Jeff Peddar On Transitioning from the Marines & Walking 100 Miles in the Rain | DSH #206

We were just about to head back to the tent and start the walk back and we heard explosions and then we heard more explosions and you know that was the first my first experience to getting mortar.

You know I saw them in the distance and they were just dropping them in.

It was like boom, boom, whoa, boom.

It didn't click until that point that

what's the expression?

We're not in Kansas anymore.

Yeah.

Wow.

That was my first dose of reality.

Welcome back to the show guys, Digital Soulschlower.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly, with a great guest today, Jeff Pedder.

How's it going good man thank you for having me first podcast man my first podcast breaking your podcast virginity yeah i'd love uh since people don't know who you are probably i'd love for you to to kind of explain what you do yeah absolutely so a little bit about my background uh born in atlanta georgia uh ended up having um

broken household

initially my uh parents got divorced and my mom moved us up to uh massachusetts and uh i've been there ever since um lived with my grandparents growing up.

Did the whole school thing there and went through my kind of rebellious childhood phase and figuring out life with separated parents and all the stigma and challenges that come with that and

jumped into figuring out how do I find myself and my confidence within, you know, within this background, within trying to prove, you know, and being played back and forth between my parents over

figuring out my identity, who I wanted to be.

And I realized, you know, around 17, I didn't want to live home again.

So joined the Marines,

crash course in confidence and life experience.

And my recruiter told me that they encouraged you to go to college and that this was at the beginning of the war.

So I graduated school in 2003 and I signed up for the military September 2002.

So kind of at the beginning of the Iraq war and did all my training, ended up, I applied to one school, I got into UMass, the business program there.

And

while I was going to school, after I had done my first

boot camp combat training in my specialty school, I then went to

school for a semester and then got activated to go to Iraq in 2004 and did a tour there, came back.

Went to school, started a business, and

ended up having to go back to Iraq again.

I had 12 days left on my contract.

I got involuntarily extended for 400 days and went back again in 2009.

You didn't want to go back the second time.

I did not want to go back the second time.

I didn't want to go the first time.

I mean, I thought I was going to school.

You know, I wasn't against going.

I just, you know, 19 years old, you're not really prepared to deal with that type of reality.

You know, from an overprotective household with limited life experience, you grow up in a bubble, you know, like everyone.

Yeah, so what was that like in Iraq?

I would would say, you know, the first dose of reality, I remember we left like August 14th, 2004.

And we got into Kuwait.

We got into Kuwait at 1 in the morning and it was over 100 degrees.

And that was my first time being in a desert like that, in that environment.

The next day we flew, I was stationed at Al-Assad Air Base in western Iraq, in the Halambar province.

And we got into Iraq and we lived in a tent city.

And

while we were transitioning, you know, we lived in tents for a couple weeks while we transitioned to replace the unit that we were taking over.

So, you know, the first day I remember we walked to the chow hall.

You have to have your flak jacket and Kevlar.

So, if you want to eat, you know, breakfast, this is before they had any kind of transportation system set up.

So, you know, back then it was kind of like the Wild West.

This was one of Saddam's main air bases that was just taken over.

And I remember I had to walk to breakfast, just like, you know, grandpa is telling those stories.

You know, back in my day, I had to walk five miles

back and forth.

So I had to walk to the chow.

It was a couple miles.

And you had to wear your flak jacket, your Kevlar helmet, your ammunition, you know, and your rifle and all your gear, you know, and long-sleeved clothing.

So, you know, hot as it was over, over 100 degrees.

And I walked to the chow.

I went with a friend and we finished breakfast and we walked outside and we were just about to head back to the tent and start the walk back and we heard explosions.

And then we heard more explosions.

And, you know, that was the first, my first experience of getting mortared.

You know, I saw them in the distance and they were just dropping them in.

It was like, boom, boom, whoa, boom, boom, coming towards us.

And I'm sitting there standing, you know, growing up in Newton, Massachusetts with no experience.

You know, I'm thinking fireworks.

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We're getting hit and it just didn't click until that point, you know, that

what's the expression?

We're not in Kansas anymore.

Yeah.

Wow.

That was, that was my first dose of reality

being in

a combat environment, you know, where you're 19, you don't have control of your environment.

I was a junior Marine, so I had every detail you could think of.

You know, you just get assigned to jobs and, you know, you have to experience

a lot of harsh realities at a very young age, which is hard to process.

Yeah, that's terrifying, man.

And you mentioned you grew up in a single family.

My parents got divorced, too.

What's your advice for kids dealing with, you know, separated parents and kind of isolated and feeling

I would say

what your parents are going through has nothing to do with you.

I mean, I think

like chess,

everyone's playing their own game in life.

So both parents are trying to navigate life as best they can and they have

good intentions, but sometimes they

play the kids, you know, against the other parent.

You know, they use the pieces that they have to work with.

And I don't think there's malicious intent.

It just sometimes

the kids are collateral damage.

So the key is it's not losing yourself in your parents' drama and realizing you have nothing to prove to anybody else other than yourself.

Yeah.

You also mentioned you built confidence through the Marines, but before that you weren't as confident.

I wasn't confident because I didn't, you know, I never had a steady, since my dad lived in Georgia and my mom was in Massachusetts, she was a single mom working.

We lived with my grandparents, but I didn't really have a steady male, you know, role model on a day-to-day basis or someone to kind of show me the ropes or go play basketball with at nighttime or, you know, do things the way you do in a normal family so i uh i went through a rebellious stage you know i tried to i i was kind of um i didn't know this as a kid but i had adhd from a very young age so i was hyperactive and i always had to you know go go go go go so my outlet was pushing the red button i would just kind of do things and see what happens like i got a fake id when i was 15 that said i was 18.

i got a tattoo on new year's eve when i was 15.

wait why'd you do 18 instead of 21 on fake because i wanted to get a tattoo Oh.

And it was like one of those international student identity cards.

And the tattoo artist didn't think twice about it.

They're just like, all right, you know, if you're going to pay me cash, done.

Do you still have the tattoo?

Yeah, yeah, I could show you.

What is it?

It's a dragon with a sword.

Oh, dragon.

People love the dragons.

It's actually pretty good.

Yeah.

For 15?

So I got it redone a couple years ago.

You know, it was interesting because everyone asked, is there meaning behind it?

And, you know, funny story, I told my mom that it meant courage, luck, and strength, which I just made up on the spot because she was going to me.

And she's like, all right, well, I guess if, you know, if you need that, that's fine.

And she was telling everyone for years after that that's why I did that.

But the reality was I, you know, it looked cool.

I wanted to stand out in a school.

You know, we're all trying to find our identity.

Right now.

kids are doing it with social media, you know, and

trying to showcase who they are.

Back then, it was how you dressed, how, you know, everyone had more of an opportunity to be an individual.

Right.

I feel than they do right now.

What are your thoughts overall on social media and kids using it and them being addicted to it and all the cyberbullying?

Like, what do you think of that?

You know, it's challenging because, you know, the confidence question you asked me a second ago with

how we find our confidence, I think kids are just more insecure nowadays than ever because, you know, they're seeking affirmation from people they don't know.

They're looking for confidence and affirmation in all the wrong places.

So they justify and validate who they are in this world based on what a bunch of strangers think and say about them.

You know, they haven't, like I said before, we grow up in a little bubble.

So all we know is the limited exposure that we have.

I spend a lot of time now mentoring a lot of teenagers.

I do executive coaching and work with CEOs and their families, you know, because

the struggle for the younger generation is real right now.

The prospects of buying a house, of getting started in life, seems insurmountable for so many people.

How do you figure out how to move forward and

get started in this world when it seems like the deck is so stacked against you?

So the challenge with social media is we're exposed to this constant exceptionalism.

Everyone's showcasing all of the things that they have or that they don't even have.

There's a lot of it is curated and fake.

So everyone's putting out there to the world this ideal world and showing edited photos of themselves and how perfect they are all the time.

When the reality is on the inside, you know, most of these people are miserable.

They're struggling.

You know, they're trying to showcase it to try to justify to themselves that they're good enough instead of building that confidence and saying, all right, I don't need you to affirm me in order for me to realize that where I'm at in life and what I'm doing and what I have to offer is good enough.

I think a lot of kids are really fixated on

they need somebody else to tell them that it's okay, give them permission before they do something.

Yeah, so when you're mentoring teenagers, what's your approach?

Are you trying to limit their time on social media?

So it's not about, I don't think that's possible.

I think social media is so ingrained in this culture and society right now that the only way to

the only way to limit it is to understand the purpose of why you're using it.

I feel like kids are going to be too excluded if they cut themselves off with social media, then they're out of the loop.

This is how everyone communicates now.

You know, I mean, the confidence thing about ask when I was growing up,

if I wanted something, I had to lap the balls to ask for it.

So, you know, I remember, you know, as a teenager, I get dropped off at the mall.

And if I thought a girl was cute, you know, I'd have to have the confidence to go up and I would just go and talk to them and ask them out or see what works.

And I might have gotten a lot of no's, but I got a lot of yeses eventually.

And what I learned from is what worked and what didn't work.

You know, the confidence, anything we do, we're going to suck it to begin with because we have no experience with.

You know, the trouble right now is kids are afraid to take that plunge They're afraid to be vulnerable They don't want to try something unless they're the exception unless they're awesome at it But how are you gonna be at awesome at something that you've never tried before?

Yeah, I like what you said about the confidence thing and the father figure I never put those two together because I grew up without a father too and I lacked confidence growing up my whole life even though I was you know super athletic super smart I never really connected the dots on that.

Well, I think sometimes you you know when you when we're growing up, we're afraid.

We're afraid of a lot of things, you know, and having somebody, knowing there's backup, you know, that someone's going to have your back and support you, and it's just always there.

Like, I knew my dad, you know, was there, but he was in Atlanta, and, you know, it was a phone call away.

It wasn't that physical structure.

I didn't feel like, let's say, I got bullied in school or something happened.

You know, I didn't have that backup.

I was on my own, you know, and the challenge was I was kind of that individual where,

you know, to fit in, I took every job.

We didn't have much money.

So we lived with my grandparents, but we were in an affluent town.

So in order to fit in with the other kids, in order to have the stuff and the new outfits, I got one new outfit at the beginning of the year because that's what was financially reasonable for us.

But to have, you know, what the other kids had, I had to earn it.

So I worked every job you could think of from, you know, 12 years old, you know, up until college and onward, you know, to build your financial independence.

So I was chasing, trying to fit in, maybe similar to kids are doing now with social media.

I would work hard.

I would buy the things that I want.

And, you know,

I realized that that wasn't the path and that wasn't, you know, the value that, you know, most of these people you don't even talk to anymore.

No, none of them.

I tried to fit in too, so it's funny you said that.

I think it's like a natural thing that you want to be part of a group almost.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think there's a huge struggle right now with mental health and with, you know, especially kids because of the social media aspect, you know, where they just constantly feel inadequate with who they are, with the hand they're dealt.

So I did, after the Marines, when I got to school, I had to pay for my education and I thought, what can I do that I'm going to make enough money to pay for school?

I got a little bit from the GI Bill because I was in the reserves

and having deployed for here, I got a little bit more from that.

But what I learned from school is, you know, things smarter, not harder.

So I'm like, what can I do to make enough money?

And we didn't really have, social media was just starting.

Like Facebook, I think, just came out.

We didn't have the networking connections that the internet provides now.

So I got into personal training.

I went to a gym.

I asked if I could work as a trainer.

I had some experience because I worked at a gym in high school and I shadowed trainers.

And so, and I went to Iraq and I did all the military training and stuff.

So I started training and

I got this job and the guy said, yeah, you can start in a couple weeks.

So I'm like, okay, well, I got to get certified.

So

I looked up a certification course, did a crash course over, I traveled to, I think, to New Hampshire, did a course in a weekend and got my certification, came in, started training.

And the deal was I had one month free and then I had to pay $500 a month afterwards.

So I went out and I did that and I hustled.

Within two months, you know, it was the fake it till you make it type of thing

where I didn't really know what I was doing and I didn't have my shtick down, but the more I did it, the better I became.

And within like a month or two, I was making two grand a week in cash.

Nice.

You know, as a

20-year-old.

That's a lot back then, too.

Oh, a lot back then.

So this was in

2006.

In spring of 2006, I started in fall of 05, you know, and then I did that for the next four years while I was in school.

So I worked full-time.

I did the Marines on the weekend.

I volunteered on a board of directors for Big Brother, Big Sister program and

tried to fit in a girlfriend and doing my academics.

Wow, you go all out, man.

How were you able to balance leaving the Marines?

Because a lot of people get PTSD and they struggle to get back into society.

Yeah, so that was a challenge.

You know, I have to say, I'm not someone who's phased by blood and guts.

Like, I'm the type of person, if there's a burning building and there's a way that I can help somebody

in a realistic fashion, I'm going to run in.

You know, if there's a triage situation, I definitely don't.

I don't panic.

I learn, you know, one of the big lessons, you know, that

I preach a lot and teach people is learning how to accept what you can't control and try to move forward in a positive way.

When I was overseas and I had to deal with a lot of complicated situations that were hard for me to process because I didn't have the tools or outlets,

you know, especially at such a young age, you know, no one, guys back then, you don't want to say that you're struggling.

You know,

I think the mantra for guys, you know, we're not all, we weren't allowed to say anything's a problem because then, you know, in the guy code, in the guy, you know, club, you're, you're looked down on.

Right.

You know, you're the problem.

You're soft.

Yeah, you're soft, you're the problem.

So it's not that,

I mean, I've dealt with a lot of death and unfortunately a lot more, you know, from suicide,

which is a huge issue that I'll talk to you about in a minute.

But

I think coming home, it's that you're in this mode of focusing on what's right in front of you, on day-to-day survival, day-to-day functioning.

I have to do my job.

You can't really think of the bigger picture because you don't know what that's going to be.

You don't know when you're going to come home.

You don't have control over anything.

So accept what you can't control and try to move forward in a positive way.

Prime example, my second deployment, I had 12 days left on my contract.

I got involuntarily extended for 400 days.

And in that process,

my life fell apart.

Because

my way of dealing with coming back from overseas the first time was I kept myself so busy that I didn't have to feel anything.

And fortunately, I did it in a productive way.

I worked out and I trained and I, you know, I did all these things that really helped me, even though I was still struggling on the inside that no one saw.

And I took that out on myself in private ways, maybe by gambling, by doing a lot of...

Just distracting.

Just distracting and trying to fill a void, trying to make myself feel something or feel some type of purpose.

Because I think what happens with a lot of PTSD is you become desensitized to a lot of life.

You become desensitized to experiences and things that are otherwise

not normal for other people.

And when you have all these experiences,

in order to function, you have to let go of that and figure out a way, accept what you can't control, try to move forward in a positive way.

So I took that mantra and I looked at this deployment.

I could either do a shit job and be pissed off that this is going to happen.

And I requested to not have to go because I had a business opportunity that was phenomenal that I put so much energy into.

And I had to walk away from and I had to give up all my clients and, you know, step out of my life.

I mean, imagine just walking away from your life for a whole year.

Crazy.

And then you don't know what's going to happen after.

Scary.

So my attitude going into it was, I'm going to do the best job I can and because my life will be easier.

If life is going to happen either way,

which path do you want to be on, the bumpy road or the smooth path?

And in this situation, I looked at it as, all right, I have to go either way.

I have no control over this.

I'm going to do the best possible job I can given the context because that's what I have control over.

And the outcome was freedom, flexibility, and

ease of access.

Everything was easier because of how proficient and efficient I was at

at my job.

Oh, nice.

So after your second tour, you came back.

Did you you distract yourself again or what was the method of

unfortunately?

So I got married before my second deployment and that didn't end up working out.

She was sick with Lyme disease at the time

before we got married and I was concerned, more concerned.

I proposed to her right before I left and I was more concerned about

coming back than I was about

than I was about

worrying about being married or anything else.

And I knew that if something happened to me, she'd get the benefits.

Originally, we were going to go to Afghanistan, then it got switched to Iraq.

And so, you know, life was just hitting me all at once.

So my life fell apart.

And then I was trying to piece it back together while still giving myself motivation and something to look forward to, something to come home to.

So I came home, I was married, I was depressed for a bit.

I sat on the couch.

This is before online poker got banned.

And I would, you know, I was depressed.

I used to, you know, play online poker all day, every day, because I didn't want to work.

I didn't want to do anything, you know, and it wasn't that it was so hard.

It's just that the pace of

how many people depend on you and the responsibility, you're going like 100 miles an hour.

And then when you come back to regular life, it's not relatable.

You're going 20 miles an hour.

So you have this huge

adrenaline rush of these constant situations that you're in.

And then it's a crash course back into, it's like in the hurt locker when he comes back and all of a sudden he's looking in the cereal aisle going,

you know, what's this all about?

Yeah.

So coming back, you know,

that was definitely a challenge.

My outlet, I used to try to give myself pep talks to talk myself out of being depressed and struggling, and that doesn't work.

I think depression is a chemical imbalance in your brain, and it's a temporary thing that we all experience at different, you know,

different times in our lives.

So my outlet was getting back into the gym, starting exercising, and, you know, fixing it by giving myself the dopamine and serotonin, you know, and the positive hormones.

that pull yourself out of it.

Man, that's crazy.

Yeah, because people really struggle with it, and they don't really teach you about it, right, when you're in training.

No one talks about it.

It wasn't until many years, years later.

You know,

unfortunately, I've learned a lot of lessons.

I'm 38 now.

So, you know, going through that, I didn't necessarily treat relationships or treat people, you know, the way I always had good intentions, but I was disconnected.

You know,

I was stuck.

You know, imagine just kind of hitting pause in your life because you're trying to process all of these complex things, everything you've been through.

You know, we're all broken as kids and we're trying to fix ourselves for you know the duration of our life and then add in the military and deployments and you know working and being exhausted and run down and and trying to please everyone the the chasing the pursuit of when i get here then i'll be happy yeah you know i was this endless pursuit that isn't real yeah you know there's no point there's no amount of money there's no amount of experiences that are ever going to bring happiness to you you have to find that for yourself

So would you say it took you a while to find that true happiness?

Yeah, a very long time.

I mean, now I've done one of the reasons I'm coming here today is, you know, what I, my mission right now, the most fulfilling thing that fills my cup is helping other people in a really meaningful way.

You know, kind of putting your money where your mouth is.

I think there's a huge disconnect, you know, for kids nowadays with confidence, with goal setting, with opportunities, with financial literacy.

You know,

they're wildly unprepared for the real world, you know, and the world is continuously changing, so they're just falling behind.

Everything from dating, from the lack of young, viable men to girls, from

the online dating thing is a nightmare for kids.

I have two stepdaughters and the challenge for them,

everyone,

no one communicates.

Everyone's so used to swiping left.

You give up on somebody before you've even, you know, on

looks alone, before you've even given them the opportunity to get to know their personality.

Most relationships we know that are happy are because they're best friends, because they get along well.

Well, how do you determine that from a photo that you spend half a second on because you're so used to swiping

through Instagram or I mean, if you watch any young kid swipe on their social media thing,

they're like rapid fire.

Rapid fire.

You're like, they pick up their phone.

It's a subconscious reaction and they flip through 20 things, you know, and put it down.

I don't even think they know they looked at their phone.

No, it's like a habit.

Yeah.

It's pretty crazy.

The attention span keeps getting shorter and shorter.

Yeah, I think one of the big problems with it is really

people stepping back, slowing down a little bit, and learning how to communicate with one another.

Give things a shot, try things, setting goals for yourself.

You know, I think we're lacking a lot of motivation and direction in life right now.

I agree, man.

It's scary.

Between that, the public education system and the news outlets, it's tough to

know what to listen to, right?

Well, you're just bombarded with challenges and negativity and the highlight reel.

And then

you're on the other side, you're smashed with i'm not good enough you know because i'm not the exception at every single thing i mean think about it if you were a singer what if you're just a decent singer and you love singing well you should do that you know just because you're you're not you know going to be on american idol or or you know have your own album doesn't mean you shouldn't pursue what you love doing right you know i i mean I like sports.

I'm not particularly, I've just gotten into pickleball.

It's fun, you know, but other sports, I'm 6'5.

You said you're 6'6.

Everyone asks you, do you play basketball?

Every day.

I love basketball, but I'm not very good at it.

Why can't I still just enjoy playing?

Why do I have to be awesome just because I'm tall?

Yeah.

Yeah, I feel bad for tall people that don't play sports because every day they get reminded, why don't you play?

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Oh, man.

But

one of the issues that comes with all this is that the mental health crisis that comes from the social media and not feeling worthy, not feeling good enough, is this fear to try.

You know, we can't become good at anything unless we try it.

So, you know, one of the programs I work on, you know, that I've designed is called Drive, and it's about, you know, goal setting.

And one of the acronyms for it is you want to decide what your goal is, decide what you want to do, where you want to be.

Then you want to reflect on what has or hasn't worked for you in the past with it, right?

You want to look at that goal and that objective and think about the definition of crazy, trying the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

So we want to look at what we've already done.

Then we want to innovate and implement.

So we want to come up with a strategy that we can then implement on a daily basis.

Small habits on a a regular basis turn into big results.

So little things that we can implement on a daily basis that are going to give us the opportunity, you know, to move in a new direction, you know, take a road.

We're always going to hit roadblocks in life, but sometimes it's just about stepping back and changing your perspective.

Yeah, so like the 1% a day philosophy almost.

Yeah, so small little things and then visualize and execute.

You know, come up with things that are within your reach that you can do.

Sometimes for most people, like kids who are stuck nowadays, it's about habits.

Good habits compound on themselves.

Bad habits compound on themselves.

So get up early, get started, start getting active.

You know, whatever it is for you, stop comparing yourself to what everyone else is doing and focus on what are you capable of, right?

Right.

That comparing stuff is deadly, man, because I used to do that and it took a toll on me mentally.

Even though I was like successful in most people's eyes, that comparing just something about it is detrimental to growth.

I have a young kid that I mentor right now.

And when I met him, he was 14, he couldn't do a single push-up, not a regular one.

So I said, all right, we're going to, we're going to solve this.

You and I, we're going to do 300 push-ups a day, right, for six months until we get to 50,000.

Wow.

Because that was a goal that was so...

insurmountable, you know, and unattainable at that point.

And the point of it was seeing that with perseverance and with follow-through, you know, comes the accomplishment, comes the outcome.

Anything worthwhile that we value in life, we have to work really hard for it to get the value and reward.

Anything that comes too easy for us, we don't value.

If you just win the lottery, you don't really get very excited about it.

If someone just gives you what you want all the time, sure, you feel good in the moment, but

it's very transient.

And you're going to lose it too, quick.

Of course.

If you go to school, you have to work really hard in college to get the degree.

I had to work hard in the Marines to graduate and become a Marine, to go overseas.

You have to go through the tough experiences.

The best lessons in life are a challenge.

So

the goals of figuring out something that motivates and drives you.

This kid,

he worked really hard.

He did him against the table initially and then, you know, a chair and worked

with him.

And then, you know, within no time, he was doing, you know, 10 to 20

per set with perfect form.

Wow.

And then he got up to doing 30 sets of 30.

So he would do 10 sets of 30 every single day.

We took, we gave about a two-week window, you know, off in that time period.

Wait, so it only took two weeks to get to it?

No, to do 50,000 took us six months.

Okay.

Still six processes.

Six months, yeah.

And I did it with him.

You know, it was, I'm going to do this, you're going to do this.

Oh, nice.

CV by example.

Yeah, same.

During

this

primary school was struggling for activities for kids, so I volunteered and worked for them doing strength and conditioning, you know, with young kids.

And,

you know, just to give them an outlet and a challenge.

And I had this one kid who came to me and he's like, I want to do 100,000 steps.

You know, that's my, that's my.

What's that?

In a day.

In a day.

100,000 steps.

So I'm like, all right, that's about

50 miles.

So I said, let's do it.

So I picked a day

about a month away, and we started training for it.

And, you know, the week before, I made him do 20 miles with me to make sure that he could do it.

And he wasn't able to run it, but we walked it.

So it took us, I set up on a bike path 10 miles apart, two cars, and we were self-supported.

I provided all the nutrition and the training leading up to it.

And so we were safe and we had an outlet.

And unfortunately, that day, it was 42 degrees and pouring rain.

So.

That's it.

So you didn't do it.

No, of course we did it.

Oh, you did?

No, no, no, no.

You know, you can't pick the weather.

I mean, it's like day day to dogs.

Most people would have canceled.

Never, never.

No, if I make my mind up, that was the window I had to do it.

So, you know, we're going to get it done.

So, you know, I remember he was struggling a lot by about mile 40.

Okay.

Almost kind of on the verge of tears because

it was painful.

Was it raining the whole time?

The whole time.

Yeah, it was pouring on us.

Pouring and cold.

But luckily, actually,

we just changed our socks every like 15 miles.

Got it.

Every 10 miles

if we were soaked enough.

So we would go back and forth.

It took us 15 hours.

It got to a point where

you couldn't run after a certain point because it wasn't really, we walked the whole thing.

I think it would have been easier if we ran, but psychologically, you know, that was such an insurmountable thing to, you know, to run through.

Right.

Wow.

Yeah.

So I don't know, 15 hours later and sort of the next day, that was my first ultra experience of trying something and going through that recovery and that mental mindset of telling yourself, just keep keep going.

So your mental strength is just on another level.

I've learned a huge tolerance for pain and discomfort.

I believe

that life is never going to stop punching you in the face.

No matter

what you do or where you go, we're all going to deal with challenges.

And learning how, again, to accept what you can control.

I mean, this year has been a hurdle out of...

lots of ups and downs.

In the fall, you know, last summer, I came up with a friend.

It's hard for me to talk people into doing challenging things, but I decided

I wanted a challenge and something to work towards.

So

I'd never climbed a mountain before, so we planned for doing Mount Kilimanjaro, and I did that in October.

And then,

again, with the people that

I accomplished that with, we wanted another challenge.

So next week, we're going to go hike the Swiss Alps from Chamini, France, to Zermatt, Switzerland.

How high up is that one?

That's mostly in like the, I think, like 7,000 to 11,000 range.

Oxygen is thin, right?

It's like less so than

Kilimanjaro.

Kilimanjaro was 19,000 feet.

And basically, I was totally comfortable up until 15,000 feet.

And then you had trouble breathing.

You don't have trouble breathing.

You just, you have to go slow.

You don't catch your breath as quick.

You feel weaker.

You feel weaker.

You get out of breath quickly.

So imagine just moving around in your tent or going to go to the bathroom.

Or even that tire as you are?

You just, because you have to get out of your tent, you have to walk out.

When you're above 15,000 feet, you get fatigued much more easily than you would think.

Wow.

And there's no way to train for that around here.

Yeah.

I mean, in the States, maybe on the West Coast, but where I live, you know, not as much.

Yeah.

So did you make it to the top?

Yeah, I made it to the top.

Physically, I was over-trained for it, so it wasn't as bad physically.

It was just more

mentally to, you know, I had never really gone through an experience like that.

Yeah, it took a week, right?

Seven days up, two days down where I did the Western approach.

So you had to pack all your food?

So you bring all your good.

You have a lot of support.

The porters that come through the organization, they cook your food and bring everything.

You have to bring all your gear and porters bring your main stuff, but you have a day pack

and your stuff, and you're hiking up.

So nine days without showering or baby wiping it.

But I learned that in the Marines.

I got used to that.

I mean, we had a day they...

They kept bombing our water supply.

Really?

So we had a couple months where we couldn't really shower.

We had to use bottled water and baby wipes for almost two months.

Wow.

That's crazy.

Or sometimes you get lucky and you get a cold water water shower.

But, you know,

a lot of this accept what you can't control and try your best to move forward type of mindset.

Yeah.

So one thing that happened this year is, you know, later in the year, I had a German shepherd that unfortunately out of nowhere passed away.

He

suddenly had a seizure.

And I feel like our dogs are like our closest companions because it's like the most real relationship, you know.

I mean, nothing but love.

Yeah.

So just out of nowhere, I had a scare with him a year before where he had a jaw cancer and I had to have part of his jaw removed and he recovered from that.

And then just out of nowhere one Saturday morning, he started having a seizure and then had three more and I had to put him down and no forewarning or anything.

So that kind of rocked my world.

And then

again,

a couple months later, just got thrown into this situation where I found out my ex-wife committed suicide and

had to navigate, you know, that because that stirred up all these emotions of this whole period of my life.

I hadn't been a part part of her life in 10 years, but

tough to process that.

It gave me a lot of insight into the finality of

how short a period of time we have here.

And how sometimes, you know,

everyone, I've dealt with a lot of people recently who have been struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts or things that they've been going through.

And, you know, I've worked with a lot of young kids to bring them out of that and to the other side.

And

the challenge is you can't help someone when you don't know they need help.

I mean, I wasn't a part of her life.

And this is just another example of

something where, like, I lost a lot of Marine friends to suicide, whether it was alcohol or

a gun or

whatever path they chose.

But

you have to speak up.

I mean, you can't solve a problem that you don't know exists.

And I think, unfortunately, a lot of the issue is we have become a society where we feel alone.

You know, we've used to be a culture where we all worked as a tribe.

We had 50 people as a team working together to achieve a common goal and we've whittled it down to this isolation, you know, isolating culture where people look at you funny if you do anything.

Get judged no matter what you do these days.

I had an interesting interaction the other day.

I was driving a convertible and this kid was taking pictures of the the car.

And, you know, I said, you want a ride?

And, you know, his eyes lit up.

You know, I was getting coffee in the morning and I had 10 minutes to spare.

And I was like, sure, I'll give you a ride.

It was a Ferrari, and he had never been in one.

And I took him for a spin.

Within two minutes of being in the car, he's like, you're not going to kidnap me, are you?

And I'm like, yeah,

that's my intent.

I'm going to kidnap you in a Ferrari convertible.

Used to be able to hitchhike everywhere, but now it is pretty dangerous.

So

this is the challenge that I'm trying to solve and work on is as a society, a lot of the issues we have are the fact that we are so isolated.

We don't work together.

We have so much distrust towards people.

I mean, think about the issues that kids are worried about right now with global warming and climate change, and they're trying to tackle this, but the problem is our selfishness as a culture.

We all consume, we all have to have

you know, our own individual item of everything.

You know, how many things do you have that you could easily share with other people, but you don't?

You know, even cars and vehicles.

We're trying to solve an issue, but everyone's going to get electric vehicles.

Great.

That doesn't solve the problem.

That contributes to the problem.

Now we have an infrastructure issue.

Now we have to pay, you know, how are we going to power all these things?

How are we going to solve

these different challenges that are going to come because everyone's going to have to wait to charge their car?

Yeah.

You know, or get fuel or whatever it is.

It's just a different problem.

It's not fixing the actual problem.

I see what you're saying.

Well, if we work together, you know, if people are more open-minded, if they take chances, if they communicate, if they talk, if they share, you know, when we put ourselves out there and we have more empathy towards other people, you know, one thing that I realized, we're all going through a different version of the same story.

We all feel the same things, we all care about the same things, we all want the same things.

When I was in Iraq, I was working on an Iraqi army base in Baghdadi, which is another part of western Iraq.

And we were fortifying their base, and one of the Iraqi soldiers invited me for dinner.

So I came in with a translator and I sat on the ground with him and I ate with him.

And I was just having a normal conversation.

conversation and this kid he used to be used to work for Al-Qaeda which was the station so I asked him you know how did he switch and he's like well al-Qaeda paid $400 a month so he had to survive and get by what other job could he take then when the army came back together you know a couple years later he joined the army because the army paid $900 a month you know and and I'm like well did you want to do that he's like absolutely not he's like I want to go to the club and I want to meet girls and I want to party you know I mean he's 20 years old yeah So I think survival, you know, we do what we have to do based on the opportunities that we have available.

And a lot of people in these other countries don't have these opportunities.

But in our country, we have so many opportunities.

Too many almost, right?

Yeah.

Well, so that begs the question.

What do you do when you have too many choices?

Yeah.

You know, and that's part of this whole drive program is figuring out, you know, narrowing down your choices so that you have some motivation and some goal that you want to achieve.

Love it.

It's been a blast, man.

What are you working on next and where can people find you?

They can find me online.

We're going to just on my Instagram at Jeff Petter.

And

right now I'm going to work on building a few programs to bring this out

to the world and to help people and travel around and work with school systems and kind of teach kids the financial literacy and confidence and tools that I feel are missing and that I didn't have.

Take the lessons learned.

One thing I want to tell viewers watching is

whatever you're feeling, you're not alone in whatever you're going through.

We're all going through the same battle together.

The key is, is stop being a passenger in your own car in life.

You know, start driving your own car and start making choices.

When you hit roadblocks, take a different perspective, step back and find another way around.

Because the key to success, just keep moving forward.

Pick a direction and keep swimming.

If you stay in the water, eventually you're going to drown.

If you pick a direction, it's easy to divert and pick somewhere else, but you have to swim towards shore at some point.

You have to drive your own life because life will just take you along for the ride.

It's never going to stop.

Powerful.

Thanks so much, man.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Thanks for watching, guys, and I'll see you next time.