How to Stay Dangerous in the Right Ways as a Father | John Mulligan

Roderick Richard II: All right, welcome back to the Forfifth Fatherhood podcast, a podcast for fathers by fathers. Where we talk about the four pillars of fatherhood, which are faith, family, finance, and fitness. And I'm excited to have this guest on because he is in a field that I don't really know. I can fish a little bit, but I've never been hunting. So I'm really curious to hear a little bit about what he's got going on. ⁓ My guest today is John Mulligan. John, how you doing today, brother? Today's conversation might sound like it's about hunting, but it's not. It's about discipline, patience, preparation, brotherhood, and identity. It's about what happens when a man decides he won't drift through a life soft and distracted, when he chooses to stay sharp. My guest built a brand called Primal Divide. That phrase stuck with me because I see a divide too. There's a divide between passive dads and intentional fathers, between comfort and responsibility. I told you, see that wasn't about hunting. Well, maybe a little bit, but it was more about identity. It was about the divide between drifting and leading. Faith means standing for something. Family means protecting and preparing. Fitness means staying capable and finance means planning ahead, not reacting. Those pillars require discipline. They require patience. They require presence. You don't have to live in the woods to live sharp, but you do have to decide you won't coast. If today's conversation hits you, share this episode with another dad who needs it.

John: I am doing amazing, already got my workout. Workout one done for the day and later on tonight workout two, but yeah, day's going good.

Roderick Richard II: between reacting to life and leading it. bow hunt to understand that. The question is simple. In a world built for convenience, how do you stay dangerous in the right ways? How do you stay grounded? How do you stay disciplined? And how do you lead your family with strength and control? That's what we're going today, fellas. Buckle up, let's go. and make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss the next one. Let's stay ready, always. Awesome, awesome. Workout one, workout two. Man, you're an animal. I got mine in early this morning. I don't think I'm coming back for a second one though. I left it all in the garage today. yeah, yeah. I'm sitting down now and I can imagine standing up here in about 45 minutes to an hour. My legs are gonna feel like trash. So not looking forward to it, but also looking forward to it. ⁓

John: Hahaha There you go. There you go. Some days are like that. For sure.

Roderick Richard II: So John, for the guys who maybe haven't heard of you yet and don't know anything about John Mulligan, can you tell them a little bit about yourself?

John: So, ⁓ yeah, I mean, I'll kind of give like the cliff notes. I grew up in central Kentucky, ⁓ son of an Irish Catholic plumber, and we raised a lot of cattle growing up. And my dad was a, he was a ball buster, man. He was cut from that cloth that if you know, there's always work to do, you know, whether it was around the house or on the farm.

Roderick Richard II: .

John: or maybe it was just helping him with his, owned a plumbing business. And so, you know, was always, you know, I always used to joke my buddies would get all excited about spring break. And I'm like, damn, that means I got to work. You know what I mean? Because if I'm not going to school, that means I got to work. Summer vacations were full of work. And, you know, I ended up going off to college and kind of wanted to pursue my own stuff and. My degree is actually in horticulture and I really fell into landscaping. I had a part-time job landscaping for a guy in town and really enjoyed it. And did a lot of sports growing up as a kid. And that was one of my dad's things as he always said, if you start a sport, you have to finish it, even if you hate it. So ⁓ at the time growing up, and I'm sure we'll get into this more in the podcast, but. I thought, I'm like, man, my dad's just an ass. You know what I mean? Like he's just a jerk all the way around. But what he was teaching me is my dad didn't have the best upbringing and that nurture side of him was not there. I mean, I was 37 years old when I got my first hug from my dad and he told me he was proud of me. But what my dad did know how to do was to teach work ethic. you know, that was kind of his thing was his responsibility as a father. You know, a guy that grew up in the, you know, was born in the fifties, you know, his thought was the moms are for nurturing and dads are for, you know, ball busting and making him have good work ethic and be responsible. ⁓ But as a son, as most guys are, that's the admiration you want. You want that admiration from your father. You yeah, your mom's your mom. You know, she's always going to be there. But, you know, I spent my whole life basically trying to please my dad and was seeking something that I was never going to get from him. You know what I mean? That just wasn't in his, his DNA, his makeup. Shortly thereafter, I had a little bit of a change of heart. I went into law enforcement and so I moved up to the Northern Kentucky, Cincinnati area. And ⁓ that's when my wife and I, we had just got married and we started our family, started having kids. I ended up doing that for 16 years. And then there towards the end, I actually got into some entrepreneurship, started a couple of companies, started my own landscape company. And then I had another company that still today is sold at Cabela's and Bass Pro. ⁓ And when I was undercover, that's what led me into hunting. It was like, ⁓ you know, if you're undercover, there's not a whole lot of places you can go in your local town. But I knew I could go into the woods and I could be by myself. And kind of was a little bit of like a reconnection to the world and kind of make sure that I stayed somewhat grounded in my own space. ⁓ and I had no idea that was ever gonna turn into a career, but I got into photography through that and promoting the products and promoting hunting that it ended up turning into a career. And then I ended up spending 10 years as a TV show host and recently kind of transitioning back out of that. And I'll be 48 next month, but.

Roderick Richard II: you

John: It's never too late to transition and. You know, we only get one one life, right? So I want to do as much as I possibly can in the process and. ⁓ You know, be a good role model, be a good example for my kids and and I'm definitely more of a nurture than my dad was. ⁓ But I also am still very much teaching my kids work ethic and and staying in shape. Physical exercise and sports. ⁓ and incorporating all that together and try to tie that message in as one, you know what I'm saying? So I live in Iowa now. It's cold, it's windy, it's flat. There's not a lot of stuff to do here unless you're into hunting and fishing. There's really not a whole lot to do. But I like that. ⁓ You know, again, it's all about ⁓ finding balance in your own way.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah.

John: And that's kind of one of the things that kind of has helped keep me grounded is to stay away from all of the chaos. I know when I come home, I'm home and you know, that's kind of my tranquil place. You know what I'm saying?

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what's funny is two things in the early part of that is ⁓ my spring breaks in college. ⁓ So when I moved, so we're from California. When I went to college, my mom moved to Tennessee. And so for spring break, she was out there by herself. Her sister lives out there, but like it was just her and her sister. And so she's like 60 miles outside of Memphis in the middle of nowhere. ⁓ And so my spring breaks, I would go to her house and it was like she saved.

John: ⁓ huh. Yeah.

Roderick Richard II: everything for me to do. It was no real spring break. I would go home and it would be yard work and it would be paint this. It would be build that. would take this down. I spent the whole week working while I would talk to my friends. They're like, oh yeah, man, we're going out tonight. And I'm like, yeah, I would be in the yard at 5 a.m. now. Have fun. No, no, no, no. It's just like, if you're gonna come out here, you're gonna stay active. You're gonna get into some work.

John: You Yeah. Yeah. She didn't want you to get bored, you know what mean? Yeah.

Roderick Richard II: And every spring was like that. I was like, because I remember my last year, my senior year, I'd asked her, like, hey, mom, I think I'm going go visit my dad for spring. And she was like, no, I got a whole lot of stuff for you to do. She's like, if you don't do it now, it's just going to pile up until the summer. And so I'm like, Jesus. All right.

John: Right. Well, and that had to have been crazy too, going from California to Tennessee. You know what I mean? I mean, that's like two different parts of the world.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, well, yeah, and I was actually going to school in Michigan. So it was actually kind of a nice transition because it was cold and snowing in Michigan at that time still, because I was in Northern Michigan. So it snowed until like March, April. You know what mean? It's my birthday and it's snowing. ⁓ And so going down to Tennessee, it was cold, but it wasn't cold in comparison to Michigan at that time. So it was like, ⁓ this is like summer. But then I spent the whole time working.

John: ⁓ okay. ⁓ huh. Yeah. ⁓ huh. ⁓ huh. Right, Uh-huh.

Roderick Richard II: So I was like, I got some good food and a lot of work. And so that part was interesting. The other thing too was like, my dad is, you say your dad was born in the 50s. My dad was born in 50s, 55, 57, something like 56, I think. And very similarly, right? Like D is for discipline. Dad is for discipline, right? And he's very, very, I mean, he did, you know, tell me he was proud of me or, you know.

John: Yep, yep. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Roderick Richard II: when I did certain things that he was invested in, playing football, for example, he was invested in my career as a football player. So he helped me with workouts and training and stuff like that. And so when I did stuff that he was invested in, it was like, ⁓ great job. And then some of the other stuff was like, that foo foo stuff, don't worry about that. And so like you, was constantly trying to do stuff to get him to acknowledge that I was, you know, that I was.

John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Roderick Richard II: around, right? Because it was like he would work, he would come home, make sure if I didn't do everything I was supposed to do, then he was going to ride my ass until I got it done. ⁓ And then we start all over. Right. And so I found that, you know, with my own kids, right, I have two girls, so I got to be quite a bit different than he was with me. It's funny enough, I have sisters, I only have sisters, I'm the only boy and there's there's four four girls and a boy. And

John: Okay.

Roderick Richard II: He was much harder on me than he was on them for sure. Man.

John: ⁓ dude, hands down, my sister, she's five years older and she had a total cakewalk, man. Like she didn't ever get in trouble for nothing. And I'm like, I felt like I was the one that was actually breaking my parents in to discipline. You know what I mean?

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, right. Right. Yeah, man. I tell my sister, to this day, you guys have different parents. Like, I don't know who, I don't know who, and I tell my daughter, it's the same thing. I was like, that ain't my dad. I don't know who that guy is that's your grandfather, but that ain't him. Like he, he was a very, very different man. Like all those smiles and hugs and all that stuff. I was like, man, I'm meeting you for the first time, sir. How you doing?

John: ⁓ huh. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Dude, my kids, they, my dad, he spoiled them. My dad passed away five years ago, ⁓ but when he was still here, yeah, he treated my kids amazing. And they're like, ⁓ man, they're like, Grampy's awesome. And I'm like, let me tell you something, Grampy was a dick back in the day. You know what I mean? I'm like, no, no, that's not the same person. ⁓

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John: And I think for him too, like as he got older, he softened up over the years. And ⁓ my dad was a pretty bad alcoholic. And once he got sober, I think that was a lot of a change for him as well. ⁓ you know, me not taking over the family business, I think that was also kind of one of those like defining moments where he was like, man, like where did I go wrong? And... ⁓ And I think he regretted that. And even on his deathbed, the last conversation that I had with my dad, he apologized for not letting me enjoy the wins. My dad was very much like, no, you can always do better. I'm like, yeah, but I won. I won the state half mile track meet. And he's like, yeah, but you could have set a new track record.

Roderick Richard II: Mm.

John: And I'm like, damn, you know what I mean? So I remember when I was a freshman, I finished second in the state meet and you everybody that beat me, were seniors. so, I mean, I was ecstatic. I'm like, I'm a freshman and I just finished second. And my dad's like, why are you happy? Why are you so happy? Like, you look like an idiot. You're celebrating a second place. And he's like, that's not anything to be happy about.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah.

John: So, you know, it's like that movie, The Breakfast Club, ⁓ Emilio Estevez, the way he describes his dad in that movie, that was kind of the way my dad was like, you you're a winner and first place is acceptable. ⁓ But there's always room for improvement kind of thing. And so even when I had success in life and sports and things like it just it always seemed like it wasn't good enough.

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

John: And he apologized for that. And then actually another funny thing that he said to me, he said, you know, when you were younger and I used to like, ⁓ I used to give you a bunch of crap about always going to the gym and trying to be in shape and eating the right foods. He's like, I'm 67 years old and I'm dying. I probably should have taken a little bit better care of myself, you know. And ⁓ that was about the best compliment that I got, you know? So it was kind of weird thing. ⁓ But my dad, he created a motto called ⁓ work more hours. And it's tattooed on my arm. I'm actually wearing a hoodie that says work more hours right now. And ⁓ we had a deal when I was growing up. He said, I'll whatever, however, and I know a lot of dads have done this for their kids. However much money you save, I'll match it, right? So I saved up like two grand or something. So he matched it for two grand and I got my first car. And that was it. That was all he was gonna do financially, know, support wise. And I came to him when I was a kid and I said, hey dad, I'm trying to save up money. Like, how do you make more money? He's like, work more hours. I'm like, hmm, okay. I that's pretty obvious, but whatever. You know, thanks. Thanks for that nothing. You know what I mean? And then, Later I went to him and I was in sports and I was trying to make captain of my track team and I said, dad I said I'm just you know, I need to shave a few seconds off and he's like work more hours and You know, see a pattern it didn't matter what it was in life. That was his answer to everything You know, you just got to put in the time You just got to put the work into it. You want to have a better relationship with your with your wife a better relationship with God whatever it is, you just gotta put the time in. You know, gotta put the work into it and whatever you put into it is what you're gonna get out of it. So whenever he passed away, I actually tattooed the motto, work more hours on my arm. so it's just something I can always look at to remind myself every day that any shortcomings I have in life, I just need to work harder, you know, and I can always put more time into it. And, and, ⁓ It's kind of been kind of like my little personal credo, whatever, for just making sure that I have a better relationship with my kids and I make sure that I be a good example and role model ⁓ for them. And that's always been super important to me. I used to get so mad at my dad when I was a kid. was like, you know, because I used to, I there was borderline hatred moments, right? And it was never extremely volatile. I never had to call the cops or anything like that. It didn't get out of hand like that. ⁓ there was times that I really had a lot of hatred towards my father. And I used to tell myself, man, when I'm a father, I'm going to treat my kids better. I'm going to be nicer. And I'm going to tell them that I appreciate them and tell them that they did a good job and whatnot. So trying to find that where you're the disciplinarian and you're a parent. but you also want to be supportive. ⁓ My wife, she's very much, I tease her, she's like our kids' best friends. And I'm like, we're not their best friends, we're their parent. And I was like, when you're their best friend, it makes me the jerk, you know? So we kind of argue about that back and forth sometimes, but ⁓ we've done a good job, man. I'm super proud of my kids. They've all kept their nose clean and ⁓ they're extremely well behaved.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah.

John: It's always the parents best compliments whenever another parent's like, your kid's so respectful and super nice. And I'm like, damn straight, they know they better be. Yeah.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah, yeah. my girls are still relatively young. I've got a 13 and 11 year old. I still kind of get that stuff from people because they're still young, right? And so other parents are like, ⁓ your kids are so respectful. And I'm like, yeah, I think we're doing a good job. But I won't really know until they're adults, right? Because they become adults and just can become complete a-holes. And I'm like, I guess I sucked. ⁓

John: Okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We tried, we did the best we could.

Roderick Richard II: I gave it my best effort, man. Turns out she was trash either way. guess, you know, it wouldn't matter what I did. But I do like, and I know sometimes like as the child in the situation, it feels hard, like hard to hear, but that work more hours. mean, yeah, if you want more, you gotta work more. Like you're gonna have to do more. Like when you're looking for...

John: That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Roderick Richard II: or support or maybe you're looking for like, hey, this is, know, maybe do this or do that. Nah, man, get to work. Like get to work. That's the standard. That's the standard. And this is the standard. I'm not bending on the standard. Great job. But here's the standard. Keep working towards the standard. And I think, I think there's nothing wrong with that if, used correctly, right? I think you can abuse it, right? I think there's a way that you, as you do that, that, that maybe isn't constructive.

John: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, ⁓ yeah. Yeah.

Roderick Richard II: But I don't think we automatically just toss it out, right? Because I think what we're seeing somewhat in society is that, right? Like our fathers were harder, were stoic, were tougher on us. And so then the next generation is like, oh, well, I don't wanna be anything like that. So we swing in the complete opposite direction. And then you got a bunch of kids who are like, well, I had no discipline. Right in my house, I got to do whatever I wanted to do, say whatever I wanted to say. If I had a problem, mom fixed it or dad like, you know, yelled at somebody to protect, you know what mean? So I didn't have to face any consequences. And I think the where we need to land is probably somewhere in the middle. Right. Like we can't be just completely, you know, unaware of a need for support and nurture and encouragement. And we can't just only give them that right. And no discipline.

John: Mm-hmm. Right.

Roderick Richard II: ⁓ But I think that's what happens, right? Is you get these knee jerk reactions. Like, I don't want to be anything like them. ⁓ And so you'd completely do the opposite and you you become a friend to your kid. And then you find yourself ⁓ drowning trying to get respect. And it's hard to do it the other way around, right? Like if you get respect first, you can be friends second. If you're a friend, part is tough to get.

John: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, it's like, know, and you know, as a kid, I was like, I'm gonna be nothing like my father, you know what I mean? And then as I, once I had kids and it came time for the first, those rules or disciplinarian, you know, situations, I was like, ⁓ my God, I'm just like my dad. You know what I mean? Even though I had it as my goal that I was gonna be totally opposite, I ended up becoming, you know, just like my dad anyways and.

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm.

John: So I'm like, okay, all right, let's back about 10 % off of this. We can still be a hard ass, but tell them good job, you know? ⁓ And here's the deal is, yeah, there's books out there, ⁓ but by and large, as parents, we become products of what we were exposed to, to some degree. You know, our parents taught us how to be parents and...

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah.

John: You know, now that my kids are older, so I'm 17, 20, and 23. And so I can have those conversations with them now where they're adult conversations and we can be a little candid. Because for the most part, I've done my job. It's at their point now where they're going to have to be themselves. And I was joking with my oldest son the other day. He's 20 and. I said, man, I'm glad you turned out all right. I was like, we really didn't know. We did the best we could. know, good on you, buddy. You know? And he's like, you mean you didn't have it all figured out? I'm like, no, brother, none of us haven't figured out. We're doing the best we can, you know? ⁓ You know, you want the best for them. And that's another thing, you know, for parents listening that are just like, man, I feel like I don't know what I'm doing. You don't. And that's okay. You know what I mean? ⁓

Roderick Richard II: You Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

John: some of that stuff they've got to figure out on their own and you you want to protect them and maybe not have the mistakes that we did ⁓ but as long as it's a mistake that can be learned from and they can overcome and it's not a life-changing mistake it's not such a bad thing either you know what I mean ⁓ but we've always created that foundation my wife and I she's she's very athletic and

Roderick Richard II: Yeah.

John: We've just, we've always created that foundation around work and exercise. You know, I'm a big like motion creates emotion. You know, you get static and you get stale and you stop being creative and you stop seeking new things and to be better. So, you know, we've always encouraged sports and the gym and exercise ⁓ responsibility ⁓ to our kids. Cause I think there's a ton of stuff that kids can learn from it. And even the hunting side, I didn't grow up hunting at all. I didn't even get my first hunting license until I was like 23 years old. My dad fished and I would go fishing with him, but I didn't really like fishing. It was just something I could go do with him to try to get some one-on-one time, you know? And... You know, I remember he was, he'd be fishing his ass off and I'm sitting around on the bank like, damn, I wish we'd done already. This is boring as hell. You know what I mean? I'm like, we've had one fish and we've had to hear two hours. You know, this is, this is horrible. But I got into hunting as an adult and I've taken my kids out and none of my kids really enjoy it, but they, they went and they saw what it was about. They've seen me, you know, we'll just.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah. Yeah.

John: not beat around the bush, kill animals. There's a lot of fancy ways you can say harvest the animal or whatever, but they've been with me and ⁓ there's a lot of cool life lessons to learn about life and death and the responsibility of taking a life. But then the full circle moment is, is that when you process that deer or the moose or the mule deer or the elk, and then it shows up on the dinner table. And so you kind of get that full circle thing. And I think there's a, a lot of cool teaching moments for kids in that. And I've always told my kids, you don't have to love hunting, but I want you to know about it and respect it and know what it is. I mean, it's where we came from. And there was hunters and gatherers, and you had two options. If you weren't very good at hunting, then you picked up lot of sticks. So everybody had to have a job. and you know.

Roderick Richard II: Right.

John: I saw the same thing growing up farming. You had cows would die occasionally or you'd have to put an animal down or something like that. ⁓ I'm probably a little biased that growing up country, there's a lot of cool things that come from that. There's a lot of cool teaching things that come from it. Even though when I grew up country, I was like, man, I want to go to Florida. I want to go to California. Like I want to go to Texas. Like I want to go to a real state, a real city where there's cool stuff going on. But, you know, looking back on it, I don't regret it. You know, it was, it was fun growing up small like that.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, I think, I think, because I used to fish with my dad too. And those are some of my like fondest memories with him. We would just be out there for hours and we might not catch anything at all. Right? But that was like the only time that I got to just get him right for however long he wanted to stay out there. We were going to stay out there. However early we had to get up and drive to go to some fishing spot. Somebody told him about at work. I don't care. I'm going like, yeah, I'm my stuff on. Let's go.

John: Yeah. Yep. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah.

Roderick Richard II: And ⁓ again, just like your dad, he'd be having a great time, right? Like you said, fishing his ass off. And I'm just like, yeah, we got like one fish in this bucket, dad. Like, what are we doing? What are we doing? Like, I really want to spend this time with you, bro. But it's been like six hours now. And ⁓ yeah, we are gonna starve if this is what we're gonna eat today. But.

John: Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. I'm over there playing with rocks and mud and everything else, trying to entertain myself.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I remember ⁓ one time I was pretty, probably like seven or eight and same thing, just bored. So I started skipping rocks and he lost it. You're gonna scare off all the fish. It's like, now we're not gonna catch any fish all day. Cause you just want to skip rocks. Like, man, I don't, I didn't know what else to do with myself.

John: Yeah, I remember seeing a meme. It wasn't that long ago, but it was something about like how whenever you would go fishing with your dad when you were a kid and your dad would tell you, no talking, you'll scare away the fish. But really that was just dad's way of making sure he had peace and quiet and some relaxation. Because you can talk as much as you want fishing. It ain't going to scare a fish one, you know?

Roderick Richard II: Right. ⁓ Yeah, they don't care at all, man. Not unless you're diving in the water. They're just under there doing their thing. Yeah, right. So we kind of talked about like hunting and kind of how you can teach some lessons to your kids. But I think there's lessons in, I don't hunt, but I can, just from what I know about hunting, there's probably some lessons in there for the fathers too. Because as far as I know, hunting requires patience and preparation, right? Like.

John: No. Yeah. Yeah, or skipping rocks, right? There is.

Roderick Richard II: You gotta prepare yourself to get out there and you gotta have all the right tools. you gotta, if you're hunting deer, you gotta get in the blind and you're just up there. It's similar to fishing, right? You're just kind of doing all this stuff and then you're waiting for something to happen. ⁓ Where do you see, now I'm trying to tie this into fatherhood. Where do you see maybe dads kind of lacking preparation or patience in their own homes?

John: Yeah. Yep. I think a lot of it is probably just the way life is, you know, every gas station you go to it's five hour energy, this go, go, go, go, go, you know, and that's just become life and things like hunting and fishing. They are, it's very much based on patients, you know, over the years I've probably killed 150 animals, whether it be deer, Turkey, moose elk, whatever mountain lions. And only one of those hunts, the only way I was successful is because I did force the issue. The rest of them were very much a waiting game that if I reacted too soon, I was going to blow the whole thing. So like you said, the preparation and planning, there's a ton of cool teaching things that come from that. ⁓ Even on the execution of a shot. you know, whether it's a bullet or an arrow, I'm primarily a bow hunter. It's just more of a challenge and that's just what I like about it. You know, whether it's giving the animal ⁓ a sporting chance, I just, I like the up close and personal thing about bow hunting and ⁓ it does, your equipment's gotta be on point. I mean, every, you and your equipment gotta be one. You gotta be really dialed in. But, and I've, taken my kids out when I've hunted and I've shot something and I've even told them, know, pulling an arrow back and releasing it, there's no recalling that arrow. Once you send that arrow, you're pot committed. So you don't want to wound the animal. You want to make a clean, ethical, fast kill to not cause that animal any more injury or pain than what it should ever have to go through.

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm.

John: And there's a ton of side notes that without hunting, when an animal dies of old age or disease, that is a very long painful death. Very long painful death. Waiting for a coyote to come and eat it, you know what I mean, while it's still alive. And so, you know, that's an argument for a whole other topic. But... ⁓

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John: And in my teaching, my analogy on the arrow is it's actions and words. Once you say something or do something, more often than not, there's no taking it back. Those words left your mouth or, you know, if you had a job to clean your room and you did a shitty job, you did it. There's no taking it back. know, so execute, make sure your execution is right the first time. and put some thought into it because no matter what you do, if I shoot an animal and I make a bad shot, that's on me. Either A, I wasn't responsible in the tuning of my equipment to make sure that my equipment was in tip top shape or maybe I wasn't practicing enough and that caused me to make a bad shot, but that's on me. I can't blame anybody else. And so,

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm.

John: ⁓ I think that's where parents, you know, like I said, and those are lot of analogies on how hunting I think relates to that. ⁓ You know, an iPhone or an iPad. That's the modern day pacifier. You know, my kids acting up, I'll just throw an iPad in his face, you know, and I think that's wrong. You know what I mean? Like I said, it's become a digital pacifier. And now I get it. If you have kids that are latchkey kids and mom and dad are both working their ass off to keep a roof over, you know, their kid's head and stuff like that. I do sympathize with that. But, you know, I know you've heard this before when people were saying, man, I just don't have enough time to work out. Come on, dog. You all, there's a, you got, you can make the time to work out and exercise the same as you can make the time to be a parent. You know what I mean? I don't care. Like you and I both, we just talked about it how, man, we just wanted five or 10 minutes of one-on-one time, you know, with our dads. If you give your kid five minutes of undivided attention a day,

Roderick Richard II: Yeah.

John: man, that kid's going to be blown away and you can make an impact. ⁓ So it's just prioritizing life and not getting too distracted, whether it be doom scrolling on social media. Man, we're all guilty of that from time to time, but just prioritizing your time, I think is where parents probably lack the most and not finding even outside of the box teaching moments, you know, for their kids. They might not understand the point of it now, but they will, you kind of like the work more hours. It took me 10 years to actually really understand what he meant by that. I just thought my dad was being a hard ass and he's like, you just gotta work more. Don't be a piece of crap. know what I mean? Don't be a bum, just make more money. And I always equated it to money, but that wasn't the point. The point was anything you want better out of life, you've got to just put in the time. Now, if you get some gifts along the way,

Roderick Richard II: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

John: Yeah, be gracious and accept them, but never expect them. Always be willing to earn it. Earn it your own way.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah. work more hours. when you take it like literally, right? It's like the hours you're actually doing, you're getting paid for, but there's those invisible hours. Like if we even go back to hunting, you were talking about your preparation ahead of time, making sure your gear was right, making sure you scouted the location you're gonna be in. Like there's all these things that go into it before you even get into the hunt or before you even make whatever money or whatever it is you're trying to do or be a better father or be a better.

John: Yeah.

Roderick Richard II: husband, there's these other things that you do that aren't the actual thing, right? And that work is the work that we probably need to do, right? But we don't often think about it that way, right? Even with the working out, right? I don't have enough time in my day to work out. You do if you plan accordingly, right? Like if you look at your schedule, you will find the time. Actually, no you won't. You're gonna make the time.

John: Mm-hmm. Yes.

Roderick Richard II: Cause finding time is not real. We all have the same amount of time. The people who get up and get it done and get into the gym are making time. There's definitely something else they could probably be doing at that time, but they're prioritizing, as you mentioned, their health and their fitness. And so for a lot of us, when we hear that, you know, work more hours, it's like, ⁓ man, I don't have enough, I don't have any more hours to work. Actually, if you look at your schedule, there's a lot of like dead time.

John: Yes, there you go.

Roderick Richard II: that you're just kind of flowing through and just kind of doing whatever life is telling you to do. But when you get control, right? And you look at your actual schedule, you realize that there actually is some time, like you mentioned, doom scrolling could be a 45 minute event, right? That's a solid workout. 45 minutes, ⁓ man, I could kill a guy in 45 minutes, you know what I mean?

John: Yep. ⁓ yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah, well, and another thing too that I see a lot is ⁓ sometimes when parents become parents, then they transition into, okay, that's what I do now in the family is I'm a parent. But you got to remember, you're still a wife and you're still a father as well. ⁓ And you're still, you know, a husband, you know, you're still wearing those other hats. And one of my buddies said, okay, so I'm still a husband and I'm like, but that's also a teaching point to your kids too, because they see that too. They grow up watching the mom and dad that they're still in love and they're still making the time to keep that communication going. Marriage is not easy by any means.

Roderick Richard II: Right.

John: And it's become so much easier for divorces and stuff like that. And by all means, I know sometimes it's necessary and that's what can happen. But I think that's another hard lesson. And my wife and I, kind of ran into that a little bit when our kids were really little, when they were in that like three, six, nine bracket. I was like, damn, I fell down a rung. I'm like the fourth one on the ladder now. You know what I mean?

Roderick Richard II: Yeah.

John: And that was kind and I just had to sit down and kind of remind my wife, like, and she wasn't doing it on purpose, but she was like, ⁓ man, I'm a mom. That's priority one. And I said, no, no, I get it. It is one of our top priorities, but the number one priority was you and I, we were husband and wife first. And so we need to make sure we maintain that. And she's like, wow, okay.

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

John: Thanks for bringing that to my attention. And we discussed it one time and it's never been brought up ever again, but we both kind of caught ourselves falling into that mode where she became a mom and I just became a financial provider. And that was our only jobs.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah, and when you're talking about that, it made me think about the Matryoshka dolls, like the Russian dolls, right? When we look at it, like the nesting, right? was like, when we look at it on the outside, it's like that parent shell is the bigger one, right? But if we take that top piece off, like there's the husband, you take that one off, there's the boss or the employee. And it seems like when you look at it from the outside, that that outer shell is the thing, it's the identity.

John: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Roderick Richard II: But the reality is we don't even get to that outer shell without the inside, right? Without the man at the center of it all. Like if you're not taking care of that, then the rest of it doesn't really matter. The rest of it doesn't fit the way it should because that middle piece is missing. And that's where we have to as men, just remember, like yes, we want to sacrifice for our family. We are going to give our life for our family. We're gonna live our life for our family. We're gonna provide, we're gonna protect, but we can't do any of that if we're broken down.

John: Yeah, yeah.

Roderick Richard II: Right? Like we can try, right? And we're just going to continue to be upset or disappointed with what we get out of it. If we aren't taking care of that middle door, the little one, right? The one that seems the smallest or like maybe it feels like the most insignificant at times. Cause you don't even know it's there until you peel off all the layers. But at the core, that's the most important part.

John: Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah. ⁓ huh. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. And so, yeah, like I said, I think those are, that would be my go-tos, you know, if I was talking to a parent that was questioning, hey, am I slipping? You know what I mean? Am I falling behind? You know, what are some things that I can at least maybe keep an eye on before I slide off the cliff a little bit? And that would be, you know, women be women, men be men. remember that before there was kids, had to have been, you know, there had to be husband and wife, you know what I mean? Or at least man woman. I'm not saying everybody's gotta be married, but, ⁓ you know, and then you're also the parent. So you don't get to take off one hat and replace it with another hat. You just gotta add another hat, you know, to the mix. And I think that's my balance, you know.

Roderick Richard II: Right.

John: And it took me a long time to realize that myself, man. mean, my wife, she even had to sit me down at one point and she was like, look, you're ripping and running and you're living your life and you're doing your hobbies and your sole focus is making money. And we appreciate that, but we also want some dad time. You know, we want some John time at home as well. And that was another one of those examples of becoming a product of my father. Like when I was home, I was home, but mentally I was still thinking about work, making money, know, things like that. So those are things that as I've gotten older, that's gotten a little bit easier for me is making sure like put the phone down. And this is something my wife and I will do ⁓ if I'm going on one of my wild runs where I'm working, working, working, working, she'll come to me and she'll say, hey, Sometime here in the next couple weeks, like, do you have any downtime? I'm like, yeah, I think I got a little bit of downtime coming up. She's like, okay, what about Friday? I'm like, yeah, what do you got in mind? She's like, Friday, put the phone down. It's family day. Don't answer the phone, don't make a call. Obviously, if it was a career. making or career breaking phone call, she would tell me to take the call. You know, she's not saying that. ⁓ But she's like, hey, we need a little John time. You're starting to get a little too far out in left field. So she keeps me in check on that, but she also lets me be a man and she lets, respects my work boundaries. And ⁓ we're definitely not a sexist, you know, family, but my wife, she grew up.

Roderick Richard II: Right.

John: with a dad that was traveling a lot and he was on the road a lot. And so with my job and different careers, there's been always been a lot of travel. There's been a lot of nights when I wasn't at home. So fortunately that didn't create much of an argument and she gets it. ⁓ She, like I said, she lets me be a man. mean, man, we all know some of our buddies that were like, dog. your wife cuts your balls like the day you got married. You don't even get to do man stuff no more. You know what I mean? And I'm like, all right, no, no, no. So fortunately I've never had to deal with that. And I feel bad for guys that do, you know. And you might have some female listeners as well. And I would tell them, let your man be a man. You know what I mean?

Roderick Richard II: Right, not at all.

John: make him work within the parameters of the family and how that makeup is. But men are men, women are women. I'm kind of old school in that regard.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah, me too, me too. think that, you know, obviously there's stuff that, you know, there's, you know, you kind of blend responsibilities on some things and, you know, we even talked about like, you know, being a little bit more nurturing now versus then. And there's some of that, that, you know, obviously has to happen. And there's some rules and like roles and responsibilities in the house that, you know, are gonna cross every once in a while. But at the end of the day, right, I'm still.

John: Yeah, ⁓ yeah, for sure, yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Hey, did dishes and I dusted yesterday, brother.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, and look, nothing wrong with that. I'm not judging you at all. Like, yeah, more power to you, man. I did dishes this morning. So we're on the same boat. ⁓ But along that, right? So I guess kind of talk to us a little bit about Primal Divide, because I think we kind of are getting into that ⁓ arena kind of as we're talking a little bit more. ⁓ When you say Primal Divide, what is it that we're talking about?

John: No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that was the name of my television show. And when I first started my show, it was called Arrow Wild. And because I was only bow hunting. And I started getting into a little bit more gun stuff. You know, with my career in law enforcement, I started competing in like the tactical games, which if anybody's not familiar with that, it's basically CrossFit meets a gun competition. So you're doing some crazy exhausting exercising. And then when you're completely out of breath, then you got to use your guns and hit targets. Completely fatigued and breathing hard. Your heart rate's 180 and you know what I mean? Super cool competitions. And so I started getting into some of that and I thought, man, if I'm doing some more gun stuff and the TV show kind of has a bow hunting, know, bow and arrow.

Roderick Richard II: Okay.

John: name to it, it might be confusing. So I changed the name of the show to Primal Divide and how I settled on that was, are you familiar with Black Rifle Coffee? Okay, so you got Black Rifle Coffee, which obviously is tailored towards like, you know, military law enforcement, people that love the second amendment, things like that. And then you have Starbucks.

Roderick Richard II: Yes.

John: which could easily be put into the opposite category of that. So how I came up with the name Primal Divide was I would talk to people and they would say, oh man, you hunt? I had a great grandfather and he used to hunt. And I'm like, damn, you talk about it like it's this primitive thing that way back in the 1700s, they used to hunt. And I'm like. even a hundred years ago, you hunted or you starved. You know, it really wasn't that long ago. So that's how the name Primal came in. And then the word divide, I took it from just kind of the, I was seeing ⁓ in the world. There was just so much division and no matter what side of the fence you're on, Republican, Democrat or whatever, right-wing, left-wing, that's still, it's still attached to the same damn bird.

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm.

John: You know what I'm saying? And so I thought, okay, there's a lot of division in the world. It's kind of like the Starbucks versus Black Rifle. And I said, okay, that's what we're gonna call it. We're gonna call the show The Primal Divide. And ⁓ again, the division between hunters and non-hunters, you know, or I should say hunters and anti-hunters. I have zero problem with somebody who doesn't hunt. ⁓ And I don't even have a problem if somebody...

Roderick Richard II: Yeah. Yeah.

John: they choose to not hunt because they don't want to harm animals. I get that too. I don't like cats. It doesn't mean I hate cats. It just means I don't want to own a cat. You know what I mean? So ⁓ I think I have a little more of an issue with what I would call the outright anti-hunters. And I only say that because I think it's more of a lack of education ⁓ and understanding.

Roderick Richard II: Right, right exactly exactly

John: I'm a hunter safety instructor for the state of Iowa. It's something that I do and I volunteer and I teach every year. I teach 30 kids and it's a state requirement they have to have their hunter safety education permit to be able to hunt in the state. Every state has the same requirement. And so I volunteer and I teach the kids and I teach them ethics and the laws of hunting. And one of the things that I teach them because of social media, This is obviously not built into the curriculum, because I'm sure this curriculum was written 70 years ago, is I'm like, hey, whenever you catch a fish or you harvest an animal and you want to post it on social media and tell your buddies about it, do it in a tasteful way. You know, you don't have to apologize for being a fisherman or you don't have to apologize for being a hunter, but let's not give the anti-hunting crowd any ammunition. And unfortunately, man, we see it with every hobby in the world. Somebody displays their sport in a crappy way. It makes us all look bad. You know what I mean? ⁓ So that was the premise of the show. I ran the show for 10 years. And then just a lot of things happened. My heart kind of got out of it a little bit. I kind of fell out of love.

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

John: Hunting's hard. Hunting with a bow is really hard. Hunting with a camera person with you, so now you have a second person moving. They got a big camera rig, that's a second person that's putting off scent, movement, all of that kind of stuff, and to capture it. Because you know, a movie, if you and I are made a movie,

Roderick Richard II: I imagine. Mm-hmm.

John: we could record the same scene 82 times until we got it perfect. You only get one opportunity to kill an animal. You can't bring the animal back to life. All right, dear Mr. Deer, can I have you walk down that trail one more time? Yeah, so I kind of fell out of love with doing it. And a lot of the companies that I was endorsing and promoting, it used to be you just using their product was enough.

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah, yeah.

John: And then it started going to this where it was like, yeah, we need you to really promote our product. So it's like, you you, come to full draw and you're getting ready to shoot an animal and you're like, kind of talking to the camera guy. like, Hey, are you, are you on him? Are you good? Man, I'm so excited. I'm getting ready to take this deer. I tell you, I couldn't have done it if I didn't have my Eastern arrows and shooting my brand new Hoyt bow that is going to be launching in three weeks from now. Be sure to go to your local Cabela's and check it out. I'm like, this is getting so weird and unnatural. so I just kind of fell out of love with it. And I'm still working with a lot of the same brands, but I'm just doing more creative photo and video content for them and doing more social media promotion with it. ⁓ you know, like I said, authenticity is key for me.

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm.

John: and I felt like I was becoming a puppet for some of these brands and it just wasn't fun anymore. You know what I mean? So I said, hey, I'm doing things my way. ⁓ So yeah, I'm actually, it's funny, I'm transitioning back into law enforcement a little bit again, working with companies and actually training police officers on the use of ⁓ non-lethal devices.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah.

John: like a company called Pepperball is actually one of the companies that I'm working with. And I travel and I have classes of cops and corrections officers and field officers ⁓ teaching them how to use this product called Pepperball. And Pepperball, it's a non-lethal launcher and it causes a person to to cough. And that's how you basically get your compliance.

Roderick Richard II: Mm.

John: It's not less than lethal, it's not lethal. It's actually considered by NATO to be non-lethal. And with today's day and age, ⁓ that's kind of where we're going. You know what I mean? The old days of pulling out of a ton and hitting somebody in the leg to get compliance or going hands-on and getting in a fist fight, it doesn't look good. It looks horrible on video. ⁓

Roderick Richard II: No. Yeah. Yeah.

John: I'm really stoked about that and really excited to see how that's going to go forward and be a very positive thing for everybody that's involved, whether you're on the giving or the receiving end of it. ⁓ So yeah, it's weird, man. It's like ⁓ in a weird way, my life's kind of going full circle. I started out in law enforcement and I branched off and kind of rediscovered myself. And then now I'm going back to it again.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah.

John: I'm not buying heroin and selling heroin legally, I should say. Which is the best icebreaker in the world. I used to do it all the time. I'd meet somebody for the first time and they're like, yeah, so what do you do? And I'm like, I buy and sell a lot of heroin. And they were like, gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, ⁓ no, it's legal. It's legal. And they're like, how are you buying and selling? ⁓ okay. I get it. get it.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah, clear that up. Alrighty, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's funny. That actually just Tuesday, not heroin, but I went into a, I had a work event a couple of cities away. So I went into like a little liquor store before to get some water for the event. And there's a guy standing at the register talking to the person who works there. And they're just kind of yapping back and forth. And I'm standing there like, hey, I need to, I need to buy this stuff and get out of here. And then eventually the guy who's talking turns around and he goes, ⁓ I'm sorry, man. I just, I just gave her a bag of Coke. And I'm like, What? ⁓ And then she reaches under the counter and picks it up and there's a bag of Coca-Cola. And I'm like, you can't just say that in the middle of the, like, come on. They just both start laughing. And I was like, yeah, I wasn't going to look, I wasn't going to say anything. You guys do your thing. I just want to buy my water and go.

John: Yeah. Coca Cola! Yeah. Yeah, what it was so. Yeah, right. Yeah, so so what do you what do do?

Roderick Richard II: So I work with a virtual charter school. ⁓ I am the in-person component. So anytime we have any in-person events, whether they be field trips or ⁓ STEM activities, I coordinate like in-person learning, right? Because the majority of what the students do is on a computer, ⁓ which is cool. AI is good. And we actually have teachers that are there and teaching them things because they're all homeschooled, but you still need to have an in-person component, right? There's still some stuff that you have to do hands-on like.

John: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah!

Roderick Richard II: Science can only go so far on a computer before you have to put some stuff in a beaker and blow some stuff up. You know what I mean? ⁓ Yeah, it's really fun. It's really fulfilling work. It's really cool to, I guess it's weird. Somebody just said this to me yesterday. was like, hey, so you're the face of the company? And I'm like, you know, I never really thought about it like that. yeah, I never thought about it like that.

John: Yeah. Dude, that's super red. That's really, really cool. Yeah. You're like basically, yeah, yeah. So my main camera girl that still works for me, ⁓ she does a lot of my, ⁓ well, she'll help me with a lot of the editing, the shortcut reels, and she does a lot of my graphic stuff. ⁓ But her son is homeschooled and they actually just had a STEM event today. They're out in Pennsylvania. And I, so, know, I'm like I said, I'm almost 48 years old and I'll be honest, like when I was a kid, the homeschool kids, that's hit or miss, man. He might be some of the weird kids. You know what I mean? Yeah, right.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, or criminals, right? Like they just got, they got expelled. They can't go to any school. So they got to, you know, they homeschool.

John: Yeah, yeah. And back in the day, the old homeschool stuff, it made some kids socially awkward because there was no interaction. And then it was like the evolution. Then you saw homeschool kids could incorporate into the local high school sports. And I'm like, ⁓ that's cool. Now they're going to practices and there's interaction there and games. And then now seeing what's going on. I've learned this from her. She's been teaching me.

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John: And I think last month there was like seven STEM events. And I'm like, I want to go on these field trips. That field trip sounded cool as hell. They're at a museum blowing shit up. And I'm like, that's cool as I can I go?

Roderick Richard II: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah, that's like that. It's like that, man. It's super cool because I have to I have to actually go out and source these things and find it. And there's so much stuff that like if you're not looking for it, you don't know about. But there's so many like really amazing opportunities. And I've I've had the privilege of going to so many different museums and learning so much stuff in the last few years. It's like, oh, man, like on Friday, I'm going to a meeting tomorrow. Friday. Yeah, we're going to Museum of Tolerance tomorrow. That's my that's work for me tomorrow. Like I go to a museum.

John: Okay. Yeah! Yeah!

Roderick Richard II: and hang out with some kids and learn about ⁓ the Holocaust and a little ⁓ bit about some tolerance stuff kind of current, but more Holocaust oriented. And that's it. I'm gonna get paid for it. And that's awesome, right? Yeah.

John: Yeah. ⁓ huh. Yeah. Yeah, that's super cool. I'm really digging ⁓ the way that virtual learning and the way the homeschool stuff is going. I think it's super beneficial. And, you know, I'm to be honest, like you see stuff online, you see stuff on the news and you see stuff that's going on in public schools. And I'm just like, man, I can tell you right now, if I had young kids in public schools, I'd be looking really hard at maybe pulling them out and going to the homeschool thing because I don't agree with everything that I'm seeing that's happening today. yeah, man, that's super cool. That's awesome. It's gotta be very fulfilling to know that you're making a difference with adolescents in ⁓ a very important age group that they're in right now.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah. Yeah.

John: as far as learning and exploring and it's very outside of the box. I hated non-traditional school. Sit in the classroom, read a chapter, take a quiz. Wow. We're not learning, we're just working on memory. You know what I mean? But what you're doing is you're allowing kids to really open their minds and expand and what they're getting exposed to. Because growing up, was like for me,

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep, that's it. Mm-hmm.

John: You can be a farmer, can be an electrician, you can be a plumber, you can be a doctor, lawyer, or a cop, fireman. You had like six professions that they wanted to push you into. And now, like kids are getting exposed to so many other career fields where people can really find their interest. You know, and I think that's another difference in the times. You know, my dad was like, suck it up, dude, whatever, it's a job. You're not supposed to like it. It's just your job. Work till you die. And I'm like, oh, fun.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah. Yeah.

John: But, and I think now people are realizing that, hey, if I can find a career that I really enjoy, there's a lot better quality of life all the way around, you know, that comes from that. So kudos to you, man. That's, that's bad ass. Yeah.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, thank you, thank you. Like I said, I really, really enjoy what I do. I enjoy the opportunity to, because again, it gives me, like you were saying, like I wanna go. Like when I get something locked in, I'm like, ⁓ man, yes. All right, cool. I've been wanting to this for a long time. know?

John: You Dude, you remember the Rob Dyrdek, the Fantasy Factory? One of the things they did in Pennsylvania was just like that.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah.

John: I mean, they had like ramps and stuff in there and they had like the big foam pits and skateboards. I'm like, dude, that's fun as hell. Like I want to go.

Roderick Richard II: That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. And the cool part about it is, I mean, obviously I'm doing it with the kids that are in my school, but places like this give kids the opportunity, as you said, to expand. like when you're learning in a, in in a chair, in a desk, in a room that looks the same as, you know, 40 other rooms with a teacher who's teaching in the same tone the whole time around kids who are maybe paying attention or maybe not, you know, it's

John: Mm-hmm.

Roderick Richard II: it's hard to really grasp concepts and really like be able to grow in them, right? Like if we're teaching history, like a kid is learning exactly what's in the book, but they're not really making any connections to like the rest of it. You know what I mean? They're memorizing, as you said, memorizing the names, the dates and the figures, but they don't really understand what's happening around that timeframe. And going to museums and going to presentations and going...

John: Yeah. Yeah.

Roderick Richard II: you really get to understand what's really going on. Like even earlier, we talking about hunting. Like a hundred years ago, if you didn't hunt, you didn't eat. Like being able to go somewhere and see someone demonstrate what hunting looks like. know, why would someone hunt? How do you process meat? Like stuff like that, like we just don't understand in this generation, right? Kids definitely don't know. And it's gross or you find somebody who's anti, right? And then they get a lot of that. kind of pushed at them and they don't really get to understand the full experience of it and get the real context of why hunting might be important. And even some of the things we mentioned, some of the intangibles that come along with hunting, just we don't know. We only know we don't want to hurt animals and that's it. But there's more to it than that. ⁓ And so when I'm planning out things I want to try to find or I try to find things that give them a full or broad spectrum of like what this thing is, like sure.

John: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Roderick Richard II: It's science today, but let's like really open it up and figure out why, why we might need to know about chemical reactions. You know?

John: Yeah. Well, and you know, here's a kind of a fun fact that a lot of people don't know along those lines is ⁓ the fees charged to hunters for license, whether it be hunting license, fishing license, things like that. There's also a tax that's put on all ammunition and sporting goods. So all of that money goes into a fund. When you add that money up every year, hunters are contributing more. to animal conservation, like on a scale of eight to one than PETA ever dreamed of donating to conservation. And I think that's where a lot of it, ⁓ there's a lot of just a lot of misinformation out there. ⁓ just even from a standpoint of if there was no hunting, then you would have a disease and overpopulation problem. And then these animals would truly suffer.

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm.

John: ⁓ really horrible deaths. So, you know, in a way, it's, I hate to say, I hate to equate it to playing God, but you know, hunting, you know, they do only issue the number of tags that they have to keep that checks and balances in that healthy population of animals, ⁓ you know, in a good cycle, you know. So that way those animals are here forever.

Roderick Richard II: Mm-hmm.

John: You know, I we almost eradicated, you know, buffalo years ago before they implemented those laws and put those hunting practices in. ⁓ So, yeah, I mean, you know, that way you don't just have to go to the zoo, like to see, you know, to see animals like that and see wildlife. ⁓ So ⁓ it's a super cool thing. I've loved being a part of it. I've loved being a representative in the hunting space and, you know, and through that time, you know, it enabled me, like I, ⁓ I used to be an under armor athlete. And there was only five of us in the, in have ever in existence, there was only five under armor hunting athletes. And so that was pretty cool to like have my name a part of that list and, and to work with really big companies, you know, like that. And, and, ⁓ it provided us so many cool opportunities to travel. I've been to go to Saskatchewan a couple of times. I've been to South Africa twice. I've hunted in Spain and, ⁓ So I've just, I've gotten to see a lot of the world and learn about different styles of hunting and different cultures and all that kind of stuff. And so yeah, man, it's been a great experience, ⁓ been a lot of fun. And I'm like, okay, cool, what's next? I wanna keep evolving as a person, keep learning. You know what I mean? And so I definitely suffer from that. They always say a lot of guys have this thing where... The world could be falling apart around them, but we have this belief that everything's just gonna work out. It's all gonna be okay. So I definitely come from that where I'm like, know, whatever. I'm 48, I'm changing careers again. I'm like, ⁓ I don't know, I might run for president in 10 years, who knows? You know what I mean? I'm just like, whatever, whatever. And that's another thing that I've always made sure I taught my kids is,

Roderick Richard II: Yeah. Right? Yeah.

John: It's never too late to kind of set back, recalibrate, transition, know, go into something else, try something else, you know, like as long as you're still got a heartbeat, you know, there's still time.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah. And I think that's important, right? Because it's kind of that whole growth mindset idea, right? Just because you're this now doesn't mean you're this forever. There's an opportunity to grow, to become better, to try new things. And it might not work. It might be wrong. I might go try this thing and it absolutely sucks. And I'm like, okay, all right, well now I know. At least I know. And it's not kicking around in my brain, you know?

John: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, and I'm totally quoting something I read the other day. It was talking about the difference between success and failure is the guy that has success, he tried one more time. You know, until you have success, right before you had success, you had failure. And it was just the next day, or it was the next attempt. ⁓ And I think a lot of times people don't realize, one, it takes a lot of work, but how close they really were to breaking through, and they just gave up too early. ⁓ And unfortunately, my kids, they love sports. but that is one genetic trait that I did not pass down to my kids. They did not inherit naturally that kind of we'll call it the killer instinct, that uber competitive drive. And I'm like, hey, that's cool. If that's not in you, enjoy your sport, enjoy your hobby, do it for whatever reasons you enjoyed it. Like my daughter, she loves to run and she ran cross country. And she still runs today, every day. She gets up and she runs three, four miles before work every day. And I love that. But when she was running competitively, I'm like, why didn't you pass that girl? Like you had more in your tank. And she goes, well, her dog died earlier this week. And I just felt like she needed a friend to run next to her. And I'm like, no, push her out of the way and win the race. So they didn't quite get that.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John: ⁓ But hey, there's not that many Jordans and Cobies in the world, you know what I mean?

Roderick Richard II: Right? Yeah, yeah. And it can't be right. It can't be there. There has to be a balance. I just there's the ecosystem. There can't be too many of those. Right. ⁓ Man, this has been a really, really good conversation. Like I didn't I didn't ⁓ I didn't know where exactly we're going to go. I trying to piece it together. And like I knew you were a good a good guy and I knew I was going to get good conversation. I just didn't know how we're going to tie it all in. But it just it felt seamless. ⁓ I have a I have a couple.

John: No. Yep. ⁓ huh. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool, man. I appreciate that. Yeah, likewise.

Roderick Richard II: I have a couple of just quick rapid fire questions, right? Not too much thought. It might be one word, it might be one sentence. You might dive into it a little further, but I wanna get these off before we get out of here. You ready? All right. All right. Oh, let's see, let's see, let's see. What's harder, the hunt or raising kids?

John: Okay. Okay, yeah, let's go. Raising kids, definitely, without a doubt. Yeah, yeah, no hesitation on that. Hunting is not that hard. Raising kids, that's tough work. Yeah.

Roderick Richard II: Alright. Okay. ⁓ All right. I haven't hunted, but I agree. ⁓ What makes a man dangerous in the right way?

John: Yeah. Not being able to control ⁓ lack of control You know like quoting Jordan Peterson, you know, every man should be a monster But he should know how to hold it back and control it ⁓ and that's I think when you become the best version of yourself and I think that's where a lot of men suffer, you know, whether it's ⁓ They get themselves in bad situations marital situations ⁓ their temper gets the best of them or lack of effort, you know, gets the best of them and it all becomes a control situation. So I think that's where, I think it's where men, that's where men fail, you know, and they fall into, I would say the man's ruin, you know, alcohol gambling and women, you know, those are the man's ruin right there. So, and it's a lack of control.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah. Okay, okay. All right, this is kind of a two part one. ⁓ What's one habit every man should build and one habit every man should kill?

John: Poooo The habit every man should have built into him is he has to have something for him. Whether it be the gym, whether it be fishing, whether it be hunting, ⁓ a wood shop, working on a muscle car hot rod in the driveway or something like that. Every man, we'll call it the man cave analysis. Every man still needs to be a man. and he needs to have that one thing that the wife, the kids, the world, they'd let him do his thing. Now, ⁓ that should not consume all of his life, but it needs to be a thing that he can have his own outlet. ⁓ Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. We're different people. ⁓ One habit, one thing a man should kill. ⁓ man, that's a tough one. Cause that one's vague to me. Cause I'm thinking about... Hmm. Lack of trying You always got to keep pushing forward, you know, if a man doesn't have that You know, there's a reason why the windshield is really big and the rear-view mirror is really small is If you don't have that in you to always look forward Then you need to stop that immediately and every man should always look forward

Roderick Richard II: Okay. Okay. I like that. All right, last one. ⁓ If your kids were to describe you in one word, what do you hope that word is?

John: All right, well I have three kids, so I'll give you one word answer. Yeah, three words. So my daughter is gonna say persistent. My oldest son is gonna say jacked. And my youngest son is gonna say I'm a hard ass.

Roderick Richard II: Okay, so three words. Okay. Okay, those actually work together like you could you could just string those together

John: That's... Yeah, because my youngest son, man, he's my personal challenge, bro. Like that kid, he is the classic underachiever. He has so much potential, but he has just been such a knucklehead. I mean, his whole life just, he's so aloof about everything. And I'm like, I'm doing one of these with him all the time. I'm like, bro, like...

Roderick Richard II: Yeah

John: Come on now. Yeah, so ⁓ he would definitely call me a hard ass because I've been on him pretty hard here lately.

Roderick Richard II: Okay, all right, I like that. You know what, almost before we get out of here, I meant to ask about this earlier and I kind of got lost. ⁓ We mentioned it maybe early or maybe we talked about it before, but Johnny Utah, right? Men here of a certain age know who Johnny Utah is, but you are also Johnny Utah. How does that work?

John: ⁓ yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so when I was working undercover, I was in the Cincinnati area and we started working with the FBI Cincinnati field office. And so one of my buddies, I was telling him one night we were at a trade show and I said, hey, I said, you know, I got that spot. I'm working, you know, working with the FBI field office. And he goes, dude, you're the real Johnny Utah.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah.

John: And of course the movie Point Break is one of my favorite movies. And for anybody that hasn't seen it, spoiler alert, Keanu Reeves is undercover with the FBI. And his name is Johnny Utah in the movie, the famous Ohio State quarterback. ⁓ so anyways, I got the nickname Johnny Utah and this happened about 10 o'clock at night. And the next morning at the trade show, people are coming by the booth and they're like,

Roderick Richard II: Yeah.

John: Utah, give me two. And I'm like, I have never seen a nickname stick so fast overnight. Like it was the craziest thing. But ⁓ yeah, there could definitely be worse nicknames in the world. So ⁓ yeah, I've been carrying that nickname for probably 13, 14 years now, something like that.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah For sure, for sure. All right, I like it. I like it. has a nice flow and it's cool that it was actually true. Like you really were like real life down in Utah. All right, man. Well, look, like I said at the beginning of this thing, I really appreciate you taking the time. Anytime anyone takes time to sit down and take time out of their day, I know I have a very busy schedule. I know everyone else does. And time is one of those things that we never get back. So.

John: Yep. Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, thank you.

Roderick Richard II: ⁓ It's just like that arrow, right? Once we release it, we can't get it back. So I appreciate you releasing the arrow on this one and joining us for this episode. I know guys are gonna get a lot from it. I got a lot from it. So I'm excited to get this out there to the world. If guys are wanting to reach out to you, to high five you, to handshake you virtually, or just to say, hey man, I really appreciate the time. How should they do that?

John: It's gone. Yeah. Yeah. Instagram is definitely probably my most active platform and it's johnny.utahunt ⁓ and I'm pretty active on there. I respond to questions and DMs very quickly and and whatnot and that's definitely the best place and there's some pretty cool content. It's kind of hybrid between hunting and fitness and jujitsu and you know, all that kind of stuff. yeah, if anybody ever has any questions about any of that stuff, and that's, that's probably the hottest place to find me. No, don't, I don't dance on TikTok. You know what I mean?

Roderick Richard II: All right, all right. Yeah, don't do it. Don't fall into it. ⁓ Yeah. So fellas, you heard that, right? So make sure you go follow them on Instagram, johnny.utah.hunt. And ⁓ thanks again, man. I appreciate it. And I'll talk to you soon.

John: No, no. Dude, thank you very much, man. Like I said, I love the concept of what you're doing. And I think it's super important for guys to have, like I said earlier, a guy's having a man cave. You know what I mean? Your podcast is really an epitome of that. You know, this is a man's men cave. ⁓ there's always a lot of support out there. And I think as men, a lot of times people look at it they say, well, support is a weakness for a man. No, it's not. You know, it's really not like, you know, we need that brotherhood, that camaraderie, and we need people that we can lean on and maybe even somebody we're gonna hold them accountable, you know, at times. And to me, that's the definition of being the best person you can be is don't just tell people what they wanna hear, tell them what they need to hear. And ⁓ I think that's when, that's the extreme form. of showing somebody appreciation. So hats off to you for having a platform like this and having these kinds of conversations and questions. I think it's super important and there needs to be more of it.

Roderick Richard II: Yeah, thank you. Thank you. All right, brother.

John: Yeah. Awesome, brother. Thank you.