Robert Owens – Beyond Average, Hitting the Wall, Becoming Legendary

Robert Owens – Beyond Average, Hitting the Wall, Becoming Legendary - Air Force ParaRescue dudes, like our guest Robert Owens are hard as they come. They've got to be strong, fit and courageous. Wherever a service member is injured and needs rescuing, no matter how impossible the situation...the dudes that jump in are guys like Robert. They're undefeatable and are widely respected for the hard-ass dudes they are in the SpecOps community. 
Robert is the oldest guy to complete SEALFit with Mark Divine. Mark's graduates get through graduate BUDS (Navy SEAL qualification testing) at a 95% rate...so you must be fit and mentally tough. BUDS breaks the bodies of 20 somethings as they try to become a seal...so when a 66-year-old dude shows up and passes, you know we're talking to a legend. 

Pete A Turner sat down with Robert and talked about the four things undefeatable warriors do to get through adversity. 
#warriors #combat #specops #pararescue #markdivine #undefeatablemind #BUDS #SEALFit #triathlon #marathon
Haiku
Beyond Average
Mastering Hitting the Wall
Rob Owns Prescription
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Transcription

Jon Leon Guerrero  0:00  
Hey, this is john Leon Guerrero. Our guest today on day two of special operators week is Robert Hamilton Owens. He was an Air Force para rescue man they call him PJ's and the PJ his job. Well, if a Navy SEAL goes into wreak havoc, if he gets hurt the PJ's go in, patch him up and get him out of there. It's a tremendous job that requires remarkable physical capabilities, tactical skills, and the mind of a surgeon in the field of combat. It takes a special kind of human being, and those guys don't get near enough press. They truly are the best and the brightest. ​

Jon Leon Guerrero  0:00  
Hey, this is john Leon Guerrero. Our guest today on day two of special operators week is Robert Hamilton Owens. He was an Air Force para rescue man they call him PJ's and the PJ his job. Well, if a Navy SEAL goes into wreak havoc, if he gets hurt the PJ's go in, patch him up and get him out of there. It's a tremendous job that requires remarkable physical capabilities, tactical skills, and the mind of a surgeon in the field of combat. It takes a special kind of human being, and those guys don't get near enough press. They truly are the best and the brightest. And that's what Robert did in Vietnam. He's now a speaker and adventurer and an endurance athlete. At the age of 65. He took on five endurance challenges, and on his 66th birthday, he completed the seal fit coral 15 hour challenge. He has completed 12 Ironman triathlons in all the most recent was last year. And to celebrate his 67th birthday, he completed seven marathons on seven continents, get this in seven days. He's as strong and as fit now as he was in his 20s. So he's an amazing dude and a personal hero of mine and Pete's Pete, of course, is doing the Cornetto swim this Saturday to support the seal veterans foundation. If you want to support Pete and the seal veterans Foundation, go to seal veterans foundation.org and go see Pete at Coronado Island this Saturday. Of course, we do this along with our ongoing support for save the brave, and you can read about them at save the brave.org. I also want to mention that my body comp challenge at least this round concludes this Sunday. I'll be talking about the results on Monday's episode. So look forward to that. And as always, if you want to give support to the break it down show we sure appreciate it go give us a five star rating and write us a little review. Maybe talk about your own fitness goals, if us featuring these top performers helps you out at all. And at the end of today's episode, we really want you to go to Robert Hamilton Owens calm. To read more about Robert, follow Him and see if he might be speaking somewhere close to you, or participating in a challenge that you might want to see your sign up for. He's definitely going to challenge you to be your best. Here's our guest for day two of the special operators week. Robert Hamilton owns

Unknown Speaker  2:31  
millions rock productions.

Unknown Speaker  2:36  
This is Jay Mohr. This is Jordan. Dexter from the

Unknown Speaker  2:40  
naked Sebastian youngsters Rick Marotta,

Unknown Speaker  2:42  
Stewart Copeland.

Unknown Speaker  2:44  
Scott Baxter,

Jon Leon Guerrero  2:45  
Gabby Reese, Rob belly This is Johnny and gray and

Pete Turner  2:48  
this is Pete a Turner.

Robert Owens  2:52  
Hi, this is Robert Owens and I'm on the break it down show oh man Turner

Niko Leon Guerrero  2:57  
and now the break it down show with john Lee Guerrero and Pete a Turner.

Pete Turner  3:04  
Yes, this is going to be fantastic. So first off, we're at Panera thanks to those guys for for allowing us to record here today. You know how I do it. I get on the on the road and I get it done, Rob? Yep. So I want all of you guys to go actually Happy Labor Day to you Happy Labor Day. Yeah, we're also working on a holiday. That's what badass dudes do. Shawn Douglas did a great background on you on his podcast and also the Spartan games podcast. You're on there and they cover a lot of your background. I'll briefly touch on this but I want I want you guys to go check out other places. You know how we do this, like the backgrounds been told. Let's reference that and give Sean and the Spartan games podcast that reference and the and the hit. So you are a retired Air Force pair rescue guy which means you're like a Green Beret, you're like a seal. You're like a marine recon guy. You're a top tier guy. And marine recon guys have a bit of a chip on their shoulder because they don't. Whatever reason they don't have the the same bona fide ease. But if you say pair rescue Air Force. Hey, this is Pete real quick. I just want to let you guys know we are proud to announce our official support of save the brave, a certified nonprofit 501 c three with a charter of helping veterans with post traumatic stress. Here's how you can help go to save the brave.com click on the link on the website. And my recommendation is this subscribe. Give them 20 bucks a month. You've got subscriptions you can turn off right now that you're not using that are $20 a month, swap that out get involved. Let's help these folks out. For whatever reason they don't have the same bona fide ease but if you say parrot rescue Air Force,

Robert Owens  4:36  
we all know it's like SS I will see you know because your military right but most people civilians have no clue what pair rescue is. Yeah, cuz we're the quiet guys, the seals and the Rangers get all the prep, right?

Pete Turner  4:47  
Yes, yeah, they do. But But you're right. You commonly we don't know we of course the Air Force has its own special force type element. Right? But you guys are no shit you got not that you need to know this.

Robert Owens  5:00  
The fun part is if if somebody wants to know what a pair rescue is, I haven't go to a Navy SEAL guy. Yeah, and say, Hey, navy seal. What is a pair rescue guy? And they tell them all about us? Yeah, because they like us.

Pete Turner  5:10  
Yeah, well, you guys are likable. There's a lot of ego in the seals. The recon guys have a chip on the shoulder that you're like you guys are like Rangers or something right? Or the Rangers don't even get included in the conversation even though they absolutely are in it. And then oh, by the way, then there's a guy like me who doesn't have any kind of tab any kind of a rarity, that kind of thing. But I'll go out with all of you guys. That's right. And then you guys are like Pete on the team. Pete You know, so right. There's a lot of ways to be special in the in the military and the parent rescue thing, I guess, for the audience help them understand that

Robert Owens  5:43  
with us. Is that yeah, that the Marines and the army, the Navy are all offense. Okay, but we're defense. Okay, so it's our job as as combat paramedics to go in and get the other guys yeah, so we have a different personality different kind of guy comes to our thing. Yeah, like for me, I was a beach lifeguard kinda got used to rescue and people like that called on, you know, like a firemen policemen get in. Right. And we have lots of guys who like the rescue side. What's a problem? Let us fix it. Yeah. And so when I was in was only 200 PJs, there was 3000. Navy SEALs. Yeah. Because we work as individuals usually versus as a team or squad.

Pete Turner  6:19  
And you guys use augment? Right? Like right away. So again, Delta Force, aggressive recovery, like you got snatched up by the Taliban, here come a bunch of badass dudes with long beards. And they will come get you. But then there's Rob is like, I'm going to put the IV and it gets saved this guy's life.

Robert Owens  6:36  
Well, all those guys have that action. And then they say, We're the PJs. We're in trouble. Yeah. So they say yeah, whether it's a medical thing or rescue thing. And it's real fun for us to get in and say hi, guys, you know, we're here.

Pete Turner  6:46  
Yeah, yeah, we go to work. So you guys are hyper fit, you know, you can drop in anytime, anywhere to help someone out. Or you regionally aligned. Like, do you have to know like, I need to be prepared to go anywhere in the desert part of the world.

Robert Owens  7:00  
You know, the neat part about us is that when we do rescue work, we do training in jungle ocean desert. Mountain.

Pete Turner  7:09  
mall.

Robert Owens  7:10  
Yeah. Trees. Yeah, you know, we jump into three foot trees that have to get some down pilot or somebody bought a broken back and get them out sticking them with an IV and then get into a helicopter. Yeah. So we're supposed to be able to rescue anybody, anywhere in the world, in any condition. Right. And those schools are real fun, because you go and you get to learn about how do you do it at 20? below zero? Or how do you do it? The jungle? Yeah, or scuba jumps. You know, how do you how do you set IVF and stuff out there in a raft. So a realistic situation is a pilot goes down, and then breaks his back on on eat grass from the plane and then gets hemmed up in a tree because he can't work his parachute. Right? So he's 35 feet in the air. And then a lot Hey, Rob, we got a cat the broken back can't move them. You know, you got to get them out of that tree. How the hell do you do that? You know, tree school is really fun. We used Oregon, and they were 300 foot trees, Hollis. And so when you jump into that, you know you're going to be breaking branches going on through. So you put on your special deal. So you don't lose your balls. You know? Yeah, here we go. Yeah, you have a faceplate that's not going to get crushed by these limbs. So you jump in break those branches. Then you detach then you go find where he is in his tree. Yeah, go up the tree. Oh my god, and then you setting with IVF and stuff, then you lower would you Mars and your beers and stuff down, get him in a basket, then call in a helicopter to come get him out. So that may take five six hours? Yeah, just to get him out of the trees. Yeah, he's all wired up, you know, with this shoot stuff. And it's a it's a technical interesting kind of experience.

Pete Turner  8:39  
Yeah, well, and also an impossible one. I mean, you again, 207 feet in the air with a guy that can't be moved who's been badly hurt for a while, because it's not like, hey, Rob's already in route, you know, your sword. He is flying now. It's like no, I'm down. Help, maybe all over like in a tree help. And then they maybe they have a personal locator beacon. And you know, and you know, but you're what you're hours away at best. If not days, maybe some days. Could

Robert Owens  9:06  
we do rescue work on McKinley. So you get the 18,000 feet? Yeah. And you get in and guys are hypoxic, and they're going out and you got to get in with oxygen and get them off the hill. Yeah. You do ocean work and jungle work. You learn desert work. It's just, it's always a mental experience, like a college class. Yeah, learn how to do these things in the different different environments. When you How often do you actually tactically go and rescue someone, whether it's combat driven or not? If you go to Denali, it's not because of a combat situation, it's because you know, each unit is different because you're either in a combat theater, or you're not. And if you're not, then the civilians will call you and say anything that they can't do, would you please do, right? So you may be doing combat stuff or rescue stuff, military wise, and then come home within two weeks start doing all your civilian stuff. Yeah. So, you know, you just never know, I chose most of my stuff up in Alaska, because it was the busiest, busiest base or theater that we had. And I had a rescue every week.

Pete Turner  10:12  
So every week, every week, wow.

Robert Owens  10:14  
So I mean, I put four guys in body bags, and I want to and it was we covered everything from the north pole to Washington, and from Canada to Hawaii. Wow. That's a big area for graders for mountain climbing, for scuba, for for snow for Mount Rainier, whatever would be if you're not doing military at the time, then they the civilians calling you.

Pete Turner  10:37  
And then when you're when you're in that tree, in this case, and it's just too late. Does it then become your mission to extract the body, but keep you safe? Like is there is a level of peril that you're going to go through for someone who's alive. And I'm assuming this guy's gone. He's in the tree. Maybe you just cut straps, and you're like, we'll pick them up at the bottom of all that kind of stuff. You know, know?

Robert Owens  11:02  
Sometimes they're alive when you handle Yeah, times. They're not. Yeah, I've had them die in my arms. Yeah, you know, you just play it by ear, and you have a one to 30 overhead or helicopter, and you just say, you know, dead on arrival, or we got time, or we got about an hour maker with this guy who's gone. So it's, it's just always one of those scenarios. You never know until you're with a guy what you got.

Pete Turner  11:24  
Yeah, yeah. And then how much allowance Do you get it? I'm fortunate in that when I go do my work, it's largely up to me, as long as I'm delivering, you know, and getting things to the commander doesn't have no one's really going to sweat me too much. And I don't want to give the impression that I do illegal things. But I also don't want to give the impression that that I'm not doing things that are in the very dark part of the gray zone. Because it's combat and the rules are different. And they forward deployed guy my situation. You know, it's up to me, I can't turn around and ask someone that, Hey, is this too risky, whatever has to be done. So when you're out there, and you're making a call, you know, let's say it's a dangerous extraction, in terms of there is an enemy environment. It's not permissive. And you have to make hard decisions. Is there? Is there trust on your end that like, I think they give you a latitude? Okay, you make the call?

Yeah, do what you gotta do. And then how do you maintain physical? How long can you physically do this job, the standard pair rescue guy, because at some point, your shoulders, your hips, something's going to give out because lowering a guy down, because you are the helicopter in that tree, you know, and you got to get that guy down to the ground and get him back up into the air or whatever, right? You're, you're the one sacrificing your body to ensure that they are rescued or retrieved.

Robert Owens  12:47  
You know, you you got to kind of stay in the listener would understand this. You gotta you gotta stay in shape where you can hang out handle angles. It's not lateral movements, right? It's bending over awkwardly. It's, so you have to stay in shape. Where you can withstand all the pressure of 100 to 200 pounds on an awkward angle. Yeah. So you practice a lot, let's say with with sandbags, picking the like dead bodies and twisting and twerking. Yeah, so I'm a CrossFit guy. Yeah. And CrossFit opens up some of it. The other part is just working bodyweight stuff, where you just practice things that are not linear. Yeah, angles, bending over backwards side, something where you don't pull that muscle when you're because that dead weight is a different animal than a barbell.

Pete Turner  13:35  
Yeah. And it's dead sloppy. Wait. So when you go to pick that person up, and they're unconscious, they want it. The body wants to not be picked up. It's rolling as fighting you it's

Robert Owens  13:44  
like trying to pick up you know, if I had to pick up you, yeah, and you were dead weight? Yeah, I'd have a real tough time. Yeah, maybe a lot. So we have to stay in great shape, just like the other the other groups do.

Pete Turner  13:55  
It's funny. This is a bit of a tangent, but I don't know how well the audience understands this. So in the military community, there's like this evolution that women are going to be in combat. And guess what, they've already been there for a long time. But you know, one of the things they say all the time is that when when we get hurt at a greater rate in combat zones, and then they aren't gonna be able to carry a body off the battlefield. Well, first off, First News is everybody gets hurt in a combat zone. If you walk out with zero injuries. That's it. You haven't been there long enough? You know, because it's going to happen, right? I mean, to I know, it's like from a movie that you pick someone up on you, fireman carry your buddy off the battlefield, but the reality is, is that rarely ever happens. You know? And when it does, it's usually some kind of hero look like, how did that person do that? Anyhow? So I'll let the female fail on picking me up. But I bet at if I went down, there'd be more than one person carrying me like they would for anybody. You're in a unique situation where you are two people,

Robert Owens  14:51  
but you're training to be two people. You know, I've seen some outstanding women that I would put shoulder to shoulder against lot of these guys. Yeah,

Pete Turner  15:00  
there.

Robert Owens  15:02  
There's some there's some really unique ladies out there that have trained Yeah, I'd be happy to have him on our team. But parent rescue is still waiting for its first girl graduate. Yeah. baby seals are still waiting for their first lady. Yeah, I think the Rangers have to now if I read correctly. And so it's interesting. Some of you listening would know of seal fit with Mark divine. He presently has a gal who's come and submitted herself to him. And so and she's a Princeton grad soccer scholarship. Really smart girl. Yeah. said in two years, can you make me a Navy SEAL candidate? And so mark is having a great time saying, I think I got my first one. Yeah, I just watched her last weekend, do 12 hours straight. And he was fun to watch, just booked

Pete Turner  15:45  
all the guys a lot of things. Here's the thing, too, that we have to understand about these ladies that are taking on these enormous challenges. The tip of the spear is really pointing it's hard to get on. And most dudes don't make it up. So if you've got a female that gets up there, she's capable. And there's there's no doubt and there, she will bring new skills that aren't currently available SEAL team. I mean, I as a collector, I know like if I go in, and as a female that can collect, I'm going to defer to them. Because they're so damn good at it because they approach the male worlds for see these these Arab dominated male world. They approach it so differently. Why would I even bother? If they can do it so easily by just sitting there and doing what they do? And then I can work on other aspects that don't normally get to work, right?

Robert Owens  16:29  
I just watched a girl I go back to Lachlan Air Force Base to help work with our special ops training. I go back quite often. And we had a great girl in our last class. She was a mechanical engineer. Yeah. Three years of CrossFit. Yeah. And she was pretty Yeah. And she was sweet. Yeah. And she was hoping to cut it. And so she she did not I don't think make it apparent rescue, but they were going to give her other options.

Pete Turner  16:57  
Yeah, but it was great to see her go through it. The one guy with 125 guys. Yeah, in the same dorm, same bathroom, same everything. You know, her name was Molly. And I said, Molly, how are you doing? Yeah, she goes, I'm in the game. Yeah, I'm doing it. Yeah. And she told me her story about mechanical engineer that she just got bored sit behind a desk that you want to challenge. But I want to I want it makes me a little emotional. I want her. Anybody who's like, yeah, I want I want the bigger challenge. There's nothing wrong with the big military side of things. We're talking about that off my butt. If you want that next challenge, you put in that 4187 from the army side, you know, like, I'd like to go try for the seals. And the military should say, yeah, go do it. And if it doesn't work out, come on back. That's right. We got plenty of room for you. Because that's special happens when people are motivated to do that special thing. That's right. You do something special. I've not revealed guidance. But But you're you are not a young like 40 year old man is like I'm looking back wistfully on my days and Special Operations community. You were 60 six, is that right?

Robert Owens  18:00  
I'm 67. Now 67.

Pete Turner  18:02  
And recently, you did seven marathons on seven continents in seven days did and that is just a one thing of all of the things that you do, you were still hyper fit your 20 year old guy fit.

Robert Owens  18:14  
You know, I like to hang out with 20 year olds, and 40 year olds. And I'd like to be around them because they keep me young. Yeah. But if I'm going to train and work with these young guys who have these aspirations, to be in our special ops military, I need to stay in the game myself. So it behooves me to stay healthy and to stay fit. And then I still like those challenges, especially the ones where they say, You're too old. It's impossible. And I love that red meat thrown out in front of me and say, really? Let's see, you know, yeah, it's been fun to, to still stay in the game.

Pete Turner  18:49  
Okay, so staying in the game means staying fit. And I know like, for my combat time, even if I was like in shape and a proper way, my hips are just, yeah, golf balls, my the socket, they're all. So there's only so much I can do like, I just can't ride a horse because my hips just won't open far enough up. I mean, I could do it, but I wouldn't be happy the next five days. So understand. How do you how do you deal with with, you know, just wear and tear injuries.

Robert Owens  19:21  
And, you know, I'm real fortunate. I've always been a guy who's stretched a lot. Okay. I remember when Kareem Abdul Jabbar said at 42. At the Lakers, he spent two hours a day stretching. Yeah. And he said the only reason he was playing NBA was because he stretched two hours a day, right? 42 Yeah. And so between 27 when I got married, we had five kids. And 50. I worked out a lot. And I worked out because it was therapy for me with five kids.

Pete Turner  19:52  
Yeah. Right

Robert Owens  19:54  
it behooves me to keep my body limber, and stretched and fit. So when I turned 50, and went back into Iron Man's, I've done 11 Iron Man since I was 50. But I did my first one at 27. And so getting back into Iron Man community just kept my my body limber, because I had to do things. Yeah. And then I added CrossFit to it. And when I added CrossFit, CrossFit makes you do the kind of moves that you would not normally don't want to do. Meaning, you know, I have certain moves I can function with. Yeah, they have me do things that I would not function with, but they give me overall body conditioning. Yeah. And I think for those of you listening, if you'll stay in the game with physical fitness, outside of injuries, yeah. You know, like you have injuries from military. Yeah, I have some injuries. But I've worked around those injuries, the kind of things that I can do, right. And I think that generally speaking, if you can just stay physically fit, keep your muscles lubricated. Yeah, don't you know if you can keep a strong core. And if you can keep that strong core, keep that lower back in place, you know, you just have a lot more percentages of staying healthy. Yeah. Then if you let your core go, let your lower back Go. And then older guys have problems with their lower back. So that's what I don't want. I don't want a bad lower back. So I work a lot on core. And I've always worked on core, not because you're trying to be a core guy. But if you ever see anybody with a bad back, they'll say, don't ever have one. Work on your stomach muscles. Yeah, the stomach holds the back in place. Right? So I'm 67. And I still do a lot of core a lot of stretching. Yeah. And then I add my my strength stuff. And it keeps me in the game.

Pete Turner  21:38  
Yeah, keeping in the game. So a lot of us and middle age they've got they've got the kids, the kids have activities, you've got a job you've got to commute to and from the job. And we all know that we're supposed to take care of ourselves physically, and mentally and spiritually, and you just start to run out of time. Do I just need to rest? How about Can I rest today? You

Robert Owens  21:58  
know, I had to make it decision. I had big aspirations as sort of a type a guy. And I knew that if I didn't put myself first. And that sounds selfish, but if I didn't get up early in the morning, and get my workout in, and then get home, pick the kids to school, I'd never get to anything, right. They would be chaos, I'd never have control of my day, the rest of the day, I found that my most creative mental time was when I was working out. People say can I work out with you? I said, No, no, no, that's when my my juices are flowing when I'm thinking I'm creating. And then when I come out of that workout, or the morning, my endorphins were there, and I'd be mellow. And I could think, and I could attack my day or hit my day. And it became therapy for me for 20 years that I needed to get my early morning workout in, get up at five, be home by 730. Take the kids to school and start my day if I if I didn't do that very many days in a row. I find much more stress in my life. Yeah. So for me, it was a selfish thing. I needed some down alone time to process me marriage, kids job. And it worked for me maybe different for others. But it worked for me to put in my time in the morning early. And then let the day unfold. And I got the rhythm.

Pete Turner  23:12  
Yeah. Do you work out every day?

Robert Owens  23:16  
I have worked out probably five days a week for the last 2025 years. Okay?

Pete Turner  23:19  
Because Pete Koch is one of the guys that does a lot of shows me and you probably know him. He's the Swede from Heartbreak Ridge, and he's hyper fit. And he's like 28 hours of exercise a month, you know, you want to do a 90 minute intervals, whatever you got to do about 28 to really be on top of your game, you got to start at 28, you know, you start at 10, you know, and then over the course of a year work yourself to 28. But it does seem to be a fairly normal thing where you've got to be north of 20 hours of real exercise to to get your body to where it needs to be.

Robert Owens  23:53  
You know, everyone's different. Yeah. But what works for me and worked for me for a long time as I do a spin class at 530. I get my lungs opened up. Yeah, and I break that sweat, then I'd go right into my core work. And I'd be from 630 to seven o'clock or so. I do core 30 minutes or core box jumps or their constant. And then I do a run for 45 minutes on the treadmill and be done by eight. Yeah. Now the kids are at the house. Yeah. And I could be on the road by 830. And I got two and a half hours in. Yeah. And it was there were three different deals. And I was working three different things, right. And then I, I changed that I went from a spin class to doing my early morning run, and then it took a shower. Then I went to CrossFit. So I had an aerobic workout. Yeah, open up my lungs. And then I went to an anaerobic workout, which was one hour long. And that anaerobic workout is really the thing. I think that has changed my life. Because spiking your heart, driving it over and over again. You don't need to do that very much. Yeah, you do 15 minutes of that you're toast. Yeah, you know, so yeah. So for my CrossFit, we do 17 minutes of stretching, and I'm breaking a sweat dripping by the time I'm done with my stretch. Yeah. And then we do go into a move, and that moves for 10 minutes. And then we do a 15 to 20 minute drive, and you're cooked. And I've already done my aerobics stuff beforehand, right. So I'm, I'm in a great place in that two hours. Now most guys say two hours. And I say, if you develop a lifestyle, and it becomes a rhythm and a routine, it's like brushing your teeth. I don't think about it. Yeah, just something that I do. Yeah, I am. Yeah. I don't have to say, Oh, do I want to work out? It's like, I'm going to go work on my I'm investing myself. Sure that let me say it. I speak a lot to groups. And when I speak to groups, like over 50, I oftentimes speak on, you choose how you age, and you have a choice on how you want to age. And for me, I found that if I would just invest in my health, it made sense, meaning everybody's working on their 401k and their pension, everyone's trying to invest in their financial future. Right? Well, what good is it to invest in your financial future, if your body's out of whack by the time you get your money, and you can't use it, you can't spend it, because you're going to the doctors, or you're going to the hospitals or you're on medications. And so I see all these guys, they're really, really involved in making their money for retirement. But when they get to retirement, they're weak. They're sick. They got they look like they're pregnant, and they can't eat well Sleep well. And it's like, Hey, dude, invest an hour a day. Yeah. 24 hours a day, give one hour to health and your future. Yeah. And then work your money the rest of the time, and you'll be able to get your 60s and 70s and enjoy yourself in a lot of ways to says the fat guy. You're not fat, that workout is also investment in your spiritual and mental health. There's a lot of value in it. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I'm investing in my life that I want to get on the floor with my grandkids. Yeah. At 7075 80. Right, pulling it back muscle don't want to stay in the game. I want to be able to get on a plane and fly 14 hours and feel good. I want to be able to go do my my adventure is wherever it is. And it's not because I'm a stud. It's because I've just invested right in my body. I shouldn't I believe the spiritual side. I believe that God gives us a body. Yeah. And he holds you accountable what you do with it. Yeah, I think there's a lot of guys that get to heaven. And he goes, What the hell you doing here? Yeah. And you go. Yeah, my body crapped out. That's because you didn't take care of it. I gave you some you didn't change the oil. You didn't rotate the tire, it broke down on the side of the road. And it's your problem, dude. You know, I gave you something and you were not a good steward of that.

Pete Turner  27:38  
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, you have to own that part of it. And same thing again, with the spirit and the mental. You. It's a system. It's a system. So you got to put in good food, you have to work on putting some work out and that kind of thing. Fill your mind like you know, wisdom isn't given wisdoms earned. And all of these things require you to do meter out some time meter out some commitment. And then all of a sudden later on you like I'm a lot wiser that I was taking everything that

Robert Owens  28:07  
you want is outside your comfortable zone. Ah ha, I like it. Yeah, there's no victory without a battle so

Pete Turner  28:14  
I should drive further to get donuts.

Robert Owens  28:17  
There is no victory without a struggle. Yeah. And everybody wants to live victoriously. Yeah. Being overcome or but they don't want the struggle. So talk's cheap. You know, let's, let's all live these big lives, but who wants to struggle is the easy route. That's not the way life is. If you're like, a David Goggins guy you got, you got to put in the time, and then you get to reap the benefits. Yeah. You don't get something for nothing.

Pete Turner  28:39  
No, you don't get something for nothing. But for reals, though, a lot of people are really, really busy. And I'm pushing you on this because the person who we're trying to talk to it's probably me, but it's also just a lot of my friends were like, Yeah, but I drive two hours every day to go to work. There goes to my 24 I gotta sleep for a while there goes 10 hours. So I'm damn near halfway. I gotta, you know, do all these things. And there's just not enough time. Okay, so let me just say this. I'm 67. Yeah. How old are you? I'm probably 50 in January.

Robert Owens  29:10  
Let me talk to you guys out there. You'll make time for what you want to make time for.

Pete Turner  29:16  
Hey, this is Pete a Turner from lions rock productions. We create podcasts around here. And if you your brand, or your company want to figure out how to do a podcast, just talk to me. I'll give you the advice on the right gear. The best plan is show me how to take a podcast that makes sense for you that's sustainable, that scalable and fun. Hit me up at Pete at breakdown show. com

Robert Owens  29:36  
Let me help I want to hear about it. You'll make time for what you want to make time for. Okay. You'll make time you'll change jobs. You'll change locations where you live. If If making it to your 50s and 60s and 70s. Healthy is an issue for you. You'll find a way to win. Yeah, if not. Life is full of excuses. Yeah. And look losers have excuses. And I'm not going to cut anybody any slack. I had five kids, you know? Yeah. I had Suburbans for 30 years, you know driving kids to football. 10 years of volleyball travel team, though. Ski Team travel team. gymnastic broken arms. 10 years of Pop Warner that I got it. Yeah, no. I'm just saying, when you're climbing that hill, you better put your priorities in order. Because once you get the top of that hill and you look backwards if your body craps out on you, yeah. It was a nice ride. But Dude, you didn't handle this, right? And so I find excuses. Easy. And I, I had a TI to radio program on Angel baseball radio, okay. And it was called get in shape and get get a life. Yeah. And the guys would call me. And I'd say, What's your deal? how fat are you? And they'd say, Hey, I'm doing this. And then I say, Okay, now if, if I wanted to help you change, would you change? Are you just going to lie to me and lie to yourself again? Yeah. And I would take guys on that radio program week to week through the scenarios of change. Instead of that bag of chips. When you're a truck driver sitting, you know, for 12 hour run? Can you have an apple? You have a peach, can you have a banana guys would say, but I always have to have my in and out I'd say, okay, have that enough fart feel like a just a fat old dude. And that thing sits in your stomach. Or you can move over and eat a salad that and you can change. So you have options that we all have options. Yeah. Food is either for comfort, or food is for fuel. Yeah. And most people are emotional eaters. Three times a day, they get to do one thing that they really like. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's an emotional eating. And so when you when you change the sounds radical when you change the food is not your friend. Yeah. Food is for fuel only. And you only eat what you need for the fuel. And and you don't need the comfort of the food. Yeah, your life will change. But everybody is a comfort eater because it makes them feel good. And they get that donut, and they get the stuff and I love crap food. But I know that crap food takes a toll on me if I have goals. Yeah. So I just learned early on, you know, one day a week, maybe I'll give myself a cheat day that and I'll feel miserable by the end of the day. Yeah. And I'll just go off. I can just go back to clean eating on Monday, but it was so much fun to eat the ice cream and the doughnuts and the pizza on Sunday. And just power all those bad carbs. Yeah. And feel like crap, sleep. Terrible. Give the morning hope to start fresh. Yeah, so I'm just like you guys. But if you want to be in the game 60 you better pay your pay your dues early on, it's hard to recover what you've lost.

Pete Turner  32:35  
Like you're saying it's an investment. Right? So you do look at like, it's okay to have some emotional eating things. Sure. But and it's okay to have an in an upper I have whenever you know, me, too. I try to be cognizant of when I have one so that when I go to have them like, Oh, it's been a month, I'll have a cheeseburger. You know, I had a cheeseburger last night at a party. I'll try not to have another cheeseburger the rest of September.

Robert Owens  32:57  
Yesterday was my grandson's birthday. So they had hot dogs and hamburgers, right? Hot chips, soda, all the stuff there. So they said Hey, Dad, what do you eat? So I just ate the hot dogs. In a burger with no patio window. I stepped on it. And I just ate that. And one Patty and four hot dogs. I was a full guy. Yeah. And then I chose to have one soda and the rest was water. And I walked away and I had a salad for dinner. No harm no foul. I was nice. Got the birthday party. They didn't think I was weird. Some some health fanatic, you know, yeah, I imbibed with them. But I didn't the all the crap that came with it that I really wanted that but I knew it wasn't going to feel good.

Pete Turner  33:34  
Four hours later, you were telling me before So Mark Devine and I, we've talked about having him come on the show, we just have never gotten to it. So I need to get to that. And I may lean on you a little bit for that. But do they know who Mark Devine is? Uh, yeah, I guess let's explain that in a second. But also, he has he talked about earlier, he has a seal preparation school that you can do as a podcast is really good.

Robert Owens  33:56  
Yeah. And then he has right then he has seal fit. And seal fit was a CrossFit that was designed because the Navy said to him, we have so many guys not making it through buds would us take a CrossFit turn it into a seal fit. And we will send guys who want to become Navy SEALs to you prior to going in. And Mark then Navy SEAL Commander Mark Devine retired, he started to seal fit and he had a 95 success rate that if you could make it through his program, you'd make it through but say what

Pete Turner  34:26  
95 Okay, so one of the things that happens in seals and they push you they push you to your give up point and and you're not even 80% of the way of it I can push away patch that do carbon said it best. He's a former seal been on the show. He's like I was prepared to die. And that he's like to the school couldn't beat me because beating me Matt that I was dead. So a lot of guys have stress fractures, they fall on break bones, they work their way through pneumonia until they they pass out. We had a rebel AK his his shows going to come out to weeks. He developed you know, swimmers pneumonia, and was still pushing, pushing, pushing. And so he blacked out face first into the sand didn't even know anything for several hours until he came back. So it's one thing to say you're fit and you can put a boat above your head and do log PT and go over the dunes. But it's another thing to have that mindset of obby god damned if I'm going to be damned by this.

Robert Owens  35:23  
You bet. So mental resiliency, mental toughness is a completely different animal than physical fitness. Right? There's a book out that the listeners may like it's by Mark or by Matt Fitzgerald is called How bad do you want it? And it's a it's a PhD thesis on the chemicals that are released in your brain from mental pain and versus the different chemicals released to your body from physical pain. So there's two different types of pain that mostly people don't know about. They paint Spain. So mental toughness has its own chemical release. Yeah. Pain different than physical pain. And the mind, you know, will always quit before the body. Yeah. And so his book is a thesis of Olympians Tour de France guys, Iron Men who have hit the wall and quit mental pain. Yeah. Who then retrain through that mental pain, learn to make that mental pain, their best friend? Yeah. And then they don't collapse when they go back through when you're doing pair Rescue Rangers seal stuff. They want to take you into mental pain. And the key is they say, we have a 20 x principle and the 20th principle is you have 20 times more potential in you. Yeah, then you've ever allowed an instructor or someone to bring out you. Okay, now we'll take you 20 times further than you ever thought you can go. But it's going to be through pain. Yeah. Now, do you want the pain? And are you willing to go through that pain and for pair rescue? They say, we've got to take you through that pain. Because we want to know when you're going to quit on your man. Yeah. And if you hit that pain threshold in the field, and it's too hard to connect you and you quit on the guy you're supposed to rescue there. Those guys have put their life in your hands. Yeah, when they hear pair rescues coming. There's a hope there. Yeah. Versus the paradise. You guys gotta quit on you. Yeah, because it's too tough to rescue you. Yeah, yeah. So the whole thing of the special ops community is to help you learn mentally and physically that you can do the things you don't think you can do. But it's going to be a challenge to do that. So whether it's a broken leg, you can do it. Well, there's a broken arm, whether you have a bad one, Marcus Luttrell says, you know, he's crawling and lone survivor. It says as 12 miles to crawl, he's been shot three times. And he goes, this is a piece of cake. Compared to Hell Week. You know, you're so happy to be crawling on this handsome Yeah, whoever that thing in front of him. And that's what we try to train and pair rescue or Mark Divine Will says, Let me develop that threshold for you. When you get in the game. You're not rocked anymore. Yeah, you understand that pain? Right? It doesn't have to be a deal breaker. And I like that, because I see so many kids who think they want to do something great. And then they hit that pain threshold and they quit. And they say, I know I should never have done this. Or I should have tried this or my eyes were right. And the answer is no. You should have tried it and you're capable. But you just hit the wall. And you didn't know what to do that. So you quit. Yeah, I have this potential. And you that if you'd learn to walk through that before you came in the military and understood that you could you could do things far better than what you did when you tried out the military.

Pete Turner  38:27  
Yeah, there's another thing to that. In the seals in scuba school, they put you in a situation where you're supposed to drown, you know, because they want to know that you're going to be your underwater Jones, some underwater work, you need to know that each of us knows that. even up to the very end where we might drown. We're focused on the actual mission and we're not focused on fear. We're not going to react in a negative way. It's the whole fight flight or freeze in this case.

Robert Owens  38:53  
parasympathetic nervous system. Yeah. Exact fighter flight, right.

Pete Turner  38:56  
Yeah. And so when you get into that moment, you know, free is a proper and appropriate response. Sometimes. Sometimes this is but what you don't want you want to be in control that response as soon as you can. Yeah, your limbic brain is going to fire and give you an impulse flight. And you're like, Nope, I need to freeze into this thing right here in this moment and continue to focus on this. And it's, you learn that a lot of times through the failure that. And when I say failure for the audience, I mean, in this one specific task, you're in the pool, you have to keep your hands above your head with the hundred pounds of gear on and tread water. And the moment your hands go below the water, you fail the test, you have to fail these tests so that you can get to the point of going, this is not failure. This is you know, I've got to get past fear. I've got to push harder. I've got to push longer and see what that 20% is because it ain't fun right there.

Robert Owens  39:45  
And they're not gonna let you drown.

Pete Turner  39:47  
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. They're gonna revive you or they're going to pull you out. Right? Yeah, some of these guys do technically drown. without help. But there is help right there. Yeah.

Robert Owens  39:57  
Yeah. And when they when they come up, having dropped and their buddies grab with instructor Reza pulls up, you know, pops on, they go, Wow, that's intense. Yeah, but I didn't quit.

Pete Turner  40:07  
Yeah. Right. And that's what they're all trying to get through is that whole thing where I'm prepared to give my life to make sure that you're okay, that's right. And, and the pair rescuer is going to go into SOC gonna say, Hey, this is two days like, and this is not meant to be an attack on the dust off guys. But the the folks that fly with the helicopters and extract you with an injury, their job as a big military unit is to come in, like, hey, the landing zone is clear. No one's shooting at the helicopter, we're going to extract all your insured now, and you're going to get world class life saving capability. But they are not flying in 30 seconds earlier, when there's still hot guns out there. That's just not what they do. So when Rob shows up, he is in that zone, like you do go in where it has to be wherever, however dangerous it is, to pull that person out. And I'm sort of creating a scenario but but you're not going to quit. You're in the ocean, you're not sure you're going to make it.

Robert Owens  41:02  
But I would say all of us in our special ops communities. That's how we're wired. we're wired, wherever does is getting out? We're going in. And so they go in on offense or I go in Paris. Google isn't on defense. But we're going in Yeah, we want to be in that moment. And usually, it's probably safe. We're probably not there. Yeah, you know, it's, that's not it's not ready for us yet.

Pete Turner  41:24  
Yeah. One of the things too, and I guess I'm illustrating this for the audience, just so they can understand, like, what the differences between the corporate person, the big military person and the special operator, when someone asked me like, but is it scary when you go on to the combat field? No, no, no. I mean, yes, of course, somewhere in the back of my mind, they're sure but I have a job to do. And job is paramount. And so when I put my foot that first step on that patrol, I understand there's someone who's probably looking at me through the scope of a gun, or they have their finger on the number nine on their phone to push a bomb button or whatever. But that's really how they've been tertiary. It's Quincy area or whatever, like, yeah, it's, I'm aware of it. I'm staying aware, but my job is out there. My job is to be in that tend to tension filled space to go see the person who is probably a murderer, you know, many times over. And we gladly murder me and I right situation, and I have got to go figure out how to make friends with that person. None of that is comfortable. It's all shady. And then I have to do my prep. I have to do my my report writing and everything else, and eat and workout and all these things. And oftentimes, well, you know, this, they'll be like, it's a 36 hour day to day, you know? Yeah, it'd be Wednesday in a few hours, and we just finished up Monday, but, you know, that's what we have to do.

Robert Owens  42:44  
It's, um, it was really interesting for me in my 60s, okay, to wonder if I could do my 20s Oh, okay. Interesting. So when I did seal fit with Mark, it's a 50 hour non stop challenge. Whoa. And I remembered, you know, pair rescue training. We had some long days. Yeah. But I wondered, in my 60s, can I still do 50 straight hours of non stop CrossFit kind of was in Mark divine school. Yeah. Okay. So he has a 12 hour challenge, non stop a 24 hour challenge. And then he has the big one, which is 50. Right. And the reason he runs 50 is they find that if a guy can make 50 in in Hell Week, if he can make it from Sunday at five to Tuesday night. Yeah, he'll usually make it to Friday. Yeah, but most guys quit within the first 50 if they make the 50. Right, they can make 5560. So

Pete Turner  43:34  
he's talking about hell week right now. Right. Okay.

Robert Owens  43:36  
So I wanted to see if if a 66 year old guy could could do 66 mentally can do 50 mentally. Yeah. And I didn't know if I had the ability saying a 3535 hour day or 40 hours. Yeah, right. Yeah. It's been a long time since I stayed up for two straight days. Right. Plus doing that stuff. Yeah. And I thought it would be a great challenge. See what my body would do at 50 straight hours.

Pete Turner  44:04  
What kind of calories are you taking in during these 50 hours?

Robert Owens  44:07  
Once you have an mre? Yeah, you have you have to Mrs. And you get one bar? Much Water?

Pete Turner  44:13  
Yeah. So you got about 3000 calories to play with. So if you're in the field,

Robert Owens  44:17  
yeah, you're not going to have you know, good food now have an MRE Yeah. And maybe a bar if you're fortunate. That's it.

Pete Turner  44:23  
Right. And Mr. He weighs what, four pounds, something like that. Three pounds. A lot less than that.

Unknown Speaker  44:28  
You think so? Yeah, I say a pound. Okay. It was crappy. I hate him.

Pete Turner  44:32  
Yeah, yeah. You don't want to eat them if you don't have to. But try to win when when someone goes into the field. And you don't know when there's food come and you bring food with you. And an MRE pouch is paper. I don't know. It's maybe like three inches thick and about 10 inches long and about four inches wide ish. And so you've got to carry so many of these things plus your ammo plus your radio plus, plus, plus, plus plus. So carrying two is a lot wouldn't carry a whole MRT files go on foot patrol. I wouldn't I would maybe carry a piece

Unknown Speaker  45:04  
of it. It seemed like every MRT that I ever ate was made 10 years prior.

Pete Turner  45:10  
It was it was just crap marks going down to the Army Navy surplus. Marines used. Okay, so 50 hours straight. And then what are you doing during these 50 hours and a

Robert Owens  45:20  
lot of PT blog PN out of the ocean? hapa down mountains.

Pete Turner  45:23  
So the same thing they're doing in hell week?

Robert Owens  45:25  
Yeah, you stay wet. The whole 50 hours. They keep running muddy and wet. Yeah, spray down with the hose or in the ocean for the 50 straight hours. Right. So it's a different experience. But, but 50 hours is a trip, because you will loosen eight. Uh huh. Yeah. You know, you see things you talk to yourself. You have voices in your head that you didn't know, were there. Yeah, you know, things come out of the dark. You know, it's just, it's a weird, fun, interesting, kind of a thing. But they do that because in Navy SEAL training for Hell Week, if the kids can make it to Wednesday, yeah, usually make it right.

Pete Turner  46:00  
But subsequent to Hell Week, but you've been through the hell week. The rest of it is manageable, right. Wow. In this 15 hour block of time, you're 6066 years old, and you're doing this? What are your peers around you in your cohort saying,

Robert Owens  46:17  
Come on this drones? Yeah, I can do this.

Pete Turner  46:19  
Yeah.

Robert Owens  46:20  
I am. Was the slowest of all the guys in the runs. But my core work in my PT work. Yeah, I could keep up with all the kids. Yeah. So push ups, pull ups, sit ups, mile runs and stuff. I could do that. But when I did do maybe 500 soft sand lunges with pack on down the beach. My thighs. were screaming at me the young guys. They did much better than me. So I had my area of expertise. And everybody there did better in one area than another area. I was great and PT that I had a tough time with it. The endurance stuff, like long long runs.

Pete Turner  47:01  
Long long. marathoner marathoner, so is that age, or what do you attribute that to? I mean, at some point your body does not perform at the same level as someone who's 20. And for some aspects of it, right?

Robert Owens  47:14  
Yeah, I'm sure age for sure. I was real fortunate, because they said to me later, they said, You're a PJ. And you're the first PJ to ever tried to do this Navy thing than we've ever had. And so we're going to allow you to continue as long as you don't quit. So we're going to drive you as hard as we do the 18 2025 year old, but if you don't say, uncle, we're gonna let you stay. But they didn't tell me that. Initially. They told me that after about 40 hours, okay. They didn't tell me the first 40 hours. Yeah. So it was interesting to just hang around with the young people and have them say, you good Mr. Jones, and I say, I'm good. Yeah. enlighten them. Yeah. You're bad after the first hour. Really good. You were miserable from our two on

Pete Turner  47:59  
a psycho feel. Good week. It's called hell week. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  48:02  
And so it was, it ages a big deal. I would not want to do it again. If I known what I was getting myself into. I probably wouldn't have done it.

Pete Turner  48:09  
So you'll be doing it again. That sounds like Yeah, thanks. So come on. Let's be honest. You're going to do it again, right?

Unknown Speaker  48:15  
No, no, oh, no, it would be stupid. My back went out on me out about the 42nd hour, okay. Coming out of the second night, we've been in the ocean all night, doing beach PT in the dark. When they got us back into Temecula. First thing they did, it was about 50 degrees out and they sprayed us down with a hose. And we had to do a bunch of pool work. We have swimming your fatigues back and forth. And then they put us out. And the sprinklers had been in this, this grass and the grass was probably two inches tall. So it was all muddy and cold. And so they said we're going to give you some breakfast. And we I knew it was a trick because I'd asked them, they want to get you to puke your breakfast. So they gave you more than an mre. Yeah. And they said eat as much as you want. Because I had heard that they're going to have PT that caused you to puke. Because you went emotional. You did correctly, what your motion said and they say you don't want to do that. We're going to show you why you don't want to be emotional. So when I'm sitting down in the grass, just muddy and wet, my back data, it seized up on me. And so they the medic came over and said, I do Mr. Owens, I said I can't move. And he said, Okay, let's move you out of here. So they picked me up and put me over on a concrete step of a bathroom. And I laid shivering under a metal blanket before the sun came up. Finally the sun came up. And they said, Hey, Mr. Rollins, we're going to drop you if you don't get it back out with your team. I said How much time do I have? And they said you have about five minutes to get it together. Otherwise you're done. And we want to medical you out. We think you've done a really good you've got 42 hours. Yeah, so when we are going to drop you most likely yes and no yard? And they said yeah, you're I said no. I'm going to die first.

Pete Turner  50:00  
Haha, I'd rather die for

Unknown Speaker  50:03  
I'm dying on this hill. Stand me up. Yeah. And so really fast

Pete Turner  50:06  
pause for a second it's I want to hear what happens but you have a wife you have kids. And your your your this full man was 66 years old. Like I'll die before I quit this shit. That that you don't have to do. What does

your wife say about this nonsense? Well, she didn't get it at all. Okay.

Robert Owens  50:27  
He died exercising. I don't know why. Well, she seemed to pass out and Iron Man's you know, yeah, he. And so, you know, she's seen me do the wiggle it pain in my pants in the Caribbean or someplace? You know? Yeah. So she, at first she was freaked out and she just got used to that's what you do. Okay. Press play on. You've got to get up and get going. They're going to medical you and you said God Damn, it will I'm going to go. So when I run back out to my team, the instructor is always looking for weakness. He wants to extend what a weakness to see if he can get you to quit if your why is still strong enough to hold you. So he said to me, oh, and how's that back? I said good, sir. Ready to go, sir. And he said, All right. Give me 16 running somersaults in a row in the mud. Jesus Christ. And I said, Yes, sir. Love to serve. Yeah. And he smiles like I'm going to break you. Now. If your back was bad. Now I'm going to break you.

Pete Turner  51:25  
Running somersault you so you're running and doing a tumbling, run and dive and

Robert Owens  51:29  
run and time. You're 16 non stop in the water splashing. Sun's just coming up. Yeah, it's really cold. And I do my 16 I said, this is going to be unique, I'm gonna have to figure out the angle to not tweak my back anymore. Or as I'm hit my head and spin and get dizzy and all that stuff. So when I get to the end, I stand at attention. And he goes Get over here. And I run back to him. And he goes, hi, I feel I said, I love that, sir. Thank you very much. And I was just happy to get through, you know, you said good. Give me 16 more haha. So he drove me again. And then stood up and he goes, and I go bring it. And he goes, Okay. And the point was, is that you don't know what you can do? Yeah, until you take the challenge. And they want to find out if they can find that weakness in you. Because the Taliban is looking for a weakness or is looking for a weakness, ISIS, they're looking, if you show anything, that's when they're going to pile on. And so they would pile on every single one of us. If we exposed any weakness and anything we were doing right, they'd make us do more of it. So you suffer in silence you smile, you love it, you're dying inside, which you just say, I love it, sir. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I paid money for this. And they just made money. And I'm like, you know, every other words f bomb, but I'm not gonna say that here. But anyway, it's it's a fun thing when they take you through that, and you get through it. And they say, All right, good. Let's go

Pete Turner  52:57  
talk about these voices, Rob. Because it seems to me that those voices that you don't know are there, they're always there. They just have to yell as loud because you're not pushing them. You're not exercising them. exorcising that I'm saying? Is, is that a correct assumption?

Robert Owens  53:11  
You know, pressure, you don't know who someone is until you see him under pressure. Fair enough. Yeah. You know, the, the gal you marry in the honeymoon is not the girl you get in that big fight. When there's financial pressure, relational pressure, job pressure, you don't know who that person is going to morph into until that pressure hits. Okay. When you're in that pressure, all of us think thoughts that are bizarre, I want to kill somebody, I want to do this, I want to do that. I hate them. There's no respect. Why is this happening to me? Blah, blah, you have all these thoughts. I mean, when I was doing the seven marathons, we did four night marathons in a row. And then said the dark, you know, normally you run a marathon the day and you look at things, but when you're running at night in the dark, and there's no one around you. Yeah. And you're out there all by yourself. You have these voices in your head talk you like, what are you doing out here? I mean, why are you here? You know, whether it's in Perth, Australia, or it's in Dubai, or it's in Lisbon in the rain, and you falling in the rain, because you're running on cobblestones, and it's two in the morning, and it's cold as your wet your soap. And these voices are in your head going. You are really, really stupid. You know? I mean, that's for sure. But why don't you just quit? Why don't you don't need this. And so everybody has voices. And the key is to learn how to handle the pressure of voices and crap that come and argue because there's one on the left, and he's arguing with the one on the right, and your heads in between him, these two voices are going on, then some cousin comes in from the back and starts talking to you too. And you have multiple voices talking multiple things under that pressure, and you have to sort of pull out of it and watch them argue and not stay a part of it. Because you've lifted yourself up and you've kept your center, you've kept yourself in that place. Which voice is the one that helps you the most. We teach at seal fit, we teach us pair rescue, that there's four steps to mental resiliency. Number one is how you breathe. It has to be nose breathing, can't be mouth breathing, it has to be deep breathing, there's a different kind of oxygen that gets in your body from a nose breath, parasympathetic nervous system, then your mouth breathing. So number one, you get control of your emotions, by the way you breathe. Number two, you have positive self talk. So I had a mantra that I would say out loud to myself talking to myself, that was positive. Okay, that would fight in combat the negative voices in my head. So I would speak out loud my positive affirmation words, which would cancel out the thoughts in my head because I couldn't do both thoughts at the same time, right? One is going to win the silent one in your head, or the one that's coming out of your mouth. So when you speak your positive affirmations, this is a good day. I look good. Feeling good. I'm Hollywood. This is epic. This moments not too big for me. I could do anything. Pain for a moment, legendary for a lifetime. Yeah, just keep saying things to yourself. And pretty soon those negative voices leave. So first is you get to control your emotions with your breathing. Yeah, second is positive self talk. Thirdly is micro goals. You break everything down into the next 10 steps. The next minute, yeah, I can't do the next hour. But I can do the next minute. Right? I can the next 30 seconds. So I break everything up into mini goals. And then number four, visualization. Okay. And visualization had to think there. And visualization is in my brain, I have focused seeing myself winning. And so when I when I keep those, those, the visualization, the micro goals, the breathing, the self talk going, it cancels out all the voices that are in my head. And it's a nonstop war, right? One hour, five hours. And you just keep talking to yourself out loud. And you learn to breathe. So I ran all seven of my marathons with my mouth closed. I'm purpose

Pete Turner  57:01  
Yeah, I trained so that I would have better air. And I'd be control of my emotions versus let my emotions speak to me while I'm feeling crappy. So you circumventing the bad voices before you even start because you're doing the nose breathing and your control your emotions. And then if you need this talk out loud. do those things did you have to get to the outloud affirmations

Robert Owens  57:23  
that I did all the time. And I carried three by five cards in my pocket where they're all written out. So if I had to, I would just pull them out. And I'd read them out loud to myself. Yeah. And they were all sweaty and crumpled. Yeah. And they were going to be historic minute pieces, these pieces of paper that were everything that I was going through, and I and I learned all that from my work divine in the training on how to become mental resilience or mental toughness training.

Pete Turner  57:48  
You have a book coming out in about two weeks, probably about a week or two after this before this show comes out. So it's called Beyond every on average. And

Robert Owens  57:58  
the point is, is that our was never any good at anything. I was an average swimmer, average runner, average water polo player. Yeah, I never got a first no scholarships. I was an average kid. But my coaches told me that hard work out, I'll last and out beat better talent. And so from high school on they would say owns, you're probably not going to win. But this is what you can do. Yeah. And if you'll do this, you'll be surprised at what you'll end up doing. So when I learned that averages, okay, as long as you go past average, because you've learned how to go past average, then you don't have to be super stud to do great things. You don't have to be Mr. All American, you don't have to be the scholarship, golden guy. So unfair rescue training, like a seal training. So oftentimes, the guys that make it are not the studs, they're the guys that mentally are in the game. They're scrappy. And the good guys who have relied on their good strength are number one, but they give because they're not used to the tension. Fight. Right? We're the scrappy guys that 5678 they've always been underdog and they've learned how to stay into it. So so many of like a my team, we had 150 guys come out no Saturday is to be a PR rescue when we graduated about seven. Wow, all the good guys quit all the average guys, we hung together. It's it's true like, especially like in the Special Forces because of the way they select psychologically, when you meet a guy who's a green Bray and Gosh, I I don't want to say this incorrectly. So I'll say it as best I can. They're often physically unimpressive. You would never know. You know, it's like this little guy, you know. But if you were to get on a mat and roll with that guy, he would never quit. And he would just out, will you so when you think about you would rather die first. Yeah, you think about like the bell curve, everybody's like half of us are below average. And so if you can, will your way to the front end of that curve, you don't got to be at the flat part and the very tip of the front. But you just gotta say on will alone, I'm going to get to 60%, which means on the front end, above average. And you really can do that. If you're out there and you're investing like you were saying, like a portfolio, constantly investing in your strength, which investing your mentality which invest in your spirituality, right? When I speak to young people today, and I speak to lots of young groups, I remind them that averages okay. Don't Don't compare and contrast yourself against some superstar, some, some brilliant person, some super athletic person, don't do that. You just have to up your game a little bit all the time and work on your stuff. And average will get you beyond average, if you research, train, study, learn about it. But just don't compare yourself with the super hot shots, you'll be discouraged

Pete Turner  1:00:41  
because everybody has. The other thing is these are all multivariate things. So you if you focus on that guy looks great with his shirt off. Great, but he also might be weak minded. That's right. Whatever you don't you don't know. And you don't want them in Hell yeah, right. There's there's a, there was a genetic benefit for a lot of times for that look. Not that these guys don't work hard. Not that incredibly bodied people are out in the gym. But But we all have a challenge. We all hit our capacity on something, and you have to push through. And so don't worry about them. Don't worry about you.

Robert Owens  1:01:15  
Just stay in the game and focus on better every day. Every day. What am I doing to get better mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, relational Lee, socially, what am I doing today to be the best version of me that I can be. And I'm not going to worry about all the others that are much better than me, I'm just going to stay in this game. And that takes a lot of work. Because most people don't have the resiliency to just keep working on their stuff. Losers hang out with losers. Winners hang out with winners, excuse mine. And people always find excuse minded people, mediocre, loves mediocre. And if you can learn to to look beyond that, and say what's it going to take for me to get better at whatever it is today. over five years, you change, you'll grow and they'll peeled off and falling back or something will happen to look at a flat tire somewhere. And you're still in the game?

Pete Turner  1:02:05  
Do you have your cards with you your little three by five cards on the sheet, I was hoping to see him. But I think about that as being like, like you said, these these monuments to these challenging times. When you pull them out and you go through, you know, each one of those are obstacles, you could have gone the other way. And I'm assuming instead of giving up, you went forward and use those cards to go forward. We all had a collection of cards like that. You'd have a collection of moments of growth.

Robert Owens  1:02:30  
I couldn't have done it without positive self talk. Yeah, the negativity was too strong. I had to learn how to get my brain to shut up in Coral for our challenge. Cross Greece seven marathons, you have to learn how to how to take your mind on Yeah, and cancel it out and overcome it that takes practice before you get there.

Pete Turner  1:02:53  
What's the next big thing you're going to take on?

Robert Owens  1:02:55  
I'm not sure.

Pete Turner  1:02:57  
Not that writing a book is not a big thing?

Robert Owens  1:02:59  
No, actually, I wrote two books. I wrote a book about the five things that I did that they said were impossible. But then I I wrote a book on how to do the first book Dhaka meaning how to do anything. And that book came because there's just so many kids that quit. And it's so upsets me when I see these great kids smart and bright. And then somewhere mentally, they break down, and they just quit pull the plug on themselves. When you say to them later. Are you glad you quit? They're all kicking themselves. And no, I wish but I hit the wall. And I said, Well, we all hit the wall, you hadn't practiced hitting the wall. And either they take failure Personally, I'm a failure, or they take failure as a stepping stone. And they learn from that failure, go back and try again. But because they take it, I failed, so I must be a failure.

Pete Turner  1:03:46  
And that's not true. One of the biggest things that I've learned in my life, Pete's going to talk now Pete's talking yet find out where the work is. And that's oftentimes where that wall is. And if you get good at hitting that wall, you will feel you're out like not that way. Not that way. Okay, we're gonna go you know, it's just, you have to be in that moment. You know, doing doing work in combat zones means not where the goal is the outcome outcomes impossible. But what's possible today, right now, here's where the work is right now. Correct? Yeah.

Robert Owens  1:04:18  
I did Iron Man number three in Honolulu. So there's only two of us left in the world that did Honolulu Iron Man. And then Kona, Iron Man started in Honolulu. Yeah. And that's where it came from was the three toughest races in Honolulu. Do it one day, bring a beer, bring your A game. There, you show up. In that I passed out the marathon about the 14 mile mark on the Hollywood marathon course, by Diamond Head, Atlanta, some guys yard. I'm doing the wiggle pain in my pants. And just my body's accurate. I keep saying to my body. We stopped this. But my body is yelling back to me. No, that's not control anymore. When these guys came and gave me Gatorade, and blah, blah, blah. And I'm lander for a long time. They finally stand me up, I think Get up. And I can't walk and they teach me how to walk again. And I do this thing is pretty soon. It's sunset and it's cooling down. And I run and I get to the end of the Iron Man. And they go The race is over. I don't know, I'm just getting going. I'd pass 15 guys up away. I passed out like 39th and woke up and 54th and then got back down to 39. And I said no, you can't be over. I'm just back in the game. And I learned then that just because you hit that wall. Yeah, doesn't mean you have to stay on the ground. And it's over. When I went did Kona in 2003 for the World Championships. It was a really hot day. And the analysts was taking guys away all day long. And so you know when you when you're on the marathon course, and you see the ambulance, just every two minutes taken another guy who's

Pete Turner  1:05:45  
positive talk.

Robert Owens  1:05:46  
It's no it's no, it's hot. So I get to about the 21st mile and I pass out again. I thought I stopped to take a pee and I turned sideways. I just fell over five the highway. So I'm land or I wake up and the stock or above me. And there's a nice breeze not asphalt feels wonderful on my back. Yes. Dark, you know. And this ambulance guys there there? Are you okay, who are you know, blah, blah, blah. And I say this is sweet. Yeah, they go. And they go sweet. I go. I've been here before. This is this is fine. Give me a few minutes. Yeah, they put some fluids in me. You know, they stand me up. And I say I'm ready to get back in the game. Yeah. And they go, don't you want to go the hospital? And I go No, no, this is not a deal breaker. I've been here before. Yeah, that wall is not a wall. Yeah, it's just a moment. Yeah. And if you as in life don't get used to hit those walls. I mean, like, I lost my house in the in the in the recession. Yeah, you know, I built a $2.5 billion house and one on the market for 700,000. Oh, my God. People said, What are you going to do? I said, shoot myself. I laughed. I said, I guess I have to start over again. And I go, how are you going to do that? I go, I don't know. I don't know. But you find a way that that wall is not have to be a defining moment that has it collapses your world. So most people don't want that kind of experience of hitting those walls. But you don't know how strong you can go or hockey, how resilient you can be. You'll just lay down like everybody else unless you have have learned and practiced that life can be tough. My dad said to me, he said, when I lost my house, he goes, You boomers have had a pretty good for a long time. He was 97. And he was a depression era kid where his family sold apples on the street. back during the Depression. You know, his grandfather was Apple seller, amongst other things to try to provide for a kid. And my dad said to me, you know, son, you've been living pretty high on the hog for a long time you and your generation. It's about time you feel reality, like the rest of us. Yeah. And I go, Well, thanks, Dad push it, the encouragement. He said, he said Get over it. Start over. And I went, I was sort of expecting some empathy or some kindness were like, I'm really sorry, some This had to happen to you. And all you do is tell me to get over it, you know, get over and just lost $2.5 million paid for house. And you just said What's up? And I said, Thank you that I'm sure I'll appreciate this later, you know. So sometimes life is not easy. And if you're looking for an easy life, you're gonna have a lot of problems. Because when you're dealt the bad stuff, you collapse. Anyway, that's my pontificate on

Pete Turner  1:08:29  
that you're supposed to read. It's powerful stuff. And I appreciate it. Well, we're wrapping it up right now. But everybody should go check out Robert Hamilton Owens calm and your book is called Beyond average, it'll be out you can get it on there, you get on Amazon. And you guys know the deal. If you get the book, five star review, and then write it up and he needs I don't know, 40,

Robert Owens  1:08:49  
about about two weeks, two weeks, we've just put the pictures in.

Pete Turner  1:08:52  
But by the time the book comes out, this this show will come out two weeks or so after. But yeah, so this is how you help them out. And And honestly, like we bring these guys on, because we all can go out and find the work, we can push our limits, we can get to those walls, and then that stuff, it pays off, you get to the wall 10 times, you're way better at getting to the wall than time one, you know 500 and fucking whatever is podcast by the time this one comes out, better believe I'm better at making podcasts now. And it was a podcast to you know, you just keep going. You keep improving. And I'm telling myself this as much as anyone because one of the next things I'm going to do is go get in the pool. And I'm going to go throw down some laps and continue to recover from the hernia surgery while getting ready to go swimming around Coronado Island, at least in a relay. Maybe next year, I'll do the whole damn thing. But this is what we do. Right? We go out and we find out where the adversity is. Lucky storm and get ready and get

Robert Owens  1:09:43  
after it. You remember this? I I'm not a guy that likes to suffer. Yeah.

I'm not a suffering guy. You know, it's like, oh, where can I go suffer today? I just know that life has difficult moments. Sure. And if you're not used to pressing through moments that are difficult, you'll always run and you'll be running a long time for a lot of stuff. So as Goggins would say, or others suffering sometimes we'll find you out that mental, emotional, relational financial life, you're going to go through stuff and if you don't learn it, to sort of say I need to learn from this. It's going to eat your lunch. And we want to learn how to not have our lunch eaten. We want to learn how to stay in the game.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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