personal performance, which means you are in relationship to yourself at any given moment. It changes on a day to day basis that has been lacking. So when you marry the two. You realize getting things done. Okay, great. You can get things done We can all achieve if we drive hard grind push through adversity and challenge we can get stuff done But performance itself high performance Is your ability to stay at a state of optimization? On a daily basis. It doesn't mean You're going to not have bad days. It doesn't mean you're not going to be angry and frustrated It doesn't mean you're not going to you know Be depressed and get irritated about life It just means you have a new set point you have developed through the stretching of that capacity By understanding that achievement is not everything sometimes You are hurting yourself more trying to make that next million dollars then you realize sometimes Sacrificing that business thing that's going on, that's taking you away from family, from your faith, from your health, all of that is not worth it in the long run. That short term satisfaction is not worth it. So we hear it time and time again is the what do they call it? Instant gratification that we're all used to. If you change your outlook towards how you perform in life, you will be focused more on what keeps you as a human being optimal. And then what you do then becomes optimized. Rather than focus on optimizing your achievement, just getting things done and then trying to turn around and figure out how to fix it later with the money you've made, or maybe the, you know, the followers that you've built on X or, you know, on, on your social media profile. So that's the, that's the stark difference in a long winded version of it is. Getting things done has nothing to do with who you are and how you perform in your life. How you perform in your life, however, does impact how you get things done and how much you create.
Michael Bulloch:I'm following you. Yeah, I can. I can relate to that. I mean, I think that that over indexing on achievement, the checking the boxes, the promotion, the dollars in the bank or whatever it is
Wylie McGraw:right,
Michael Bulloch:leads to that imbalance, whereas work on the holistic performance yields the achievements and and a more a broader list of achievements. Right? You can stay more balanced. You can you can have the relational achievements. You can have the. Relational success, along with the career success, along with the family success, all that.
Wylie McGraw:very possible. Yeah. And, and just throwing the military aspect of it, people will say, what about, you know, guys in military that are in the special operations community? They're the highest performers possible. A hundred percent. They are. Acutely, you see, if you realize, if you break it down, when they come home, are their lives, are their lives at that level on a daily basis? Do they have the health that they want? The balance of relationships with their partners? Are they in a place where their peace is a true set point internally? Do they want, No matter what they're, no matter the chaos they experience, most of them can't objectively say yes. However, it doesn't mean they're not high performers. They're just doing it acutely. I would say if you can get to a place where, like you said, indexing yourself, going, you know what, how much more could I get done that's more profoundly beneficial to others if my life is actually in a good place?
Michael Bulloch:Yeah.
Wylie McGraw:And if I put that as my standard, what happens then when I turn around and I execute upon that? That's the difference.
Michael Bulloch:Yeah. No, I, I personally find that. And, and some of these conversations kind of lead us down the same path that getting better at being yourself makes you better at everything that you, you do or endeavor to do. So a couple of things just leading down, you know, let's go further down the kind of the military path. That's one of the things I saw on your website, just poking around. It looks like you've got a little teaser out there about a professional relationship you had with a, I believe, an NFL coach who was looking for some help on leadership. Probably went looking kind of the standard you know, let me bring in a veteran or an S. F. type of guy and teach me leadership. And that wasn't working for him for some reason. I'm curious what wasn't working. What what did work with you? Transcripts
Wylie McGraw:I meet all my clients through third party referral. Everything has always been relationship oriented. So someone says, Hey, your life. You've been doing something different who you're working with typically Here's the guy i'll bring him to the private event the party the mastermind the conference that's how I typically met these people it's never been through like a You know, they find me on the internet and they're gonna google me and they're gonna hire me right over the phone So again, these people don't typically do that at all whatsoever. So The person that introduced us was a he, she was in publicity, but like public affairs for athletes and celebrities, and we had known each other for a few years, just some stuff that we'd ran across each other, you know, the work I do, and I think at a conference, but she goes, Hey, I, I've got a friend of mine who he works at professional football and he he's done stuff with guys like David Goggins. You know, and he loves, he loves the military. He's a big military support. He loves what you guys are all about. However, I told him, I kind of got a guy that goes beyond just the military approach to, you know, human development. He said, look, I I'm still lagging in somewhere in my life because something's going on with my, my performance at work. We're having a hard time. I'm hard time motivating the guys. Like if there's something funky missing, there may be an energy that's off, whatever it is. She's like, well, I got a guy I'm happy to just make the introduction. So we ended up having a conference, a phone call and we talked and then we got together, broke some bread. And he's like, look, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to fix. What I don't see is actually the problem. He goes, I've had all these other, you know, military style type coaches that wake me up at four in the morning. They do all this routine stuff. They, they get my mindset, right. They get me to a place where I was like, I have that grit and that drive. However, there's something underlying there that I'm not seeing that these guys couldn't, couldn't hit. I just feel like maybe, I don't know, something's about what, you know, what we've been talking about, what you're saying, what you're about, how you're, you sound different than what they typically say to me. Yeah. Let's let's do it. I want to work with you. Let's figure something out So I ended up actually spending I think seven months with this guy six or seven months with this guy in total and it's amazing is what we found is the relationship personal relationship dynamics He was dealing with at home or having an impact on his professional performance at work But the blind spots in those dynamics those are usually the biggest culprits to why we suffer and why we have issues when it comes to Things that are external of ourselves. However, what we do is we hire people Like those military coaches to bring in strategies and protocols from an outside in approach we go Well, i'm a guy who I studied 20 years of how we do it x and i'm going to bring in these solutions to you To problem solve your you know surface level issue So you're not getting your guys to do xyz in your you know, when you're training them Here's here's what we're going to do change that up You are going to show up differently this way. You're going to exercise this way You're going to be this way and then you're going to expect this way. Okay, great Those are good strategies to put in place But they do not address the deeper personal things that he might be carrying around or dealing with. He's not actually faced head on. So what I found was by showing up and spending five days with him at his house for in the first initial part of a relationship, so much erupted in the relationships he was having that I got to see the truth about where he was actually dealing with stress that was leaking into his performance at work. Those are the things we attacked. Those are the, it's like, I can get you up at 10 o'clock in the morning. I don't have to get you up at four. To still go after and make those things right. So that's what he, he needed somebody to truly mimic or match his personal life with his professional life. He needed to bring that to the same, up to the same speed, if you will, up to snuff. And he wasn't getting that with all the other people he was hiring. He loved what he did, but the reality was like, I need someone who can kick my, my ass, excuse my French in the right way. Who can see the ugly stuff that I don't really want to look at and put it in my face and make me do something about it. But also have someone that knows how to be in the trenches to do it alongside me. Not tell me to do it and then walk away and come back to me next week and say how'd it go. It's like, hey, you're right by my side as we're going through it like a battle buddy in the trenches. Here's how we're fighting that war and killing that demon. And this is what you start to naturally experience things changing organically for you, because you feel different, you show up differently. And that's what changed his, his approach to his coaching, which it really alleviated a lot of issues with his team function.
Michael Bulloch:That's really interesting. A couple, a couple of things that really, that really land for me on, on that. One is, you know, drawing a couple of parallels here between top athletes, you know, this guy was a coach for top athletes, right? Pro athletes. And maybe, you know, top performers in the military both are very physical realms, right? And we get, we get comfortable in the physical discomfort, right? And may, may shy away from the discomfort of, of relational work or other deeper personal work or the, you know, the work at home. And, and the other thing just thinking even back to what you said before about acute success. a huge divorce rate with with S. F. Certainly be, you know, any deployed troops go through that, you know, that that is a struggle or a challenge. So, you know, you take somebody who's maybe really, really good. Let's say somebody who's really, really good at their professional military career. Trying to help somebody who's really, really good at their professional sports career, but both both may be really, really bad at their personal lives. Right? And it sounds like that was the blind spot for this particular guy.
Wylie McGraw:Big one. It was a big one. And, and the reality is he, he never, a lot of those guys, again, and there's nothing wrong with them. And I want people to hear that, that. I don't go out and have conversations bashing any of these people that are doing what they're doing. There are, there are, their efforts do create some results. They create momentum for people and there are people that are built to only take on what they, and that's good. If that works for you, go get it. The reality is there are people out there going, I want more than, again, the, the strategy of the mental and physical grit. I want something that really becomes deeper and more intimate and more holistic and very unorthodox towards making me a better version of myself. So that the really, the reality was he was missing that and he was craving that he just didn't know it until he heard it. So that's, that's the thing is. Hey, I'm hearing you say things I've never heard before and I like it, I'm leaning, as much as it scares me, it makes me realize you're going to do things to me that I am unaware of you're going to do to me. I know that that's where the challenges that are going to make me better are. That's where they lie. And I, and that's why he jumped in. So I think that's what people are missing too, is we're so hell bent on controlling the narrative of how our coaches coach us, how we approach business and any other thing that we do with like the types of things we want to do. We find people hiring the yes men because they don't like The unknowns, human beings do not like the unknown. However, I heard a quote once before. I'm trying to remember his name, McGill. I think it was his name is if we fear the unknown, surely within we fear ourselves. And we realize it's like when you can adapt yourself to the unknown, a lot of magic lies in the ambiguity of life. If you think about it, it's like, he was also missing, you know, he's Christian. He was like, look, I, you know, I haven't been as faithful to my faith as I usually am. He's like, and, and you really helped me get back to the roots of that and realize, you know, what, there's a lot of this matters. Surrendering my need to be self reliant totally on just, I've got it all figured out, allowed him to open up more of his capacity to see those blind spots and actually be able to handle the challenges to, to battle them and get through them rather than avoiding them. Typically what men do.
Michael Bulloch:You said a lot there.
Wylie McGraw:Yeah, I hope that was okay.
Michael Bulloch:Yeah, no, it's great. I'm gonna, I'm gonna take you down take you down a weird path or thought I had on that. So you mentioned faith, right? And we were talking a little bit offline about where we're at as a country, where we're at as a world culture and needing to get back to some fundamentals some, some roots, some, some basics. Faith being a big, big part of that. And one of the other things I know we're going to tee up here is I want to talk to you about what may be next for, for you and your next chapter possibly back in, in the Army SF community, but on the, on the faith piece, right? When you look at the state of the world today or I'll just, I'll just say it, you know, from my side and ask you what you think it's, it's hard for me to imagine that the things I see. Are ultimately about only wealth and power. Certainly there's, there's a lot of that. That goes on, but, but it's, I mean, wealth and power are finite and there are people that already have a near infinite amount of it, right? How much more do you really need if you're I don't know, Klaus Schwab or Zuckerberg or the Rothschilds or whoever it may be, right?
Wylie McGraw:yep.
Michael Bulloch:And so beyond that, why, why do we see so many of the things we see? I have a hard time talking myself out of anything other than we're truly in a, in, in a spiritual battle for, for this realm of good and evil, ultimately.
Wylie McGraw:Yes, 100%. You want my thoughts on
Michael Bulloch:Thoughts. Yeah, please.
Wylie McGraw:Yeah, if you objectively look with an open mind, like you just said, so people that step back a little bit more, pull yourself away from maybe your own personal worldview and get away from the subjective beliefs that you might carry still in this moment, which is fine because we're supposed to be challenged to change our rate or stretch our beliefs. So if you can step back and objectively look at your, at what's going on, You would actually kind of go, okay, something funkier is going on here. Something more radical and more intense and more otherworldly is happening because the rise in now how everybody suddenly is transgender. Everybody is suddenly, you know, it's all about greed, money, money, power, and wealth. Everything seems to be just falling apart at the seams with the, you know, the borders crisis and politicians and the wars and, It's like, it's almost like biblical, if you will. It's, it's really, really crazy to look at and say, well, this is just what happens, you know, human beings just cause these problems and, you know, we have been in this place before we've never been in a position we're in right now, ever in the history ever of, of, of, of societies or, you know, organized societies ever since, and I've heard it from even a pastor is like, since, you know, the, the, the flood of Noah or the time of Adam and Eve, it's like, it's been so. Radical what's going on and regardless of what people believe i've had friends that i know that aren't really big believers like you Know what? I think I maybe need to consider it because this is definitely not What we can just chalk up to being normal mental health issues or normal dysfunction of society where people are just differences of opinions. It's literally trying to make men women women That's just like it doesn't work So there is a massive spiritual war going on and I think that the problem is people have a hard time human beings truly You This is why I think a lot of people reject Christ. They reject God. The idea of it, all of it is because they don't want to be obedient to something bigger than themselves. They have a hard time with following what they deem to be restrictive rules, so they don't explore what any of that actually means. They don't get into the relationship aspect of God and go, you know what? Let me learn what he's trying to teach me what i've been what i'm missing here Everybody just wants to be the the manifester of their own reality to do whatever they want. However, they want to do it That is where the evil comes in and starts to influence people and get them to do things they're unaware they're being influenced. So that's what I would say. Those are my thoughts on it. People don't realize how badly they're being influenced by things that know. Okay, you like porn. You like drugs. You like the alcohol. You like the gambling. You like the money. That's good. Stay there. And then if somebody challenges you, tell them these are my rights. I can do whatever I want. Who are you to judge? Yeah. And then I like the people that don't believe turn around and go and try to quote scripture and tell us, you know, your judgment, you know, who are you to judge Jesus wouldn't do this. And it's like, okay, but you don't even believe in Jesus. So at the end of the day, what are we doing here? But I've had atheists, I've had nonbelievers literally tell me like, I think I need to start going to church. Something's not right here. And in reality is we are, we are going through a massive eruption on a spiritual level and it's going to get worse. And I think people are going to be woken up rudely. But I don't think a lot of them are gonna be prepared for it. And that's, that's why it's like, we have to get people prepared for it. We've got to get leaders, men, people out in the world to, to, to be pillars for communities so they can bring people back to choose a side. Because at this point it is a war. You're either with the good, good guys, or you're with the bad guys. There is no neutral. There's no being in the middle of the ground and thinking if you're not with the good, you are with the bad. And that, those are my thoughts on that.
Michael Bulloch:Awesome. Yeah, let's, let's get into some of this idea of, of coming crisis potentially, maybe probably, and some preparation, things like that. But a couple, just wrap up thoughts on, on that topic, you know, you, you've got a podcast, right? Wise words and whiskey. I love, I love the name. You know, I, I certainly enjoy a bourbon from, from time to time. But I was, I was talking to a buddy over the summer in Colorado, and, and I just said at, at the time, I was doing another round of 75 hard, so, you know, zero alcohol amongst other things for 75 days. And I, and I go, dude, I'm not, it's not to judge it, right? But I, I think it's interesting to question things, right? Challenge ourselves, challenge our beliefs, challenge our, our construct. And, you know, I would, I would challenge myself and I challenged him to think about what good. What does the alcohol industry do for you for us? Little, probably zero, right? And, and, and I mean, the, the down, the downfalls are obvious, but, you know, is there something deeper there is, is that amongst all the other things you mentioned, and, and Internet and social media and TV, all these things keeping us kind of idling in a place where our focus needs to be somewhere else. What, what things actually move us forward? And certainly that's not
Wylie McGraw:Ooh, these are great questions. These are great thoughts, questions, etc, because there's so much to unpack with it. Number one I love it. It does. These industries are, I, people can argue all day long. Oh, you know, it's all about how you approach them. Absolutely. So you and I can sit down and have a glass of bourbon guarantee. I'm going to pour maybe one finger and I'm going to sip it with you and I'm going to be done. And I've been the next time I'm going to have a glass of whiskey, maybe two, three months later. And I don't drink that much at all. And it's, I spent eight years not drinking So those industries specifically are designed to distract us. They're designed there. There is evil behind it is designed to, like you say, keep us idle, keep us not focused on what really matters and keep us in a state of altered reality. The problem is you can utilize these things. If you, the person going back to our initial part of the conversation is your personal performance is in a good place. If you are. At a good set point where you have literally worked through whatever addictive qualities you might possess, whatever mental weaknesses you have, whatever emotional instability that might be there. You've gone to a place where you have an evolved state of being. You might be able to sit down with you and I and have a little sip of whiskey and not let that become, let's have another one and another one and another one. And then you drink. As a catholic is is, you know, what we talked about is past the point of hilarity. That's being drunk That is you slipping into the realm where now you are giving access to the demonic because you are no longer coherently in yourself completely protected so That point of hilarity is like most people don't like that. They like the feel feeling good, you know It's like it makes me feel good. I like it. What's wrong with that? If it makes you feel good, you should be able to do it and And that is exactly what those industries want you to feel. They want you to rely on emotion. They want you to rely on things that are comfortable. They give you that sense of peace temporarily on the inside. But the reality is how many people get drunk on a daily basis, wake up the next day going off. I'm so at peace today. I feel so good. My life is. My life improved because of that binger I went on last night, right? How many people can truly sit there and say that i'm peaceful happy fulfilled and truly at a place of like Knowing life is good without god How many people can truly objectively I guarantee most people i've met people i've worked with none of them are happy None of them they might pretend in their head. They are happy, you know, look at me I got the things but the reality is They go to bed at night fried. They're miserable. They're in pain. They suffer and then they suppress it and suck it up and they utilize those industries. Kind of quell that the problem So I challenge the notion that there's nothing wrong with these things, you know, because they make you feel good I challenge people to challenge themselves to fast more allow themselves to what we call it we call it die to the self, but the reality is it's almost How about sacrificing? That thing for now like you did 75 days How about you take take a chance take a week off from everything that you do on a daily basis Don't take creatine. Don't take drink caffeine. Don't drink alcohol. Take a week be willing to move through the urges to Satiate that feeling and I that that's the key that you can start there You can build upon that that in itself will strip away so much Of your own dysfunction or blind spots you're unaware of That's what I do with clients. It's like, we're gonna sacra, we're gonna strip you away from everything, and I'm gonna be with you while you go through the pains of it. But the reality is, it's amazing how you cleanse yourself that way and you start to become more clar clear excuse me, speaking two words together. Clear the clarity and clarification that you get become more profound for you. So you're able to start objectively seeing things that people are saying to you in a different way. You start to interpret stuff that in a way you never thought was possible. And then you start to open yourself up and your beliefs change and you go, you know what? Wow, that actually was hurting me more than I thought it was I had a celebrity client, a gal that she was on a binge or a binge of like psychedelics, man. And I'm going to tell you, it's like, you want to talk to avoid
Michael Bulloch:right.
Wylie McGraw:of being in the spotlight. She had nobody that ever helped hold her into that space to work through those problems. And I, it's amazing. Had dinner with her one night and the disheveled version of her in front of me. And she's like, you're right. I let her do it. I said, she kept fighting. He goes, I don't, Fine. That's my work with you is I'm going to fight you. I'm going to battle you and fight you period all the way through it. I let her have it. I just said, just stay in touch. She did it for a few weeks, called me and goes, can we, can we meet and have dinner? I gotta, I gotta, I gotta tell you what's going on. And then she said, look, you're right. You were right. A hundred percent. She goes, this is damaging me more than it's helping me break through my problems. I keep having bad experiences because I have not done enough work on myself to even manage my problems. smoking a little pot or manage drinking a little bit of alcohol or manage myself in psychedelics. So this is the problem that people have, man, is we're not doing the right work and getting to the roots of who we are. We're not connecting to something greater than ourselves like God outside of ourselves to help with that peace and that protection we need. We're heavily relying on the self and we're also idolizing other people as our gods and going, let me follow that person. Nobody's really finding peace and happiness. You can have all the money in the world, you can have all the success in the world. But dude, what's it worth? If you yourself are miserable at home and you, you don't have the peace you really long for, and it's only possible if you're willing to surrender and go, I need something greater than me. And that's the piece that that's missing. Yeah.
Michael Bulloch:I, I'll share a, a, something I heard from a Canadian buddy back to something you mentioned on alcohol specifically. He he, I don't think he drinks anymore, but at the time he said, you know, I, I'll, I'll occasionally have a hard kombucha or, or a beer or a wine, but he said, I can't drink hard alcohol. I, he goes, I, I, my experience with it. Is I become a different person and not a better person, right? And he said, I think there's a reason they call it spirits. I really feel like it opens the door for something to take hold of you. That's really not you, right? Not a good spirit by any means.
Wylie McGraw:demons. Are spirits too? He's like, what do you mean spirits? You know, people say, I'm spiritual you. Well, demons are spirits too. Which one are you talking about?
Michael Bulloch:Right. Which one do you want?
Wylie McGraw:They exist to simultaneously. It's not like you're just tapping into one side of things and avoiding the other. But yeah, it's, that is a good point. I did it with gluten. I was gluten sensitive because I ate too much of it growing up. So my wife was like, you're allergic to it. I can see it. And I said, what do you mean? She's like, just try this. I said, okay, I'm open. I try it. I'm just an open guy. I will try it and give it a go. And I'm happy to do it. I took two weeks off of all grains, all gluten, all of it. And when I ate a piece of bread that had gluten in two weeks later, my nose started snotting up. I started to get itchy. So it was a perfect test to that. You just talked about with your friend. He stopped, he started to touch it and he was like, look at it. I can see the truth of how it's affecting me, how that will affect my performance, how that will affect my ability to get things done, how it will affect my relationships, how it will parlay into so much of our lives. But people are so distracted and they're so sucked into it. They don't have anybody that pulls them out of it the right way. They are lost. It's almost the blindly in the blind. Last thought for you and then we can keep rocking and rolling. But you know, there is a, as I've been learning, there is for the pharmaceutical industry, there is a demon called Pharmaca and literally its name is what I've been learning about. Like you watch a bunch of exorcists that are putting out these videos on YouTube. They'll talk about these things and it's kind of makes you kind of, you think about it, you go, wait a minute, pharmaceuticals, what are we doing to each other? What do we, there's something evil there going on. I mean, I had surgery on my wrist that you and I talking about, I didn't take any opioids. I just did a nerve block, had him cut me open, take the plates out, no pain medicine afterwards. Knowing your body and knowing how to manage and handle pain, utilizing faith, your mind, your meditations, your prayers are more relieving for pain than taking a drug because it keeps me in a good state and not in an altered state. I'm not willing to do that to myself because My standards matter. So I think if people hear that and go, wow, okay, I couldn't do that. Well, maybe you can. You just never been pushed and faced and put in a position to challenge yourself to do it. And you and I are talking about do it. Give yourself a little try. You'd be surprised what might change with you.
Michael Bulloch:Yeah, I'll take you down another brief rabbit hole for a moment. And it's in the same spirit of, of industry and addiction. And we don't know what we don't know. So I'm on the gluten thing, right? My, my wife is, I believe very gluten sensitive. She, she has a bad sort of gut and bloating and just overall feeling reaction to things like pasta and a lot of breads. And I just, I just don't eat a lot of it either because I, I, I don't have the same feeling, but I have a similar, you know, not so positive feeling with a lot of processed carbs and, and kind of breads and pastas specifically. So we were just in Europe this past summer and my wife was, was just like laughing at me every single day because every morning. I was eating sour, fresh sourdough bread. Like it was going out of style. We were in Denmark. I was literally eating the, the Danish right. And like everything I can get my hands on and I felt great. I enjoyed it. I came back five pounds lighter probably because we walked a lot, but, but also, right. So I was like, what's going on there. I wanted to challenge that a little bit. And I started looking into. Italian pasta, they use pretty much just flour and water and it's organic wheat flour grown locally, right? And that's it. And then if you go look at what's in pretty much any pasta here, it's most, for the most part, not organic. So you don't know what other chemicals and crap is in there. And then there's a whole bunch of other stuff in the flower, right? We've got this enriched flower with niacin and all these other things. I think part of it was about birth defects. We believed folic acid or folate, whatever's in there. Right. Well, I'm not going to have a baby, although apparently some men now believe they can, right? Like, and my wife's not having any more kids. Like, why do we need to eat this crap? If that's, if that was the purpose, why do I need it? And so it was unbelievably hard. I was about to go import a bunch of pasta from Italy, right? Like I just literally can't even find this non enriched flour here. And then. I was actually walking out of Sprouts Market a couple weeks ago, and they just had their, their end cap display there by the register. I picked up the Sprouts pasta, and it's actually imported from Italy. They've got an organic version, and it's just whatever the wheat is from Italy and water. Boom. I brought it home. We tried it and my wife's like, I, I feel great. No problems at all. So like even just diving into little things like that and challenging, does it have to be the way that it is? Well, maybe not.
Wylie McGraw:No, I that's a great I think it's a great anecdote as well. You had your own personal experience with but it also does have its Broad efficacy if you will across the board now, I hear people say we've been eating bread for thousands of years It's like yeah, but look how we're producing the bread. Look how we're producing the wheat The gluten molecule is a binding protein. It's that's what makes wheat sticky. It's a it's a big protein And what's interesting is even the distillation process talk about whiskey The gluten molecule can't pass through certain parts of the distillation process. So technically i'm not going to say this because i'm not an expert but Most spirits aren't even are can technically be seen low gluten if you will. So what's interesting is My friend, I have a friend of mine is celiac disease. He can go, he's from, his family's from Italy. He can fly to Italy to go where his parents are from, go eat the pasta, has zero, literally. Celiac's gonna kill you if you eat it. Goes over and eats their pasta, doesn't have any problems. And it shows you the contrast of what we are doing over here to our food. At the expense of our health because there's a there's an evil sinister thing going on here The food industry wants you sick. You rely on pharmaceuticals. You're in the medical industry. It's a business. It's a 100 of business that Binding protein our bodies have a hard time digesting because of how it's aggro grown The wheat stock itself used to be thicker in italy If you probably notice it's their wheat's thicker over there And there's a reason why it's because it's not aggro farmed our aggro farm wheat over here You thinner, which then causes the plant to produce more gluten to protect itself. It's kind of like cannabis does the same thing. The, everybody talks about all the THC that kind of buds onto the flowers. And again, I'm not, I don't smoke and I'm not condoning it. I'm saying go do it, but it has that stuff. And that's the plant protecting itself from sunlight. It's designed also protect itself from pests and things like that It's the byproduct of its own reaction its own performance if you will to nature so It's crazy how you can take that wheat you and I are talking about and you can literally parlay that into all aspects of life Because it's all interconnected. How are you? Allowing yourself to experience The different elements you bring into your life from your foods to the supplements to the way you work out to your health Your your regimen to your relationships your mindset your how you read how you study all of it can Go back and be tested and challenged and stretched and changed you got to realize that Just because it's there doesn't necessarily mean it's good just because you have a right to do something It doesn't mean you should do it either. It doesn't mean it's The doctor tells you X, go get a second opinion. It's why not? What matters to you more?
Michael Bulloch:I would argue that there's, there's so much of what we've been told and sold that is. Somewhere on the spectrum from wrong to plain nefarious, right? That it's, it's worth challenging almost everything.
Wylie McGraw:You should, you should ask questions. I mean, you should just keep asking and ask as many questions as you need to. And if someone gets upset at you, so what, you know what doc, I don't care. I'm paying you a lot of money. I'm going to ask you questions. And I'm going to get everything I can. And you know what happens is. Here's what I want. I would love your audience to hear too for business and life in general is Just pushing a little bit more and asking that extra question. You'll finally get the truth I think we end up like you said the norm is we're taught To only go so far and to then retract people will have where hey brother. Do you want to do x no, okay I'm, just give that's a weak example, but why not go? Hey, hey, brother Why let's talk about what's coming up for you. Why what why do you reject that idea? Why do you want to? You know what? Okay, here's the truth and they might end up giving you the real reason doctors will do that. Your friends will do that. Your family will do that Sometimes it just it's like, you know What let me sit with this a little bit longer and let me push just a little further because maybe i'm not getting all Of the information I should be getting right now And if I allow myself to push through that adversity that no or that rejection I might finally get at least a little bit of information I've been wanting or needing that will then inform me further on what actions to take next. And I think that's where people can also challenge themselves is stop just taking the initial reaction of someone as the end all be all to the situation or conversation. Push it. You'll find whether or not you should continue to push it, but you'll start to intuitively know, okay, here's where I back off or here's where, no, I'm not going to back off. I'm going to come after you a little bit more because we need to, there's a reason why we're doing this, you know?
Michael Bulloch:Well, there's, let's, let's challenge another, another one of these sort of global, global businesses, if you will. And, and holding that there may be multiple things true at any given time, right? So we're talking about maybe there's, maybe probably definitely we're in a spiritual battle for this world. For example, you probably saw the article. I think it was in Iowa, like in the state Capitol. They had a, they had like a, a demon display or a
Wylie McGraw:Yeah. Satanic.
Michael Bulloch:Satanic. Yeah. And some guy, some guy tore it down. You know, maybe that.
Wylie McGraw:head
Michael Bulloch:guy's being charged with some, some kind of, it's, it's crazy. So at the same time that perhaps, you know, is this a, is this a man made battle or is it a spiritual battle? It can certainly be both, right? I acknowledge that there are those who will probably take advantage. Or may have created some of this situation, you know, the whole sort of fifth dimensional warfare, you know, how much disinformation or culture, cultural erosion are we getting from let's say China or Russia or, or some other party. So for example, an army, army butter buddy, army buddy of mine was, we were talking one day recently at kids' soccer, and he says, you know, I'm reading some, some history and some stuff from, from military strategists. They just talk about how unique the U. S. is as this North American continent so far from that superpower in Asia and then Europe and Russia that it's practically impossible to do like a Red Dawn style invasion on the U. S. And I said, I, you know, I disagree. I, I get the concept, but I think we're, we're, we're already, it's already happened. Like we're already living red Dawn. And it's not people parachuting in. It is actually people literally crossing the border right now. A lot of bad people, along with a lot of good people seeing a better life. But it's, it's streaming in through the internet, right? It's streaming in through everything we see and hear. And so where I'm going with that beyond, you know, are we being attacked by, by other humans, by other military power and, or the spiritual battle you mentioned off off air that you're considering going back into, into the special forces community. And I I'd really love to hear a little bit more about that. I feel like it's. Just from my view of what is happening. So as a civilian, having not served, but grew up with a dad who was a Vietnam vet army captain looking at the state,
Wylie McGraw:his service. Yeah.
Michael Bulloch:appreciate that looking at the state of our country, our culture, what I read about the military culture and leadership, and then what the mission for our soldiers abroad or domestically might, might be what's drawing you back to that.
Wylie McGraw:I'll touch on briefly to start the answer for this is talk about a spiritual wake up for me. I'm, you know, I'm in my mid forties, so it's not like I woke up one day. It was like, you know what? I'm a veteran, so I want to be clear to you. Just, you know, it's like I was in the combat arms. I was the light infantry with the 187 infantry out of the 101st Airborne Division. So. I didn't, I wasn't a Greenberg that, but yet that is where I, I'm being asked to go serve. So just want to make sure that's clear clarify, given my, it's my community. I'm going to, you know, everything that does matter in the community as well, especially the clarity of what we did, but nevertheless, I wasn't in combat. It was engaged in combat. Did three tours overseas. So post 9 11, obviously GWAT, the whole nine yards. I woke up and I told my wife and I said, you know what? I had this intense life altering dream. I can't explain what it was. It's almost like God was showing me something in my dream. And I told her, I said, I went and I prayed on it. I said, she goes, do you think maybe this is just the nostalgia of missing the military? You know, you've been talking to a lot of military guys lately. You've been on podcasts with a lot of military guys. You know, Andy's stuff, et cetera. And I was like, you know what, I missed the military. We all miss the military. Nobody's ever going to tell you, I don't miss it. You know, it's, it's just part of who we are. I miss doing those really high speed things. I miss, you know, doing the operations we did. I said, no, something is not, you know, something's here. Let's explore this. So months go by. I keep having these dreams where I'm basically. I'm back in a small unit working in a special operations community. And I'm, I'm, I'm just doing all of this different, very clear stuff that is related to the conversations. I had been having with some colonels and some people I know that are still in buddies of mine, they're in group guys of mine that are seals, things like that. I'm going, you know what? Given the fact that our military is eroded from the inside out, given the fact that we do have, People focus more on DEI and not on war fighting. We have woke ideologies regardless of people's beliefs, but that's what's happening. We have this dysfunction that is literally infiltrated through the military in this more communistic approach that is eroding leadership from the top down. And it's causing us to look like this very weak, frail entity. We are no longer respected as this once mighty military as short as 20 years ago. I spent about four or five months kind of having these dreams and I was like something something in my heart is telling me I need to consider serving again because we need to bring back that military grit and might back to the warfighter. We need to inspire Americans to still instill trust in the military and knowing that we need one if we want to maintain The liberties in the lifestyles in the ways in which we appreciate and want and value in our in our culture here in america We are being challenged and we are being basically fought from the inside out We're we're kind of destroying ourselves and we are watching a veteran community. I god bless them I love them to death all of them But I have been watching so many of them on social media all these big name people that you that everybody follows Legacy military guys going, no, I will not promote the military. No, you need to avoid military service. No, stay away from it. It's just a globalist agenda. No, it's, it's all about politics. It's all about money. And I go, yeah, I get that. You and I talk about it off, off screen here. It was the military industrial complex has been there for the politicians and the greed and the war, you know, the warmongers. It's never, ever not been there. It has always been a part of who we are. We have just been. Less exposed to it over the generations until now. Now that aspect that, that, that monster is reared his head. He's in the front, but it does not negate the patriotic duty to protect and defend freedom for future generations. My grandfathers did in world war two, my uncles did in Vietnam and Korea. My stepfather did desert storm. Me and my brother served the GWAT. So it's like, who's next? If we don't find a way, challenge, you know, using that word a lot in this conversation and battle it from the inside and rebuild it and get it back to a place of respect, honor, integrity, and discipline and warfighter capabilities. We're not going to make another conflict. We're not going to make it. We're going to watch another. We're going to be another Rome, if you will. And I don't want to be radical about that, you know, sound a little bit too hyperbole if, if sense, but, The truth is the reason why I feel like I'm being drawn to it is there are a lot of guys that There's a faith is missing in the in the ranks There are a lot of people that are are there they're in there for the wrong reasons These younger generations are doing it for maybe the idea of getting some, you know, some benefits. Some you know They're immigrants are doing to get their green cards and their status has changed and again There's nothing wrong if you need you have those motivations Nobody's in it like what we were in it for and I would challenge all those veterans out there That are saying do not join the military go. Why not? Politicians are going to always be greedy. We're always going to fight wars partly for them and what they're doing, but why not? Do you expect the United States to do what? Sustain a low dysfunctional broken military and still be the superpower and be the beacon of hope and, and, and faith and freedom for the rest of the world. If we don't have people willing. Worth their assault willing to step up and get into the fight I think the problem is we're too caught up in the the the the corruption of again biden the border ukraine Israel now etc. We're too caught up in the money too caught up in the politics We're too caught up in one side of it We've lost our sight on what it means to be Americans. What it means to actually sacrifice and actually serve selflessly for others. We're very selfish. We're very broken as a, as a society. And I think a lot of veterans are just very soured because of how poorly they've been taken care of post combat. You know, I got buddies and I have 11 to 15 combat tours. I've only got three and it's like that three is enough. You know, I've seen a lot, enough death and destruction. That's plenty. But. So I would say this to kind of cap it here. I'm feeling more divinely drawn to do it. It doesn't mean I'm like not, you know, realizing what I'm going to be stepping back into. Okay. I understand what I'm getting myself into. However, that's why the recruiter and I are working together. The VA is fixing me up. They're going to get me a special operations contract. The guys I know in our group are like, Hey, we can use more guys at your age back in here. Now we need to challenge the leadership from the inside. And here's the last thing. It gives me an opportunity and access to people at a higher level where I could then bring my experience and expertise from what I've been doing with leaders in my business to the table. And I can start challenging policy and I can start challenging how we show up as a unit, how we show up as a military, because the special operations community, they're going to be the ones that are going to carry the heavy load of the big army until the big army gets fixed. So guess what? They're going to be relying on the leadership of special operations. So what do we do? We get people in the position to influence change in a way that challenges the DEI and the feelings and the pronouns and get people back to what matters in the military is American sovereignty freedom, liberties, our ability to sustain our way of life and security. If we don't have that, and everybody's more worried about their pronouns and what, what gender they are, then the truth is. People are gonna take advantage of that. And that's, what's happening right now from the border to across the seas. And I don't know, I just lost, I don't know. I can talk on and on about this. I just think it's sad to hear my fellow veterans telling people don't do it at all. It's like, come on guys. Who who's going to do it? If, if not us, I mean, at the end of the day, you, you talk a big game about if not me, then who, who's Well, if not me, then who truly you, you expect this younger generation to do what we did in the last, one of the things, I'm sorry. I'm just kind of rambling on here a little bit, but given my contacts and who I know in politics, there are murmurs of conscription, lingering conscription means a limited draft. So we go to war with Iran, you know, which looks like we might North Korea, one of those bigger nations that has a military and they don't have the numbers they need. Guess what they're going to do. They don't care what you feel. They're going to start plucking people. And the veteran community, if you're not broken and disabled, we're, we're exposed to the age of 60. They're going to start calling people back that they need. We can't get these younger generations because they're all on TikTok and on drugs. So who are we going to go after? Well, we got to lay, let's go get the 45 year old combat veterans got experience. And call him and tell him we need him and get, and that's, to me, it's like, I'd rather avoid a conscription and go volunteer for it. So that's kind of the mix of why I might be doing it as well. I think God's drawn me to do something different. Even if I don't go, I'm preparing myself and having these challenging conversations with people about it and say, look, step up or shut up because at the end of the day, you can talk all you want on social media, but if you're not about it, then don't talk about it. It's as simple as that.
Michael Bulloch:Yeah, I'd say, you know, absolutely kudos on following the calling that you're getting and being willing to step into that void, right? And rather than stepping out or staying out and criticizing, being willing to step back in and change from, from within and potentially, you know, doing, doing the job in lieu of, you know, that 18 or 20 or 22 year old kid, or, or maybe the 20 year old kid that physically is too soft and mentally too soft to do at this point. So, you know, I applaud all that. Let me, let me use the challenge word again. Let me, let me ask. I'm going to make up a scenario here. That's, that's not all that far off. And I get it right. The high speed mission, the brotherhood. In terms of mission and like you get your marching orders and off you go, but, but you're a thinking man. And so let, let's say the, the mission is boots on the ground war in, in Ukraine. The Ukrainian president is a clown. You know, it's ridiculous that we got more money going to Ukraine than fixing problems here. You know, is Putin a good guy? I don't think so. But. You know, the EU is talking about censoring, censuring and putting travel restrictions on Tucker For going over to interview Putin right now We're not even willing to hear another side of of the story What's really going on or has gone on in ukraine since we helped change the government in 2014 More than just biden's money laundering you know american bio labs who knows what what's under the covers there, right, but it's hard to And by the way, we poked a bear right? We kept poking the bear on pushing nato East when we said we wouldn't like it's not completely clear that we're not One of the bad guys in this thing and and it's it's hard for me to To really get my head around ukraine being a place. We should send people right? So if you you know, you're enlist and off you go like put that back in the in the context of the Global industrial military machine and creating conflict and division for power wealth money, you know that whole thing Do you not feel like you're just Just a cog in that machine. Silence.
Wylie McGraw:my wife and are talking about it's like look Our life is going to change. I i've been an entrepreneur doing my own thing essentially for for a decade and a half Okay, it's a big sacrifice to make, you know, obviously it's a huge pay cut. So we laugh about that all the time But we did okay for ourselves. We're in a good place, right? So we it's not it's not a bad thing to have where but it's it's a serious sacrifice And there's a lot of those elements that are on the table that we talk about, you know Hey, you know What do you consider what's going on? I mean, how are you going to feel going back into that world? That's different from 20 years ago where you're going to be dealing with a completely different power structure And how you're operating if you will I think truly Is getting into the special operations community though is a different mission set than the conventional military. So That might be a different world that i'm going to partake in even though I didn't do it the first time around I did operate with guys that were in that realm. My middle brother was special operations himself So I I had an inside scoop given my experience on a job I did on what the mission sets were and how we performed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even then, if you think about it, there was a lot going on there outside of the patriotic machine that we were after September 11. There was a lot of unseen and unknown things, man. Is a three dimensional chess game constantly being played. And it's like Vladimir Putin, you know, for every move he makes, there's two or three other moves, you don't even see that he's got in his sleeve. So the reality is we never know when none of us can sit here and sure fire go 100%, here's how it's going to go. And this is why it's going to happen. And here's, who's going to do it. The reality is I'm looking at, I love my country. I love my family and I love people that support and want this country to thrive. I serve for that. I serve for God, country, and family, period. End of story. Constitution, my duty to that, the oath doesn't expire. And if I reenlist and raise my hand again, I'm just only going to amplify it. That is the focus. I think getting in there and being in a position from the inside and getting more people to rally around the idea of like, you know what, I'm not the only veterans doing it, by the way. There are other veterans that are rejoining. I've, I've seen some other vets are in their forties who joined the military of, you know, they're not making headline news, that's why we don't hear about it. But they are 42-year-old, just graduated from the, our SFQ course. They had a 46-year-old graduate from it. They had a 51-year-old guy graduate from infantry bootcamp. So we got a lot of older guys going, you know what f it, I'm getting back in because. We need people. We need warriors. We need men to step up and get into the fight and be willing to push back, you know, like the Spartans did with the Persians, you need to be able to push back from the inside as long as you possibly can, and at least combat that erosion so that we can get somewhat of our train back on a track. And I think Ukraine is a perfect example with it is, I mean, the monitoring, I know this personally, it's like, we're sending them billions of dollars so they can buy our weapons. Guess who gets kickbacks from those weapon sales from companies like Raytheon and Northrop Grumman and all that is the politicians who set up those deals So at the end of the day it is technically a money laundering aspect of things Even though they are going to say well, we're bringing money back into the u. s Economy, not not really you're bringing it back into private entities They're not these military contractors are taking the money. We're not getting any of that So it's always going to be an element of combat war is always going to be business It's always going to be for those specific reasons those machines I'm not doing it because I want to go to war in ukraine I'm going to do it because I want to get into the military and try to fight the leadership structures That are allowing us to be pulled in this direction Because if it's not a consortium of veterans and leaders who are willing to stand up to the threats of this communistic approach, then we're done for. And that's really what it's about. It's, I don't care about anything else but that. I care about fighting for what's right and getting into a position where I can matter in the military, even if Even if it prolongs us in a good place for a few more years, so we can get the right kind of leadership in the administration we need, et cetera. So I think I don't care. I, I'm, I mean, I went to Iraq and most of us go, why are we here? Why? How could we went to Iraq and we didn't go, this is all for the politicians and their oil. We still did it because I got to experience a liberation of some small groups of people. I got to do things over there where people were thanking us for it. That's small comparatively speaking. Okay. But why were we in Iraq? There were no weapons of mass destruction. I don't care what anybody says. You know what? There were golden money. It's like that. The reality is that oil, we still did it. Did it, people go, you guys are baby killer. How could you go over there and do all that stuff? You guys are just pogs, you know, pogs and our club cogs in the machine for the Bush administration. Okay. But we didn't do that for the Bush administration. We did that for America. We thought that's, we were doing what was right for America. And no veteran will ever tell you, I joined the military because I wanted to make some politician rich, or I want to go fight in a war that we shouldn't be involved in. They do it because it's, it's a selfless duty to the patriotic nature of our country and who we stand for. And if we're not willing to do it, then we're dead on arrival. And to me, that's worth fighting for.
Michael Bulloch:Let me ask you before we run out of time about that fight that that fight that's coming, and not everyone can or will or is able to do what what you're going to do. And again, thank you.
Wylie McGraw:You're
Michael Bulloch:So, for, and I think the analogy to Rome is a great one, you know, the slow crumbling of the empire from from within.
Wylie McGraw:From within.
Michael Bulloch:what, what is the, what is the fight that's coming and how, how can others prepare for it? Right. It's great to talk about holistic performance and how it shows up in your, in your business and your relationship. We talk about how hardship helps us grow. Right. But everything is seasonal and none of us have lived the kind of hardship that people lived a century ago. And it looks like maybe coming back around in the next decade or so of what we're going to experience here. Right. Yeah. So give me a little bit of your view on that and how people can people, families, communities can, can train and prepare.
Wylie McGraw:That's a phenomenal question. It really is about, and I, I use this terminology battle proof in your life because with the impending economic and global crisis that we are facing now, that's only going to get worse is going to rattle people from the soul. throughout their entire being. And if you are not prepared mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and financially, all simultaneously, if you, you think you're going to compartmentalize your life and you're going to focus on making as much money as possible and stacking as much rice and ammunition in your garage, but your relationships aren't, aren't, you know, optimal, your health is not 100 percent where you need it to be. You are not capable of understanding how to handle the unknowns of what's coming. Because you've never been put in those positions to be challenged when things are out of your control, then you're going to crumble under the conflicts that we're going to face and you're not going to make it, you're going to suffer horrendously. And I think families, communities, people in general that are listening to it, whatever it is, is they got to find. The environments and the resources that give them the opportunity to basically battle proof themselves I'm, not saying go join a military like boot camp week long course and kind of do some raw raw stuff where you punch your buddy In the face you get wet and get yelled at what i'm talking about is truly getting to a a place where what environments like I shared with you of my A buddy of mine are putting something together for some entrepreneurs who really want to battle proof themselves as well for this So Finding people that are willing to be by your side and train you and challenge you on a daily basis until they, they recognize you have accomplished that next level version of yourself. They can see no matter what is thrown your way, you know how to react to the contact rather you respond to that contact properly rather than react to it negatively. So I would, I would really require, and I would tell people they need to. They need to truly get back to a faith. They need to get back to a place where they realize now more than ever, it matters. And there's a lot more that you, that is unseen. That's happening. That is going to mess with you. It's going to hurt. If you are not secure in your faith, if you were not trusting, In god, you're not getting to a place of realizing I've got to be protected so that I can make it through these trials and tribulations that's another thing that's going to break people in communities, so we are on the verge of another world. I think we are on the verge of world war iii I don't doubt it's going to happen. I think it's a matter of if not when I don't know with I think we might get the access we might get iran north korea and russia Who knows we might get it all who knows? So as things start to wax and wane, as they are starting to show us right now, it's prudent of people to truly go, you know what? Let me strip away comforts that I'm used to right now when it comes to what I, what I say, I want, what I say, want to do. And let me get outside of what I, I, my bubble of belief and, and in my own world and go into a place that I typically don't go. Find yourself like looking for things that are going to challenge you that really make you face what you have not faced throughout your entire life. Have the hard conversations with family members. Look at the pains and the traumas you've gone through and do something about resolving them. Get to a place where you are being able to build up financial stability for yourself. Because if the dollar collapses or the economy changes, you can maintain and sustain your family. Sit down with your wife or your kids and really have real conversations with them. Find health professionals, you know, performance professionals, getting people in this consortium of community to really build each other up is going to give us that semblance of, of survival, if you will, when things kind of hit the fan. So, if you feel drawn to join the military, go do it. Don't wait. Don't, don't act like, well, I don't, if you feel pulled, go do it. If you feel drawn to you know start your own business go do it right now If you feel drawn to just stop and stop doing everything go raise family on a farm and just grow your own stuff Go for it It's about making decisions that you're drawn to making and trusting in The step you take is going to reveal the next step and then the next step will reveal the next step Be willing to embrace the suck of the unknown and trust that the challenges you're going to face are only going to make you harder and and and less difficult exposed to the weaknesses that might be, you know, in your, in your world, and they're going to make you harder to kill, and they're gonna make you more resilient, and they're gonna make you more optimal, and they're gonna give you the clarity of being a better decision maker, a better leader, and a better human being altogether.
Michael Bulloch:That's awesome. I could not wrap it up or say it any better than that. Wiley. Thank you for trusting, trusting yourself, following that, that lead of where your spirit, your intuition, your faith may take you and really, that feel a bit uncomfortable and seeing, seeing where they lead. Lots, lots of growth in
Wylie McGraw:Yeah, you got to step away from the creature comforts man Put down the put down the alcohol stop partying so much, you know, you don't need the drug You don't need the the tv the distraction change your habits. It really comes. It really it's cliche, but you have to The the challenges I do in my life on a daily basis with my wife. I have my business partner She challenges me every single day as well. She works in the business with me with our clients I'm, not immune to this either i'm human. So at the end of the day, it's like Like finding that set point of peace internally, it allows me to navigate life dynamically where I don't get lost in life. I don't get pulled away from what matters. And that gives me the ability to problem solve much more efficiently. When I'm faced with challenges that I'm maybe not aware of that I was going to be faced or maybe I don't even have the answers to right away. So I'm able to then take it and brace it head on and do something with it rather than crumble under the pressure. I want people to do the same thing. Find a coach, find a resource, listen to a podcast, and go do something that's going to. break you away from what you feel is normal and good for you. You might be surprised at actually hindering your ability to get to that X level and be prepared for the impending challenges that you will face in your life, whether it's subjective or objective.
Michael Bulloch:I mean, crisis is, is always around the corner, whether we like it or not, right? And we can prepare or not prepare. That's really our only
Wylie McGraw:it bill you can buy all of the things guns and ammunition of food you want if your attitude and your mindset if Your resiliency are not at the same level as your sharpie your marksmanship skills It ain't gonna work. You won't make it.
Michael Bulloch:Awesome. Well, Hey, I know if if people, I'm excited to continue to follow your, your story and see where this path leads. But if if this really resonates with folks. I will get links up to your, to your website, Wiley McGraw. I know you've been, you have your own podcast with a few episodes that are still yet to release on a wise words of whiskey and you know, you mentioned and Andy stump, I know you've been on there. You've been on JLDs, EO fire. I think you were on Chris Voss's podcast. So you're out, you know, a number, a number of places people can probably get completely different conversational paths than what we explored here today. I know we could keep going for a long time on some interesting stuff, but I want to thank you for your time today. Make sure
Wylie McGraw:Yeah. Thank
Michael Bulloch:towards your, your site and your social media and your other podcast appearances. Really appreciate you, Wiley. Thank you for coming on. Just, just having this conversation, sharing some knowledge and yeah. Hope, hope this leads some, some folks to make changes. You know, kind of reassess themselves, trusted themselves, challenge themselves and get ready for what's next.
Wylie McGraw:Yep, and surrender let go trust that too that that matters. But yeah, thank you brother for having me It's been a it's been a great conversation. I
Michael Bulloch:I appreciate you. Yeah. Thank you.
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