Latest / The Junto Podcast / E9: Teamwork and Collaborative Success

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E9: Teamwork and Collaborative Success · The Junto Podcast

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Music.
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Hello, America. Welcome to the Juneto Podcast, where we promote the practical
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applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
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As always, I'm your host, Edgar Mills.
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Music.
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Hello, America, and welcome to Episode 9 of the Juneto Podcast.
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Thank you for listening.
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Today we're going to be talking about teamwork and collaboration,
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collaborative efforts to achieve common goals.
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I personally don't have a whole lot of experience with this.
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Yes, I do own my small business, Osprey Shooting Solutions, along with the Southern
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Ornithological League and now the Junto Podcast.
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However, most of this up until now has been a sort of a solo project.
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Now, that's not to say my son hasn't been very critical, a very critical part of this.
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My son does help, but I don't consider that or haven't considered that up until now a partnership.
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He's my son. He's blood of my blood. I trust him with whatever, my life.
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So it's not a big stretch for me to ask him to take care of something and know
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that he's going to take care of it.
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But now we're getting along in the process here. We've been running since 2017.
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That's about eight years that we've been up and running as an LLC.
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Now, the first three years we were in Colorado Springs, and we were certainly
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a part-time organization.
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Obviously, I was still active duty. I was still deploying during that time.
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So, but we did that to sort of slowly but surely build a reputation and a base, a clientele base.
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And we did a pretty good job of it, I think, in Colorado Springs.
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And then we moved to Georgia.
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So now the dream has always been to have a range complex.
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And we're getting to that now. But what that means is I now have to put my trust
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into someone else I have a partner,
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We're de facto partners. We both have a common vision, common goal, common background.
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And we both obviously want to make money.
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And we both obviously are passionate about what we're doing in the shooting industry.
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So I think it's going to be good. I have no reason to think anything will go south.
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I have been in my past somewhat of a control freak.
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And I'm learning slowly that I have to have to be able to put trust into other people,
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and and that's all right I'm also very adaptable though I think I think it's
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gonna I think it's gonna be very good so collaboration right I grew up in a
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time in the 70s and 80s of I think still individualism,
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rugged individualism, right?
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Jeremiah Johnson, going it alone, being independent.
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That was admired. And to be quite honest with you, I moved around so much in
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my youth up until adulthood and even in adulthood that I never played team sports.
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I played football for a few years that I never got to finish a season or start a season.
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It was spring training and then boom, I moved somewhere else.
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So my team sports, the benefits that come from team sport, I see through other
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people as being very, very important.
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But I had to learn in a different way to play well with others. So I joined the Army.
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And that is a team sport, very much so. And even then, I was still somewhat of an individualist.
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I never quite fit right in.
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I was very, yeah, an individualist still. And I held on to that throughout my entire career.
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And my career is not a storied one. I was never one of the Golden Boys at all.
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People didn't like me based on my very direct communication style.
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And I had anger issues probably a little bit.
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And so I've been accused of being difficult and things like that,
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but I've never been accused of being incompetent. I can tell you that.
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Still, teamwork was very important, especially on a mountain team,
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which I was on most of my career.
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Teamwork is critical someone's got to belay you and you have to trust that guy
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not only that guy but the equipment and everything else,
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and I put a lot of trust in my teammates doing that because I was somewhat of
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a chicken shit when it came to being up in high places and I'm still scared
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of heights to this day however that was overcome to a certain degree,
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individualism self-reliance, all those things I was very much,
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that. I believed in that.
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And that's not to say selfish. There's nothing I hate more than a selfish individual,
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especially a selfish man, a capable man.
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There's nothing I hate more than a selfish, capable man.
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But there is rational self-interest and things like that to be looked out for.
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And we'll get into some of that stuff.
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I'm a big follower of Ayn Rand and the
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philosophy of objectivism you guys may or
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may not know that and that's a that philosophy
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very much celebrates the individual and even
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even selfishness to a degree that as long as you're doing what's good for you
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that will be good for other people and that's provided that you're a uh you
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have integrity and not a nefarious character, of course.
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But even then, using Atlas Shrugged as an example,
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all the creators, the successful people,
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the business titans who were the heroes of that book,
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they still came together in a collaborative effort to create Galt's Gulch,
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which was the fictional escape from the crumbling world that the government was,
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was basically driving into the ground.
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And that may seem a little familiar, but at any rate, it was a collaborative
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effort. These people were.
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They vetted each other in their own way, and they eventually came together for
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a common goal, a common desire, and that was to create Galt's Gulch.
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Anyway, if you haven't read the book, it's awesome. It's very libertarian,
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and it's very capitalist,
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but it's also very inspiring if you seek to build something greater than— If
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you seek to follow a dream that you have to build a business,
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then that's a good guide. It's a very good guide.
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But these days, things are expensive.
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The cost of living is expensive. The cost of doing business is expensive.
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Now, I come from the low end of the economic spectrum.
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And i was never smart with money and i
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and i never had money anyway i don't
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know if this resonates with people who who have
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money and have always had money but this will probably resonate with people
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who are working class guys who struggle it takes money to make money everybody's
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heard it and i i believe that to be true and this uh is speaking of money right this,
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deal we're about to embark on here for to build
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our range only through collaboration
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could i have had that and found that through collaboration if i had two hundred
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thousand dollars to buy land then this this would have happened five years ago
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but i don't i don't have the kind of money to do that.
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I may have been able to make a better strategic decision when buying my house
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that we live in, but after analysis,
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like right now, my range is on my property, my residential property.
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And I'm pretty sure my wife gets tired of hearing gunfire every day.
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And even when I have people down on the range doing their own private stuff,
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I get a little sick of hearing gunfire when I'm watching TV and trying to do other work and stuff.
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So at any rate, my point is...
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It takes money to make money, and had I, I don't know, maybe possibly managed
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money better throughout my career for sure, but if I was a guy that had a lot
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of money, I would have been able to get going a lot faster.
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But I think that's kind of God's way of testing and molding my patience.
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I've never been a highly patient fellow, and these days my patience is improved
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by leaps and bounds, leaps and bounds.
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And I'm glad for it, but it still hurts.
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It still hurts me.
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That being said, speaking of teamwork and collaboration,
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a friend of mine in Colorado Springs, I'll go ahead and say,
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because he's posted it, Mark Fitzwater, he runs I-68 Consulting.
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He does the exact same things we do, teaches firearms training and does security
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consulting and various things.
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He has broken ground on his range in Colorado, and I couldn't be more excited
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and proud to see how his stuff shakes out.
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And I'm sure he's excited to see how mine shakes out.
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He and I came before we moved to Georgia, Mark and I came together to talk about collaborating.
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How can we improve each other and get together and do great things?
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And then I ended up moving.
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But we have very similar thought process on it.
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I've got on a tangent, but what I'm getting at here is the burden,
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the financial burdens of running a business are just immense.
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And partnering with someone to share the burden of not only finances,
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but knowledge and skill sets and things like that can open the door for bigger and better, right?
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And the same applies, and I'm not getting into marriage counseling here,
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but the same applies to marriage.
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You're partnering with someone to do life.
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Now, I know some power couples who work together, who created a business together,
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be it real estate or a brewery or whatever.
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And they have a common goal for business, and they also happen to be in love. And that's awesome.
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But at minimum, if you and your wife don't work together, you do separate things,
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you're still partners in life.
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And you still have to share the burden.
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And it's good when you can share the burden on things.
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Some days, you just can't deal with it, whatever it is.
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And your wife might pick that slack up. And vice versa, some days,
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she just might not be able to deal with it. and you are expected to pick that slack up.
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I hate to make it sound so, it's a business, it's a partnership.
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And unfortunately, because the government makes you get licensed and everything,
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it's a legal partnership.
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But my wife and I talked a little bit about that today, about expectations when
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it comes to getting married to someone.
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And the question is, how often do couples talk about expectations?
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They're in love and they want to do, oh yeah, we want to buy a house and have kids.
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Those are very generic, broad expectations.
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And some people don't even talk about that. Some people don't even talk about
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kids until they get married.
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But how many people actually talk about behavioral expectations?
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Like, look, when I'm down, I expect you to be there to do this,
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that, and the other. And I will do this, that, and the other.
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Or if you're a stay-at-home mom and you plan, that's the plan is to raise your
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children and homeschool and things like that.
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And the husband has expectations of being the breadwinner while the wife has
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expectations of raising children who are well-adjusted and intelligent, right?
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And yes, a working dad will take part in that.
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However, expectations, you got to talk about them with your wife and you got
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to talk about them with your business partners.
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So back to business. Yep, my de facto partner Kurt and I have finally gotten
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close enough to a handshake But
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we do have a handshake Now we're trying to gather enough information to,
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We don't have enough information yet to hit go on the button And we don't have
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money yet That's another thing and that's part of this right here is at some point,
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and I've said this plenty of times, is we are going to be doing an all call for investors,
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anyone interested in investing.
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And there's going to be a few options on that.
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And when the time is right, we'll put that out. But we are certainly looking for investors.
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And then another way that we're
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going to do that is we're going to do a pre-registration for the range.
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So you can get in early, a membership early, because there's going to be a finite
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number of memberships available just based on capacity.
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Now we expect this range to be able to have a pretty large capacity.
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However, it's not infinite and we can't just take members nonstop.
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So that's a thing. That's a thing we're looking at, but I'm very excited about that. And,
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I've slept on it, I've prayed on it a little bit, and I'm very excited to be
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partnered with the guy that I'm partnered with.
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I don't think I would have been able to find another, other than my best friend,
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Timmy Haynes, I don't think I would have been able to find a better fit to go
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into this business with.
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So I'm very excited about it, even though it's a new thing, literally new thing
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for me to to partner with with another person to see my dream realized,
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it's a very exciting thing collaboration on
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on other efforts we have a course coming
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up pretty soon on may the 24th in fact with a
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company called vitac solutions and they
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do medical training stop the
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bleed first aid cpr all those things and
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i happen to know one of the fellows involved
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in that and and i do trust him as well he's a he's
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a former green beret and we work together deployed together
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and things like that and and we're gonna
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do a course together where they do the first
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aid part and i do the everyday carry part of that and that's a collaboration
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that it's new we haven't done it yet and hopefully it goes well and hopefully
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it'll be a thing that it's ongoing you know maybe every quarter or you know
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a couple times a year at least.
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So there are plenty of people in the sphere of what I do that I trust to work with,
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but again there's very few that I would jump into business with very few that
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I would jump been the business with.
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And speaking of former collaborations, Nathan Hicks of Higher Ground USA,
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he and I do a search and rescue mountaineer course together,
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and that's a collaborative effort.
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And I think, I don't know that we were both overly cautious,
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but we were optimistically cautious about doing it together.
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I think it turned out quite well, and I think we plan to do another one, maybe late fall.
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I'm not quite sure yet, but that's a collaborative effort between two companies
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that I think was very successful.
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I know the class was, I love doing the class, so I might be a little biased, but I love doing it.
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And I hope the people who did the course love taking the course.
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But that's a collaborative effort. I have collaborated with three of seven project
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on a, uh, on a course that we did over, it was called the guardian directive.
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So there was a, there was a lot of stuff involved in that. It was sort of very involved course.
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And I did the shooting piece of it and did some, some presentations on.
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Situational awareness type, type stuff and, you know, classroom stuff.
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That was a good one. It was big it was
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well it was a little pricey for the people taking it
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but i hope they got the value out of it i had
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a great time doing it and i had fun sort
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of going back and forth with with the three of seven fellows because we probably
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weren't 100 on the same sheet of music and i still think we delivered an excellent
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product so even then professionals can make things happen so there was enough, once again,
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optimistic caution there.
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We went into it and then we delivered and it was great. And that was a good collaboration.
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So I think these days, I.
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Especially these days, your average citizen, I think your average working class
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citizen doesn't have a whole lot of disposable income right now.
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Hopefully that'll change, you know, sooner than later.
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But especially since 2020, you know, it's been kind of hard times.
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And some people consider firearms training and teamwork leadership training as a luxury.
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Not a necessity and it depends on what business you're in really whether or
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not it's a necessity i think for like law enforcement for sure it's a necessity to do firearms training.
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So i think collaborating with other companies to put on something that's pretty robust,
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and and very heavy on value for
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this to make it worth your hard-earned bucks i think
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i think collaborative effort are the way to
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do that there's there's plenty of dudes out there running solo and they're happy
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enough to do what they're doing and and make what they're making and put out
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their product to whoever they put it out to and i'm happy to do that too and i do that,
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but i think branching out and getting your feet wet in different areas is is
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pretty important And especially from a business perspective,
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I could do my firearms classes from now on, make enough money to to live the
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current lifestyle I'm living, which, by the way, isn't.
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For those of you who've been out here before and you say, oh,
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man, you got a nice property, a nice house.
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Just understand I'm wildly overextended on that.
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This is the retirement house, so it had to be that way.
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Anyway, yes, teamwork, effort, collaborative effort to reach a common goal.
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And one of the ways that you can get yourself into a position to do that is
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to make yourself available.
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I didn't always do that. I didn't always make myself available.
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But one, make yourself available. and then
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two ease off kind of
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kind of mind yourself on on
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passing judgment on on these
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other people these other companies if there's something
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about a guy you don't like and it's some
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innocuous like he's got a lisp and that's
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it then that's not valid right that's that doesn't
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mean you can't do great things together now if
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it's a character flaw to the point of
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where there's integrity involved then yeah so
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you have to be a good judge of character to figure out who you do and do not
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want to do business with some people are better at that than others i i feel
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like i'm a pretty good judge of character given life experience and where and
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how i grew up and then And even in the military,
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you meet so many different types of people from so many different backgrounds
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who have so many different motivations and value systems and all those things.
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And I think that has helped me in my life to be a very good judge of character.
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So I hope that I put off the same vibes that I look for in partners.
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One, dependability and reliability, right? That you're going to be there and
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you're going to do what you say you're going to do.
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Very, very critical, very important.
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And two is work ethic. Not just reliability for a thing, but all the time,
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reliability, work ethic.
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Very important. And then selflessness. Now, I know in business,
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it's all about making money.
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Sort of. But you don't have to be selfish to make money.
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You can be fair, offer value, offer a good product, and as the old saying goes,
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undersell and over deliver.
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And you can still make a good living doing that.
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In fact, I'd argue you make a better living providing good value.
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So, however, selflessness, I think that's very important. And now I know that
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Ayn Rand tells us there is some righteous selfishness.
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And that's true to a degree. If you can't help yourself, you certainly can't help other people.
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If you can't keep your own house straight, you certainly can't help anyone else
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straight in their house.
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So there's always some nuance. There's always some nuance.
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But self-reliance versus relying on others, I think that is a barrier that maybe some men,
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I see a lot of my former teammates out there collaborating and getting involved
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in all these nonprofits and all sorts of things.
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And that is just, it's just awesome that that's the case.
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But I know a significant other group of humans who are also,
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you know, teammates and workmates and everything else who are, you know, isolated.
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They isolate themselves sometimes, or they just refuse to, hey,
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there's a couple of them who are just so arrogant that they will only do their
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thing and not work with other people.
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And then there's some who just
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don't want to be bothered by the bending to anyone else's expectations.
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So there's a lot going on there psychologically. psychologically when it comes
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to depending on other people.
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And I'm sure there's plenty of you out there who have been burned in business or in friendship even.
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I have been burned in friendship for sure, but.
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Not business and crossing fingers, saying a prayer.
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I think our next move forward is going to be a good one. I think there's going to be longevity.
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In fact, that's one of my stated goals is legacy.
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I plan to build this complex, this range complex, to endure, to sustain.
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I mean, I expect to see my not only son, but grandson and grandchildren and
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great-grandchildren and on down the line.
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I fully expect this to be a Mills family endeavor, not just my passion project.
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And that's one of my most important top sort of priorities there.
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And I think it'll be that.
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I think it'll be that.
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I think ultimately, and what I'm coming to grips with is that ultimately,
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I think that if I tried to go it alone, I think it would be another three or
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four years before I could ever get any traction or at least money to do my own thing.
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Whereas right now, and I don't think I'm being impatient at all,
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I think the stars have aligned and I think we're going to be able to move forward
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with a professional range complex
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and offer professional services and host professional matches and so on.
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So, I hope that I can be an example for those of you who do listen.
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And I hope that I can take some wisdom from some of you.
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I happen to know, like I said, a few guys I know that have been burned with business partnership.
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And it probably went down a little sour. And it probably left some lasting effects.
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So I hope that I have gathered enough wisdom from that, from knowing those things
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and knowing those people and to apply to this.
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And I hope that that my future endeavor here, along with my partner,
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who is Kurt, by the way, if I didn't say that already,
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that that you got that we can be an example for for how to get get things done
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from a working man perspective, from a working man perspective.
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Yeah so now I've talked a lot a lot about that and probably not said a lot again
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I want to jump back on marriage and partnerships real quick personal partnerships yes.
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Women's liberation whatever it is you think you can throw at a thing whatever
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excuse it is you think you can make for not pulling your weight in a relationship,
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you're wrong if you're if you're a grown man and you think that just because you work
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8 or 10 or 12 hours a day or do a 24 hour shift that you don't have to do anything
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around the house or if you don't have to have meaningful interactions with your
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children and don't just expect your wife to do it.
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Yeah, don't, you're wrong if you think that's the case.
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You have to participate in your life.
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You have to participate in your life and you have to be a partner,
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not an individual who comes home and does his individual thing.
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And the same with a woman. There was a bizarre...
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Video on the socials the other day and it was a
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woman probably i think 30 or something she'd been married
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got married and had been married for about three years
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and she went on and just ranted and ranted to the to the great wide world about
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how disappointed and miserable she she's been that she was miserable every single
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day of her life and subsequently her husband heard that and divorced.
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However, what I'm getting at here with that and what I got from that and,
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you know, and me and my wife talk about a lot of these types of things.
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Expectations, folks, managing expectations with a business partnership or with
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a personal partnership.
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You have to manage the expectations.
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So, you know, when you sign a contract in business, those expectations are largely written out.
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When you sign a contract in marriage, they're not necessarily written out.
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But never mind that is having the ability,
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internal ability within yourself and within your own mind to know what realistic
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expectations are, to understand that life isn't a fairy tale,
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even for the ones on social media that look like it's a fairy tale, not.
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And your expectations have to need to be realistic.
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They can be high, but they need to be realistic.
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And one of the main things here is from expectations to communication.
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You need to be able to communicate those expectations to your partner in such
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a way that isn't an indictment on your partner or...
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A list of drill sergeants and instructions of tasks to be completed.
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You will do this. You will do that, et cetera.
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You need to be able to relay to your partner what your expectations are and
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then in turn, be open to what their expectations are and then,
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and then live, live those,
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live to those expectations as much as you can, as much as you can.
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But once again, I've said this before, i'll say it again i think mtv was the
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beginning of the downfall of modern society.
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And not not with the music i'm talking about i'm talking about after you know
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the first couple years it was all music and then after that started getting
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these crazy tv shows and then you got like teen pregnancy stuff you got all
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kind of weird stuff that they're they're glorifying they don't They say they're not glorifying,
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but they're glorifying a bunch of degenerate behavior.
31:50
There used to be a show on, I don't know if you guys remember,
31:52
some Sweet 16 or something like that, where these spoiled 16-year-old girls
31:59
would get thrown these just extravagant, opulent parties.
32:04
And then if they didn't get the specific model of Mercedes or Porsche that they
32:10
wanted, they'd throw a fit and all these things.
32:13
And having that stuff on TV and glorifying it as normal or like you should be
32:20
able to, this is what should be for your 60s, that's madness. It's absolute madness.
32:26
Anyway, I'll rip on MTV a little bit. But expectations, I think a lot of people
32:33
get caught up in what they think,
32:35
how they think a certain behavior should be or what their life should be like.
32:43
Without understanding that they need to relay that to their partners or even
32:47
themselves, managing their own expectations within themselves.
32:50
What do you expect of yourself every day?
32:53
Are you doing the things that you know you need to do to be where you think you want to be at?
33:02
That could be anything from going to the gym to getting that maintenance surgery
33:07
you've been needing for years or to, you know, stopping by your grandma's house once in a while.
33:15
Are you doing the things that the person that you expect to be,
33:21
that you want to be, does? Are you doing those things?
33:27
Or do you come home and blow up on your kids or your wife because the house is a little messy?
33:32
Or you're not having the thing for dinner that you wanted to have,
33:37
so you blow up on someone.
33:40
Or you just, nah, I'm going to go get my own food. Or things like that.
33:44
Those simple things. And I know it almost doesn't even warrant talking about those simple things.
33:50
But those simple things are daily life. That's daily life.
33:56
So teamwork is important whether it's
33:59
in business whether it's in in personal life even
34:03
amongst your workmate even if you don't own your own business right even if
34:06
you're a a cop or a firefighter or you work at the auto zone those people who
34:13
are there with you they're they are your team whether you like it or not whether
34:16
you like them or not so the best thing I can say to that is be a good teammate.
34:23
You don't have to go out and be swinger buddies with a guy to be able to work
34:28
together. You don't have to like him necessarily.
34:32
As long as they have a level of integrity that is on par, you guys don't have
34:39
to be best buddies to be able to work together, show mutual respect, and that kind of thing.
34:44
The expectations you have of your teammates are,
34:49
Some people will disappoint you, and that's just a fact.
34:52
I have probably disappointed people in my career based on, I don't know what, various things.
35:02
Just being an asshole in general probably is disappointing to some people who
35:06
might otherwise think you're a great guy.
35:09
Or, you know, in the military, especially in special operations,
35:13
it gets very judgmental around how fast you can run and these things.
35:18
So some people might be very disappointed with that right
35:22
you do have to pull especially in special
35:25
operations type things or if you're a SWAT guy or
35:29
a firefighter yeah you need to be able to pull your weight and then some and
35:33
you need to you need to be able to show up when it's time to show up but manage
35:39
your expectation manage your expectations so that you don't get out of out of
35:45
sorts when somebody disappoints you.
35:48
I used to always say that I hope for the best and expect the worst.
35:55
And then when the worst happens, I'm not surprised. I just adjust and drive on.
36:02
I used to be, well, I'm still kind of cynical, really, but trying to be less
36:06
cynical these days by seeing the good.
36:09
And some of you out there, you're in a position right now where it's real hard to see the good.
36:15
And, you know, maybe your career choice or maybe you've had a bad run and,
36:22
you know, a couple of years, a real bad run there and then you're rebuilding or something like that.
36:29
It's real hard to see positive stuff. I can tell you this.
36:34
Speaking of teamwork and collaborative efforts, find the most positive person
36:39
you know and then glue yourself to that person.
36:42
Jump in their pocket and learn to be positive.
36:47
That's one of the most important things you can probably do for your life is
36:52
just learn to see the good versus always looking at the bad. Bad is everywhere.
36:58
And if you dwell on the bad, it's just going to, oh, my God,
37:01
it'll bring you down. It'll bring you down and it'll crush you.
37:05
If you see the good, expect the bad, but look for the good.
37:11
If you look for it, you'll find it. And when you do, it'll be good for your soul.
37:17
Now, I'm not trying to proselytize or spread the gospel too hard,
37:21
even though that's where it's at, right? Go to church, man.
37:25
Yeah. And I don't mean mega church. I mean, there's probably somebody at your
37:30
work that goes to church He probably is a positive guy, and you and your teammates
37:35
might shit on him a little bit for being a Christian, but whatever.
37:40
I bet that guy's living his best life. You can live your best life, too.
37:44
You and that guy can make the same amount of money, have the same car,
37:49
have the same amount of kids, and see things in totally different perspectives.
37:57
Find somebody who is positive who can
38:01
see the positive in any situation
38:04
i haven't been that guy always you you will it will change your perspective
38:11
when you start to do that so many people there's so much to gripe about oh my
38:16
and then politics well oh my god
38:18
if you just if you If you dwell in the politics, it'll crush your soul,
38:24
especially if you're on the red team or blue team.
38:29
Right now, the blue team, I don't know if you guys know that Hitler is the president
38:34
of our country right now, apparently.
38:37
So all that rhetoric and all that left and right garbage that they spew at each
38:44
other on television every night and on the socials, it's just going to bring
38:50
you down. It's just going to bring you down.
38:52
Look at the things. Yeah, go vote if you want to go vote, right? I say vote libertarian.
38:58
Well, if you vote libertarian, Edgar, you're throwing your vote away. Well, you know what?
39:03
Have some freaking integrity and vote for who you believe in.
39:06
Don't vote for it just because of the team.
39:09
I follow Andrew Wilkow, and he's a conservative talk show guy,
39:14
and he is adamantly against voting for third party in the national election.
39:21
And he's pretty sure Ross Perot lost George Bush the presidency back in the,
39:27
like, 92, whenever that was. And that's probably correct.
39:33
But, I mean, arguably George Bush was in on the friggin JFK assassination, arguably.
39:40
So, you know, anyway, look at what's local.
39:44
Look at what your life affects. What you can affect with your life and your deeds.
39:50
And then work off of that. Look in your local community for positive things.
39:55
And if you don't see any positive things, by God, go make some positive things. Go make positive waves.
40:02
If you're a mechanic, every so often, have a day where you'll look at people's
40:09
car for free and give them an assessment and fix minor things.
40:14
You know what? That's positive.
40:17
And for these people who are really on the struggle bus and they don't have
40:21
the ability to go get a $700,
40:25
$1,500 repair on their car, you might change that person's life with something as simple as that.
40:34
I'm sure a lot of you, you know, middle-class guys, you got a John Deere,
40:39
you know, riding more, I'm sure.
40:41
Every now and again, man, go cut somebody's grass. And, you know,
40:46
go cut a little old lady's grass just because.
40:50
It's so simple. Yeah, so simple. So simple to help people and create that spark of positivity.
40:58
Yeah, you might even get burned on that. But, hey, man, take a lick and then
41:03
keep moving. And some people don't know how to accept generosity or charity
41:07
or, and you don't have to set it up as generosity or charity.
41:12
Say, look, this is what I'm doing. And you can selfishly be selfless. Watch this.
41:20
You can selfishly be selfless because ultimately you're getting as much out of that as they are.
41:28
You're doing that for your own soul, for your own peace of mind and your own well-being.
41:35
It feels good to do good. And all you got to do is do good a couple of times
41:39
and then it's kind of addicting.
41:42
So think about that. You know, it feels good to do good, whether they appreciate it or not.
41:48
You don't give gifts to receive adoration and appreciation.
41:52
You do it because you want to give a gift.
41:56
I i give money to people all the time i
42:00
never expect to see that money again if i
42:03
see it again great that's awesome if i don't well whatever they they're not
42:09
able to do it and i'm not really in a position to do that but if people are
42:15
asking me for money or how they need it right they need it.
42:22
And if I have it, what's, what's the problem?
42:25
So do that little bit of positivity.
42:27
If you don't see it in your community, create it, get together with people.
42:31
I know a guy up in the, or down in Tampa, Florida, we worked together at SOCOM
42:38
at the JSAL, the joint special operations university. We work there.
42:44
This dude goes out and makes pancakes. You know, is it every Wednesday?
42:49
I think every Wednesday like 6 in the morning until it's time for him to go
42:55
to work he goes out and sets up pancakes and makes pancakes on the street for homeless people,
43:02
and pastors by but homeless people so they come by and get some damn gum pancakes,
43:07
and he's built people get in on that it feels good to do good.
43:15
If you feel superior for doing that, now that might be a problem,
43:18
right? But if you feel good about doing it, then great.
43:22
Continue to do it. You're probably making a difference in someone's life.
43:26
You can do it alone or you can make it a team effort.
43:29
There's so many things that a regular guy can do.
43:34
If you're a lady and you own a hair salon, And, you know, once a quarter,
43:41
do a thing where you do free haircuts for, you know,
43:47
underprivileged, whatever you want to call it, homeless, whatever,
43:50
and not your normal clients.
43:53
They're just offering services. I do a free everyday carry course once a quarter.
43:59
And I do that because there are people who have been in close encounters,
44:06
life or death, or have been robbed or even raped.
44:10
I've had a client who has been on the receiving end of a rape and obviously
44:16
after the fact thought it was very important to own a gun and know how to use it.
44:22
She wouldn't have normally gone and bought a gun. There are people who have
44:27
had incidents or have reason to need a gun for their own peace of mind and to be safe or to feel safe.
44:34
And, you know, they go buy the cheapest gun they can find, which is,
44:40
it's all right, but they certainly can't afford training or to go buy 500 rounds to go do a course with.
44:48
So that's why I do that, right? I don't have a whole lot of money to donate
44:52
to things, and I don't go and do charity work very often, but that's the thing.
45:00
I can offer my service for that and get people, hopefully, peace of mind and
45:07
get them to a point where they're proficient.
45:11
They're not a danger to themselves or others with a gun, and they can proficiently defend themselves.
45:19
So you can do whatever whatever zone you're in whatever field you're in you you can do something,
45:27
and if you're looking for something to do and you don't know what to do go
45:30
to your local church and ask them hey what the what can i do to help my community
45:34
i bet they'll have a whole laundry list of things you can do and if you're a
45:40
freaking atheist but you want to help people anyway because Because even though
45:44
you atheists have no idea where they got that value from,
45:49
go give somebody some fricking clothes, some old shoes.
45:54
Don't drop it off at Goodwill. Go out to the streets and say,
45:59
hey, I got some size tens right here. If you need them, take them.
46:04
Go buy somebody a meal. I know a guy who carries around like energy bars and
46:11
bottled water in his car.
46:13
Anytime he stops at a daggum stoplight and there's a homeless guy.
46:17
But hey man, come get yourself some nourishment and some water.
46:21
Especially in the summertime in the South. Yeah, having water in your car.
46:26
Hey man, that might save a life. You don't even know. You don't know what your good can do.
46:32
Just like you don't understand the depths that your bad can do.
46:37
Especially on children and stuff like that. Profound effects.
46:41
Profound and lasting effects when you're negative and angry.
46:45
Alright, I don't know what happened. I went from collaboration and teamwork
46:49
to freaking preaching. And I'm not a preacher.
46:53
Be positive. Look for the positive in people. look
46:56
for people to partner with to do different things even if
46:59
it's a hobby some dudes are solitary dudes and
47:02
don't want to do things with other people but hey having fun with other people
47:07
there's it's pretty fun find yourself a shooting buddy and come out and shoot
47:12
at oss there you go find yourself a fishing buddy partnership is good collaboration
47:18
is good as long as you got a common,
47:22
common purpose and common direction.
47:24
It don't matter what your motivation is. If you have a common purpose and direction,
47:30
you can make great things happen.
47:33
And I hope that we're going to make great things happen here pretty soon.
47:37
We talked about it before a little bit, but look for the range.
47:41
Hey, it's coming soon. There's going to be announcements.
47:43
There's going to be investor opportunities, and there's going to be membership pre-registrations.
47:48
So be looking for that.
47:51
Meanwhile, I'm going to close out with just catching up on what's happening on the calendar for OSS.
47:59
We have coming up soon a rifle weekend, which we're going to run it the same
48:08
as we did our pistol weekend two weeks ago.
48:11
On Saturday, God dang, it's coming, it's coming. I want to say Saturday, May... Oh my gosh.
48:21
Bear with me, people. I'm sorry. I don't already have my calendar pulled up. I should have.
48:26
I'm still an amateur by a long stretch on this podcast stuff here.
48:32
Current Ops. Boom. There we are. OspreyShootingsSolutions.com.
48:36
Current Ops. And now it's loading very slowly because my phone is full of pictures
48:42
and videos. It's dragging.
48:46
I'm just dragging.
48:48
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. I'm sorry, folks. I'm sorry.
48:54
Why is it dragging? There we go. Oh my gosh. All right.
48:59
Oh, by the way, next weekend, two, three, four.
49:04
Going to be a three-day land nav. We are going to reschedule that.
49:07
We're rescheduling that. That was a private course.
49:11
And then we had a few seats for, for other people, but then that group had a
49:16
few injuries and it had a few life events.
49:19
So we're rescheduling our three-day land nav course. So if you weren't able
49:23
to get in it, there's going to be another opportunity.
49:26
And I want to say that opportunity is probably going to be in
49:29
june or probably in july all right
49:31
17 may saturday practical rifle followed by 18 may sunday dynamic rifle you
49:40
can take one course either one of those if you want or you can save a little
49:45
money if you take both of them you'll get a discount for for bundling those.
49:50
Then on 24 May, we are doing the joint course with VITAC, and that's the first
49:58
aid, well, Lifesaver, and then Everyday Carry.
50:03
Now, out of that Lifesaver course, you're going to get certified in AD certification,
50:08
CPR certification, and then a first aid certification.
50:11
And then that's in the morning, and in the afternoon, we're doing Everyday Carry.
50:16
And depending on the how how
50:19
if that fills up then we'll we're going to do a class on sunday
50:22
as well but i don't think it's going to fill
50:25
if it does we're going to do it we're going to push it to sunday
50:28
or not push it but do another one on sunday
50:31
that monday 26 may
50:34
which is memorial day we've
50:38
got an action pistol match so that's going to
50:40
be a four certainly four
50:43
possibly five stages of action pistol
50:46
and we will run that'll be hit factor we'll
50:49
run it uspsa style and that'll be on practice score then on 31 no is there 31
50:57
days in may maybe then we have another wild wild card day coming up and yeah
51:04
there are 31 days so we have a wild card day on 31 may.
51:09
We had some new folks come out to the wild card this past one
51:12
i think they liked it it's a good it's a good format wild card is where we we
51:17
use the drill index card deck and we pull out random drills and we analyze those
51:23
drills and then we all run those drills together and then the last thing we
51:27
do on that day is we run the OSS challenge,
51:31
the OS Blackjack 33 coin challenge.
51:35
And if you score 90 points or sorry, 90% or above on that, you can earn yourself
51:41
a coin. No one has earned a coin yet.
51:44
And then into June, we have a dynamic two-gun course on 14 June.
51:49
And I have free seats on that for cops, but I think those are filled up already.
51:55
Thank goodness that we have some interesting or interested law enforcement officers
52:01
who are jumping on some training.
52:03
You can't beat free training, and the police need that.
52:09
So there it is. That's the Saturday before Father's Day.
52:15
It'll be a good Father's Day gift also. In fact, I may put out a promo code
52:20
for a Father's Day discount on that as well. So, hey, look for that on the social medias.
52:26
21 June, we have Libertarian Range Day. So speaking of politics,
52:30
if you want to come out and talk with people who are pro-small government,
52:35
pro-freedom, pro-individual liberty, come on out and shoot with them.
52:39
And we'll do some stages on there. We'll do some basic safety stuff for people who are not shooters.
52:46
And then we will do some stages, some controlled stages for people who are shooters.
52:52
It's always a good time. This will be our probably third or fourth one.
52:56
And then on 28 June is our free everyday course. Speaking of the free course.
53:02
Now look, that's up on the website already.
53:05
That thing fills up pretty quick.
53:09
So go on the website and sign up for it if you are a new shooter.
53:14
If you come out and shoot with me all the time, do not put yourself on that roster.
53:18
That is for people who one
53:21
can't prioritize funds for training or two
53:24
who are unconfident with
53:28
their pistol handling skills or want to carry but just are too unconfident or
53:37
or or don't feel like they have enough skill or knowledge or proficiency all
53:42
right that's who that's for so that's out through June, folks.
53:45
So check us out on OspreyshootingSolutions.com.
53:49
Thank you for listening to this podcast. I'm going to continue on with it.
53:54
I think it's a good thing. I usually get some pretty good feedback.
53:57
And what I haven't gotten, though, is a lot of feedback on different things to talk about.
54:04
I can always find something to talk about and then ramble on.
54:08
If you have of specific topics you'd like to talk about or get my opinion on
54:14
or come on the podcast and talk about things, you know, hit me up. Let's do it.
54:20
Ospreyshoesolutions.com, or sorry, Edgar Mills at Ospreyshoesolutions.com,
54:25
or you can do it through the website, dgtopodcast.com.
54:30
And also, I haven't had anyone, I've had one person hit me up to ask me how
54:36
to submit an essay, that no one yet has submitted an essay.
54:41
And I've had one guy, my good friend, Tim, who hit me up. The very first one I put up was from Tim.
54:48
And then after that, no one else has hit us up.
54:51
So this platform is for people to be able to have a voice without starting your
54:58
own podcast or without going and starting your own website or whatever.
55:02
We exist to bring people together that they can have a voice.
55:08
And it's not just about shooting or it's not just about leadership and teamwork at all.
55:13
We can talk about a great many things. We can talk about, yes,
55:18
we can talk about politics.
55:20
That gets old. There's so many websites for that, podcasts for that.
55:24
But we can talk about local things. We can talk about music. We can talk about art.
55:29
We can talk about frigging working on cars.
55:33
We can talk about going camping and hiking and good places for that.
55:37
We can talk about, I'm not a runner, and everybody knows that,
55:42
but I have a significant number of friends and local people who are ultra runners and all those things.
55:50
Come on and share your thoughts on that, and we can get you hooked up with the right people.
56:00
BMMF, BMM, stand by, stand by, stand by.
56:07
Becca motherfucking Jones, anyway, sorry, that's her thing. She's a trainer. She's an ultra runner.
56:15
She's done all kinds of bizarre, great things in the running community.
56:20
And her and John Cox together host a couple of runs up in Tennessee that I'm
56:27
sure they're happy to break you in on. Or ease you in on.
56:32
But all sorts of things like that. I have a good friend who used to race gravel
56:39
bikes competitively, right?
56:43
If that's a thing you want to do. I have a lot of friends in the fitness business, ironically, right?
56:51
Because I'm only semi-fit, and that's once I'm healed. At any rate.
56:57
And then I hope to have some interesting guests on coming up for you pretty soon.
57:01
I have reached out to a significant figure here in Floyd County,
57:05
and hopefully we'll get him on soon.
57:08
At any rate, thanks again for listening, folks. I appreciate you all.
57:13
I appreciate that you're seeking out a smaller venue than, you know,
57:20
you can only do so much Sean Ryan and Joe Rogan.
57:22
So reach out to us and be safe. Take care of each other. Love you guys.
57:28
Music.