Latest / Veteran Wellness Podcast / The Lost Generation: What Veterans Learned Too Late About Health & Life After Service | Eric Graves

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The Lost Generation: What Veterans Learned Too Late About Health & Life After Service | Eric Graves · Veteran Wellness Podcast

• ERIK Lawrence: The blast injuries I always harp on gave me the most problems. all those interrelate and then that takes the system down. Eric Graves: So y you're you're of I what I call the lost generation and I am too. they didn't check for any of that stuff when we ran. They didn't check ERIK Lawrence: No. Eric Graves: for, you know, over pressure issues, they didn't check for blast ERIK Lawrence: Zero. Eric Graves: issues, you know, head injuries, none of that stuff. You might, you know, you knock your noggin on a jump, you know, and that might take you to the take you to Womac, you know, an X ray or something. But ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: all they could tell is if you cracked your skull or not, not whether you did some damage inside. ERIK Lawrence: here. Eric Graves, one of my long buddies. Truxpo East. How long ago? Eric Graves: We've known this for we've known each other a really long time. And was I still on active duty or had I retired? I believe I was still on active duty, yeah. ERIK Lawrence: You I think you were. No, no, I think you're wearing camo. Yeah. Eric Graves: Yeah, I think I was probably still on active duty then. I really appreciate you bringing me on here. I don't do this very often and I have a face for radio, so I generally don't come on video. but I think it's important what you're doing, and I want to talk to other vets. ERIK Lawrence: Excellent, excellent. Well let's let's just start with your military background. I mean I most of my buddies have multiple services and just Eric Graves: Yeah. ERIK Lawrence: all over the place for experience. You're one of Eric Graves: So well, I grew up in Iowa, but my father was a a full-time technician for the Iowa Air National Guard. So I grew up with the Air Force, but we never moved, which was kind of a neat experience. So I gotta grow up around my family, but we had the experience of being involved with the military. My dad had joined the guard in high school in 1966, and then went in the regular army. I spent some time in the regular army as an MP. Got out, went in the National Guard and got a commission in the National Guard. And then at the RIF at the end of Vietnam, they said, Hey, beat feet. So as a first lieutenant, he retired his commission and went over to the Air National Guard and became a at first a an ammo troop and then ended up becoming an egress technician. So he worked on ejection seats for F one hundred, A seven, F sixteen, before he retired. A a funny thing, I'm gonna get a little ahead of myself here, but because the way the guard works, you don't get promoted unless there's slots open. So for a period of time, both my father and I were E6s together, which is kind of funny. he retired as a senior master sergeant. I ended up retiring out of the Air Force as a captain, but I'll get to that in a second. So, like my father, I joined the Army Reserve in high school. went to basic training at Fort Dix between my junior and senior year in nineteen eighty-five. When graduated from high school, the local unit where I was at was a hospital unit of all all kinds of units, and I was the unit armorer and not really knowing enough about the army, I took the MOS of 76 Yankee, which was unit supply specialist armorer, but I was the armorer and we had a shit ton of sixteens because it was a medical unit. and as soon as I graduated from high school, I went to AIT at Fort Lee, came back and went right in the regular army to be a cryptolinguist. ERIK Lawrence: Mm-hmm. Eric Graves: so I went to German school at DLI, went to the intercept school down at Goodville Air Force Base in Texas in late 87. And then in early 88, I went to electronic warfare school at Fort Devons, and then I went to Germany, third infantry division, and I served in the military intelligence battalion there. But I really didn't love working on a heavy jammer that was on a tracked vehicle. anytime you get around tracked vehicles, you spend a lot of time in the motor pool. So ERIK Lawrence: Mm-hmm. Eric Graves: I got in a really fortunate situation. My company first sergeant, Cliff Lynch, was an infantryman for most of his career. And as a master sergeant, he had a hearing issue. So they said, Hey, you're gonna become a MI NCO. And they switched him over as an E eight into MI as an all source analyst. And he was our first sergeant. and our battalion sergeant major was an infantryman. And he was one of those guys who had married a German chick and he homesteaded in Germany. He would just move around to ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: different units in Germany. So he was a he was a infantryman. Each MI battalion back then during the Cold War had a long-range surveillance detachment. I said, hey, I want to go work over there. So first sergeant and sergeant major realized I wasn't really an am I kind of guy, like you know, heavy division am I kind of guy. And so they let me go over there and I I worked in the the communication section and I became one of the base radio station guys. And that's where I learned how to patrol, how to do all my field craft stuff, how to use HF radios. So When I re enlisted, I went to Fort Bragg, the third infant or I'm sorry, the third special forces group was just standing up at the time in 1990. So I was the forty-eighth guy in second battalion of third group as we stood up and I brought all this knowledge I had with me back over to the States. What was really interesting is the Cold War's ending. I was a German linguist. So we had, I don't know, maybe thousand or a couple thousand German linguists in the army, and they went, We don't need you anymore. And I had learned French in high school. So I'd taken a French language test and they went, Eric, you're a French linguist and you're going to third group, which was fine. So I went to second and third. And eventually they sent me to Haitian Creole school. So I speak German very well. I speak Haitian Creole pretty well and I speak French very poorly. which is fine if you're in Haiti. but a lot of other places it's not great. Yeah. Yeah ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. They do too. Yeah. Eric Graves: they too. So anyway, so I'd get by in French, but it's a little painful for me because I don't get to practice it a lot. I go to Germany every year now for trade shows and I live in Central Florida. So speaking German regularly, speaking Haitian Creole regularly, it's pretty easy. So I spent time in group. we invaded Haiti. spent a bunch of time in Haiti. I got my college degree while I was in group, thanks to a great lady, Mrs. Mullins, who worked at the Smoke Bomb Hill Education Center. And she sat me down and looked at everything I'd done in the army. And said, Eric, you know, you can finish your degree through New York Regents, which is now Excelsior University. So I did. we were on red status, and that's basically support status, where you just do all the ash and trash jobs around Fort Bragg, ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: like you know, it's my quarters. And I ended up on staff duty for like 30 days. So it was like one day off, two days off, one day on, two days off. So on my days off, I was taking club tests. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Smart. Eric Graves: d to build up my point, you know, everything to get my degree. So I finished my degree pretty quickly once I had a plan in place. But it used my language training, you know, all the training I'd had in the service and then some other stuff. So I ended up with a associate's I'm sorry, a bachelor's degree eventually with them in s social science. ERIK Lawrence: Nice. Eric Graves: Yeah, so I have a sociology degree, a bachelor of science in sociology, which is kind of weird, but that's the way things worked out. At any rate, I needed it to get a commission because I had decided I wanted to become a commissioned officer. So we invade Haiti. I cannot apply to be an army commissioned officer because you have to go to a a post-level board to select guys who are gonna put forward a DA. Couldn't do it because I'm in Haiti, but I could apply to the Air Force without being there. So I applied to the Air Force. and They picked me up. So I'm on my second tour in Haiti. I get this letter. hey, you've been selected to be an Air Force intelligence officer. So I go to my chain of command and go, hey, I'm gonna get out of the army. I'm going to the Air Force. And they were kind of unhappy about it, but eventually they came around and went, okay, this is, you know, good for everybody. Dave Fridovich was my last battalion commander, ERIK Lawrence: yeah. Eric Graves: and great dude. and I met him again later, hit the Philippines. it's kind of funny how small the soft world is. I left, went in the Air Force to officer training school, and I really worked the Air Force. So I was still in the Army at Bragg and I started calling around other people and I found this this retired guy who's at like a GS13 at the 720 Special Tactics Group, who was the director of intelligence. And we started talking, and he said, If you if you can get through officer training school and intel school, I'll hire you. So I would talk to him about every couple months. Yeah, the job's still available, still available. I'm in Intel school and the drop comes down for jobs, and this job comes down. Air Force Special Tactics must have prior enlisted soft experience. ERIK Lawrence: Ha ha ha. Eric Graves: I'm the only guy in my class, obviously, who has that. People were pissed, but tough shit. I got the job. And so as a lieutenant, I went to the 720 special tactics group. I deployed with the 23rd STS to the Middle East. so I did a lot of squadron support. And ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: then I got reassigned to the 21st at Pope. and September 11th, I'm on leave getting ready to PCS to Hawaii to go to SOCPAC. Yeah. So I go in, help the squadron get ready to go to the Middle East, and I go to the squadron commander and I go, Hey, you know what, what's going on? He goes, Well, Eric, I'll I'll stop your PCS, but you're gonna have to be the rear deck commander. And I went, you know what? ERIK Lawrence: fun, fun, fun. Eric Graves: I'm gonna take my chances at SOCPA. So I went to ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. No kidding. Eric Graves: Hawaii and eventually we got involved in the war. I spent time at was JTF five ten initially, became just sootha Philippines. So I spent some time in the Philippines, spent time, you know, going all around the Pacific Rim, learned a lot about force deployment and just you know how tough it is to work in that huge environment. There's a term you use in the Pacific, you know, the they call it the tyranny of distance. because you can't get places in a day. You can't get forces where they need to be. Yeah. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. I was a first group guy, I know, buddy. Yeah. Eric Graves: Yeah. It's funny, you know, of course, so I speak German French H creole. Which T Soc do I go to? SOC pack. So I started out in the J2 and once again I kind of made a job for myself. I we started we stood up a future cell and I ended up being the first science and technology advisor for the command. So the second ERIK Lawrence: cool. Eric Graves: half of my tour, I did that. So it was a lot of jumping back and forth between DC, Tampa, Fort Bragg, and Hawaii, working on capabilities for the war on terror. And from there I was I was recruited into an organization called the National Assessment Group. And that's where I retired from a couple of years later in the D C area. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah, no, that's a incredibly diverse experience. I mean Eric Graves: I I gotta tell you just a quick story about becoming an officer. So ERIK Lawrence: yeah. Eric Graves: what kind of drove me to become an officer was I'm an E6, honor graduate from AIT, electronic warfare school, PLDC, and Bnock. College degree. I'm in group. You you can't lead a lot of troops on group, right? I got a SOD A, which is three guys, four guys later. So, you know, DA promotion boards pre-war looking at this and going, This, you know, this guy needs to be a platoon sergeant somewhere. ERIK Lawrence: You'd never get promoted. Eric Graves: Never get promoted. Uside down, I just looked all the options. I go, okay, well, I can become a I could just become a warrant officer and MI, but I have to leave group because at the time there weren't soft warrants in ERIK Lawrence: true. Eric Graves: this the SIGNIT business. I could become a a pilot, right? I could apply to that and maybe, maybe get that. or I could become a commissioned officer and E6 to O three E, you double your pay in four years. I'm like, ERIK Lawrence: wow. Yeah, no brainer. Eric Graves: this was a no-brainer, right? So And I retired as an 03E because I was gonna make more than a sergeant major. And that was really my goal. And as I got to the end of my career, you start to look at okay, I'm gonna get picked up for intermediate service school. I'm gonna own for that. I'm gonna pin on major. I'm gonna own for that. And you start stacking up years. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: And in 06, I I thought the war was gonna end before long. So I'm like, yeah, okay. And I got a great up a couple of great job opportunities. I ended up working as a contractor to DARPA. For the first year I was out in DC. And then I moved to Blackwater. And I worked at Blackwater in the Armored Vehicle Program. so I did test and evaluation. ERIK Lawrence: that's right. I forgot that. Yeah. Eric Graves: Yeah, I worked there in the Armored Vehicle Program and then the airship program. And and in 2008, May of 2008, I started this little website just to keep me off the streets at night. And I would just talk about gear because I really like gear a lot. And in the spring of nine, I got laid off. And I talked to my wife and went, Well, we can move back to DC. I'll get a job immediately. There are some jobs here in the Tidewater, Virginia, where we had settled, or we could turn the website into a business. And that's what we ended up doing. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: and so I had a little bit of a parachute from the place I worked before. I'll tell you, having TRICARE as a retiree is a huge relief because I have six kids. So having medical care for the family taken care of was just, you know, I could do. take a risk, you know, to start a business, which is harder to do, you know, if you've got healthcare issues you've got to worry about. It it's tough for guys coming out of service. And I'd say coming out of the service, I wanted to start a business, but I didn't know how. So I went to work ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: for other people and learned good and bad, ERIK Lawrence: yeah. Eric Graves: at a couple of different places. And you know I'm talking about bad. yeah. ERIK Lawrence: yeah. Eric Graves: at Blackwater. But I learned a lot of good there too. And I learned great experience, great people. but that to me is something I wish we had a better process of teaching guys about business as they're getting ready to leave the service. you know, those are I have a lot of advice for guys when I leave the military. I sit down with them and talk to them about, you know, their expectations. I explain to them the risks that they may be or may not be accepting. like one of the things is some guys will take a job and they'll move their family across the country, use that last PCS move. you know, pack all their stuff up, move, and they go to a place and either the job disappears when they first get ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: there or they hate it. And ERIK Lawrence: Hate it. Eric Graves: then there is some remote, weird place where their skills are not applicable. And now what do we do now? And then they say, you know, dad's working at Lowe's or something, you know, trying to make ends meet or at Walmart. And you know, I'm so I'm like, really think about where you're going to get that job. And don't tie yourself. You've been with an organization for 20 plus years. ERIK Lawrence: Don't tie yourself it takes takes three jobs to get a good job. Eric Graves: I third job was this one, the one I created. ERIK Lawrence: Yep, that's typical. Yeah. Eric Graves: Right. Cause I I've had that across my life, right? I've had this thing where I've been able to create jobs for myself. And I've always been happy in those jobs. And here I am, you know, doing this for a living. and I'll tell you, I've been doing it for over 18 years. And yeah, it can be tough. you're writing every day, right? but I enjoy it. And so I tell people all the time I'm like, in forest gump, you forest gump one day starts running. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: I'm running, I'm running that marathon. One day I may just decide not to do this anymore. But I'm not there yet. I really still enjoy what I'm doing. ERIK Lawrence: No, it's the it's the industry standard Eric. You know that. I mean it's everybody goes there to get information. You know, and now my one funny story, I remember at Truxpo you were telling me you're gonna do this or we were we were somewhere and you're gonna do this site and I said, I wanna be your purse first paid advertiser and you said, I'll never take paid advertising. I said, Call me when you do And I really miss my Eric Graves: Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, well I did. ERIK Lawrence: Blackheart International banner being at the top Eric Graves: Yeah. ERIK Lawrence: of all your other banners not moving. I loved that. That Eric Graves: Yeah. Yeah. You you had a great business, man. It was really cool. you know, but we all end up we grow and change, right? And ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: we need to be be able to adapt. And that is coming out of the soft community. You know, it's weird. I spent almost my entire career in the soft community. Army SPUF, you know, Air Force off and then joints off. And the the adaptability of the personnel, those people. That's what I miss is I miss people who If they tell you they can do something, they've got to be able to do it. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: Right. when I when I got out and I'm I'm working for this company up in DC, we we got lot of resumes, you know, and they go, Well, this is an MI resume or a soft resume. Eric, would you look at it? You know, and I what I noticed was all the MI guys wanted to be soft guys and all the soft guys wanted to be MI guys for jobs, right? ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: but you know, you you gotta start reading through the lines and you go, okay, can the guy really do Those things he says he can do. You can write on a resume and nobody may test them. But you and I both know if I was in service and I said, I know how to run that SATCOM, you better be able to make sure that SATCOM has comms. 'Cause if you don't, you're fired. 'Cause you can get people you can get people killed. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Yeah. Immediately. Yeah. Yeah, no, and and what you did with that, you know, soldier systems, i it's digestible, it's relevant, you're actually going to all these different shows, you know all the manufacturers, you know the difference between good and bad and bullshit. I mean, we have seen it all, you know, back when I was doing logistics and everybody in their brother says they have the next best thing and you know what total horse shit is. But we have that in our base. foundation when we were younger having to perform like that. You know, we both did combo in some way. that's Eric Graves: Yeah. ERIK Lawrence: binary, man. It either works or it doesn't work. You're a good combo guy or you're a shitty combo guy. There's no middle of the road combo guy. And if Eric Graves: Absolutely. You know I ERIK Lawrence: you can figure that out, you can apply that everywhere. Eric Graves: Absolutely. Well, you know, kind of what made me people like they think they just run and do what I do. You have to remember, my experience goes back really to when I was seventeen years old and I'm now fifty-eight. So we're forty-one years of experience where I'm and I have relationships. I want to run my business on long term relationships. I don't run on transactions. And ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Yeah. Eric Graves: so many people have transactional relationships in their life. You know, we just meet one time, you do something, and you move on. And I want to build relationships with companies. So I work long and hard to, you know, explain to people what I do and then kind of help them out and show them what I can do for them by you know showing other people, you know, these products and services that are available. It's a very exciting job I have. You know, I I get a help people make money for a living, but it's more than that. I really do this for the end user so that they can see new products. That's why people come to my website. They want to see innovation. They don't want to see, I can get 10% off on a suppressor. You know, if I go to his website ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: and get a code. They they want to know, hey, what's next in new? And that's what excites me. So really the three things in life that excite me regarding my business are one, innovation. Two, made in America, and three, protecting America and her allies. And if your business does one or more of those things, I'm very excited about it. we're in an international world, obviously, so I deal a lot with other countries. You know, I meet some great manufacturers overseas. but you know, they're still supporting the also arsenal democracy. ERIK Lawrence: Mm-hmm. Eric Graves: And that's what's important. and you know the world is aligning itself again in a weird way with, you know, the crank, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. that axis it may not be a super formal axis, but they definitely work in concert with each other to undermine the ERIK Lawrence: I think it is. Eric Graves: West. ERIK Lawrence: I think it's quite well established and we're the ones trying to trying to figure that out because we don't believe it. I I think it's like Eric Graves: A lot of people don't believe it. ERIK Lawrence: it's like dog balls, man. It it's right there and and they're I think they have the initiative on a lot of things. Sadly. Yeah. Eric Graves: They do and we're we're playing catch up, but we're trying. We're trying really hard to play catch up. ERIK Lawrence: Well, you know, I always I always like that you know when we would go to these shows back in the day, you would get a perspective from everywhere. You know, we're talking to the Canadians, the Swedish, the French, the Germans. And and we don't get in our own bubble, you know, and believe our own bullshit sometimes. And and just seeing how other people do it. I remember Grants for I got I was importing their breaching tools. Best breaching tolls in the world. I'm like, my lord and you couldn't sell because the Blackhawk stuff was half price. It's like, yeah, but it's not this good, you know. You know, obviously the tiered units understood that, but everybody and their brothers, you Eric Graves: Okay. ERIK Lawrence: know, buying the cheap stuff instead of the best stuff. Eric Graves: Well, everything's a value proposition, right? ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: You know, and a part of the problem is the way law enforcement is resourced, they just don't get the funding that they need. and I'll tell people this all the time. You get the the police that you want to pay for as a taxpayer. So if your police suck, then ERIK Lawrence: yes. Yes, sir. Yeah. Yeah. Eric Graves: you're not you're not resourcing them properly. You're not hiring the right ERIK Lawrence: Correct. Eric Graves: people, you're not training them, you're not holding them to standards, you're not equipping them properly. And there are some very professional organizations all across this country. I think it's twenty thousand law enforcement agencies from federal all the way down to local, you know, private police forces across this nation. That's a lot of police. ERIK Lawrence: that's an army. Eric Graves: Yeah. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah, that's an army. Yeah, I know you know I've done a lot of training for L E and I always say it's not the equipment, it's the person. But that goes back to selection and and what you can afford to pay Yeah, totally. It's people. Eric Graves: Th this comes out of the soft community, right? I I remember listening to Pete Schoomaker right after he left the unit as a commander and he was doing a speech somewhere and he said, you know, we we get all these great pieces of equipment. That isn't what matters. It's not the the equipment, it's what we do with it. And that, you know, told me so much about, you know, how important it is to get the right people at the right place at the right time. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Yeah. And that's where, you know, this is where we kick into the health angle. You know, veterans and soft veterans, we know better, but somehow we in our mind when we get out, we just negate all that and kinda do what we want, not what we need to do physically and for health and wellness. That's baffling to me, you know, a lot of my friends and I we discussed this 'cause we we have done that and we haven't done that. You know, it's always, you know, ebb and flow. And now I'm to the point where, hey, I can't Eric Graves: I did it. I did it. ERIK Lawrence: I gotta take this serious. I wish I would have taken this serious much sooner. You know, so how's what's your views on that and and take? Eric Graves: Well, I can I can tell you like my my tail of two men, right? My father's only nineteen years older than me. and ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. yeah. Eric Graves: you know so, you know, his physical condition is like is worse than mine in every period of life because he had a different lifestyle than I did. He was you know, it was a lot of fitness and just taking care of yourself. you know, my time my experience in the military, particularly serving in the soft community. whereas my dad, you know, the Air Force PT test for a long time was one point five mile walk, right? And they really cared about, you know, I mean, he was fit. He could lift a, you know, ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: an injection seat up over his head and everything. He was a very fit man, but he wasn't he didn't have like a lot of you know, endurance and things like that. and so now as he's older, you know, he's not in as very good shape. And so I I look at my dad and go, okay, I don't want to I don't wanna get in the shape my dad's in. But ERIK Lawrence: Correct. Eric Graves: I retire at thirty eight years old with twenty one years of service, right? and I took my forties off. I mean, I really just, you know, I got fat. At one point ERIK Lawrence: I know. Eric Graves: I was I was up to almost 220 pounds. And you ERIK Lawrence: Yeah, you're too short for that, buddy. Eric Graves: know, no kidding, no kidding. so in my fifties, you know, things started to turn around a bit, but COVID hits, you know, I was going to the gym regularly, you know, exercising, covet hits, which kills you, you know, if you're going to a gym regularly. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: so I ended up just pretty much walking a lot, you know, in the in out in the outdoors during COVID. And then we decided to move Florida. And so I moved to Florida and you got to get your feet under you and everything. But I can say that over the last three years in particular, I've lost quite a bit of weight and I'm much more fit than I was. so I'm down I'm down to low one eighty. So I've lost ERIK Lawrence: Wow. Eric Graves: what? Almost forty pounds. and over the last eighteen ERIK Lawrence: Wow, that's good. That's hard to do. Eric Graves: months or so, I've lost that the last two years, my doctor said, She said, Eric, you've lost about thirty pounds in last two years. Two and a little two and a little bit of change since I've been going to her. so I'm I'm feeling great. The one thing is you gotta buy new clothes, which you know, you're like, man, I hate ERIK Lawrence: Yeah, of course. Eric Graves: pants in particular. I haven't lost as much upper body. but you know, like my waist is way down. You gotta buy clothes and you're like, Okay, well, I really like those pants ERIK Lawrence: Eric, Eric Graves: but ERIK Lawrence: that's a good problem. I mean, come on. Eric Graves: I know. I know it's just funny though, right? I know it's funny though. You're like, ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: yeah, that's okay. You know, you just gotta go out and look for clothes again. I maybe I'll lose some more weight. ERIK Lawrence: How'd how'd you do it? Eric Graves: Well, I just turned around, man. I changed my diet, exercising regularly, but I'm not a big gym rat. really. I just kinda basic stuff, real simple stuff that I could do anywhere, calisthenics ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: and you know, just walking. I really don't I don't love running. My one of my knees really hates me a lot. but you know, and and then just diet, right? And I'll tell ya, what really kicked me in is like that last like I just lost like probably 15 pounds over the last year. I stopped drinking soda. I used to like just guzzle Cokes all day and ERIK Lawrence: Good. No. Eric Graves: just cut them out. I might have one once in a while, you know. If I like if we ERIK Lawrence: Of course. Eric Graves: have a bowl of popcorn with a movie or something, I might have a small Coke, one of those little ones. But generally I'm drinking water, iced tea, or you know, maybe a Celsius or something. Absolutely. Well ERIK Lawrence: Yeah, I mean don't drink your calories. Yeah, but yeah, don't drink your calories. That that that knocks out half your intake. Eric Graves: You know, I a lot of us have real injuries, right? We have pains and we have a couple of different kinds of injuries. we have physical and we have moral, you know, emotional injuries. And some of us treat those ourselves with alcohol. and I I've ERIK Lawrence: yeah. Yeah, yeah, we did. Eric Graves: been fortunate to not get there, you know, and but I still enjoy it old fashioned. And if you know me, that's like the thing. Eric, old fashions. if you look at my Instagram feed for me. There's always pictures of old fashions when I'm out eating places and people probably think I'm a drunk and I've got a big ERIK Lawrence: Ha. Eric Graves: bar cart. But if you go to look at my bar cart, everything's full. There's like there's no empty bottles on there, you know. So I'll ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: I'll have a drink. And you know what? If I'm getting calories, it's probably gonna be there. You know, I once in a while I might have a you know, dessert somewhere or something. But for the most part, it's gonna be me drinking a mixed drink. You know, if I'm ERIK Lawrence: Well, more of the eighty eighty twenty, you know. You you can't be a hundred percent all the way. I mean there's no way you're gonna you're gonna have some Eric Graves: Yeah. But well, I'm not a straight edge guy. ERIK Lawrence: yeah. Eric Graves: Yeah, you know, I I think moderation and all things is important in life. But I ERIK Lawrence: Well now that we know that Eric Graves: Yeah, yeah, true. You know, it was our younger days, I'm not gonna get into that. ERIK Lawrence: I can remember Shot Show a dozen years ago. We we we didn't have any moderation anywhere. I wouldn't dare. Yeah. That would Eric Graves: I can't I can't do that anymore. I just can't do it. Yeah, I can't do that like I could. You know, these young guys, I still see them out, you know, burning at both ends. And I'm like, God bless you guys. Thank you. I appreciate your energy. I'm gonna go take a nap. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Eric Graves: so there's you know, two things I think that are important that I've realized in my health journey. number one is keep your core strong, right? Your core muscles, they support your back, they support your legs. So, and they also keep all your organs where they're supposed to be. And your life is much happier if you can keep your core strong. and the second thing is your endocrine system. So, you know, the endocrine system, you know, your hormones, they are the messengers that tell all your organs what to do. And if your endocrine system is off, then your organs aren't gonna be working right. So, you know, if you're gonna go to your doctor and say, hey, just make sure all your levels are right. And if you think they're off, there are plenty of places available now that ERIK Lawrence: Yes. Eric Graves: you can go to and for a decent fee, they'll run a test on your, you know, your blood and they'll tell you, hey, this is up or down. You know, there are a lot of people up in arms over this thing in the Department of War where where the Secretary Hegst has said, Hey, all men over 30, we're gonna check your testosterone levels. Well, there's that's an indicator that other things are off. ERIK Lawrence: Correct. Eric Graves: Right. Like we've learned through guys getting into loads of IED blasts, getting blast over pressure, that it will affect your pituitary gland. ERIK Lawrence: Yes, sir. Eric Graves: And then your pituitary gland starts to is not telling other parts of your body what it's supposed to be doing. And ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: you get all these crazy problems start to show up. So I think it's great that they're beginning to check hormone levels for active duty troops. ERIK Lawrence: I think it's essential. I mean you know, you go to the mechanic with your car, they plug it in, you know, they run the codes. And we're we're the same way. Why would you think a guy active duty versus guy civilian not have the same metabolic like issues, you know, and we got way worse, you know, when when Eric Graves: Yeah. Absolutely. ERIK Lawrence: our adrenals are zeroed out. The blast injuries I always harp on gave me the most problems. Eric Graves: Well you know ERIK Lawrence: and all those interrelate and then that takes the system down. Eric Graves: So y you're you're of I what I call the lost generation and I am too. they didn't check for any of that stuff when we ran. They didn't check ERIK Lawrence: No. Eric Graves: for, you know, over pressure issues, they didn't check for blast ERIK Lawrence: Zero. Eric Graves: issues, you know, head injuries, none of that stuff. You might, you know, you knock your noggin on a jump, you know, and that might take you to the take you to Womac, you know, an X ray or something. But ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: all they could tell is if you cracked your skull or not, not whether you did some damage inside. one ERIK Lawrence: Correct. Eric Graves: of the one of the guys I It was MI with me, another Sade guy. He smacked really hard one time, at a jump of Bragg and they took him to the hospital. And next morning, you know, he's there's a night jump, so next morning, you he takes him home to his family. I remember his son saying when I took him home, Is my daddy gonna be retarded now? ERIK Lawrence: Ha ha ha. Eric Graves: Well, he already kind of already was. Yeah, right. Anyway, all that guy's ERIK Lawrence: Maybe son, we don't know, you know. Yeah. Eric Graves: of great American. Unfortunately, he passed away, Doing some service to our nation in a government agency later, but f I always that's one of the things about being a soft community. I I miss the people, like I said earlier. Yeah. You know, you remember Gary Luck? ERIK Lawrence: yeah, that's of course. But that's why we went to all those shows. We saw everybody, you know, who's who in the zoo at the shot show. You just go to visit. Eric Graves: You remember you remember General Gary Luck? ERIK Lawrence: of course, yeah. Eric Graves: Okay, so I he used to work out at the gym at Bragg. you just see him in there lifting weights and I remember one time he would talk to anybody in their gym and you know, I remember him saying, you know, I I don't really like jumped out of airplanes as much as I like the people who do. And he liked working around them. Yeah, you know? Yeah. ERIK Lawrence: Smart. Yeah, no kidding. Those that you know, don't have a problem with doing it. Yeah, and there's a lot of that and Eric Graves: Accepting risks. Yeah. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Well and you know, having the tolerance of controlling fear too. You know, 'cause n no one wants to typically jump out of an airplane, you know, at any altitude. But but you had to do it to be in the club, so that's why a lot of guys do it I think. Eric Graves: Yeah, dope. Yep. Yeah. ERIK Lawrence: And you know, it's good good way to thin people out too. But you know, you know, you're talking about the core. People think the core is just doing sit ups. No, the core is like a barrel, you know, you gotta get all those muscles, you know, your psoas and all the the the back Eric Graves: Absolutely. Yeah. It's exactly. Yeah. ERIK Lawrence: strap and everything and that's where Most of it you can do with body weight, truthfully. You Eric Graves: Yeah. ERIK Lawrence: know, you don't have to you know, I just interviewed Joe Vega the other day and he's he's lifting like a house, you know. I'm like, Come on, man. Yeah, no, he always Eric Graves: That he's a that guy's a machine. He's always been that way. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Yeah, he's as big now as he's ever been, I think, you know, and he's only Eric Graves: Wow. ERIK Lawrence: sixty eight, so no big deal. But yeah, he he'll he had a great interview, so you'll like that. But but the guys, you know, if moderation, you know, just body weight, walking, some hills, you know, hills go a long way. You don't have to be a Eric Graves: Yeah, you don't just throw off ERIK Lawrence: gym beast. You don't even have to go to the gym, truthfully. Yeah. Eric Graves: Throw a pack on your back and get out there and enjoy the enjoy the outdoors. It's good for you. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Yeah, the other day when we were talking, I was out rucking. I'm like, why am I out rucking? You know, I swore I'd never do it again. But it felt so familiar and it felt so comfortable that I could just actively meditate and not be present. You know, you're just out there. You're just how many times did we ruck for hours upon hours upon hours and your mind just raced? Now my mind doesn't race when I'm out doing that. It's kind of weird. Eric Graves: Well, it's cathartic. Right? ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: Outdoors, doing something familiar, and you know, just enjoying yourself and without all the distractions of the world. I one thing I don't do enough of is unplug. You know, that's one of the problems with running ERIK Lawrence: No, I'm sure. Eric Graves: this business is I am always connected somehow. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: I remember, you know, raising the kids, like I said, 18 years. So I'm raising kids, six kids, and ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: we'd go on vacation somewhere, and well Let's stop and have lunch. Dad's gotta get on a, you know, call with somebody. You know, you got ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: while the kids are eating lunch. I'm doing something, writing a story, whatever. I my wife at the time would have killed me, you know, when I was doing this. I swear to God, she wanna kill me because like I'd be working on some big story, you know, at night when we're supposed to be on vacation, you know, and she's wanting to go out to dinner or something. Like, I can't, you know, I gotta gotta do this research, make sure ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: I get this right. ERIK Lawrence: Well, but that was how we kept our mind busy too, to not deal with anything else that we're we're troubled by. 'Cause I used to do it too. I would send them on vacation so I could work twenty hours a day and not think about any demons. You know. it was horrible. Yeah. Well Eric Graves: That's that's a good idea if you can do that. But I think we all need to like take a break. You need to take a break. Yeah, sometimes though you gotta you have to shield the family from from that. Especially if you're on the military, right? Like ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: the family needs to decompress too. ERIK Lawrence: Well, and that's part of what I'm trying to do too is is we have to get to the point where when a guy is getting some kind of treatment or therapy, the family does too. Because look at the multiplier there. He's one, she's one, and then you got kids. And you you've got seven people against you. And if you're having troubles, they're having troubles. Eric Graves: It's we've all been members of teams, right? That was the whole point. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: There's no solo guy who makes anything happen. That's only in the movies. ERIK Lawrence: No. No. Yeah, it but that's where when you know, we were both entrepreneurs, so we kinda picked our poison and we could have probably done it different, but hindsight's always twenty twenty, you know. Eric Graves: Yeah, I'm not I'm not as hard in it anymore. I do d my phone goes to do not disturb at night now, which ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: it didn't do. You know, somebody would call me in the middle of the night. I'm like, now whatever you're gonna tell me is not gonna change the world. You're gonna tell me. It's you know, it's ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: not that big a deal. it's important to you and I'll get to it, but you know, I kinda had to start backing off on some of the, you know, available ERIK Lawrence: Yeah, that's smart. Eric Graves: twenty four seven to people. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah, well I used to always say there's only one East Coast time, but the rest of the world's at war. You know, so we w we were dealing with twenty-four seven, you know, in logistics. Eric Graves: Sure. ERIK Lawrence: And you know, you look at a time difference, my gosh, you know, when when the Ukraine war started, I was up at two every day. Two eighteen I'd wake up and the messages would start hitting, you know, and I'm Eric Graves: Sure. ERIK Lawrence: like, two eighteen. I'm like, what the hell's going on at two eighteen? Except for me. But now I'm up to three fifteen. So it's I've I've got an extra hour to sleep typically. Yeah, I'm really progressing. Eric Graves: Good for you. That's the other thing, man. Like you gotta get good sleep and I that's probably my biggest challenge is getting ERIK Lawrence: Mm. Eric Graves: good sleep. Making it through the night. ERIK Lawrence: Well, I mean, yeah, a lot of people they've got the sleep apnea going on, they got the th they don't deal with the circadian rhythm properly. You know, you have to supplement that too, you know, with your blood work. You've got to see where your magnesium, potassium and all those things are and I really like, you know, when you bring up the endocrine system and it you know, part of what I put in the book was how to read your labs. You know, what should things be? And they've been sliding these numbers lower and lower, nefariously, I believe, you know, cholesterol and this and that. It's like you're you're full of shit, you know. Eric Graves: well, I think it's just so I can use more pharmaceuticals, right? Because ninety ERIK Lawrence: I do too. Yeah. Eric Graves: percent of us, we walk into a doctor's office and well, your cholesterol's high here, here's a statin. your blood pressure is a ERIK Lawrence: No. No. Eric Graves: little high, you know, here's Lysinoprol. And you ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: they start putting in all this stuff instead of going, Eric, how can we okay, and your numbers are a little high. Let's take a look at how you're living and how can we help you modify your lifestyle? ERIK Lawrence: Correct. Eric Graves: Because guys aren't changing their ERIK Lawrence: They don't make money. Eric Graves: lifestyle. Well, you're not changing your lifestyle if you just take that pill and it it masks the underlying problem that's causing this, right? You're just and then the ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't correct it. Eric Graves: pills begin to stack upon one another, causing downstream problems. That's why, right, ERIK Lawrence: S side effects, yeah. Eric Graves: you go back to the endocrine system, you get that back on track, you know, then everything starts to fall in place again. one thing a a guy said to me, we were out to dinner one night after a trade show, he said. There's no reason you need to be an old man anymore. ERIK Lawrence: Yes, correct. That's gonna be a point of many of these episodes. Don't volunteer to quit and be old. You know, my kids always Eric Graves: Yeah. I mean ERIK Lawrence: ask me, How am I? and I'm like, I'm twenty nine. I'm good to go, man. You know, it's just Eric Graves: Yeah. ERIK Lawrence: it's it's what you what you know, you don't you don't have a duty to get old. I'm sorry. Get over it. Eric Graves: No, and there are plenty of ways to help you now. There there are loads of places to go ERIK Lawrence: gosh yeah, more than ever. Eric Graves: to get resources to help you maintain a healthy body well into your seventies at least. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: And I think we'll go even further than that. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah, one of the things I harp on is detoxing, you know, either daily, weekly, monthly, whatever. And and I wrote Annex one in that book as my daily detox. People say, it's pretty extreme. And I'm like, just do it for a month and call me back. It'll change everything, you know, and I I you get up, you go to the bathroom, of course, you go for a walk, you brush your teeth, you oil pool, you do this, you do that. It's not a drudgery once you're used to it and then when you see the effects later you're like, holy hell, that didn't cost me anything but effort. And it's generally not effort Eric Graves: You know, ERIK Lawrence: once it's part of your day. Eric Graves: that is the most important thing, is right. You have to make things part of your day. You know, people are like, Eric, how can you write all the time? Because it's I it's part of what I do, right? It's part of my battle rhythm that I have. Right? I get up, I check information everywhere, and I start working on, okay, what am I going to talk about tomorrow, the next day? Maybe this moves down the road. Maybe I've got to I wake up in the morning. I've got to change the lineup for my website. So every night when I go to bed. It used to be when I went to bed, I would put the what I would say put the website to bed, which was the next day was gonna be popping. You can pre-program in WordPress when things are gonna publish. So some people used to think I was up 247, you know, typing all the time. Like it's not that bad. I'm pre-programming things, but now when I sit down to dinner, you know, five PM, I want the next day finished. there may be something I have to, you know, ERIK Lawrence: Mm-hmm. Eric Graves: change. You know, people on the West Coast, they might send me something that, you know, it Eight o'clock at night. But I, you know, if I get it that late, I'll look at it. And if it's not something super hot, that's gonna go into the next day, right? It's gonna get pushed a day. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Yeah. Eric Graves: And I'll tell people you send me something in the afternoon and this is super hot, you want eyes on it. People come to my website first thing in the morning to start their day off. I'm gonna hold that a day for you until the next morning to get more eyes or the right eyes on it. And I've been ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Yeah. Eric Graves: doing this so long, I kind of know when people look at things from different organizations, what time of day, you know, talk to them about that. So pretty good at kind of predicting when a piece of information should should be put out. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. And another thing I'd like us to do in the future is let's just do one of these just kinda like on working for yourself, entrepreneur ideas. Keep keeping Eric Graves: Love to do that. ERIK Lawrence: from cutting your own throat by moving too quickly, you know. That would Eric Graves: I I ERIK Lawrence: be very good. Eric Graves: I met a young man, this is several years ago, and he has a great business, small business in the DC area. But he said, When I was in college, I started a blog, you know, and I I wrote it for a week and nobody read it, so I quit. And I'm like, Well, I I wrote it for almost a year before I commercialized what I did. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: and I you know, I didn't tell anybody I was doing soldier systems when I started it. There was no my name wasn't associated all because I was working somewhere else. I was just doing it for ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: fun. And people would come to me and go, Eric, did you see this cool website? I'm like, yeah, that's pretty neat. Yeah, that's pretty cool. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: and eventually, really what happened was I was writing about people and they'd go, Hey man, we make money every time you write about us. How about you would you like some advertising? And I'm like, No, no, no, no, I got this great job, I'm good. and then there's always on the back of my mind. And sometimes, you know, things just happen. I call it providence. You know, like, hey, we're gonna lay off. a little stress, ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: but then I went, okay, well, I can make this happen. I and you actually you're forcing my hand to do something that's in my best interest and in the best interest ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Correct. Eric Graves: interest of my family. so you know, sometimes doors open, change is not always bad. Change is opportunity, ERIK Lawrence: No, and it's constant. Eric Graves: it's opportunity. And ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: a lot of guys look at change like with fear, and I'm like, man, just analyze that change. Is it gonna be There are gonna be good and bad and how can you capitalize on change? ERIK Lawrence: Well, I mean, look how many you know, you you haven't done as many times as I am, but I I've written so many different chapters in this my book on what I've done through the years. I'm used to it, you know, e even if it's a nuclear kick in the nut change. I'm like, fuck, here we go again. Let's let's start a new tangent, start a new angle. But it perfects the Eric Graves: Well, yeah, y you've started ERIK Lawrence: system. Eric Graves: you've started from scratch a couple of times and I fortunately I haven't ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: had to do that. But you know what? In the back of my mind, I always have like a little compartment that's okay, if the industry you're in completely changes, what would you do? How would you remake yourself? some people think I'm gonna be overtaken by AI, but I reject that completely because AI is really just a at least a large language model is really just a big fast search engine. It has to go for original sources. It creates nothing. I create original ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Yeah. Eric Graves: data, right? So as long as there are people out there creating data, yeah, AI is going to come scrape it, but that's always been happening. I have to the data has to be available somehow. And so I create data. I allow people to read it for free. and I sustain myself through selling advertising. And you know, I've come up with a business model that works. one of the big things I learned in business, I'll just throw a business thing at there that I tell all young entrepreneurs, diversify risk. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. I'm I often ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: meet guys, you know, they're like makers and they'll like make a knife, right? And they come to me and they Eric, will you promote my knife? Yeah, I'll put the knife out there. They sell a bunch. Come to me like two weeks later. Hey man, my sales have slowed down. Can you write about my knife again? I'm like, no. I wrote about I write about new stuff. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: So build another knife. Come with another knife, come with a new product, come with a new sheath, I'm and I'm yours. Right. But I I don't exist to keep talking about what happened. I'm we're talking about what is happening. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: And that's what's important. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Well that keeps the eyeballs on it every morning, you know. You you know your audience. And Eric Graves: Yeah. ERIK Lawrence: that audience is massive. there's no way around that. But that's where you know, through the years all the good old challenges I've had to go through with the brain treatments and this and that and the different therapies I've forced myself to go, We gotta turn this around, we gotta pass the the word out. You know, 'cause I see guys all the time with the same symptoms I had back in the day. And it's it's typically T BIs, you know, and people would call it P T S D back then. It's not that. It's Eric Graves: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. ERIK Lawrence: your brain's actually damaged. Then Eric Graves: Yes. ERIK Lawrence: that throws off, as you says, your endocrine and all your balances are gone. So how can you maintain any normal? Your normal is chaotic at best. Eric Graves: Well, ERIK Lawrence: And Eric Graves: the VA, I think, still is not doing a great job on the mental health side of what ERIK Lawrence: No. Eric Graves: goes on. But I waited 19 years after I retired to file for VA. And I'm so now I'm kind of a newbie dealing with VA and and going, Why did you reject my tinnitus? Right? I mean, you can look at ERIK Lawrence: Yeah, they always do. Eric Graves: what my my jobs were. I you know, I I had earphones on either as a radio operator or as a signal intelligence interceptor, you know, like I I listened to static all day. and I ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: was in special forces units. I fired all kinds of crazy weapons all the time, you know, and I I was in airplanes all the time. And, you know, nope, it's not service related. I'm like, you s you kind of just what the hell? So you gotta be persistent. I VSOs, mine was horrible. I expected to go into it was a local county guy here in Florida. I expected to go in there and have him kind of Okay, Eric, did you have this, this, this, this? I bring I bring in two stacks of my medical records, right? I two two different volumes from so many years. because you know, you take physicals all the time in SOF. And ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: in the Air Force, when you're on jump status, you're considered a flyer. So you're taking flight physicals all the time. So I've got all this data about my body, how it's done things, right? And I give you my jump records. He's like, Why are you giving me my jump your jump records? I go, because you can like correlate a jump to an injury. ERIK Lawrence: And injury. Yeah. Eric Graves: you know, injury, right? On in my records. And anyway, so he didn't go through everything. I just what what do you want to claim is what he said. And so you know I claimed some stuff. I didn't know any better. Like I said my joints ache. So it wasn't any of my upper body stuff is I guess I gotta put in for that. You know, things like that happen. so I suggest you do some research if you're gonna file to VA before you file to find out what are the things that that they you know that they look for simply because you might call it something that in your mind that's what it is, but the ERIK Lawrence: Correct. Eric Graves: VA it's something completely different. Then you would file differently, right? you would, ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: you know, be specific specific about it. So it's tough dealing with a VA and it's tough finding organizations that are really good at helping. but I that's true. And there but there's more ambulance chasers now than ever too. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah, but th there's more now than ever. Yeah. Yeah, true. Yeah, yeah. Eric Graves: I mean, we just saw these guys in North Carolina, you know, get in trouble. they weren't accredited by the VA, they were charging these crazy rates. you know, guys right outside of Fort Bragg. so you have to be careful. Caveat Am Tor, right? Buyer beware, like who you do business with. And that that's life. That ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: is absolutely life. And I want to give another piece of advice that I tell guys who are getting out of service, particularly soft guys. So The higher the level of your organization in in the structure, right? The more elite your organization is, you're gonna become more susceptible to a problem when you get out. And that is people trying to bring you into their orbit or you into their orbit to use you for legitimacy purposes. So when you're in a special unit, ERIK Lawrence: Touch the magic. Yeah. Eric Graves: everybody working around you has been vetted, right? They don't put people in front of you who are bullshit artists, right? Like the guy who comes in and briefs you on something, they're an expert, right? The guy who cooks your breakfast, he's part of the organization. Everything. So everybody you deal with all the time, you can trust them implicitly, right? You learn you can trust them. You get out here, you can't trust everybody. And I've seen it happen to so many guys. It's almost happened to me, where someone will try and, you know, yeah, Eric Graves is my good friend. And then, you know, and they use it to get a favor somewhere. Then the the favor comes back. Hey, Eric, I did this for you know this guy. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: Well, I met him once. We're not, we're not friends, you know. I'm not gonna let you, you know, I don't I don't want him using my name to go ask for some company to give him like five holsters or something crazy, right? ERIK Lawrence: Yeah, exactly. Eric Graves: You know, and so then you know, because that company that is gonna expect, you know, we did a favor for Eric, we want a favor back. And so it's funny, you know, I'll come to companies and I'll go, hey. I wanna buy, you know, this a thing from you. And they're like, We'll give you one. I go, I'm gonna buy it. you know, if there's a a deal you give veterans or something, I I'll happily take that. But, you know, people go all the time like, Eric, you didn't need to buy that. Well, I I I wanted to buy it. so that I could say, you know, nobody could say, you know, Eric's nice about this because of we gave it they gave him something. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Yeah, and and they I don't know. I used to I Eric Graves: Integrity. Integrity, right? Integrity. ERIK Lawrence: used to see it all the time also is you know, your friends would ask for a discount from items in your company you're selling and I'm like, You know our margins? Do you understand business? Do you do this at Walmart when Eric Graves: That's your thing I understand. Yeah. ERIK Lawrence: you're buying fucking tires? You know? I'm like, y this is what my kids eat, you know. And it's kinda weird that a guy doesn't see that point. Eric Graves: It's even more important with small companies. Yeah. Smaller companies is even more important, right? Like a big company, you know, like huge company, like you know, it's it's a little different because it's baked ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. it's different. Yeah. That's that's right off. Eric Graves: in, right? But but like a small guy, you know, he's starting out, he's like making some cool day packs or something, you know, and I'm like, hey, how much I want to buy a day pack from you. I just want to make sure I get in line and get one. We'll send you one. I'm like, No, no, no, it's okay, I'll I'll buy it. Cause I know ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Correct. Eric Graves: I'm taking money away from your family, right? ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: And and I you need to invest that money back in that business so that business grows and gets better. that's a very good point you bring up, you know, that people think they could always get the bro discount, no matter what, you know, and you're like, Hey Yeah, you're killing me. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. I'm like, dude, man, you're killing me. You know how many bros I have? I mean, do they all get a discount? Why be in business Eric Graves: Yeah, true. ERIK Lawrence: anymore, you know? but that's where I don't think we've been out enough to get the experience to go, wow, what would it take for him to do that? You know? And also our time, you know, if we help somebody, we give we freely give that time. But that's where I hope people value that. You know, w you and I, we ha we have some background. If we put something out, it's fairly accurate and probably thought through. It's not made up. Eric Graves: Well, you know, mentorship I I I take mentorship on as a mantle. I be I some guys know, you I I grew up in scouting. I was an Eagle Scout. I have sons who are Eagle Scouts. you know, I helped out with scouting for a long time before they grew up. but even today, you know, I I started getting these phone calls from guys and I realized I'm that old guy you call and ask for ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: advice. And then it becomes super important because they're gonna rely on me for good solid advice, right? So I really have to make sure ERIK Lawrence: Yes. Eric Graves: I can't just make some flippant comment like guys in marital problems. I can't go, well, just get a divorce. You gotta ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: go, okay, what's going on with your family? And you know, what what have you done? You know, what's going on? What can we do to, you know, affect things so your family's happier or your happier, your spouse is happier, or your business is going through something. Here's some alternatives. ERIK Lawrence: Mm-hmm. Eric Graves: Here's some ideas to help your business out, right? yeah, you know, it it's like a a lot of I'm not called stress, but it's you know, it's it's ERIK Lawrence: Responsibility. Eric Graves: it's a responsibility, a weight on you, you know, when people call you for advice, you gotta give good advice. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Well it's also rewarding when you see them and they've actually done it and it worked. And I'm gonna have some Eric Graves: Yeah. Yeah. What a ERIK Lawrence: interviews with some younger guys that I've done that with in the past and they've done miraculous, you Eric Graves: Cool. ERIK Lawrence: know, because they had the discipline to stick with it. Eric Graves: Right. Some people have to learn lessons by, you know, screwing up. And, you know, ERIK Lawrence: Yep. Pain. Yeah. Eric Graves: some guys can they they see somebody else and they go, Okay, I'm not gonna do that or and some guys go looking for advice and go, Okay, I wanna it worked for this guy. and I would never give another guy advice I wouldn't give myself. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's yeah, it's kind of foolish to to give him something whimsical that may work, you know. Eric Graves: It's it's well, you know, I I don't I don't charge for advice, right? I don't I don't do that, ERIK Lawrence: Of course not, yeah. Eric Graves: right? I I I'm doing it out of the goodness of my heart because I wanna pass it on. But there are people who who give advice out for for, you know, money and ERIK Lawrence: Mm-hmm. Eric Graves: I don't know, man. You know, some of that's probably just cookie cutter advice. ERIK Lawrence: it and it's ego building, you know, it's those ego assholes. Yeah, we we've we've got plenty of those. Eric Graves: Okay, remember I said in the beginning, well, I said in the beginning, I've got a face for radio. And when I started this business, I didn't build it as the Eric Graves website. I built it as Solar Systems Daily. And so I really stand on the accuracy of the data I provide. This goes back to being in the intelligence business. You said the website's so easy ERIK Lawrence: yeah. Eric Graves: to consume. It's like little, quick little intel reports all day long about what's going on in the world, right? And it was created in 2008 as an electronic newspaper. A lot of people don't know that. but ERIK Lawrence: Yep. Eric Graves: I I built it on a newspaper. and I have not changed the format. I get people come to me, Eric, you should change this format. I'm like, it works. you know, ERIK Lawrence: No. No. Eric Graves: there are websites I've gone to for years and they change the format, and I'm like, it becomes hard to find things and I just I'd lose interest. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: So I'm like, I will I will update the rear end of it, you know, the back end to make sure that the engine's working fine. but I haven't changed really the style of the website in eighteen years. ERIK Lawrence: Well, in anything we do, if it's clear and concise and consistent, you know, leave it alone. Yeah, it doesn't have to be perfect if it works. So I I l I Eric Graves: Yeah, right. ERIK Lawrence: like the whole concept, you know, we've always you know, we we've kept in touch forever, you know, so we've Eric Graves: Yeah. ERIK Lawrence: seen the comins and goins of both of us, you know, and and I just Eric Graves: Yeah. Well I see people come along, they they try to do this and it's it's a tough little business to be in. You know, talk about gear. ERIK Lawrence: I tr I train my competition all the time. You know, I'm like, You go girl. You know, this is how I do it. Go ahead and try. But if you don't have the Rolodex, Eric Graves: Yeah, I I see people try. ERIK Lawrence: it's not gonna work, you know? It's it's it's connections. Yeah. Yeah. Eric Graves: And you don't have the ethic, you don't have the work ethic like we talked about. That kid I wrote for a week, nobody read it. It takes longer than that ERIK Lawrence: No kidding. Eric Graves: to invest in this, right? You know, you gotta you gotta build something and people will come to it. You ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: can build flash in the pans all day. You could you can do ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: that, right? Social media, you can buy exposure. But what you can't, ERIK Lawrence: yeah. Eric Graves: yeah, what you can't do is do eighteen years worth. You can't just do that. That that takes a lot of investment. ERIK Lawrence: Well let's do more of passing it down. You know, we w you and I'll jot some notes between and I'd like to do one with you on entrepreneurship for sure. A and 'cause and you've seen the industry. Eric Graves: I'd love to. You know, I I'm learning all the time too. ERIK Lawrence: So you see all kinds of what works, what doesn't work, you know, you you've got a lot of data. Eric Graves: I've seen great companies come up, but they just weren't run very well. And I've seen companies that shouldn't be in business that are still there. And you know, I'd like to talk about, you know, there's really two kinds of people, right? There's there's a creator, and you and I are kind of guys who create stuff, and then there are ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: people who administer stuff. you know, and they're ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Two different people, yeah. Eric Graves: two different people. And we always have organization I've worked in some organizations in the Department of Defense that. were very entrepreneurial and after a year or two, three years, the rulemakers start to show up and they wreck the place, right? It's no longer ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: a core group of these really great people in that organization. They start assigning people there haphazard and they want to put all these rules in place. And you know, it just the effectiveness falls apart really fast when that happens. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Well, we've seen a lot of that. So I I think we can get our heads together. Yeah, and that's my point. Eric Graves: It happens in business too. Yeah, it happens in business too. ERIK Lawrence: That that's my point. Yeah, it it definitely happens in business, but we've seen enough iterations and cycles of this and examples that we can put together some good ideas, I think, and then put back out one day. Eric Graves: You got it, man. I'd love to do more with you. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. You got anything else you want to put out before we close out? I mean, you had good points, but anything to to send home with? Eric Graves: Take care of yourself and take care of your family. That's the most important thing. You know, I I mean, ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: yeah, I understand. You know, we we retire from the service. We whether you're two years or 42 years, you get out and there's this couple of things happen. One is a sigh of relief, but the other one is, crap. What's next? ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: Right. And that's we don't really prepare for that. because we go from very organized, regimented lifestyle to, No regimentation and then it becomes back to discipline, right? Am I continue to take care of myself? Am I continue to you know lead a a structured lifestyle? And ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: w how can I use that structured lifestyle in my best interest? ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Well, we're we're gonna harp on that a lot, you know, with these different episodes and you know, as I always say, they might have to hear it five different ways for it to make sense. So if people get tired of hearing it, that's on them, but otherwise I'm gonna keep harping on it. Eric Graves: As long as it as as long as it you know, as long as it sinks in eventually, that's what matters. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Well let's end this one and get to thinking on our our next ones 'cause we have Eric Graves: You got it. ERIK Lawrence: too much too much in the database to not push out. So we can do that. Yeah. Eric Graves: I wanna I wanna end something. I wanna end with something. So I told you Dave Fridovich was my last battalion commander, second battalion, third special forces group in nineteen ninety-five, ninety ninety six. I left in January ninety six to go to Air Force. So it's two thousand two. JTF five ten has stood up in Samboanga, Philippines, and first group's falling in on us and I'm in the jock floor. I'm the day J two watch officer, the battle captain. And I'm on the wash floor and Dave Fridovich walks in. And I swear to God, ERIK Lawrence: Mm. Eric Graves: first thing out of this guy's mouth, Graves, my biggest disappointment. Because I went I took an Air Force commission and an Army commission. And but it was pretty funny to me. I laughed. A lot of people are like, How the hell does this guy know him? And I'm like, I used to work for him. And they're like, wait a minute. You know, people didn't know my background were like, What do you mean you used to work for that SF odd colonel? I'm like, Well. I was in the army and they, you know, okay. But it's funny because soft community is so small, you know, you'll run ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: into people all over the world that you worked with somewhere else in the world. And we meet out here all the time. That's why I love going to Soft Week. It's like you know, a high school reunion. ERIK Lawrence: yeah. True. Yeah, but all those guys, they've all had their battles and I I wanna get out on the web and and, you know, institutionalized in some way so others can learn from it. 'Cause there's there's a lot of hard lessons. Eric Graves: You know, I wish Frido would talk more. Yeah, Frido went through some stuff and you know, it'd be good to have him talk more about that. He he was very outspoken when he went through his health issues as he was retiring. it'd be good to get him out here again, kind of reminding people about how you can be treated by the military and it end up ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Eric Graves: turns into substance abuse very easily. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah. Yeah. exactly. Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of that too. So anybody you wanna suggest, you know, send them to me and we'll figure it out. No I Eric Graves: Well, thanks man. I really appreciate the opportunity. Now some people there are gonna be a lot of people who have never seen Eric Graves, Soldier Systems Daily. This is me. and I think Eric's gonna show some photos of me as a chubby guy. yeah, so I'm looking forward to hearing the feedback. ERIK Lawrence: yeah. Well it's it's change is we're gonna we're gonna show the improved model. Eric Graves: Well, I'm getting back to where I was in my thirties, you know, I'm as healthy as I've been I was was in my thirties, which for me is great. ERIK Lawrence: Yeah, but that's a hell of an accomplishment, man. Come on, look look around at Walmart. It's not happening. Yeah, so take that on board and be Eric Graves: I know. I know. It's unfortunate. ERIK Lawrence: proud of it and pass it on. Eric Graves: Got it. ERIK Lawrence: Okay, we will see you, Eric. Thank you very much. Eric Graves: Yeah. All right. Yep. Take care.