Tim Kennedy - Hard To Kill: How To Fight For Freedom & Not Become A Slave To The System

Full transcript: Tim Kennedy on London Real

2:12 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Tim Kennedy, the American UFC fighter, entrepreneur and U.S. Army Special Forces veteran. You served as a Green Beret sniper in the Special Operations Detachment and toured in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the Army, you were deployed to Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and you were an honor graduate from Ranger School.

2:32 For your service, you were given the Bronze Star Medal awarded for Valor Under Fire. In your first fight in the UFC, you defeated Roger Gracie via unanimous decision and earned wins against Michael Bisping and Robbie Lawler to hold an MMA record of 18 wins in 24 fights. Your company, Sheepdog Response, uses real-world programs to teach situational awareness, martial arts combat, and weapons training in order to protect against a home invasion, mass shooting, or terrorist attack. Tim, welcome to London Real.

3:00 Dude, I like that intro. Thanks for having me. Dude, it’s great to have you here. You know, I was following you for a long time for MMA, and then I was following your Sheepdog stuff for maybe the last nine months. And then when all of this kind of craziness happens, from the COVID to the lockdown, et cetera, I was wondering in the back of my mind, what does Tim Kennedy make of all of this happening? Because much of your life has been spent preparing people for something like the zombie apocalypse. And I know you’ve starred in a movie where there was a zombie apocalypse, but this was like the real thing. So I’m curious, from a guy that’s been all around the world, fought not only in a cage, but on the battlefield, what do you make of the last four months?

3:44 It’s been crazy for a lot of people, not for me. One of the weirdest parts was I would spend most of my time trying to take care of other people. I have chickens, I have food, I have well, I have toilet paper. My house is kind of not off the grid, but it’s definitely a self-sufficient solar. Everything that you could need to live very comfortably for a really, really long time is here. So I was just kind of leaning forward. The mission of my company is to preserve and protect human life. I ended up being like preserve and protect the quality of some people’s lives because some people are struggling both with food or paying bills or finding toilet paper, which I found funny. But yeah, that was kind of like the last four months.

4:40 I mean, the first month, I mean, we kind of forget now, but there was a lot of fear and panic. And like, that’s something you train people for, like, you know, to try to, I don’t know, train them through that amygdala response and stuff. I mean, what did you make of it? In some ways, like you say about the toilet paper, we saw kind of the worst of humanity, and in some ways we saw the best of humanity. I don’t know. I mean, did you learn anything?

5:04 Yeah, I learned a ton. It really reinforced a lot. You know, we, there’s a lot of sayings, you know, like sweat more, bleed less, you know, ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Like all of these kind of reoccurring expressions are about, you know, the more that you do before something happens, the easier life is when it does happen. You know, if you’re driving down the road and all of a sudden there’s like a mob of people running around you to steal your toilet paper or water, that’s like a really frightening thing. You walk into a grocery store, you walk to try to get into a grocery store and there’s a line of a thousand people. And you’re like, I have to get baby formula for my kid or diapers. Like you can’t help yourself, that fear that grows inside of you. Well, that doesn’t exist if you prepare. Like if you train, like not at one moment was I like, Oh man, I don’t know what to do. It’s like, man, I already knew what to do. And now I’m just going to help other people try to figure out how to make their lives a little bit easier. I mean, truth of the matter is the reason that the military does so much training, like you don’t see Mike Tyson walk into the ring and knock everyone out and become one of the greatest heavyweights of all time, unless he trained his little butt off. Well, it’s a big butt. He’s a pretty big fella. But you know, it all comes down to preparation. And we saw a lot of bad from humanity. We did see some tiny little granules

6:31 Of good. But I think if anything, it just it says you have to do the work ahead of time. Okay. And like if I came down and I might do this and spent a few days with you at sheepdog training, like what are the kind of things you’re teaching people? Because I know you have everybody from say law enforcement down to people who’ve never fired a gun before.

6:52 What are the basics? The basics. You know, we cover kind of the fundamentals of how your mind is supposed to work. Awareness, assessment, action, and assessment. Like in those four A’s, your mind is always kind of working in the circular process of okay, I’m aware of my surroundings, I’m aware of my surroundings, things are going pretty good. And then assessment is all right, there’s something that’s kind of off over there. What’s off about that? Then action is okay, the thing that was off is bad. What do I need to do? Do I need to get my family away?

7:26 Do I need to, you know, protect myself? And then assessment is, is what I did the right thing? And you’re always in the cycle of those four things. And then we train all of those things individually, like action, for example, let’s say you’re somebody’s trying to rob you or mug you or rape you. Like there’s the fundamentals of self defense that have to be present, you know, boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, weapon retention, weapon takeaways. And, you know, there’s a lot of like really fancy like things that people could show. We don’t show any of that stuff. We show really, truly the basic fundamentals of fighting. All of our instructors are Delta Force guys, and Navy SEALs, and Army Green Berets, and professional fighters, black belts, and this UFC fighters are from, you know, it’s like, that’s the people that are just showing you how to show it, throw a jab, or how to like, you know, let not not let somebody take a weapon off of you. We really, really pound in the basics. If you’re the if you’re a master of the basics, you’re a pretty difficult person to deal with. Is that something you learned in the military or also training for like UFC fights? Because like, you know, if you go into the jujitsu class, there’s always a few guys that are working on, you know, that super fancy low percentage submission. But if you learn, if you run the numbers in the UFC, it’s, it’s pretty much just the meat and potato basics that are most of the submissions, right? And everything goes

8:54 Out the window. When you get hit, I’m guessing the complex stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all the fancy stuff disappears. The moment around cracks by your head, or you get hit in the face. You know, the tip of the spear units on the planet that do the most incredible work and counter terrorism and anti poaching and human trafficking. I mean, like really the the best group of guys on the planet are masters of the basics. They don’t do fancy stuff, you know, they’re not like repelling in inverted off the side of a stealth helicopter, you know, they’re like, they can walk, they can shoot, they can fight. And when somebody when somebody can master those basics, like, they’re a problem for anyone, I don’t care who you are, like that, that is a difficult person to have to deal with, you know, and like we, we live by this be an asset, not a liability.

9:53 And an asset is somebody that has a solid foundation, you know, those cornerstones have been built up. Like you don’t you don’t look at like this crazy house that has all this ornate trim around it, and it’s about to fall over, you look at this architecturally, structurally sound thing, and you’re like, man, that thing could withstand anything, you know, a hurricane, a tornado, COVID, you know, looters, rioters, that that building is just going to stand there and laugh because it’s built so strong. And that’s what we’re trying to do with the individual.

10:22 Okay, you know, one thing I kind of noticed in the past few months is, I call it kind of like the weaponization of fear, it’s like almost like they got everyone so scared, that now we can’t really be rational, you can’t really assess the situation. And now you’re kind of just you’re in this fear state kind of doing whatever they kind of tell you to do. I mean, first of all, do you see that? And second of all, is that because people aren’t conditioned and comfortable in all sorts of uncomfortable situations to look at this and say, okay, you know, all right, there’s no toilet paper, that’ll be okay. And if this happens, that’ll be okay. And if they riot, I know I’ll be okay.

10:57 I mean, do you think the training would have calmed more people down? Yeah, for sure. That’s a very perceptive observation, Brian, the, you know, fear is a horrible place to do anything out of, you know, to make decisions for your family to try and provide for them to try to vote, like anything done out of fear is usually not going to be a very rational thing. And whether it’s, you know, like, I’m not going down conspiracy theory, what you know, whether it’s orchestrated, whether it’s like specifically planned, whether it was part of, you know, an attack by I don’t care, know that fear is bad. And the only way that you can overcome fear, everyone has fear, like the bravest medal of honor recipient, you know, heroes from World War Two, like people that fought for the allies, every single one of them has fear, but their training and their preparation is what allowed them to overcome it. And the more training and the more preparation that you do, the less fear that you have. I’m not like being braggy when I say like, there wasn’t a moment where I was fearful, I had to change things about my life to make it more safe, to make my family safer. But like, at no point was like, oh, I don’t know what I’m gonna do, like, I’m gonna go and vote for less freedom, or I’m gonna go and like, yeah, we shouldn’t go outside. That sounds like a really bad idea. You know, like, because, you know, the sun is dangerous, or, you know, whatever the malarkey was that they were

12:21 Saying, like, I could just sit there rationally, logically, without this, this like wave of emotion and fear, and try to do things that are so dangerous to us later, you know, like, I never want to trade out of your comforts now for less freedom later, I would rather just like, take a step back, take a breath, make a rational decision, what’s best for the collective, what’s best maybe even just for the individual, like my family, and then move forward. But yeah, fear is bad. Get rid of, get rid of fear out the window.

13:00 Do you think if the whole population had say, you know, forced themselves to be in a one MMA fight, or go through sheepdog, or spend some time overseas, do you think the whole collective would have just behaved a bit different, as opposed to people who, it may be, is it easy to scare people these days? I guess that’s my question. Yeah, it sure as heck is. You know, the, that’s just a great thing. It really is. You know, we are living in unprecedented good times.

13:29 I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, because we’re so scared. But like, we have the lowest poverty, starvation, unclean waters, in the history of our species, right now at this moment. And that’s, that’s pretty incredible. Like we have more countries that are flourishing, you know, like more access to like, the most isolated, poor places on the planet, being able to have real clean water for the first time. And that’s powerful and beautiful.

14:01 And with good times, I think people get soft. You know, like, hard times make hard people, and then hard people, like, make good times because they’re tough, and they figure out how to fight through it. And then those good times make soft people, and then soft people make hard times, and then hard times make hard people, and then hard people make good times. And that’s, that’s the cycle. Yeah. And so we’re living that cycle, basically. We are. Right. And we’re on the, we’re on the, we’re on the, the not hard people. We’re about to make some more hard times, basically. I think we have made hard times. We are maybe in the beginning of some hard times.

14:42 But, you know, with hard times comes hard people. And like, not, not just like genetically, we know what happens to a people when, you know, weak and fearful people kind of like shaft in the wind go away. You know, the refiner fire comes to our species, and we get better, we collectively get tougher, and then we figure out how to get through this thing. And then, cool, we got good times again. Yeah. I hope hopefully we don’t make too hard of times.

15:14 So my grandpa farmed cotton in Arizona. And I remember after he died, I went driving by the old plot with my grandma, and she said, you see that field over there? And I said, yeah, she said, your grandpa dug tree stumps out of that for two years before he planted a single seed. And I was just like, goddamn, man, like, what the hell do I ever have to complain about? He saw the Great Depression. You know, he had come from Oklahoma before that, and the Dust Bowl, and he built it all from his hands. And just being around him, he was this stoic dude.

15:47 I don’t remember him complaining once. And he was just up every morning at four in the morning. And he was he farmed the land for like 30 or 40 years, you know, I just, I don’t know if they’ll make him like that again. Maybe they will. But we got to go through another cycle, perhaps. Yeah, they will do. I remember him scared. No, no, it’s a cool thing, you know, like, I think a lot of people run from adversity. They look at something hard, and they’re like, Oh, man, I don’t I don’t want to do that. That looks hard. And, you know, they’re always looking for an easy solution. And that’s good. It’s good to sometimes find the easiest way to do things, you know, like I get it efficiencies important, man, but sometimes there’s no other way to do it besides the hard way. And sometimes the best way to do it both for you and for the thing is painful, you know, when we’re making, you know, if I were going to go make a tool that I was going to go work out on the ranch, you know, yeah, I could go, I could grab a piece of metal, and I could laser cut it, and I could go out and work with it.

16:46 And that thing would last a couple of months, or I could take a chunk of metal, and I can heat it, and I can pound it, and I can heat it, and I can pound it, and I can heat it, and I can cool it, and then pound it some more. And over time, and over pain, and over struggle, and over through adversity, that thing is going to take shape, and it’s going to be hard, and it’s going to be durable, and it’s going to be tough, and it’s going to be able to survive whatever I do to it. And we’re kind of like that.

17:11 I don’t want to do I’m not I’m not somebody that has ever looked for an easy way to do something. I have found that most of my success, and most of my freedoms, and most of, I mean, hell, my ability to still be sitting here alive, has come from doing the harder thing. And, you know, everything that I’ve ever wanted has always been on the far side of hard work. And that was something that was taught by my grandpa, who also was a Great Depression guy, a World War II vet, you know, and he was a builder, you know, like he worked on radios, and he designed things that went in aircraft that dropped bombs in World War II. And, you know, and that’s not the model that I looked at was like, okay, go find hard stuff and do that stuff.

17:56 I don’t want to do something I know I can do. I want to do something, maybe I can’t. But the process that it will make me better. And that’s been the story of your life, basically, trying to find things you can’t do. I mean, that’s pretty much it in a nutshell.

18:12 Yeah, yeah. Oh, and I found a point, a lot of people see, you know, that that that resume that you just listed, and they’re like, this guy’s like, you know, probably pretty tough and dumb. And it’s like, if you can see the list of things that I couldn’t do, and that I hadn’t accomplished, and that I failed at, it is it is 20 times the size of the things that I did. And like what? Oh, man.

18:42 Try trying to make it to the Boston Marathon. You know, you have to qualify for it. You have to be you have to run a certain speed. I wanted to win the army 10 miler, you know, a 220 pound Harry Ogre, like I’m a knuckle dragging troll. So doing fast, long endurance things is is not what I was designed for. I’m designed to like run through a wall, you know, and like, tear a bad thing’s face off and eat it and then wear it skin and then go find more bad things.

19:13 Basketball, basketball, baseball, I actually wanted to be a baseball player. And then I was like, I am, I’m not very good at this. So volleyball, in college, I was wrestling, and I wanted to play volleyball, except that I’m five foot 11, and I have feet like a hobbit. So, you know, I had like a 30 inch vert, which was good for, you know, essentially a dumb donkey, but not so great for a volleyball player. All right, so there’s a whole list of things you didn’t do. And that’s the point is that you’ve tried a lot of things and succeeded at some and failed at a bunch, but you keep trying. Just back to your grandfather. I mean, surely a grandpa can’t teach his grandson to do that stuff. Did he show you? You know, because kids don’t, they don’t do what they’re told.

20:07 You know, how did that seed get planted in you? They see it. Kids are, especially kids nowadays, they are so wicked smart. They’re smarter than, you know, watching my five year old do things that would have taken me 10 years to figure out. You know, he’s like, oh, I’m just gonna like, you know, take this battery out and I’ll put in this new SIM card. Oh, I have to format this card.

20:27 He’s five. You know, like, I don’t even know what formatting means, you know, let alone that there was a card behind the battery. But that’s pretty impressive that you could do that. You know, but they see everything and they process it in a way that we can never even imagine how fast they can do it. So like looking at me and watching my dad and my uncles and my father and my grandfather kind of like do work. You know, you know, he didn’t sit down and be like, all right, you got to go do hard things son. You know, like what I’d see him do is sit down with a model ship, you know, from like the 1700s and take little tweezers and have to tie a bowline knot that he’s going to attach to the base of the mass. You know, and I was like, why are you doing that? Like every single knot had to be perfect on a model ship that he was going to set up on the counter and never touch again.

21:24 And it was because it’s more beautiful because it’s hard. You know, like, yeah, he could like do an overhand knot there and throw it up there. He could buy a pre-tied knot that was done in a factory. You know, but then like he would never, every time that I would look up there at that ship, every single knot and there was probably 4,000 of them on there. And every single piece of wood on that mass and every single bit of, you know, like the finely cut and finely sanded and perfectly stained wood that was on the whole, he did, you know, and like just that little tiny thing just resonated hard work and the sole focus of being able to accomplish a thing.

22:11 And that is just an example of a toy, literally a model toy of what he would do in his real life, you know, and how he would, you know, fix the washing machine or what he would, you know, if we were going to the beach to play, it wasn’t, okay, I’m going to pull out my phone now. You kids don’t drown. You know, it’s absolute complete interaction. Hey, let me show you how to get an octopus. This is a sea urchin. That is a sea anemone. Oh, you want to find a sand crab?

22:42 So if you wait until the tide comes in and you push your hands in right as the water comes in, you keep your fingers like this and you drag up and the water is going to push all the sand out. The only thing left in your finger is going to be the crabs. Like he showed us how to do that stuff. And so like every single moment we were living it, seeing it and doing it. And that was like the process. Ironically, it’s the same way that the military does. You know, like they, you would watch somebody do it, then I would do it. And then you would have to do it until you mastered it. Sometimes they made those things not very fun in the process. But, you know, ultimately the approach was still the same in that walk, crawl, run when you’re learning something. You talked about it before when you, when you go into the special forces that once you make it in there, they kind of spend the next six to 12 months, like almost grinding the ego out of you in order to kind of build you back up. Yeah. Can you describe that process? I mean, are you not the same guy that went in? No, I mean, there’s this long arduous process that they call selection. And you know, the Navy SEALs have buds, we know like that hell week, you lose a lot of guys during that. But that’s not really where we lose the most amount of guys. In every single phase of training over the course of two and a half years, there’s 13 of you that go into this, this phase of training. And every single phase,

24:11 You get to vote one through 13. And number 13 guy, he walks, he’s gone. And it’s called pure evaluations. So the worst performer, and what’s tragic is sometimes you get 13 incredible guys. But the 13th guy, he has to go. He was late one time. He complained. He didn’t do the work that was assigned. He fell asleep on shift. He wasn’t a contributor. He said something that was racist. Whatever it was, he’s going to get voted last, or all of us collectively are going to vote him last, and he goes. So by the time you reach the end of training, not only have you had to do all these horrible things, Seer School and Robin Sage and passing all the gates of shooting and running and obstacle courses and the academics that are pretty intense during the course, at the end, you’re left with a beautifully refined product.

25:16 And then you show up on your ODA, and you’re like, oh yeah, man, I’m a badass. Like, look, I’ve made it through all of this. I’m a collegiate athlete. I was a professional fighter. I’m a competitive shooter. I just finished two and a half years of training, and now I’m on a special forces ODA. I’m on the A team, and you walk through the door, and they’re like, okay, so go ahead and get all your bags and go back outside.

25:40 And you can just wait outside until we come out to get you. You might be out there three days. They don’t need you, you know? They don’t need you until you’re not wanted or needed until you can provide an asset to that team. And that’s a hard thing. It’s a hard place to come out of. You got a funny smile on your face when you talk about that, kind of like you’re remembering good things, but also hard things about that. Yeah, but like the hard things, I know memories you’re romanticized, even the hard stuff. And at the moment, you’re like, man, this is horrible.

26:20 This is hard. I don’t want to be treated like a piece of crap. I want them to realize how much I bring to this team. That’s at the moment. But then that smile is now 15 years later, remembering what that pain brought in, call it hazing or just a tough brotherly process, whatever it is. Ultimately, when I got to that team, and knowing I was never good enough, and knowing I always wanted to figure out another way to help the guy next to me, it was never about me. And I made it about me for a while. You know, I wanted to be the best, I wanted to be the fastest, I wanted them to know it. But then, you know, by year three or four of them still just kicking your dick in, you kind of realize that has nothing to do with you, it only matters what you can do to the guy to your left and right.

27:26 Wow, so they really instill that team spirit. And by doing so, they break the ego down. And that’s what you want, I guess. That is what you want. Yeah. Okay.

27:40 Just back to fear really quick. I mean, can you remember a time where you were scared, either in combat or in the UFC, and how you dealt with it? I mean, you’re here like cowboy Simone said every time he walks down, he’s like, what the hell am I doing this for? You know, I’ve talked to a bunch of fighters that, you know, 10 minutes before they’re scared before they go in there. Do you remember those times for you? And do you remember how you processed it? Yeah, I’ve been fortunate and unfortunate in the sense that I have always been in a world that was inherently dangerous. And, you know, growing up with a father that was, you know, in very special counter narcotics units going in and stealing plain fulls of cocaine from Pablo Escobar, you’re like, my dad did that, you know, walking in to bring him and his friends coffee in the middle of the night, and they’re all sitting around a palette of cocaine, you know, however many hundreds of kilos that is sitting there with MP fives, as they’re sipping on coffee, you know, like, I’m joking, but not joking as you’re like, can you go grab us some donuts, you know, it’s like, of course, again, you know, it’s pretty cool. And but I thought for sure, there were times I was going to die, you know, I remember getting blown up in Afghanistan, you know, the the car in front of me disappearing, you know, landing on my hood and blood and whatever else was in in there on top of the windshield, backing up, you know, and having to

29:12 Run down there and try to grab bodies from underneath that vehicle. And having got Taliban run from tree lines that were 10 feet away, and I have this like long sniper rifle. And trying and I have a half a body in my other hand completely battle like tactically ineffective. And like for sure, I’m about to die in the next second. And then my buddy Mike, sitting on top of an M2 50 cal machine gun, making those guys that are 10 feet from me, just turn into vapor. And but I remember like feeling the overpressure of that 50 cal round fly through the air at 2000 feet per second. And and like, it felt like I was getting hit by Chuck Liddell. That’s just the overpressure of the bullet flying past my head. And that was the beginning of a three day gunfight. Where, you know, that first night we were swarmed by 400 something Taliban. There were 12 Special Forces guys. Those, those nightmares are, are living pure fear. Like I’m in every moment, like I was, I wasn’t like fearful, I was living in fear, that every second, you know, where you’re here, as that round cracks past your head.

30:27 And I, you know, you finally just pass out after fighting for 30 something hours. And you wake up in as if you were like a gopher, I dug into the ground, a couple of inches and I woke up and I was like, there’s two or three inches of dirt on top of me, I literally burrowed into the ground. And I get out and I look down, I’m covered in another man’s intestines and blood, and probably some of my own throw up and crap. Because I had overpressure, overpressure sickness from getting blown up. And it’s like, I don’t even know whose poop and blood was whose at this point.

31:03 And like now I’m day two of a three day gunfight. Yeah, I scared Brian, you know, I was like, I’m going to die, but I’m not going to quit.

31:16 And that was because of the training they gave you. Preparation. That’s right. Yeah. The training is like, not that it takes over. It’s not like there’s like this, oh, here’s a training part of my brain that’s going to like kick in. But like the rational part of the brain, which is like, I’m so freaking scared right now. I don’t know what to do. And that’s like, wait a second. Yeah, I do know what to do. I got to find work.

31:37 I got to go over there, grab some more grenades, grab some more rounds. And then I have to figure out where these bad guys are. I got to get to high ground. I got to figure out what this wind direction is for these long shots. I’m about to take like this is, um, I got to get work. And the only way that you’re going to know what to do is by preparation and training. And you’ve called that like a big aha moment for you that that time when you got blown up in Afghanistan, like what, what did you learn over those three days?

32:07 Um, I learned that I’m going to be the hardest person somebody ever tries to kill. You know, um, you might have me outnumbered, you might have the high ground, you might have been sitting here picking the, the what you’re going to try to kill me with, how you’re going to kill me, um, who is going to kill me, when you’re going to kill me, why you’re going to kill me, you might have picked all five of those five W’s. Um, I don’t care. I will be the hardest bastard you ever tried to kill. And, um, and that’s not just like, you’re like, I pull my shirt off and all of a sudden I’m wearing this like hard to kill thing. Like that came from just like building that tool for the ranch. It came from a forging process of pain and suffering. And that wasn’t like I could just be like, okay, hard to kill mode activated. It’s like F you and all of your friends, you’re not going to, you’re not going to kill me today. And, um, because I’ve done the work and I’m done the preparation and I’m going to find the next thing I’m going to live to the next moment. I’m going to move to the next piece of cover cover. I’m going to, you know, there was a, there was a moment where I was sitting there behind my empty sniper rifle, looking over the battlefield to try to find a gun on the ground so I can run and pick it up. So I’d have bullets and, uh, but that’s the will. That’s the will to fight, right? Like, um, and if somebody ran on top of me, they would have died, they would

33:28 Have died being beaten to death with this big metal club. That was my sniper rifle that has no bullets. You know, it didn’t matter. So did those three days prove to you as well that you were kind of as bad as you hoped you were, or that the training really worked on you or did it, did it help for the future to know that you’ve been through that? It helped for the future, but it also reinforced that I’m not good enough.

33:51 It reinforced that I was not prepared enough. I was not trained enough. I had not brought, um, not that I was the weakest, weakest leak of the team, but I should have been able to do more. Um, I should have been more prepared. I should have been better trained. I should have had more equipment. I should have, um, like looked at what that moment was going to, cause we knew it was coming, you know, we knew we were going to be ambushed. Um, and we had prepared for it and we had thought we had trained for it, you know, but then you’re in it. Um, so leaving there and to this day, I still, you know, if you, if you look at like, why are you still working out two times a day? Why are you shooting five days a week? Why are you still jumping out of helicopters at 40, you know, like tomorrow, O’Brien, as soon as I wake up, the sun is going to be, uh, just cresting the horizon.

34:41 I’ll be at Reveley peak ranch with a 6.5 cream, more scar, um, and 12 of my buddies sweating for the next 12 hours and 98 degree stupid Texas humidity. Um, because we want to suffer. We want to sweat. We want to feel that heat and we’re going to be in body armor. We’re going to have our helmets on, um, day before the 4th of July, even more ironic. And because like when you’re sweat, when you’re just covered in sweat and it’s like acid in your eyes and there’s like dirt in your hands and there’s dirt in your gun. Heck, there’s dirt in your crotch, you know, like your, your, your hands are slippery and callous. Um, when that is easy, like when at that moment when you’re like, this isn’t that hard, everything else is easy.

35:26 Everything. And this is for a military op tomorrow or this is just you guys doing something doing your own off Friday. Just Friday. And what are you doing again? Like, what will the day look like? Use some code and lingo. I don’t know.

35:41 Uh, we will get up at dawn and we will drive to a training facility, a bunch of other special operations guys from different fields. Um, but we work together sometimes. Uh, and it’s like a training day where we have like, we’re not working. We’re still in our military capacity, but it’s our training day. So we get to kind of pick what that looks like. So when you let us pick what our day is going to look like, it’s going to look like pure pain and suffering. You’re like, I think a rational person would like, wait a second, you were, you were by choice, making your day start at 6am and finish at 11pm. You’re going to be in a body armor for what is going to be about 16 hours with all of your gear, with all of your ammo, and the whole entire time you’re going to be running from different positions, shooting things. Um, you’re packing in all your own water. You’re packing in all of your own food.

36:35 Um, I was like, yeah, yes, we are. You know, yeah, it sounds good. And that’s why I see you posting pictures on your Instagram in pools of sweat as you knock out some, some CrossFit wad, like to the 10th power or something. This is, this isn’t, that’s not just you preparing for these operations. That’s just you preparing for life, for life. Yeah, just, just for life, you know, um, my, uh, my son, we climbed up to the top of this tree stand, this deer stand that overlooks this back pasture where we have these deer feeders because my buddy was flying this Agusta helicopter into land in this field. So it’s just big, powerful, huge, um, helicopter. And we’re sitting up on the top of it and my son sees the helicopter come in and he starts leaning forward as the helicopter starts flaring a little bit to land. And he falls from the top of this tower and we’re probably 25 feet in the air.

37:35 I am holding on with one hand and I grabbed the collar kind of shoulder, um, and arm of him. And you know, he’s a, he’s a five-year-old, so what is he, 60 pounds? And I’m holding up his, his weight and my 210 pound body as a helicopter rudder wash is like shaking the whole entire thing. Um, like I’m training for life. You know, like I sit down for a call to negotiate, you know, the purchase of, of a building in like one of the entrepreneurial worlds that I live in, you know, and they’re like, they’re, they’re starting to throw stress and like, ah, well, you’re going to have to do this and this and this and this.

38:11 I’m like, I was like sweating acid four hours ago. There’s nothing in this conversation that is going to stress me out. You know, like the hardest part of my day was, was four hours ago when I was literally lying there in what looked like a puddle of piss that was sweat. Um, and all of it smelled like, like vinegar and bleach because that’s what your body sounds, smells like when it starts eating itself when it’s mad at you. And, uh, and everything else is easy after that, you know, um, just back to that, to the military. Um, do you, did it take time to process what happened over those three days or, you know, we always hear about PTSD and is that because people don’t process these things correctly or aren’t, aren’t thinking about things correctly?

39:02 Or how did that play out with you? Yeah, I don’t, I don’t, it’s not that, um, yeah, not sometimes they don’t want to process them. Sometimes they don’t address them and sometimes they don’t have the ability to process them. Um, not that I’m like a high functioning human, you know, but like I have good friends and I have good relationships and I have good healthy habits. You know, like I, I don’t drink. Um, I don’t do drugs, you know, I don’t smoke. Um, I get good sleep at night. You know, I have sex and monogamous relationship, my wife, you know, like there’s, there’s lots of really good healthy things in my life that let me be able to handle a lot of things that I do. And then growing up in a house where, you know, my dad would come home and you know, he’s like, I went to a meth lab today and they thought they were putting the baby in the crib and they put it in the microwave. And, uh, that’s where I found the baby. It’s been there for three days. Um, you know, I’m like watching my dad work through those same interpersonal struggles. Um, uh, in a healthy way, right? Like I didn’t see him go and grab a bottle of Jack and be like, all right, come here kids. And like smacks us around and puts the bottle up and now like he hits out there, he’d, he’d cry, he’d struggle. And this is a six foot four Olympic narcotics officer, a blue suit, red tie machine gun, palates of cocaine, watching him cry because he couldn’t save a kid. Um, like those are the, that’s the formate. When

40:36 We talk about like the foundation of a human, like that, that was my foundation, the building blocks and stones of my grandpa and my uncle and my dad, where, um, like I’m not going to not say I struggle with memories of what happened during that time. Um, horrible things happen. War is horrible. Uh, moments that I regret. Um, and, but nothing heals regret and pain, like sweat and work, you know, and I think again, the easy solution that people, uh, man, I have these memories, I’m having these nightmares. Like I can just pick up that bottle right there and I can drink them away. Like, yeah, that’s the easy solution. How is that going to work for you for you in two years from now? You know, like, you know, the, the Vietnam vets coming back and they’re sitting there on methadone or heroin addiction, because that’s like just what they prescribe them because it was easy. It’s like, Oh, you’re having trouble sleeping and you’re having these tough memories here. Take this. Like that’s not the right answer. Give them a gym membership, make them eat clean, and then go and make sure that they sweat their balls off for the next two hours and then go get a healthy meal and get a good eight, nine, eight, nine, eight to nine hours of sleep. They’re going to be a pretty better person tomorrow, you know, and, and a little bit of healing time. And then after that, all those positive hormones are flowing, sit down with them and be like, all right, talk to me about what happened. And then

42:04 They just pour it out, you know, um, cause like it’s poison. It’s poison when it’s stuck inside of you. It has to come out and there’s lots of ways to get it out. And there’s lots of healthy ways to get it out. You know, punching a wall, not a healthy way to get it out, you know, going in and doing jiu-jitsu with me for six hours. It’s a pretty healthy option.

42:23 You know, like I will fold you inside of your own clothes, but you’ll feel better afterwards. You know, I’ve had Jaco on the show a couple of times and he, and he always, I like that guy. Yeah. Right. You spend some time with him.

42:38 I do. Yeah. I like him a lot. Yeah. He’s a, he’s a great guy, unique individual, but he, he says, get a mission. Like that’s one thing he encourages guys when they come back to, to find a new mission. And that’s what he kind of accredited with himself. Like when he got back, find a new purpose and find a new thing, whether that’s a business or teaching people or helping other people. I don’t know. He says that’s something that’s missed a lot of times. People come back and they don’t know what to do. I don’t have something to do.

43:03 So they get sometimes caught up in like some of the things you’re talking about. Do you think that’s important? For sure. Um, but pick a hard one, you know, um, like be the, it doesn’t have to be like a mission impossible. Like I’m going to go and rescue kids in Mexico.

43:21 I, you know, like, well, I think the stigma of, um, that’s, you know, like go get a mission is you try to Hollywood it or you try to like over romanticize it, you know, like be a good father, be a good employee. Do you know how hard that is nowadays? You know, like raising teenage daughters, like what does, what does that mean? Does that mean that I’m like monitoring every single text message that they send that like, um, I’m downloading every picture that goes out and comes in, you know, as are they making, I’m forcing them to work out with me.

43:50 I’m cooking them breakfast every single day. Does that mean they have to come in at 9 PM? Like I don’t know what all that means, but I’m going to do my best to be the best version of it that I possibly can. And I know it’s really freaking hard. Um, like it doesn’t have to be this glorious James Bond moment of, of what my mission is. Like it might just be like, be the best UPS driver you can be. Get promoted, try to employ more veterans. You know, if you’re going to start, you’re going to go down the entrepreneurial, uh, track, like understand how much struggle there’s going to be there. You know, but like now I’m in a position where I’m like, I’m, I’m, I’m hiring. What is like, I don’t even know how many veterans we have working for us now. Like I’m about to get another one. It’s awesome.

44:38 What, what are your other memories? Like if you had to think of two other ones from the service and was it hard to, to leave? I know you went back, but to, to leave, you know, before, before you went back. Um, I remember, uh, so we were in Iraq and, um, we were after this guy named Zarkawi who like in the world, Bin Laden was the leader of the Taliban. Number one, um, Zarkawi was the leader of the Al Qaeda in Iraq. This is pre ISIS. Um, and he was number two, most wanted guy on the planet. Um, and we were, I was part of this task force that was made up of some of the most elite units on the planet. And, um, that night we had pretty good information that he or some of his associates were going to be at these series of houses. So we, you know, set up this big target map of this unit’s taking this house. This unit’s taking this house and I was like, so excited. Now this is going to be a helicopter, a helicopter assault force.

45:49 You know, your feet dangling off the side of a black Hawk with your rifle as you fly in and flare up brown out night vision, you know, speckles of, of machine gun fire. You know, I’ve already done a few at this point. And, um, and then one 60th, soar the special operations aviation. They’re like, Hey, we lost one of our birds. It had some bullet holes and we couldn’t fix them. So we have to shuffle our load plan.

46:12 Well, I was the least experienced guy. And, um, you know, like even the night before we, we had this awesome mission. I thought I was such a badass. I’m still on the point where I hadn’t realized yet that it wasn’t about me. Um, and my team sergeant says, Hey, you’re going to stay back. You’re going to be part of the QRF like a good, a good soldier would have been like, dude, awesome. Okay. Um, I’m going to make sure every single weapon has the right fill in the radios or every single truck has the right fills in the radios. Every single machine gun has been head spaced and timing and loaded.

46:46 I’m going to make sure like we’ve got extra ammo and extra grenades and extra water and extra food. They’re going to have like all these redundancies, all the, you know, everything. That’s what a good one would have been, would have done, you know, but it says like, Oh, come on, John. Now, like, you know, I’m the fastest, I’m the strongest, I’m the best shooter on the team. You’re like, look how I did the other night.

47:03 You know, I’m like super star Tim Kennedy. Like you need me on this mission. He’s like, do you not just hear what I said? I said, go to the trucks and prep for QRF. I was like, all right. You’ll, you know, whatever. You’ll regret this. You’ll wish I was there. So we’ll talk about this later. So we come back and, um, thank God, nothing happened that night because I just sat there pouting, um, on my truck.

47:28 Now I took care of my gun, but I didn’t help anybody else with anything else. The team comes back from the helicopter assault force mission and, uh, the team sergeant’s like, Hey, go get your gloves, uh, and meet me down in the training tent. So it was like, Oh yeah. I mean, like I’ve already been a professional fighter. I came into the military ranked top 10 in the world. So I was like, I’m going to scuff my boss up and he’s never going to forget who is the biggest, baddest dude on this team.

47:55 And I walk in and the whole entire team is there. All 12 of them and all 12 of them have their gloves. So, you know, I fought, I fight my, my senior, the 18 Bravo, uh, Ben Rios. And I beat him up and then I fight, uh, Carlos wheeze and I beat him up. I fight Dave Frederick’s and I beat him up. And I find Ricky Blevins and I beat him up.

48:14 Now I fight, uh, I get to, uh, Shane and Mario, I beat up Mario pretty easy. And I get Shane Shane was golden, golden, golden glove boxer. I’ve already bought now six green berets and, um, Shane started, uh, laying it on me a little bit. I finally put him down and I go on a fight the captain and he, he, he boxed and, uh, he put it to me a little bit, but I still felt pretty good. I still have four guys to go. And, uh, and those next four guys, uh, beat, not beat me to an inch of my life, but they beat the living crap out of me.

48:51 And, um, and no, not a single word was said. It wasn’t like, you know, the whole thing was you were only as good as your team that nobody said it, but that’s what it was. You know, like you are part of the 12 of us and you can be on this side, a bloody mess, or you can be on, on, on our side and part of this cohesive team that can together cannot be defeated. And, uh, and I, you know, I’m sitting there. Thank God I didn’t lose any teeth. And I remember like, there’s blood coming out of, out of both of my nose and my mouth and I spit my mouthpiece out on the dirt ground and it’s covered in blood and John gets down and he’s like, I just don’t want to have to talk about this again. It’s one team. And, uh, he stands up and walks out and as humiliating, you know, it was like, I was just humiliated in front of everybody at the moment, like they all knew that this was a lesson I had to learn and they weren’t ashamed for me.

49:54 Like they knew that this was the process, but me still as a selfish little prick, I was just embarrassed. And I was like, I, I could have beat the 12 of them. And you know, I was so obviously dumb to not be able to figure it out yet. Um, but you know, that was a lesson I wish I would have learned a little bit earlier and probably have learned about 10 times since. Did you learn it that day or not? Not, not well enough. Okay.

50:20 That’s a lot of love to do that for you that night, right? I mean, is that what that is from those guys? That is exactly what that is. I mean, in today’s standards, that’s a horrific moment of hazing, right? Like every single one of those people should be fired. You know, I was like, no, that was pure, unadulterated love that they are pouring into me every single time that they hit me. And, um, you know, maybe saved my life. Two years later in Afghanistan, maybe one of those punches was the punch that saved my life.

50:52 So when you look at the world today, where those guys could have been sanctioned if there was video footage of that and fired, what do you think what’s happening to our world? I think, uh, hard times are going to make hard men. Right now we have weak, weak men and women that are, that are looking at the impending hard times and they don’t know what to do. And they’re going to realize that hard people are valuable and that, um, and, and there’s a difference between tough and hard, you know, like, um, an abusive father is an abusive father.

51:31 Like my dad, my dad never lay hat on me in anger. Uh, my grandpa, my uncles never did, right? Um, like they discipline me, like my team, they never hit me out of anger or, or hate or toughness. Like they, they, they hurt me out of love. And that sounds crazy counterintuitive, but like it’s the truth. Um, so as I like look out at the landscape and in the future, yeah, I’m worried. Um, you know, like people throw hate at, you know, Gen Z’s and millennials.

51:58 Um, but they’re the smartest generation of people that we have ever had and they can process information faster than anyone has ever been able to process things and they can do things more effectively and efficiently than I think we have ever been able to do anything, but they’re going to have to learn what work looks like. And when those two, think about how beautiful Brian, how possible the endless possibilities, like we were talking about, you know, in, in, in the sixties, in the early sixties, how are we going to get to the moon? Like, you know, we had, we had a computer the size of these gun states behind me that could do the, like half of what one of our phones can do now.

52:35 And, um, and now these kids know how to build them and operate them. Um, you know, there is a component missing, but when those two things come together, like that hard work, that, and that initiative and intelligence, like, like Mars is going to be easy. Like it’s not going to take Elon Musk to get there. It’s going to be a bunch of generations and millennials being like, they’re going to get up early. They’re going to figure out, they’re going to have to pour themselves a second cup of coffee and they’re going to stay up late to figure out how to do something, but they’re going to figure it out. When’s that going to happen?

53:09 God, I hope soon. I think we got, I got, I think we got some pain ahead of us, but, um, you know, some more, more monuments are going to be torn down. More buildings are going to burn. More people are going to live in fear. And, um, and at some point people are going to wake up and they’ll be like, ah, so we’ve got to come together and struggle together to be able to accomplish these things.

53:33 Um, you know, like anybody can be defeated when they’re divided, divided, you know, like if you look at that special forces, ODA, um, you know, I got eight dudes deep before they started beating the brakes off me. Imagine if there was only six of them. Well, if we just cut them in half, you’re like Democrats on one side, Republicans on the other, or like millennials and boomers, or, you know, like Gen Z’s or whatever, whatever the division is, or like pro BLM, whatever you can figure out how to divide people and how easy I could have just smoked those six dudes, just beat the brakes off them, right? But like together, like I didn’t stand a chance. That’s, that’s like, but it has to be this collective understanding of how strong we are together. And, uh, and that like those radical fringes don’t help anyone, but this collective power is like insurmountable and undefeatable.

54:30 Let’s talk about that because I’m, you know, I’ve watched some of your Instagram posts and they’re, they’re really thoughtful, Tim. I think a lot of people see you and they see the resume. I just read off and they just think you’re just this hard ass, you know, robot special forces guy, but you’re like an emotional guy, you know, you really give a shit about people. I think that’s what I get from you. And when I read your posts, I see a guy, I mean, honestly, I see a guy who’s in pain watching other people in pain and watching the division. Um, you’re not just some right wing guy and saying, don’t do that. Don’t do that. You’re actually trying to figure out a solution, but you’re also holding your own principles up and saying, yeah, but you can’t do this. Um, am I getting that right from you?

55:11 And what, what do you see? Um, well, thanks. Uh, that, that is what I, what I, how I feel, you know, and, and, and I’m not somebody that can like express emotion well, sometimes. And, and social media is a really difficult venue, uh, medium to try to express anything. Um, and you know, when I, I’ve lost friends in wars fighting for this idea of this constitution of Republic, you know, like this freedom thing, um, like good friends, you know, friends that I went to their kids baptisms and I went to their birthdays and I was at their weddings or I officiated their weddings and, um, like those friends are dead.

55:51 And so when I, when I see this happening around me in my country, it hurts and I, and I take it personally and I want to do something and I want to help. Um, and I, I try my best to, but I’m imperfect and I’m human. And obviously the lens that I view this world through is, is not, is not similar to most people’s because I, the lens that I have looked through has always been a pretty crazy lens. Um, and, and everything I try to say and everything I try to do, it is for the protection preservation of people, you know, it’s like, I love mankind, you know, and I love how beautiful humans are. And I have seen, because I’ve seen the absolute most disgusting foreign like human trafficking, murdering terrorist group on the planet. But I also see that 13 year old give up his last morsel of food to his sibling. Um, and this most extreme circumstances, uh, makes me think that we are the most beautiful thing that could ever happen.

57:04 And, um, what we should do is, is, is not necessarily listen to me. You know, like I said, I try not to make decisions out of fear. I try to be rational and logical. So when I, when I look at a problem where they’re like, Hey, defund the police, you know, like get rid of those. I’m like, yeah, I mean, maybe there’s a bunch of things police shouldn’t have to do. Like we’re asking too much of them. You know, you’re, you’re, you’re saying defend defund that I’m saying they need more training and they need more support.

57:34 Like if you don’t want them to go to a domestic violence call because they’re not trained in, in how to, um, you know, defuse to emotionally charged people, maybe there has been violence there, like perhaps a six foot two police officer that just came off of a shooting downtown last week. Maybe he’s not the right guy to go in there and do that. You’re right. But that means we have to one, make sure that they have training. If you are expecting them to do that or a different group can come in to do that. Um, you know, but ultimately we have to have somebody that’s going to stand up on the wall to be there to protect us.

58:16 And, um, so what is the solution? You know, um, I, I try to, to encourage people to take, you know, this Socratic approach to, you know, I’m asking questions. Like I don’t have all the answers, but I want people to be part of this communication, uh, and the process. Cause again, the collective genius of, of our people can do anything. But right now we’re just sitting there and being like, you’re nitpicking the grammar or something, or you’re yelling at somebody because they don’t agree with you with the most like minute, subtle, nuanced points that you made. It doesn’t matter. Let’s find common ground and figure out how to do these together.

58:55 Like, yeah, if you don’t pull down all the, the slave monuments, like even though I’m somebody that believes history’s important, you know, and like, I, I might even want like a, a monument to Mao and Hitler and Stalin and all the other guys that have done horrible things. We never forget about what they did, what they did, but I’m not Jewish. Like if I was Jewish, I probably want to, want to monument up there and I understand that. So, okay. So then what do we do to make all of us stronger and come together, but like burning a city of the ground or like setting up an autonomous zone or defunding a police, like those aren’t rational solutions. They’re the solutions made out of, uh, or decisions and suggestions made out of fear and anything made out of fear never can be, never can grow fruit. It’s poison.

59:43 I appreciate those thoughts. Um, and I just wanted to read off an Instagram post that you made and it was, uh, I just thought it was powerful. And so if you don’t mind, I’m just going to read it. And I think it was kind of in response to what happened with George Floyd and then, you know, uh, your thoughts on policing and, and it goes like this. You said, quote, I stayed up all night racking my brain about how to prevent this tragedy from ever happening again.

1:00:08 We have to change the culture of the law enforcement community, one that believes in service, sacrifice, and humility. You have to suffer. The only place that you can create this culture is through training. And I’m paraphrasing a bit, but I’ll keep going. I would quote the statistics about how undertrained they are, but it’s different from state to state. And every state is horrifically under trained at every step of the way to the badge and the right to keep wearing one.

1:00:30 You have to sweat, you have to bleed, you have to fail, you have to work, you have to make sacrifices. It’s a forging fire. I know countless police officers that are amazing and do the right thing. Truthfully, I don’t know any of these quote unquote bad apples, the men and women that train with me and my family members that have sworn to protect and serve are some of the most selfless humans I’ve ever met. But the police are not the only ones to blame in all of this. I see looters running into foot lockers, rioters destroying city blocks and burning them to the ground.

1:00:56 I also see anarchists, anarchists using this opportunity to wreak havoc. We need to be reasonable. We need to be honest, straightforward. And matter of fact, is someone to be in a criminal, they have to be treated like a criminal. If someone’s trying to peacefully protest, they need to be protected and allowed their right to do so. Nobody gets a pass because their emotions are high. I will stand with all real peaceful black lives matter protesters, but every single criminal needs to be brought to justice. I stand with the thin blue line.

1:01:23 These are hashtags, but you need training. You need to pick the right people. You need to keep them trained. You have to keep them humble. And that badge never gives you an authority to ever step on someone’s freedom or their neck. I believe in freedom. I believe in every amendment of the constitution and stand by them equally. It’s one of those documents that you don’t just get to pick and choose from. I also believe that it belongs to everyone equally. What’s it like? What’s it like when I read that back to you?

1:01:51 I still stand by every word. I’ve never heard it out loud. You write it in your head, and then you put it on Instagram. And then you watch the cesspool, the petri dish of all these negative bacterias that fester and rot in comment section. Sometimes it hurts, but at least they’re talking. Sometimes it hurts because you mistook what I meant there.

1:02:28 Oftentimes, the things that I said, I always have the best intention. And when you’re taking single sentences and taking them out of context and removing the intent of what I’m trying to say, you could take a single sentence of that and be like, oh, Tim is only for the police. Tim is fully for protesters and Black Lives Matter. Actually, both of those are true. If you just put them together and read the whole entire thing, if you put a zen diagram and you started making circles of like, I support the police. And I also think that there should be radical changes against racism in this country. And what happened to George Floyd is horrific and should never happen again. And you’ll actually find that there’s this huge overlap from those three bubbles.

1:03:16 And right in the middle, and I think 90% of people are there. But then the fringe groups and all three of those respective bubbles are sitting there yelling at each other and the group in the middle is being like, wait a second. I agree with all of you guys. I’m for you protesting. That is part of being American. I’m absolutely for people standing up and protecting the weak. And that’s what law enforcement is about. So I’m for you guys.

1:03:40 What happened to George Floyd? That’s horrible. Regardless if he was a criminal and he had done horrific things, what happened to him as an individual, we should never let happen to anyone ever again. So like, wait a second. Do I just agree with everybody? All right. That’s the beginning. So then how do we come together and find solutions? Well, you’ll never do it if you’re sitting there yelling at each other from your opposite bubble. Like you got to come to the middle. You got to come to the not fear based emotion and start being a human and rational and loving one another. And social media is like the most unnuanced way of getting your opinion out there. I’m sure you’ve thought maybe I just shouldn’t put this out there because it’s going to create all that cesspool. But what makes you do it?

1:04:29 Belief and hope. I know hope is a bad plan. It doesn’t work. I could have been driving into Afghanistan and been like, all right, I’m going to hope for the best here. That’s not a good plan. But I really believe in the people of this country and in the world that they will do the right thing. The process to get there might be painful and arduous. But if you look through the entire duration of recorded histories from World War I to World War II and to us stopping the ending of slavery. And we’re on a trajectory that is always getting better. But it is like this. But if you step back, you see this common thread of us taking care of each other. We’re like, no, you don’t get to wipe a group of people off the planet. Matter of fact, all of us are going to come together to fight you on that. No, you can’t ever have another human as a slave. We’re all going to agree with that. No, you shouldn’t hurt young kids or buy them and sell them. We’re all going to come together on that. Well, there were periods of time where those ideas were perfectly acceptable.

1:05:51 But over time, we have had this trajectory of always getting better. The process sometimes is a murderous, violent path. But ultimately, that path is always improving. And that’s my faith. And that’s my hope. And that’s my belief is that we as a species will be like, all right, we got this. We’ll just make it a little bit better.

1:06:16 And what happens when you throw digital media in the middle of all that? And now we’re communicating with each other digitally, with no nuance, with no facial expressions, with no tone of voice, and also not even in the same room. And then also, sometimes you don’t even know if they’re people with these messages. So what do you make of that? You talk about this incredible generation of whatever you want to call millennials, Gen X, all that stuff. And I agree.

1:06:39 They’ve also grown up in this strange way of communicating, which is it’s kind of inhuman by definition. Yeah. It’s fun, because I’ve got to, you know, with a big social media presence of, you know, millions of people across social media, people will say mean things to me. They’ll sometimes even like tough guy, violent things. And it’s kind of comical, because I’m like, you know, I’m like, like an ogre murderous professional fighter, right? Like, but you’re acting like a tough guy to me right now. And then I’ll see them in person.

1:07:22 You know, they’re like, Oh, hey, Mr. Kennedy, like, Oh, no, no, we’re way past that, you know, like, you don’t you don’t get to like, backtrack into the words that you said, what you said was this, now you need to say them to my face and my person to like, to me as a person, you know, like you said, and see the pain and the hurt that those words will cause me. And also maybe deal with the repercussions of having to say that to my face, because I might just slap you. Like, you don’t know, like, welcome to human interaction. And you’ve met these people. Yes, okay. Yeah, a few times. And that happens with my kids.

1:08:02 So even my teenage daughters who like think that, you know, from from Twitter to TikTok to Instagram, you know, their story modes, and or like they’re with me and I do a story and then we’re at a place and somebody’s like, Hey, I saw you guys doing this, that I think sometimes there there’s this perceived barrier, this wall as if they’re two separate worlds. But it’s the same world, like it might be digitally separated. But those things will collide and they will have to reconcile in some way. Like road rage, I think is a really great example of what happens like somebody’s driving down the car in their car, you know, they cut somebody off and that person honks at them. They’re like, Oh, yeah, they flip them off, you know, and then all of a sudden the car behind them comes up and like stops and they get out and they walk up and they’re like, Why did you flip me off? You cut me off. And then you flipped me off. And the person inside the car, they’re like rolling up the window, they’re like, I’m not going to look at this window, there’s nobody there. Like they think that there’s like the separation, like this digital separation. But like, hey, man, that that time where you thought that you’re isolated and be able to say whatever you wanted and do whatever you wanted to do without any consequence, you know, that time has passed. Now, now you have to reconcile what you did with what the situation is now. And I think that is going to happen more

1:09:30 And more and more. And the that that line of digital separation will erode as we realize that we are one people and we are we are all collectively connected. And, you know, like hand hashtag and Tifa burn it down or bring it down. Like, you still have to go there to that place to do that thing in real life. And there might be some buddy like me standing there being like, no, you don’t you don’t get to burn this down. Like there’s a process for that to happen. And I’m going to stand here because I know it’s the right thing to do until you figure out what the proper way to do this is. Or you can try it the hard way. And I’m cool with the hard way.

1:10:15 Do you say you think this will get better over time, perhaps? Yes. Do you think we’ll look back into the 20s, like 100 years, we’ll look back into the 20s and say, oh, man, we were just punks. We just were so fresh to the digital age that we shit all over each other. And now we realize you can’t do that.

1:10:33 Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I hope you’re right. There was this article recently about the fact that they’ve uncovered information that, you know, the Russians had actually given money to put out, you know, hits on troops overseas and, you know, probably something you experienced and you put out a comment about that. But you also took it a step further and said, you know, Russians and Chinese funding isn’t just in wars and against people like you overseas, but it’s also happening in our own homes. Can you just talk a little bit more about that? Both points.

1:11:09 Yeah. I mean, how incredibly naive would it be for us to to assume that our enemies and they are our enemies, the Chinese and Russians, if they are paying to have terrorists kill soldiers overseas, do you not think that they would be trying to undermine the fabric of our society here? Like that is the most irrational thing ever to be like they would go to such an extreme to be paying terrorists to kill Americans that they wouldn’t come on to Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or TikTok and and try to rile you up that they wouldn’t pay to deliver a pallet of bricks in Dallas, that they wouldn’t preposition bottles full of gasoline in Atlanta that of course they would. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world, right? Like they have found an opportunity and maybe a torn little bit in the fabric and the seam of our nation’s cohesiveness. And they’re like, Oh, we got to divide this right now. It would be insane. We know they’ve been doing it for decades, decades. If you go back to the fifties, they have been trying to implement the same plan since then. They play this very, very, very long game. They have like we call them Jedbergs, which are when you think of the spy, you think of like this espionage sneaky guy that’s going to like come in here and like cut wires or like assassinate somebody. Like maybe in the in the spy world, that’s 5%. The other 95% are at a protest. They’re in Washington DC working for a lobbyist. They are trying to get a tenure at a medical institution.

1:13:03 Like that’s that’s really the majority of it. They are trying to become a professor at Harvard. Like those are the really damaging ones that over time, they’ll be able to plant seeds of anti American sentiment that will grow and flourish. And they do this over generations and they’re really, really good at it. But I don’t know how we as we watch what is a great protest. Like we’re against racism for sure, right? If you’re against racism, raise your hand.

1:13:34 Everybody raises your hand. Like are you against somebody putting their knee on somebody for nine minutes and choking them to death? Yep. Everybody’s going to raise their hand. Like are you for taking Molotov cocktails and throwing it inside of a target? No, no crickets, right? Like nobody’s for that. So how is this happening? Well, like emotions are high, fear is high. And then there are professional agitators. You can call them whatever you want. I call them Jedbergs because like that’s what we call them on our side. And these guys are literally putting gasoline on already a burning fire, like literally figuratively and metaphorically. And it is completely for the sole purpose of dividing this country. During the elections in 2016, it was widely reported that both Russian and Chinese bots were manipulating social media and the election. Totally true. Why would, did they stop doing that? And they’re like, oh, all right, I guess we’re done. No, that’s crazy, right? They just got, they got even better at it. And you think that they’re like just far alt right dudes, neo-nazi dudes? No, they’re not. Do you think that they’re just Antifa, just like BLM, just pro textures? No, they’re not. There are a ton of them on both groups, like pro LGBTQ, anti-LGBTQ, and they get so good. Like they’re, they’re completely, they’re not fake accounts because they’re real people that are running a variety of accounts and they are members of these groups. And you know, they’re like, so let’s say it’s,

1:15:09 It’s Tim Kennedy Green Beret at whatever, Instagram. And I’m like, yeah, yeah, Brian, that’s a really great idea. We should totally go and do that. Fantastic. And you’re like, hey, I like this guy. I’m gonna like his comment and like your friends like me. And then over time, over years, that account gets stronger and there’s more support. And then occasionally, I’ll like go over to that Antifa group and be like, oh, F you guys, you guys suck. And then like all of my friends and your friends are like, Hey, yeah, I’m with, I’m with Tim on that. That’s a great plan. You guys suck. But all the while I’m also running an account over on the Antifa side, same, same, same little spy that guy is over there. And I’m the first to reply. And I’m like, Oh, you, you guys suck. You know, you Brian suck, you know, you Tim and all of your guys suck. And like, then it gets even hotter. And then even the more hateful things are said the whole entire time. It’s one guy running two accounts on opposite ends of the conversation that is just stoking the fire of hate. This, we know they do that. We know they’re doing that. And they’re doing it in real time. We’re talking about digital separation. To them, it’s not. They, they, they plant the bricks, they plant the Molotov cocktails, they put specific agitators at these protests to make it from a peaceful protest to a riot to alluding to a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

1:16:28 And then once that, once that wheel is turning, man, they don’t have to do anything else. They can just hang back, get back online and say some more crap. So yeah. And yet most people probably don’t know that’s happening. But if they did, like, so, so you’ve just said this, if people are not in their head and saying, maybe that Tim is probably right.

1:16:46 What do we do with that information? Stop reacting out of fear and hate, first of all, because the person that’s sitting there stoking the fire and poking and pushing your buttons to get you all fired up, dude, that might be some Russian or Chinese bot guy sitting over there, be like, got this idiot. Cool. Another dumb American is playing into my plan. You know, now just relax, man. We’re all on the same side. We literally all agree with each other.

1:17:13 There are some like little things that we need to tweak and improve about our society. Sure. We can go take down the statue of Christopher Columbus in Columbus, Ohio. I’m fine with that. Maybe I think it should stay. But if you think it should go, cool. We’ll figure it out.

1:17:25 But, um, but to sit there and like to throw hate and to think about burning something down or destroying something and be like, Hey, that’s Starbucks. We should go smash that window. Oh, fortunately, there’s a bunch of bricks right here. How convenient. You’re like, come on, man. Don’t be so naive. Don’t be so easily played. And don’t forget that we have real enemies out there that are trying to do us harm. The best thing they can possibly, the best case scenario they could have is us to continue down the path that we’re on, which is hating each other. Now, what do you say to the kid who’s 20 years old who says, Tim, they’re not our enemies. Why do we have to fight with them?

1:18:01 Can’t we just get along? We’re trying to make peace with Russia. The Chinese make our phones. But what do you say to that argument that that’s an old way of thinking or that’s a military guy’s way of thinking? I’m not saying I agree.

1:18:14 They are literally right now in China, um, prohibiting forcing abortions on Muslims. Like right now, um, am I Muslim? No. Do I think forcing somebody to not be able to have a child or the child they’re carrying has to be aborted because I don’t believe with their religion. That’s, that’s pretty un-American, right? So I’m like, yeah, I’m against that.

1:18:37 Like, do you know what they do to homosexuals in those countries? Like, I’m not homosexual. I have a beautiful wife with some fantastic kids. Do I care what you do? Absolutely not. Do I support you being able to make any life decision that you want about whatever your sexual preferences or sexual identity? For sure. I will go make you a marijuana hemp-based cake that says like, love wins in a beautiful gay rainbow and bring it over to you and I will officiate your wedding. Cause that’s what being American is, you know, but like you’re pushing a gay dude off the top of the roof. We’re going to have, we’re going to have a problem. You’re like, you’re going to have to fight me to get to that guy.

1:19:12 And, uh, so to those kids, you’ve got to wake up. Do not believe what you are seeing on the digital side, because that is manipulated. And that is not true. Go see it firsthand. Come with me to the countries that I have been to and see what happens firsthand to the, to the, to those outline groups and those, those disenfranchised small ethnic groups that, you know, maybe in North Iraq, like the Kurds, it’s been pretty rough there. Um, you know, like I’ve seen it firsthand. Don’t tell me, I don’t know what I’m talking about.

1:19:46 Cause like I picked up the dead bodies. Right. Now I appreciate you saying that. And I mean, the truth is we’re always going to have some conflicts of interest with the Russians and the Chinese or some other superpower. There will always be conflicts of economic and political interests. And so this is something we’ll probably have to deal with for a while, which is why we need to maybe get United, right? Yeah. Yeah. We’ve, we’ve, uh, we’ve been doing this for 30 years and we’re going to do it for another 40. Um, if we don’t get United, do you see some hope out there, Tim? You know, I mean, I know that you do because it’s crazy in the streets and even crazier on social. It’s crazy for me watching America from over here.

1:20:29 You know, the last time I saw, I mean, I remember the LA riots. I flew into LA a month after those riots, but you know, it’s crazy to watch. What’s the hope you see? Um, I see, so everything that we see in, in real, in, in, I’m saying in real time, right? Like you turn on the news, you’re like, Oh man, another place is on fire. Um, like Austin, Texas, where I am right now. And they had this big protest and like, it was like 10,000 people, which is a ton of people. And I totally agree with them protesting and doing what they’re doing.

1:21:06 Like there’s a few million people that live here, you know, and, and we’re all just like, yeah, hey, great, great job guys. You know, totally support you. Like here’s some water because it’s hot out here because you’re in Texas. Sorry about that. But keep protesting. Um, you’re like, everything that you’re going to see on the news and online, it’s, it’s all clickbait and it’s all fabricated for a visceral, emotional response, hopefully based in fear, because that means that you’re going to stay, you know, the Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter algorithms, they want like the, the best time that they make money is when there’s tons of comments and tons of interaction. And there’s lots of re-shares and there’s lots of people get pissed off. Like that’s the best case scenario for them. Because that means that there’s more eyeballs there. If there’s more eyeballs there, that means that there’s more people paying for the advertisement. And that’s means their advertiser has to pay them more money. So that, that is the best case scenario for them.

1:22:03 For every single news station from Fox news to CNN to NPR, every single one of them, all they need is eyeballs on the screen. It doesn’t matter what’s on there. And the thing that brings the most eyes is death, destruction, and fear. But that’s not all that’s out there. There’s a lot, I mean, I said that the times that I got to see the most beautiful instances of humanity is in the most extreme dire situations. But the lens that everyone’s looking at is looking over here at the burning building and forgetting to look over there at that super awesome black guy reached down to pick up that young white girl that tripped and got cut up on the broken glass on the ground. And he carries her to safety. Like that happened. You can look over there at the fire if you want, because that was set by a professional agitator, a professional agitator, maybe even from Russia, or you can remember who we are. Just look over there.

1:22:59 Yeah, no, I appreciate you saying that. At the end of that last Instagram post, you mentioned, I believe in every amendment of the constitution and you know, we’ve kind of gone head to head with this concept of this strange concept of freedom of speech. And I just wonder how you feel about freedom of speech or what it means to you. I never had encountered any problem with saying what I thought or people on my show saying what they thought until almost exactly three months ago when one of our massive broadcast, the second largest YouTube live stream in the world that day was deleted and banned after that. And I’ve been going head to head ever since. How do you feel about freedom of speech? What do you think people should know about it? What does it mean to you? So freedom of speech is everything.

1:23:47 If I’m not happy with what the government is doing, I don’t have freedom if I can’t step out and say, I’m not okay with this. If I disagree with somebody, but I don’t have the right to step out and express why I disagree with it, am I free at all? I don’t think so. And I want somebody that disagrees with me, I mean, maybe to a point that it feels like my blood is boiling and burning, I disagree with them so much, I want them to have the right to say whatever it is that they’re going to say. Otherwise, well, we have nothing. There is no freedom. And right now, our best way to communicate is through these platforms, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Parler, TikTok.

1:24:37 But they’re curating what we’re allowed to say. And that’s not freedom. I understand they’re a private company, and they have the right to do whatever they want with the content that they own, but they’re curating the speech to limit specific ideas. That’s not freedom. If you, Brian, leave A, and I believe B, and they’re like, oh, we also believe in B, sorry, we’re not going to let anything that Brian says come out. That is exactly what they’re doing. They’re curating entire news speeds and news streams to support whatever they believe. That’s not how it works.

1:25:16 Like we have to have an opportunity to, like the town hall, a true town hall, not a curated town hall, where we get to pick and choose who’s going to be present. And we’re going to preposition questions. And we’re going to only make these, like if somebody says something that we agree with, then we have an audience already pre-prepared to, yeah, we agree with that. And when somebody says something that we don’t agree with, it’s crickets, because we can orchestrate all that. That’s what’s happening. And that’s not freedom. Then everything that we read and everything that we see is being decided by an algorithm, or which is created by a human that has their own opinions, or that’s being dictated by that group. I obviously don’t agree with

1:26:05 Somebody that lives in south of San Francisco, in Simi Valley, Silicon Valley, and drives a $2 million sports car and has an extra Tesla in their car, in their garage. We may not see eye to eye on a lot of issues. I surely want to hear what he or she has to say, but I definitely don’t want that person muting what I have to say. And that’s the crux of the matter. It’s not just how YouTube can demonetize something like that. That sucks. But if they don’t like something, they can bury it. Hate speech is one thing, but we have to be very careful about hate speech.

1:26:49 It’s like, oh, do I think the N word is a despicable thing that should never come out of anyone’s mouth? For sure. Should it be a crime to say it? I don’t know. I don’t think so. I want somebody to say that so I can know what I think about that person. That person is disgusting.

1:27:09 But if that’s being censored, if… Hey, do you know what? Jews, you guys can’t talk anymore. As of today, you guys actually have to… We’re going to have a special badge on Twitter.

1:27:24 It’s going to be this little gold star. And you guys don’t get to talk. Yeah, we’ve seen that play out in history, right, in real time. So we know how that turns out. Whether you’re curating information, tearing down monuments, or burning books, it’s all the same thing. You’re limiting about how people talk. That never goes well, historically.

1:27:45 Yeah, I had Noam Chomsky on a couple of nights ago. And he made the good example. He said, in Europe, over here, Holocaust deniers, it’s actually illegal to do that. And Noam thinks that’s a bad idea. He said, because you actually give them more press when they do it, and you make it illegal, and it makes a thing. He says, whereas in America, if someone writes a Holocaust denial book, they’re just an idiot. But it’s not illegal. And this is a guy who was affected directly by this. But yeah, that’s his point of not kind of putting it away into the dark side. I agree with him.

1:28:21 But then again, so what do we do though, because these digital platforms, first of all, they’re they’re monopolists, then they’re massive trillion dollar companies sometimes. And they have these community policies. And I mean, I’m knee deep in this right now, Tim. I mean, we thought about streaming this on our digital freedom platform, just in case we went off the reservation here. But like, I got a sense for myself right now, because potentially getting dinged by by YouTube. But like, what do we do? Because these companies say, oh, it’s it’s hate speech, which is very subjective community policy, which changes all the time. And then they say it’s a private company. So you can’t regulate it. If you even try to regulate it, maybe that’s more of a mess. I don’t know. Is there a solution?

1:29:03 I have to believe in free market. And I know monopolies are something on on the pendulum the scales of justice that kind of outweigh how a free market can function. And right now, they are a monopoly monopoly, where, you know, it is very difficult, if not impossible for a different solution to come in here and say, Okay, well, here is legitimate town hall, where you guys can have freedom of speech, we are not going to penalize you. Like I am in the month of let’s see, March, I gained 400,000 followers on Instagram, the month of April, I gained 400 and something followers on Instagram, the month of June.

1:29:48 I gained zero, not a single one. So the trend of like 30 to 40,000 new followers, that’s pretty typical and has been for the past few years with me. And I went back and I was like, Okay, at what moment? And at what post was I wiped from the ability to garner a single new follower. And I could go back to a specific instance in time where it very clearly, it wasn’t I violated any rules, I just didn’t align with what Instagram wanted. And I got literally my account is frozen in the sense of like, I can’t have you can’t search me, I never will populate in like, you’re like, what’s happening now in the hashtags, like, I’m a ghost account, with, you know, three quarters of a million followers, and you can’t find you search Tim Kennedy, I’m like the 20th down the line, the first five are all fake accounts.

1:30:46 So what can we do is you break monopolies up, so free market can survive. You know, so and I really do believe in free market, you know, there are other options that are coming that they don’t have a chance. Unless the people are like, all right, what’s happening is not okay. The problem is that we are so divided. Half the people are looking at what’s happening being like, well, I actually don’t want him to say that stuff, because I don’t agree with him. It doesn’t matter if you agree with me or not. We have to agree that we all need to be able to speak. And we all have to agree that what the other person has to say is important, even if it’s wrong. But that’s not what we’re being taught. I mean, the cancel culture is the populist, you know, the popular vote, whether it’s okay, I mean, we’re going away from freedom of speech, it’s like, you know, if the popular vote says you shouldn’t say that you get de-platformed and banned and you’re told to be quiet. Yeah, I know. I think cancel culture is going to be this disgusting thing that we’re going to look back. I mean, maybe even a year from now, we’re going to look back and be like, oh my goodness, were we such a pathetic group of people that that’s what we were doing to each other, that we were doxxing people online, that like somebody would say something that we didn’t agree with, or I saw a picture of that person with a red hat on with white letters at a thing and I made sure that that person got fired,

1:32:19 You know, like, I hope that we are going to be look in a year, in a year from now, we’re gonna be like, oh, that was the dumbest thing. You know, I see more and more books now coming out about cancel culture. And I think more and more people are saying how dangerous and healthy it is, you know, but like, hard times make hard people. And, and sometimes that’s, that’s the lesson. Maybe you got to get fired from your job to learn that you can’t be, you know, that you can’t sit there and rage on Twitter about how disgusting Nancy Pelosi is, or how disgusting Donald Trump is, or whoever you hate, and not think that there’s gonna be a consequence in the real life.

1:33:02 Yeah. Well, I appreciate those thoughts. And yeah, we, we, we hit the shadow ban on Instagram as well, about five or six weeks ago, and it literally just, our growth just stopped. And you can’t find us at all the usual stuff. So yeah, join the club crazy. I wonder, it’s kind of cool though, you know, we’re like, you’re 710,000, and then you’re 735,000. The next month, you’re 777,000. And then you’re like, dude, I’m going to make break a million by, you know, by 4th of July. And then it’s like 777,777,000. So it’s like, cool. I guess I’m a, I wish it would have like frozen like 1776 or something early, I don’t know, at least a, you know, a good patriotic day. You mentioned 4th of July, you posted a picture recently, I guess all I do is follow your Instagram. But you’re, you’re in a helicopter looking out and you said that, you know, sometimes you get a little emotional when you think about independence day and what it means to you and what it means to the world. And I don’t know, can you speak on that? It’s, it’s coming up in a couple of days. Yeah, the, yes, I’m not turning a blind eye towards the problems that our country has or the country or the history of our country, you know, founding fathers with slaves, I understand that I see it all, all of it being imperfect. But even in how imperfect we are, you know, we stopped fascism, you know, like built the Golden Gate Bridge, built the Empire States Building, we built the most powerful

1:34:36 Superpower economic freedom, a beacon of hope to the rest of the world where, you know, going to the most desolate places in Africa and digging wells and, you know, bringing, for the world, the greatest surge in economic prosperity in the history of mankind. You know, we haven’t cured cancer yet, you know, but we pretty much figured out how to cure AIDS. Like, that’s just the past 10 years. So I, I’m blessed and cursed because I have seen such atrocities and I have seen such disgusting, horrible aspects of humankind.

1:35:21 But I’m blessed because that gives me a perspective for contrast. And it lets me see, you know, like if you’re always sipping on lukewarm coffee, kind of just lukewarm coffee. But then if you had that like perfect hot cup of coffee, you know, like that has the right amount of cream in it, and then it hits you the first thing in the morning, you’re like, Oh, my God, this is amazing. Or that, like that perfectly chilled champagne. You know, like, how about lukewarm champagne?

1:35:48 Does that sound good to anybody? No, right. Or you’ve been away, like, in my case, I’ve been like overseas for six months, and I’ve like been smelling my sweaty farting friends, as we’re like covered in blood and goo, and I come home, I smell my wife for the first time in six months, the good she smells. So America is that to me, or the ideas, it’s not just America, because we don’t own these ideas. Like the whole point of the constitution is that their ideas that can be owned by anybody, you know, like, if you’re an American citizen, you have the right to every single one of them. But that doesn’t mean that they’re exclusive for us. We want everyone to have the freedom of speech, you know, and the right to not be trampled upon by their governments and to be able to live their life however they want to.

1:36:34 And that’s a weird thing, you know, like, it wasn’t that long ago, where you, you know, you, you would live on a Royals land, and that guy would tell you what you were allowed to do, like, you’re essentially a slave for him. It wasn’t that long ago, where we’re like walking into villages and grabbing every single male between eight and 15 and throwing them on a boat and bringing them across the Atlantic to be a slave for the next five generations. You know, it wasn’t that long ago, where we were fighting, I mean, ISIS, we were fighting ISIS, 10 years ago, eight years ago, six years ago, like, people that would go in and destroy monuments, grab every single little girl and, you know, like, do the most disgusting, horrific things, and like, we fought them. And, and it’s, it’s that beautiful contrast of seeing the capacity of the American human ideals realized that, and that’s how grateful I am, not only because I get to do what I love and, and have what I think is the greatest job in the world, which is to be able to protect people. But I also get to see the fruits of, of that labor, you know, like I’ve, I’ve been to a country in Africa, a few times over and over again in the past five years.

1:37:48 And five years ago, you know, it was this war torn civil unrest about like the government had been overthrown like six times in the past 10 years. And then like every single time I’ve gone back the past five consecutive years, it’s like a little bit better, a little bit better. And then we have like this really cool park, and there’s little restaurants and cafes, you know, like I walk in, they’re speaking French, you know, and they don’t like look at me and like, it’s if this guy’s here, does that mean that the bad guys are coming or that they’re bad? Like that never even comes into their mind. They’re just like living. And like, I did that. You know, I was part of it. I was a little tiny, stupid, scarred, dumb part.

1:38:28 But that’s what it is to me. It’s very well said, Tim. I appreciate that. Do you miss the UFC? Do you miss fighting? I miss, I miss the highs and lows, you know, I miss, I miss talking to Joe Rogan after a fight, you know, and being like, ah, this is so amazing. I’m gonna come for the title, you know, Michael Biz being you suck, you know, and you know, but they’re like, I don’t remember, like, I don’t miss my hands being swollen and not being able to pick up my kids, you know, I don’t miss like looking at my piano keyboards and being like, maybe I’ll get to play them next month. You know, I don’t miss headaches. I don’t miss

1:39:19 Not being able to eat. Like, I don’t miss that stuff. I think I think you posted after the gasoline fight that you were like headed to the hospital again with your corner. And you looked at him and said, I’m tired of doing this. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to do this to you guys anymore. You guys got to come to the hospital with me again. It’s, it’s a really selfish to be the best. You know, I fought for two world titles, and I lost two world titles. I left the UFC on two losses, like those are hard pills to swallow. But you have to be totally selfish to, to really see your potential realized like every meal, every training session, every minute of sleep, all of it is about you, or it has to be for you to become and meet your potential. I just couldn’t live my life with that way. I have too many things that depend on me to be able to, to be selfish for me to be called a world champion. Hell, I really wish I could be called a world champion.

1:40:33 Two time loser kind of sucks, but you know, I wouldn’t describe your UFC career as being a two time loser. So impressive wins and bouts, and some also some questionable things that happen. Are you good buddies with Joel Romero and Michael Bisping? Do you guys hang out and have beers now?

1:40:55 Get along with almost everybody. You bring up the two names of like the two dudes. I’m never going to be like, be able to sit down and hang out with. No, we don’t, we don’t see eye to eye. Obviously, you are Romero when I fought him, you know, knock him out in the second round and create one of the most famous, most controversial moments in UFC history, which they call stool gates, where you all Romero didn’t answer the bell in between the second, third round. And I started celebrating, thinking that the fight was over and, you know, going to my corner and taking out mouthpieces and pointed at Dana White being like, you’re going to pay me for that fight. Also give me my title shot. That would have been a sure when would have gotten me a fight for the title. And then, um, then John McCarthy starting round three, you know, a minute late and then getting knocked out in the third round that, uh, another hard till till to swallow. Um, and then you all Romero in the back, he was like, Oh, Kennedy, I’m so sorry. Um, you know, like I really apologize.

1:41:59 I was like, get out of here. You’re like, Oh, first of all, you’re speaking perfect English to me now. But 10 minutes ago, you can understand what the referee was saying. I get off the stool and come and fight me. You’re a hypocrite and you’re a liar. I hope you enjoy your win in your cheeks. Um, so, but he also just lost fighting for the title. Take that you will.

1:42:19 And then, uh, you, uh, Michael Bisbing, he and I had a lot of history before we fought. Uh, he fought some friends of mine and he spit on some friends of mine. And, and so I was really looking forward to fighting him and it’s like, um, beating the brakes off him for 25 minutes. But that didn’t squash it. You still hate him. Yeah. I mean, I don’t hate him, but we definitely don’t see the eye to eye on anything. And I occasionally, it even happened this year. Like I hadn’t thought about that guy in a few months. And then he like to talk crap about me about something. And I was like, are you, I already beat the brakes off you once. Like I’ll do it again, even at 40, but, um, the, no, yeah, we’re, we’re not going to be good blokes, you know, putting back a pint of ale anytime soon.

1:43:08 He, uh, he came here about six months ago and I expected him to be the Michael Bisbing that I saw on stage with GSP, you know, talking trash to Anderson Silva, all the usual stuff. I thought he was going to come over and maybe hijack my show, but honestly, he totally surprised me and he was actually really nice, really humble. So he’s a really well-spoken guy and he’s an incredible fighter. He’s a super, I mean, he is a fighter. He’s the fighter spider, you know, going out there and knocking out Luke Rockhold at like a negative 300 underdog.

1:43:40 And, you know, even after losing to Peter Belfort and, and, and, and permanently damaging his eye while Peter Belfort was on steroids, um, and then coming back and winning the title after that, like, come on, like, could you be more awesome than that? Um, you know, and when he speaks and when he commentates, he’s, he’s a very articulate, well-spoken, intelligent guy. Um, you know, like, but I still smack him in his mouth. Well said. Um, couple last questions just about you, Tim, Tim, what was the best day of your life and the worst day of your life?

1:44:13 Um, who best day of my life, I think is, um, was kind of, we’ve, we’ve talked about a lot of individual stories of kind of me learning, um, you know, whether it was a three day gun fight in Afghanistan or, or my team beating the brakes off of me, um, you know, eight men deep into a 12 man ODA, or, you know, my team sergeant sent me to ranger school and saying, I can’t come back to the team because I’m not good enough unless I graduate on a graduate. Um, all of those things, um, cumulatively kind of like shaped a moment and I don’t know if it’s like one exact moment, but it was a moment where it was, um, it’s not like God came down and said, okay, you now realize who you are and this is what you need to do for the rest of your life. Um, but it kinda was, it was like a moment where I’m a man that is comfortable in my own skin. I know what I’m here to do and like, I’m going to be damned by anybody trying to stop me. And that, that was the best moment of my life is that realization of, um, I’m here for a purpose. And, uh, as Jaco said, I know my mission. Maybe it was that moment when I found my mission. Um, but that, that was the best. Um, and the worst, I was in, um, Morro Bay, California, uh, and, uh, I had a couple of women pregnant. I thought I might’ve had AIDS. Um, nine 11 had already happened. I went to the recruiter’s office and I said, I want to enlist.

1:46:08 Um, but then I wanted to finish grad school and I was back to being selfish again and, um, grandpa’s dying of emphysema, the patriarch of our family, obviously one of my heroes. And, um, you know, emphysema is a horrible way to die because every breath is just a little bit less. And, um, and I crashed my, my VTR Honda 250 motorcycle. So anyways, it was bad. I take my clothes off and I swim directly out west from Morro Bay, California, out into the fog. Um, the water’s cold and you know, 50, 53 degrees. I’ve swam maybe a mile or two out and, um, now I’m, I’m engulfed in fog and I’m trying to listen to where the shore is and I’m trying to see the rock, the big Morro rock to, to give me a landmark as to which way to swim back to shore. Um, and, um, I don’t know which way to go. Um, I’m getting tired and I’m really cold and a coast guard cutter comes up next to me and, uh, the captain, his feet are dangling off the front of the ship.

1:47:20 He didn’t want to run me over. So it was kind of cool that he was up there and, um, you know, he’s like, Hey, what’s going on? I’m like, man, I’ve, I’ve had a, I’ve had a pretty bad week. So you want to tell me about it? So I tell him, you know, about these women and about, uh, um, you know, maybe having AIDS and, and, um, you know, like hero of my life dying slowly.

1:47:40 And, uh, he’s like, man, I was going to offer you to hop in the boat, but truthfully, you should probably just stay in the water. And, uh, and I was like, yeah, that’s really mean. And this water is really cold. I mean, like looks down and he’s like, yeah, I can see that like, yeah, you suck. Um, and, uh, he’s like, well, come on up here. So it comes up and he throws on this, you know, only unless you’ve been on a Navy boat, like a coast guard boat, the, the wool, the all wool blankets, like how rough it is, you know, and like when your pecker is like this big from being in 50 degree water for, for an hour and a half, and that stuff is all scratching up against you. Um, and, uh, and knowing that you’re on at rock bottom, um, it’s funny because without having that worst moment of my life, which wasn’t being rescued, it was stepping into the water. Um, I wouldn’t have a contrast to compare all of these highlights of my life. Um, you know, not standing at the fruit, the funeral of some of my best friends or, you know, like trying to pick up body parts so we can figure out who is who like, um, all of that, all of those moments, let me be able to appreciate what it looks like. Um, when a father hugs his, his, his, his son coming home from war and crying, you know, like those are, uh, I wouldn’t be able to feel that like I feel right now as I’m like crying on whatever we’re doing right now is, is because of that contrast. And, and after that, you decided to join

1:49:15 The military and go on your whole adventure. Yeah. Four months later. Wow. Wow. Uh, I appreciate you telling that story. Most people would be surprised to know you were ever that low, Tim. Yeah, it’s pretty low. I’ve been there. I’ve been there too. Um, Tim, what scares you? Failure. Um, but not in the way that everybody else thinks, like I’m not scared to step up to the plate and swing and miss and be struck out. I’m not scared to walk into a UFC fight and fight for a title and lose. Um, I’m scared of not preparing or training enough that I’m going to fail. Right. Failing your own minds.

1:50:04 Yep. It’s, it’s like I’m, I’m, I’m scared of the quitter in me. I’m scared of not having enough discipline. I’m scared of not making the right choice. Um, where my son goes to fall off a tree stand as a helicopter’s coming in and I can’t hold him and I watch him slip from my fingers and fall 20 feet and break his legs. Um, I wasn’t scared when he fell, you know, I was scared that I wasn’t ready for that moment. I am scared. I’m not ready for that moment. Right. And that’s what keeps you prepared. That fear. Okay. As I’m sitting here picking off calluses. Tim, Tim, what would we be surprised to learn about Tim Kennedy? The probably the most unmanly, un-military, un-green beret thing that you do. I know there’s a few. Oh yeah. Um, I can braid hair. I can do a French braid. I can, um, I can cook like nobody’s business and not just like, I don’t have like five or 10 things I can cook. It’s like you say, I want you to cook that Cuban ceviche.

1:51:19 You’re like, oh, I want, um, like some legit carne from Brazil, you know, like I got you, bro. Um, I want you to make a souffle, not a problem. You know, as soon as we hang up this phone, I’m about to make this banging cappuccino and I’m going to have a, with, uh, some baklava, uh, that I made. Damn. Just like that, huh?

1:51:50 And, um, what keeps you awake at night? Um, man, I sleep. I sleep so hard. Um, not a lot. You know, like I’m like a six hour guy and like the eyes come open. Um, but like, uh, you know, I’ve already worked out today.

1:52:09 I still have another training session. I have six hours of work. Um, I know I have a trampoline date and a pool date with my five year old. Um, you know, I’m going to make love to my wife and I’m going to go to bed tired and I’m going to sleep.

1:52:28 Understood. Uh, Tim, I always ask a few questions at the end. I’m asking you if you could pick up the phone and call up the 20 year old Tim Kennedy. This is one year before your, your little swim, I guess, and give that young man some advice based on everything you know, now, what would you tell him?

1:52:47 The following success secrets are only available inside the London Real tribe where you get exclusive access and insights from our high performance guests on wealth creation, productivity, leadership, morning routines, health, and wellbeing. To join our tribe community, go to London Real.tv forward slash tribe. Now let’s continue with the show. Tim, thanks for the time today. I appreciate it.

1:53:15 I know that’s what we do here, but thank you for coming along with me on the ride. Um, you know, most people look at you and they see, you know, the badass Green Beret, MMA fighter, sheep dog CEO, but I see an emotional, caring dude who really gives a shit about a lot of people and about unity and about us coming together and about all sorts of things. And so I appreciate you for showing us that honestly, when I meet a lot of super high performance people, honestly, there always is an emotional side to them because that’s why they, that’s why they do what they do to an extreme because they actually care about something deep down inside. And I appreciate the fact you can show us that and it comes out. I see it even in your social media posts. So, and I saw it today. So, um, thanks for that, Tim. I really appreciate you. Thanks for having me, man. I’ll dress better next time.

1:54:04 Um, no, that’s right. Be you. Uh, and, uh, I’m going to come down and do some sheep dogging with you. Is that all right? Absolutely. I was not, that was, that was not a, uh, a, a insincere invitation. Um, you can come to any, anyone, anytime you’ll love it.

1:54:20 Okay. I haven’t fired a gun in, uh, it’s 25 years. Well, you will be in super good hands. You’ll, uh, you’re like, oh, this is a half gorilla standing next to me that, um, probably killed a few dozen people. And oh, neat. You’re in special forces for 25 years. Um, well, that’s the guy that’s going to show you how to hold the gun right and squeeze the trigger properly. It’s pretty, you’re pretty fortunate. You’ll be in good hands. All right, man. I look forward to it. Uh, and the best way for people to follow you is on Instagram. If they can find you it’s at Tim Kennedy. What, what’s the exact at Tim? Tim Kennedy MMA. Don’t follow the other accounts. Is that your preferred choice of social media? Yeah. Um, uh, I think, um, I’m, I like parlors kind of a new one that I’m, that I’m playing with because they’re trying to do a true freedom of speech thing. Um, but right now it’s kind of an echo chamber of just conservatives and like I’m a libertarian. So I’m like, don’t agree with everybody. I’m like right down the middle of everything. Um, you know, I’m like, yeah, I agree with everybody on the left. And I was like, yeah, I agree with everybody on the right. And that’s like, oh, this is common sense in the middle.

1:55:28 Um, but, uh, yeah, Instagram is, is, is where I’m on the most. Okay. And when does sheepdog get started again? Uh, we just had our first live course this week. Um, and so we are back, we’re going to be adding a course, uh, every single month, probably for the next 12 to 14 months, starting next month. Okay. And how long are they typically?

1:55:54 Um, like the intro, the intro course for like, I’m not a competitive shooter. I’m not a professional fighter. I’m not part of part of a special missions unit. I’m not a, I don’t carry a badge or a gun for a living. Um, that is the sheepdog level one, which is like the basic course. And that is a, um, a two day course you come in like on a Friday night and you have about four hours of instruction on Friday night. And then we hit it heavy on Saturday and Sunday. So it’s like 2.2 day. Okay. Got it. And, uh, is what’s the website for sheepdog?

1:56:29 Sheepdog response.com. Okay. All right. Good stuff. Any, uh, any final thoughts, Tim?

1:56:36 Uh, believe in each other, you know, um, like if you don’t, like there’s hopelessness, but if there’s belief, there’s always a chance. I have a lot of hope after talking with you. So you made me feel better today. So thanks for that. All right, Tim, I appreciate you, man. Thank you so much. I appreciate you opening up and next time I’ll do this in person. All right. Sounds perfect. All right. Cool. Thank you, man. Appreciate you. Take care.

1:57:02 All right. Cool. And thanks everybody for watching us. We’ll see you next time on London Real. Take care.