Andy Stumpf: From Team Six to Cleared Hot Podcast & The Jump That Raised $700K | AJ Buckley Show

AJ Buckley Show

AJ Buckley sits down with former SEAL Team Six operator Andy Stumpf to discuss his journey from elite special operations to becoming a professional

Key takeaways

• Andy Stumpf emphasizes that being a SEAL was a job he performed, not his core identity.
• Mental toughness can be cultivated by intentionally seeking out small, daily challenges to build resilience.

Main topics

• Navy SEAL training and identity
• Building mental resilience

Notable quotes

Being a SEAL is what he did. It's not who he is.

Conclusion

A profound discussion on the necessity of defining oneself through cha

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) My next guest at 11 years old knew he wanted to be a Navy SEAL. Years later, he made it to Team Six, one of the most elite fighting special operations groups in the world. He's now built one of the biggest podcasts, Cleared Hot. And he will personally tell you, being a SEAL is what he did. It's not who he is. This is Andy Stone. Speaker 1 (0:27) As I said to you in the pre-show there, Mr. Andy, it is such an honor to have you on the show. I definitely did freak out when you responded to me and said you were going to be on the show. I was like, dude, when I get a real seal to come on the show, I'm like, it's a big moment for me, man. It's like, God, this is a big deal. A Speaker 2 (0:48) real seal a long time ago. I've been out of it for 13 years, man. Speaker 1 (0:53) I know. And that's actually some of the questions I have for you because you've, you've, how you've handled yourself outside of, of, of being a SEAL is so different than how other guys have, um, uh, done it. And then, and everybody's journey is their own, um, journey, um, post, um, uh, being enlisted. But I'd love to go back to the beginning with you. And I, I, for, for me at a young age, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to wear makeup and. dance around in costumes. I wanted to be an actor at a very young age. And, um, I read that at 11 years old, you knew that you wanted to be an AV seal and that, that never changed once. And then you enlisted when you went to high school. Speaker 2 (1:39) Yeah. You know, I was talking with somebody not too long ago and they asked me why the seal teams. And the reality is I came from a Navy family on my dad's side of the house, and he was a machine gunner in the first squadron of patrol boats in Vietnam. So he was the first person that ever mentioned SEALs to me. Obviously not a SEAL, but an insertion and extraction platform for them because they were definitely heavily maritime at that time. But I feel like if my dad's family had come from the Army and he had been a Green Beret, I would have gone down that pathway or a Ranger or fill in the blank. Speaker 2 (2:17) If my dad had been Marine Corps recon, it just happened to align that way. And what people probably don't realize, at least post 9-11, the jobs are incredibly similar. They're defined by their similarities, not by their differences. I mean, I worked with every contingent of special operations inside of that umbrella. Yes, the core competencies on paper are slightly different, but we were all doing the same thing. So it almost didn't matter. I just happened to come from the Navy side. And I think like most people who are drawn to that occupation, because almost everybody I served with had that same narrative. Super young age. They heard about the concept. It was this gravitational pull. They didn't necessarily know why. I certainly didn't have the vocabulary when I was 11. I could probably describe it a little bit better now, but there was something about just the type of job that it was. the the difficulty the fact that the odds were not in your favor to attempt the pipeline and again everything i'm saying is the same for the greenberry world the range world so it's just the people who want to do those type of things that just happened to be what i heard of first and so that's the pipeline that i pursued but yeah never a second thought um brought the navy recruiter home when i was a junior in high school sat her down with my parents who were not surprised obviously that i wanted to go into the military because i had Clearly, you know, declared that earlier on in my life. They didn't push back. They signed the paperwork when I was 17. Still have to graduate high school. So graduated high school and then shortly thereafter off to a Navy boot camp in the Chicago area, the Great Lakes. And from there, because the attrition rate of buds is so high, they make you get an occupational school beforehand in case you don't make it through. You're still beneficial to the Navy. Did that and then went to Bud's and then just fortunately made my way through on the first time. I didn't realize until I went back as an instructor the injury rate and how impactful that is on students attempting the pipeline. Speaker 1 (4:11) Well, one of the guys, do you know Ryan Sangster by chance? I can say I do. He was a tech advisor on our show. He's now over at Marshalls. Great dude. And we were, it was like, I forget, it was like season three or something and we were shooting down at the ocean. And we were coming into the ocean and fucking sand kept getting in, you know, my gear. And I was like, wow, my balls are getting chafed like this. He's like, bro. Speaker 2 (4:36) Yeah. Speaker 1 (4:37) And he goes, you want to see something gross? I'm like, sure, show me it. Dude, I almost threw up my mouth. I was like, he's like, that's my ass. I was like, the sand and all it did is he's, and I'm like, he's like, no, we literally had to get sand and like put it in our shorts and then go run. I was like. Okay, I need to shut my mouth right now. I'm being such a wussy. He was like, that's what it looked like. And I will never forget that image in my head. And then it literally, I'm always like, so knowing that, and then be like, I want to do that. Speaker 2 (5:06) Like Speaker 1 (5:07) that's, that's what I didn't know about the sand Speaker 2 (5:09) stuff. You know, that when I joined in 96, the internet wasn't what it is today. Speaker 1 (5:15) Got it. So Speaker 2 (5:16) I didn't even meet an active duty SEAL until I had been in the military for a bit. I grew up in Santa Cruz, California, not traditionally known for military enlistment, even though it does happen. It's just it's not super common. I didn't know anybody who was a SEAL. I had never talked to one. So I would go to the library and find what books that I could. But there wasn't this unlimited Reddit forums or Internet websites that have. I mean, you can find websites that show. at least they list out every evolution that occurs on every day of training. So there's more known now than there is unknown. Speaker 1 (5:50) Yeah. But Speaker 2 (5:50) that wasn't the case for me. I don't think the sand thing would have turned me off. Would Speaker 1 (5:54) it Speaker 2 (5:54) change you? No. Speaker 1 (5:55) No. Speaker 2 (5:56) I mean, if that was... I looked at everything, the known things that I knew I was going to get into that I could find research material about and the unknowns is just that's the cost of the ticket to ride, man. Speaker 1 (6:08) Fair enough. When I looked at Sangster right there, I was like, I can tell you right now as a man, if my nuts look like that, I'd ring the bell. I'd walk over and I'd ding it. And I'm just telling you right now, I would push out right now. I'd tap out like I'm done. Sorry, I can't do it. I can act like I can do it, but there's no chance in hell. that I could make it through that. And, and I think within those, when you're in that, that we all have pain that we go through a threshold that you find out, like, where is it that you, was that a learned skill that you could just compartmentalize pain and, and, and stay, be able to think properly? And like, how do you, how do you learn that skill? Or is that just built within you? Speaker 2 (6:52) I mean, I think I get asked this question all the time, you know, is are people born mentally tough and resilient or can it be taught and trained? And the answer is yes. I mean, everybody comes out of the box with some level of resiliency and mental toughness. But you can definitely add to that. And the easy answer to adding to both of those things is challenging yourself at a micro level before the world does at a macro level, Speaker 1 (7:14) which Speaker 2 (7:15) you can do leading up to SEAL training as well. There's no classes at SEAL training that teach you how to compartmentalize and focus on the moment versus the totality of your goal. Speaker 2 (7:27) And it's not about that. It's a crucible and it's a training course and it's supposed to be difficult and it is supposed to weed out the people who aren't supposed to be there. But I mean. I grew up on a construction site with my dad. Speaker 1 (7:41) Your dad Speaker 2 (7:41) was Speaker 1 (7:42) a Speaker 2 (7:42) masonry, right? Yeah, he was a mason. And his father before him was a mason and his father's father before him was a mason. So I'm glad I broke that generational trauma because that just sucks. I mean, and for clarity, he was the mason. I just moved shit around when I was young. I weighed 150 pounds when I graduated high school. So I was just this little. scrawny kid moving stuff around but construction sites if you've never been on one are not the kindest gentlest you know place in the world and you know it's my mom probably wouldn't appreciate the language that i was allowed to use there and the way that we conducted ourselves but it was hard work every day and probably i learned more about compartmentalization in that type of job where my dad would you know again i wasn't the one building things with bricks but we would go to these massive job sites and they would drop off 20, 30, 40, 50 pallets of bricks. Each one of those has, you know, 500 in a pallet. He's like, Hey, guess what your job is. They dropped them off over there. You need to spread these things out across the entire, you know, job site. And at 11, that's like your dark night of the soul. That's you don't want to do that. That's the worst thing you've ever been asked to do, but you learn how to just focus on the one trip that you're on, which becomes thousands of trips. And then the next thing, you know, you're onto the next thing. And so it's, It can be done, but you have to kind of buck this desire for comfort and rounding and nerfing the world. You have to go in the other direction. You have to present yourself micro challenges. And this, people hear this and they're like, okay, so what does that mean? I have to go and I have to cold plunge every morning. I'm like, I mean, if you want to, if that's your thing, how about just set an alarm and get up a little bit earlier than you want to. Make your bed before you go and start your day. Have some discipline in your life. Eat healthier food. Go work out. Do something physically challenging every day that you don't want to do. And maybe that's just going for a 30-minute walk if you're starting off. But those micro adversities will lead you to a greater level of mental toughness and resilience. Like it's not – people can make it as complicated as they want to and sell you these mastermind systems, but it's really not that hard. Just get out there and push yourself. Speaker 1 (9:42) I am so sick and tired of paying monthly subscriptions for things that don't work. The Ghostbed Climate Pro. Cooling and heating in a bed, no app fee, no monthly service. You buy it once and it's yours. The GhostBed Climate Pro drops in November. Go to GhostBed.com forward slash Buckley and sign up now. Here at the AG Buckley Show, we just started working with a company called CoreTrex. CoreTrex is an e-commerce team out of Walmart's backyard that takes brands from launch to millions a month. It is a risk-free guarantee. You want to book a strategy call with these guys? I highly recommend it. Go to coretrex.com. That's C-O-R-E-T-R-E-X.com. These guys are the game changer. My dad, who is literally my best friend in the whole world, and I feel very lucky to have had him. He just was a guy that worked five jobs, and we didn't grow up with a lot of money. But I've said before, I never felt like I went without. I, I, I was, we were very rich in family and moments. I, and, and though my dad worked a lot, I felt like he was always there somehow. Like it was just part of the thing. Um, but he always said, son, you'll have pain from discipline or pain from regret. And he's like, I promise you regret is something that will haunt you for the rest of your life. And he goes, discipline will suck, but he's like, it's the only thing in your life that will move the needle. And he's like, you'll need to discover this on your own. He's like, I can tell you all day long. He's like, but discipline is a switch that you will need to turn on to define it for yourself. And it wasn't, it was until later in life where I was like, motivation is a bunch of fucking bullshit. I'll do it Monday. But when you, when you implement the discipline of like, it doesn't matter, like you have to get it done no matter what, like it's a deal that is signed and it's a hard thing to. Mastering discipline is, I think, is a forever chase. But I think that was one of the biggest things for me that my dad taught me in my life and being a father now and in my career. Is that something that your father, you would say, preparing for going into the Navy unknowingly prepared you with his sort of example? Speaker 2 (11:56) For sure. It wasn't. a, hey, sit down and take notes type of thing though. It was a softer approach of exposing me to those things and then keeping me on the path when I wanted to deviate. Because as an 11-year-old, I was a mess. An argument can be made that I was a mess up until last week. You know, I'm almost 50 at this point. And you know, I'd have to ask my wife on that one. I still do some pretty dumb shit, but. At 11, it's like, let's not expect superheroes at 11 and complex ideas take a little bit of time to land. So it was a much more softer approach. It was a mentorship approach, which is by far the best leadership strategy that there is, letting people discover things on their own by exposing them to those environments. But yes, whether he had a direct approach in doing so, or even if he knew what he was doing, the way that I was raised and the exposure to those things. early on i'm not going to say it was the key to making it through training but it certainly didn't help uh didn't hurt yeah Speaker 1 (12:52) does it make you sick uh because it fucking it boils my blood when you have these coaches or or sports things where the coach like everybody gets a trophy everybody everybody wins it's like it's like what what are we what are you like i've had it where i had to step in and told you know, one of my coaches, my daughter's coach that like, do not give my daughter a trophy today. Like I will throw it in the garbage. Like it's like recognize the kid that did amazing today and champion that. But why are we giving them all trophies? Like, do you see, is that hard? Have you seen that in sort of today's culture and how does that sort of sit with you? I see it. It Speaker 2 (13:35) doesn't make me sick because I think the intent behind it matters. And this is something I've tried to Speaker 1 (13:40) do Speaker 2 (13:40) more of this as I've gotten older. And I was not good at this when I was younger. And I was trying to see the world through somebody else's eyes. And when I say intent, they're not trying to hurt anybody. They're coming from a good place. The reality is they're trying not to hurt anyone. However, they're not preparing people for the reality of life that's going to present itself. Because one of my favorite sayings is, if you want life to be fair, And you actually want to go find this there. It's in Northern Iowa, you know, and go get some cotton candy and ride the merry-go-round because you're not going to find it in real life. So the danger there is at a young age, you could, you could. orient people towards thinking that trying is what makes the difference, which isn't the case. Trying until you're successful is what will make the difference in your life, even after repetitive failure. But those people are, again, the intent here is what I come back to. They're not trying to hurt anybody. They're actually trying everything they can to make everybody feel respected and appreciated. And I can understand that to a degree, but all I end up doing When those people ask me for my opinion, and as I basically described to them what I just did to you, that although I understand the intent, it doesn't mean what you're doing is actually preparing them for the reality of life. And I'll give them my opinion. But if they're in that coaching role, I mean, I'll let them do that role and then I'll handle it with my own children afterwards. Speaker 1 (15:04) Yeah. Speaker 2 (15:05) Because it's just it's better than a confrontation in public. Speaker 1 (15:09) People Speaker 2 (15:10) will try that often and that generally has more of a negative effect on everybody. Speaker 1 (15:14) And Speaker 2 (15:14) the point of what it is that you're trying to do can actually get lost.