Jason McCarthy
Full Transcript

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Kelly: [0:00:04] Hey everyone, I’m Dr. Kelly Starrett.

Juliet: [0:00:06] And I’m Juliet Starrett.

Kelly: [0:00:08] And you’re listening to The Ready State Podcast.

[music]

Juliet: [0:00:17] This episode of The Ready State Podcast is brought to you by our friends at Sleep.me. And what we wanted to talk about today is something we don’t talk about as much and that’s the weighted blanket.

Kelly: [00:00:26] The kids at Sleep.me have developed what I think is the greatest weighted blanket. Now a lot of our friends sleep with weighted blankets because it helps them fall asleep faster and stay asleep. But one of the things they complain about—wait for it—is it’s so hot. Now you’re trapped underneath a lava bed. And what’s amazing about the Sleep.me system is that you can plug in your Dock Pro, you can plug in your units to the weighted blanket and you can use that weighted blanket and modulate your temperature. 

Juliet: [00:00:54] Yeah, and I’m a huge fan of the weighted blanket. I love the feeling and I do think I sleep better when I’m underneath a really heavy object. But you’re right, if you just have a normal weighted blanket, you wake up 5,000 degrees and have to cast off your weighted blanket.

Kelly: [00:01:08] If you can; if you’re strong enough.

Juliet: [00:01:09] If you’re even strong enough to get it off your body. And so what’s so great about the weighted blanket is you can keep it on your body the whole night because the Dock Pro or unit otherwise regulates the temperature. And so you can really just sleep in this perfect womb-like environment all night long.

Kelly: [00:01:22] And the Dock Pro is so powerful and has enough wattage that if you want to run a sheet and a weighted blanket, you can control both of those things.

Juliet: [00:00:132] Yeah, it’s pretty spectacular. Huge fan of the weighted blanket and if you’re someone who struggles to fall asleep or stay asleep, this may be your ticket. So if you want to try out a weighted blanket, head over to sleep.me/trs to learn more and save on the purchase of any new Cube or Dock Pro sleep system. That’s sleep.me/trs to take advantage of our exclusive discount and wake up feeling awesome every day.

Kelly: [00:01:56] Awesome.

Juliet: [00:01:57] This episode of The Ready State Podcast is brought to you by our friends at LMNT.

Kelly: [00:02:01] You may notice that you and I are both wearing hats. The cube in our podcast room is very cold.

Juliet: [00:02:07] It’s super cold.

Kelly: [00:02:08] And part of my practice every day, which you got me hooked on—shoutout to our friend Beth—we started drinking hot LMNT. And it totally changed my water consumption, electrolyte consumption. Especially when it’s cold out, hot LMNT is the bomb.

Juliet: [00:02:23] Yeah, I mean it’s our favorite way to stay hydrated in the winter because oftentimes we don’t want to drink cold water or even room temperature water because we’re really cold all day long at our office and just sipping on a big bottle of hot LMNT all day has been really life changing for both our warmth and our hydration.

Kelly: [00:02:40] I first discovered lemon-lime tea, like this lemon tea in Nepal when I was 20, and I’m sure it had so much sugar and it was so tasty up at El 2. Hot lemon-line casts me back. I’m right back in the Himal drinking this hot LMNT and it is the shiza. And I have to tell you, you and I like the sauna, and I oftentimes think we have not put the salt back in after the sauna. Hot LMNT, I’m sorted for the day.

Juliet: [00:03:06] Changes the game for us in terms of our hydration, doesn’t it, in the winter? We literally each drink it every day. Right now, if you order through our link, you get a free sample pack with all of LMNT’s flavors. Go to drinklmnt.com/trs. That’s drinklment.com/trs.

Juliet: [00:03:23] On this episode of The Ready State Podcast, we are pleased to welcome our friend, Jason McCarthy. Jason is the founder and CEO of GORUCK. While serving in the Special Forces, Go Ruck was born and the goal was simple: build a rucksack with life or death quality standards that would thrive from Baghdad to New York City. Jason is also the co-founder and CEO of Sandlot, an organization that empowers everyone into fitness with the tools they need to work out with real people in the real world. We were actually lucky enough to attend the Sandlot Jax Festival last year and had a great time and were so impressed with the amazing community Jason has created.

Kelly: [00:04:03] Yeah. You’re going to hear our love for the company GORUCK in this interview. We’ve known Jason a long time and really understand and have embodied walking with some load. It’s so accessible and it makes it a really fantastic way to load your body in a really accessible and equitable way.

Juliet: [00:04:23] Yeah, I mean we are huge fans of rucking in our own life and we think we’ve gotten some people in our community to also fall in love with rucking, thanks to Jason. And again, like you said, it’s just one of the most accessible ways to get outside, get some sunlight on your body.

Kelly: [00:04:38] Get loaded too.

Juliet: [00:04:38] Get loaded, get some movement and spend time with your friends and create community. 

Kelly: [00:04:42] One of the things I feel like you and I have in common with Jason is that he is a reluctant entrepreneur. I think he came out being professional war fighter and went through that transition that we know so many people struggle: who am I, I’ve lost my community, my community’s changed, what am I going to do with my life? I don’t know if you and I set out to become business owners, but here we are. And I love hearing Jason’s story of sort of begrudgingly ending up being the head of this really amazing community.

Juliet: [00:05:11] Yeah, I mean we are huge fans of Jason and what he’s doing with his company GORUCK and his broader mission of bringing people together and getting outside and I think you guys are all really going to enjoy this conversation with Jason.

Juliet: [00:05:23] Hey Ready State listeners, if you like what you’re hearing, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes to help others find our show.

Juliet: [00:05:30] Jason, welcome to The Ready State Podcast.

Jason McCarthy: [00:05:33] It is awesome to see you both. Thanks for having me.

Juliet: [00:05:35] We’re so excited to chat you up.

Kelly: [00:05:37] I just had a friend reach out and say, “Will you be in Florida again for the GORUCK event?” And this was the CEO of Momentous. I said, “Unfortunately, we won’t be there this year because Juliet and our daughter both have Momentous birthdays.” They have auspicious birthdays.

Juliet: [00:05:53] I’m really hoping you can just change it for 2024.

Kelly: [00:05:55] We won’t be able to hang out with you in person-

Juliet: [00:05:56] Last week of April.

Kelly: [00:05:56] Which is really amazing. Where are you talking to us from right now?

Jason McCarthy: [00:06:02] I am at our headquarters in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. So about four blocks from the ocean. It is an 80 degree bright, sunny blue skies day in Florida.

Kelly: [00:06:14] Oh, like here.

Jason McCarthy: [00:06:14] And it’s awesome. But there’s no place I’d rather be than inside of the quietest place at the office to talk to you.

Juliet: [00:06:22] Well, Jason, before we get into all thing rucking and your mission in life to get people outside and moving more, you have a pretty rad, awesome, secret Special Forces background. So can you tell us a little bit about that part of your life?

Jason McCarthy: [00:06:39] I’m happy to. I mean it was a total accident of sorts. I played Army a little bit, I guess, like any active outdoor boy. But what really drove me to service was 9/11. And so I was on a different path or a different way of thinking and that event happened and it took me a while. Saying that you want to go serve our country in a time of war and enlisting in the Army Special Forces in order to go fight on the tip of the spear of the war is a lot different than just thinking that you should. And so it was a really long process and there was many cowardly days, weeks, months thrown in there for good measure where it was hard to make a decision and eventually I did and I made the right one. Joined up October of ’03 and then served for five years. 

At the time, I won’t gloss over it, I went to Iraq in 2007, which was kind of the height of the surge. If you rewind, a very different thing. The closest thing I can point to it is the surge is kind of like what the draw down in Afghanistan felt like in recent memory in terms of press and coverage and division in our country. And it was like that for the buildup, there was elections thrown in, and it was just like that for a time because there was a lot of bad stuff going on over there in terms of outcomes that we were hoping for. I had the privilege of serving beside the best people that our country had to offer. They are the reason why I remained so optimistic about our country. And that was just such an honor to get to serve in that capacity. Got to do some time in Africa as well. And my wife at the time was Emily, who you all know, who’s a huge fan of yours as well, was serving in the CIA in West Africa, so there was this kind of back and forth between the two of us. Eventually something had to give and I got out of the Army in 2008 and moved to Africa and in a roundabout way that’s kind of where GORUCK started.

Juliet: [00:08:37] It’s hard not to just take a right turn and start asking a lot of questions about the CIA because I think deep down we’re all obsessed with the CIA. I know you are.

Kelly: [00:08:46] Were you always entrepreneurial? GORUCK is a force to be reckoned with. And I really feel like a force of will. I remember meeting you in the gym at San Francisco CrossFit, which feels like 100 years ago, telling me about the vision. And it’s rare, you told me about where you are now. You said, “This is where I’m going, this is my intention, here’s what I want to build.” And then you actually went out and did that. Maybe it wasn’t a straight line as it feels for me. Maybe had a little bit more variability and ups and downs for you. But did you always know even prior to your service you were going to be an entrepreneur? And when did those early thinking start to coalesce into an idea about GORUCK?

Jason McCarthy: [00:09:26] I mean the short answer is I never had a lemonade stand as a kid. I was never dreaming about being an entrepreneur. It really was not a thing for me. 

Kelly: [00:09:36] I don’t think it was a thing for us, was it, J? No.

Jason McCarthy: [00:09:38] I was getting out of the Army and I was trying to figure out what to do and I was in this secrete squirrel mindset. And Emily said, “Oh, you should do the GORUCK thing.” And she meant I should do this completely different business model than what I had and teach people about the Special Forces way of life. Security and all of that type of stuff, in war torn West Africa. And I was still trying to find my way. Veteran transition stuff, it’s all real. It’s really hard. It’s hard to go from one thing to another. It broke my heart a little bit as I read your stories about shutting down your CrossFit box because I’ve been there. It was such sacred ground. And I sense you now, like yeah, it was. I read all your notes. Juliet, I really appreciate the way you approached it, were just transparent about it. It doesn’t mean that we all didn’t cry a little bit because it felt like a really special space when I was there. 

But the entrepreneurial side, I’m just not really… I’m an idealist. Emily will tell you that that can be hard at times to live with. But in terms of when you assess motivation and all of that stuff, I’m just not motivated by building a great business. I’m motivated by a great mission. I’m motivated by getting people out living the Special Forces way of life. I believe in an active way of life for America and communities and real people in the real world and all of that stuff. And so the business was something that I just had to… At one stage I spent a couple years developing what would become GR1, right? With a bunch of people because I don’t know sew, so it always takes a team. I’ll just get that out there first. I was still kind of hiding behind this pseudo-

Kelly: [00:11:13] What is GR1? For those people who aren’t in the GORUCK life like we are, what is GR1?

Jason McCarthy: [00:11:18] GR1 was our first rucksack, right, that we built. It was designed to thrive in either Baghdad and New York City. So either/and. And it’s a little bit of tactical but from a quality standpoint, you load it up with 1,000 pounds and drag it behind a Humvee from Baghdad to Busra and it’s going to be just fine. Lifetime guarantee, made in America, all that fun stuff. Built with some real soul in it too. And just one step after another, I kept losing in life at that point. I was going through a divorce, I was transitioning out of the military, I had loss of mission and purpose. And all of that kind of stuff was going poorly. And for some reason, GORUCK became the thing, I just kind of refused to lose that. Because I didn’t like what was going on over the rest of my life and so it was this hobby of, okay, cool, I used the post 9/11 GI Bill to go back to business school, to go back to school to business school. And it was like, okay, well, I’ll kind of incubate this while I’m here. Bought me some more time. Meanwhile, I’ll figure out what’s next in life when I grow up, you know? And it just kind of, one thing took. 

What really happened, frankly, was when the GORUCK Challenge became about people. And so basically, a couple years, every dollar I had and then some poured into design, development, I had inventory rotting in my closets and spare bedrooms in D.C. Friends have it in their attics. They’ve got a car full of gear nobody wants to buy. And I was like, man, I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to do something. I’ve at least got to figure out a way to sell this stuff. And I didn’t know anything about Google or Facebook. I didn’t really want to know either, frankly. But what I did know about was building stronger people. Building better Americans is what we say. And what we mean by that is bring people together, teach them a little bit about teambuilding and embrace the suck and do hard things together and kind of make it fun. It’s fun when you’re with the right people. Even hard things are fun when you’re with the right people. 

And so that became the GORUCK Challenge. And it was led by a current or former Special Forces guy. At the beginning, it was me. And I’ll meet you on some street corner somewhere at 1 a.m. in the morning and sometime later, call it 12 hours, I’ll give you this little 2 inch by 3 inch patch. It’ll say GORUCK Tough on it. and you had to use the bag in the event because rucking is the foundation of Special Forces training, which is also an accident that I happened to discover when I was in Special Forces training. And so it’s like just one by one. But I remember after the first event, which was in San Francisco, it started over by… What’s the beach due west of the Golden Gate Park, right there?

Juliet: [00:13:56] Ocean Beach or Baker Beach.

Jason McCarthy: [00:13:58] Yeah, right there. There was the windmill right across from the parking lot. And in that parking lot when we were done, the people were there and everyone was just exhausted after this long trek over the Golden Gate Bridge and back essentially was the route. And we’re just sitting there and I’m expecting these people to just hate me because we did this hard thing together. And they loved it. And we just sat and chatted about the things that you chat with each other after a long workout. It’s like, okay, this is GORUCK to me: Bring people together, do stuff. It started out with Fight Club with backpacks. Hardest thing to do is go from zero to one, to go from nothing to something in a very busy world. That’s what brought us to something more than nothing. And then since, we have all different kinds of events and abilities, but the throughline is that it’s accessible and it’s about bringing people together. 

And so that was the it’s not a straight line at all. And rucking at some point became the Northern Star because it’s so accessible. You got 10 pounds or you got 100, depending on who you are—it’s all rucking. And anybody, I mean maybe people, these serial entrepreneurs or these other people, not me, come up with something and they’ve got a plan and they’ve got a vision and they’ve got a business and they’re just methodical and focused and all that. That was not me. I had to convince myself that that was going to work. 

Juliet: [00:15:22] So I want to go back and talk a little bit more about that transition period. And the reason for that is we’ve had so many athletes and other folks on our podcast who have had these really important transitional times in their lives. In the athlete’s case it’s like Erin Cafaro leaving the Olympics and trying to figure out what to do next. I mean we have scores of examples of people we’ve had on this podcast who have faced these really difficult transitional times.

Kelly: [00:15:48] Existential.

Juliet: [00:15:49] Yeah, existential. You know, I think you said you left the Army in 2008 and now it’s 2023. I don’t know, I just wonder if you could talk a little bit more about what that transition was like for you psychologically and what resources and support you had or reached for and what actually really worked for you to make that transition. Because I know it’s not just people who leave the military and athletes. I think almost everybody at some point in their life faces some kind of key transition and it’s usually a really difficult time.

Jason McCarthy: [00:16:17] Yeah. So I mean I’ll go back even earlier and then I’ll get to this transition. But I’m really passionate about the next generation. Eventually all this will be theirs. And so I was back at my high school and I put them through a little mini workout in a few hours. And in talking to them, the main point that I wanted to express is that those were the hardest years of my life, high school. And the time in the Special Forces qualification course, which has a pass rate of rounded up to zero basically, right, and all these things that are really physically grueling and all this. I had the why, I had the purpose. It was hard but it wasn’t the same. When you don’t really know who you are or you don’t have an identity that you believe in and you can’t look in the mirror and feel good about yourself for various reasons, some of which are in your control and some of which are not. And that’s really hard in high school. All this pressure, what’s next and which college are you going to get into. You start to buy into this idea emotionally, which is a very important reaction, to just who you’re supposed to be. 

And it’s important to give people some grace and some gratitude and some compassion. Just in general, but especially when you’ve got these large groups of people who are going through something that’s challenging and transitioning out of the military was akin to that. I set it up very, very poorly for myself because expectations are just a horrific thing. The farther away reality is from the expectation, the harder it is. And so I thought, hey, this is going to be perfect, transition out and live in West Africa for a bit, and then transition back, and then I kind of had a plan. And basically, nothing happened and nothing happened fast. So it was one of those things where I had lost past mission and purpose in my life. So I was no longer serving. The team that I was on went back to war, which sounds like that’s something that you would not want to go back to, but of course, I did. Anybody would in my position because you want to go back to the thing that you are comfortable with, with the people that you love. Start with the people that you love, actually. And then say, okay, where are we going, guys? And so that made it feel even worse. 

And then I’m going through… I don’t have a job. Practically speaking, I don’t have a job. I don’t have anything to maintain independence or feel good about myself. And then my relationship, which we had been married for five years and never lived together, was all of a sudden in the crash and burn phase of its evolution. All at the same time. And so it was just terrible. And it’s one of those things where I called up an old buddy. It got pretty bad before that, but I eventually called up an old buddy and I said, “Hey, man, things are not good, can I come crash on your couch?” And all these years later, it still kind of makes me tear up just a little to remember that because what makes you successful is sometimes what makes it hard for you to deal with things like this. If you’re good at being good at stuff and then all of a sudden, you’re terrible, there’s a broad gap between reality and expectations. So I think the overwhelming lesson is that too few people ask for help, especially me, especially a lot of high performers or whatever group of people you want to lump into there. And there’s so many people that want to help you if things are not good and if they are good. The trick is just to have people in your life that you feel comfortable enough or that you feel comfortable in general calling up. And it doesn’t have to be just for times of rock bottom, it doesn’t have to be just for vacations or whatever. Build and nurture those relationships because one day you might really need them. That’s in essence what started the recovery, was just being around other people and then that transitioned to me and the dog. A dog is a great and pure companion when your life’s like a bad country song, which mine was.

Kelly: [00:20:27] Juliet’s looking at me. You’re speaking language that really, I can relate to. I quit the national team, I’m trying to figure out what was going on. I meet Juliet. And there’s a parallel between us that I don’t think you know. Juliet and Emily are so similar. Juliet has always known where she is, she’s always been a cruise missile, she’s always going. And I was a little bit of a fully incompletely formed person.

Juliet: [00:20:51] With a dog though. He had a dog.

Kelly: [00:20:53] And for me going to grad school, being supported, the whole thing, you find this partner who was smart and driven, and that for me on some levels really highlighted the fact that I did not have my act together. And it really continued to drive me. Because I was like this person is in law school killing it and I’ve got to get something going here. One of the things that I think is also interesting is that GORUCK has sort of taken over your life and maybe taken over Em’s life a little bit. Juliet inadvertently became CEO of all of our businesses. We ripped her out of her life plan because this thing took up. We like you are accidental entrepreneurs. How do you and your wife manage this GORUCK pressure because the events, the getting people in their communities to walk around and change their lives with load, there’s a lot of burden on the two of you.

Jason McCarthy: [00:21:51] Yeah, there is. I mean it’s not easy is what I will tell you. And the same pressures we feel you two feel as well. She’s in her office and I’m in mine. And we only have two offices. There’s no cubicles, there’s no doors. I have a desk as an office next to 20 sewing machines. We have one conference room. I’m in it right now. 

But I don’t think there’s any blueprint for this. Long story short, because a lot of people won’t know the entire story, which we could talk about forever, but let’s not, is Em and I ended up getting divorced. She got remarried, had a beautiful daughter named Natalie, but then eventually she got divorced and we got back together and now we have two boys together. So yes, I remarried my ex wife. The same girl I met when I was 15 who always had her stuff together and I didn’t and was always kind of the Northern Star. And so I think the lesson that I learned as I was transitioning out visive us was that that has to be more important than GORUCK or the business. If your home is happy, you can do anything. And when it’s not, you can’t. 

And so it’s one of those things where GORUCK had become what the Army was to me or the CIA was to her. You will always love it more than it can love you back. And it’s not necessarily the case… You can go on a million deployments, you can get posted all over the place, you can have the highest speed stuff. But if it costs you everything, what’s the point? And so there’s this prioritization to say, hey, how do we intentionally take a deep breath and say GORUCK is fantastic but it can’t consume us because all the pressures of marriage and life and running a business, stress, all of that stuff, there’s certain components of it that I’m okay at, kind of built for certain kinds of stress, it will cause me to ignore everything else, right? That’s what made me a good Green Beret. But here I am, do you want to be in this kind of high speed CEO lifestyle or do you want to be married? Take your pick. But you can’t have both. Because if left to my own devices, I would wake up, I would roll out of bed, I would suck down a cup of coffee, walk the dog, come back and work. That is my default and I’m addicted to it or however you want to say it because I love the mission. I’ve always been like that to a certain degree. Find a mission and then you’re just loyal to the mission.

Kelly: [00:24:27] That’s something we actually call in our athletes, we call it plausible deniability because if you can just outwork everyone and out suffer everyone then the feelings can’t be your own because you’re like look how hard I worked, right? And meanwhile, your life is burning behind you, but you’re working. You don’t have any relationships, you don’t have a plan for the future. It really takes that, it is easy to do that, just to focus, and Juliet and I can relate. I have a massive ability to dissociate and just be like, door over my heart, I’m going to deal with this. And Juliet can outwork anyone. That’s how we both cope with our childhood pressures a little bit so we can relate to that. I want to circle back around because rucking has become a big part of our lives and such an important gateway activity to get people loaded and create community. What is it about rucking—and how do you define rucking—what is it about rucking that’s so special?

Jason McCarthy: [00:25:19] So first off, what I want to say is if I inadvertently steal things that you’ve already said about rucking, Kelly, just call me out on it and say, “I said that and you’re parroting me.” I usually do this on other people’s podcasts to begin with. So full disclosure. The basic form of rucking is you put weight on your back and carry it. And my journey with that started in the Army. It is literally the foundation of Special Forces training, meaning it’s not all the stuff you see on the Discovery Channel. It starts with 45 pounds dry meaning plus water and consumables like food and you’re in the woods in North Carolina and then go find your GPS point and then they’re going to give you another until you can finally say that you found them all. And so I didn’t know what rucking was. I knew what hiking was I guess but I never thought about the weight of it prior to… It was just always like you should reduce the weight with hiking. With rucking, it’s not about that. I got into my training and it was, hey, if you want to get better at rucking, better at getting stronger at rucking, load the weight and learn how to carry it. That’s the essence and that’s the beauty of it, is that it’s just so simple. It’s the step count that you should get with a little bit of carrying the weight. 

Juliet: [00:26:36] So can you just talk… I mean I know you said in your Green Beret Special Forces training that you are carrying 45 pounds.

Kelly: [00:26:43] Minimum.

Juliet: [00:26:43] Minimum. And hiking to GPS points. But I was struck by you saying it’s the foundation of Special Forces training. So can you just give-

Kelly: [00:26:52] Soldiering is in the legs, Juliet.

Juliet: [00:26:53] Yeah, can you give further color commentary to that as someone who… Yeah, it’s interesting. 

Jason McCarthy: [00:26:58] The selection process, ultimately it comes from British SAS. And so they were the pioneers for all of that. And over time, they just figured out where they were in Wales and in the United Kingdom, that this was a fantastic test of grit, strength. And oh, by the way, when you get into the job, nobody ever said in times of war I’m going to strip to my Ranger panties or my jogging shorts and put some Kicks on and just job into combat. That’s not the case. You are going to carry weight, supplies, weapons, transportation—armies have to move great distances—and so you need to be strong enough to carry that. 

And so you back into, I don’t know who the first person was who said, hey, the selection process for the most elite unit is going to be rucking based. But in essence, they just weigh you down and they adjust the weight and they adjust the terrain, and they get to a number of people who are willing and able to endure that. And then they have their people. And what they say is now you have proven that you are able to be trained because you’ve persevered through all of this. And a buddy, Rich, who you’ve met, went through British SAS selection before he came back and helped Charlie Beckwith set up the selection for Delta Force. And when he was talking with the quartermaster at the British SAS selection, they were like, “Look, lad, we don’t know exactly why this works so well, we just know that all these decades later, that it does.” And so that’s one of those things where that just kind of got transferred over to our stuff. 

And 45 dry is the minimum. I’ll give you an example: The final phase, which for me was a year and a half later, it’s this war game that they spread out all over North Carolina, unconventional war scenario. And we jumped in. So you have this rucksack between your legs and you’re jumping out of an airplane and then you’re supposed to walk. But the rucksack weighed 125 pounds and to get to where we were going to go was an 18 hour movement. And that was the hardest physical thing that I’ve ever done in my entire life. And I do not recommend that. That is an extreme test. And we had built our bodies up over the last year, year and a half in order to be able to do that. 

So that is really, it’s not the pushups, it’s not the stuff, the part that tests the mind is arguably more interesting than testing the body because you see the stuff and it’s guys yelling at people saying, “Lift the log.” That stuff’s easy. The hard stuff is on the 150th iteration of the same thing with all the weight on your back, you asking yourself why you’re here. And everything hurts. Your hip flexors hurt, your shins hurt, your feet hurt, your shoulders hurt. I mean everything just hurts. And you have to figure out and make sure that you still want to be there with every step. And that’s one of those things where I’m grateful for that opportunity to be able to get to do that because confidence is something that does happen one step at a time. You don’t just read a book and it doesn’t just happen by magic. So the opportunity to do something like that was you go up a rung in your own head, which is most important when you get to the end.

Juliet: [00:30:16] Hey everyone, so before we jump in today’s episode, we just want to tell you about a project that’s been almost five years in the making and something we’re really excited about, if you haven’t already hears. And that’s our next book. It’s called Built to Move.

Kelly: [00:30:29] This book comes out April 4, 2023 and you should think about it as the missing soul, like the keystone in some kind of movie where you put the jewel back into the Supple Leopard, and ching, the whole thing comes to life like Jumanji. The new Jumanji, obviously.

Juliet: [00:30:47] Obviously.

Kelly: [00:30:48] But the idea is we see that people struggle with figuring out where do I fit it all in and what’s essential that’s not necessarily exercising.

Juliet: [00:30:56] Yeah, and we’ve really put our heart and soul into this book and we think it’s fun to read with a lot of fun stories about our lives and how we got to where we are and how we think about our own health and fitness practices in our lives. And we are just really excited to share it with you all and hope you check it out wherever you get your books.

Kelly: [00:31:14] We could not have written this too soon. We are now approaching 50 years old and our eye is, hey, I still like to go fast and lift heavy weights and all those things just like you do, but we also want to feel good and be durable. And this greater conversation that we have missed, like Instagram is showing us what people think fitness is, it has nothing to do with how to feel better and how to live your life so you can be durable. 

Juliet: [00:31:38] So check out a copy wherever you buy your books.

Kelly: [00:31:42] Our neighbors who are going to listen to this are going to be like, I don’t want to ruck, that sounds terrible. Why should someone who is maybe wants to change their health or improve their tissue quality or increase their load tolerance, why they should ruck? What is it about it that’s magical about backpacking?

Jason McCarthy: [00:32:04] Yeah, so I mean I think it’s important to say let’s start with the outcomes that will come. This has been proven to work for a long time. Take Special Forces. I’m not creating something new. This has been around, so to say. So the practical applications are you can take that weight down to as much as you can carry. Start with 20 or 30 pounds, right? So now you’ve got something just on your back. I remember you telling me a long time, or a year ago at least, people that wear weight vests have the worst posture, the worst posture going. Because the spine compresses, you come forward and it’s not your back is supposed to do. If you put a rucksack on your back, your shoulders go back as they’re supposed to do, you can breathe better, you’re outside, you’re moving. So it’s posture corrective. You’re burning about as many calories as jogging. Your bone density’s getting stronger because it’s resistance training. You’re at a minimum not losing muscle mass. Every solid meathead knows that running kills muscle cells. When you start getting into force load impact onto knees, there’s a solid study, it talks all about all the sensors on the knees. Running puts eight times your body weight of force load onto your knees. Walking or rucking because of the gait is 2.7. It’s completely way better for injury prevention compared to other forms of light forms of exercise. 

And look, I think it’s fun to be outside. I think it’s fun to carry weight on my back and ruck the dog and kind of build it in so that I don’t have to drive 30 minutes to the gym to do something, drive 30 minutes home all the time. You don’t have to be a hero to get a whole lot healthier. You’ve just got to commit to doing more. And in this case, it’s so accessible to put a little bit of weight on your back and go outside your front door and go for a walk.

Juliet: [0:33:50] So I just want to make a comment about what you said before and then I do have a question. But I do think it’s kind of funny that they referred to that you did as an 18 hour movement. Like somehow movement doesn’t quite describe what that sounds like it was. But anyway, I think what I’m so drawn to about rucking are the two things you just mentioned. And one of them is accessibility, as in literally anyone can do it. And two is I think the unexpected piece and one of the reasons why we are such huge fans of walking is the community piece. And I know you’ve done such a good job of that. And I’ll tee this up by saying we were lucky enough to be able to attend your event last year called Sandlot Jax in Jacksonville, Florida. And it was spectacular. And having attended a lot of fitness focused events, it was really special and well organized and the community was amazing. You and I have talked about this before, but I think one of the things that struck us was just how welcoming and open and diverse the community there was. 

And one of my favorite moments, I think I told you this before, was we actually were driving in the morning at 8 o’clock to get to our booth. And we were like two miles away or three miles away or something from the venue and there were like 200 people in this other park and they were all getting their rucks on to walk from there to the venue. And you could just see everybody out there having their coffee and socializing and getting their rucks on and then they all walked to the venue and met people they hadn’t met before and created new communities and spent time with the people they came with. And so I just think, first of all, kudos to you for really focusing on and creating this whole community around this physical activity. But talk a little bit more about that. Was that really planned? Was that the goal, the mission, or has this just been kind of a side effect that you’re like, oh, this is amazing?

Jason McCarthy: [00:35:42] So I mean without that, GORUCK would not exist. And this bridge between the military and the civilian world that we talk a lot about, how do we do this? I mean I was the first cadre, the first leader of these events that people would show up for. And we always say I don’t care if you’re young, old, black, white, gay, straight, Democrat, Republican, just pick up the weight and carry the weight. And so it’s one of those things where so many people have become desensitized to other people. When you stare at people on screens, that’s not a real person. Or you read some just pure hate online all the time, something that would never happen in the real world. It doesn’t happen in the real world when you actually know somebody. And how do we present something that’s better than that? How do we be the best version of ourselves? And so if you take the business of GORUCK and take away some zeros, add some zeros, who cares? What I care about is this mission to bring people together and to unite more of us because I think this starts in our community. It starts with our neighbors. Do good fences make good neighbors? Yeah, awesome. So do good neighbors. So if we could just be more connected and the way to do that is to do that in the real world. And so for us, it’s about rucking. 

Weight is the great equalizer. So if my mom has 10 pounds and I have 45, we can go the same pace and we can just talk to each other. And this is how we reclaim this humanization of other people that has just been obliterated for so long now. I mean all of the marketers out there are designing so that you don’t ever have to speak. Everything is private. You can do everything where you are and you don’t need anybody else. I take the complete different approach and we absolutely need other people and we need to build that into who we are as human beings. And a business or a person, an “influencer” or whatever the case may be, promote that message more and you don’t have to build an ROI around it to do the right thing. You just live that life and promote it and keep promoting it and I think you’ll feel really good about yourself if you do. And for me, I feel really good about it because I live that life and meet the people in my neighborhood and my driveway and I ruck my dog to work. Occasionally I ruck with someone else to work and talk. We have ruck meetings at the office to go outside, to not just sit inside and stare at a whiteboard together. Actually, there’s a lot of humanity that goes with that and I think we need more of that. 

Juliet: [00:38:21] Yeah, I mean really gigantic kudos for that part of your mission because it’s what Kelly and I are huge fans of. I think, as you know from our book Built to Move, we have a whole chapter on walking and recommend rucking and I think obviously, the core of this book is about movement but really, it’s a sneaky way to get people to connect with one another. And I think the data is in, people are more lonely and more depressed and feel more disconnected. So I think the data’s in on hiding out in your house and being on screens isn’t really working for literally anyone. So I think even just these small moves of putting on a backpack and walking around your neighborhood is pretty powerful.

Kelly: [00:39:03] We ran some experiments too in the ’90s, do you remember the calcium chew experiment where we told every woman, particularly women, that-

Juliet: [00:39:12] You’re going to die unless you-

Kelly: [00:39:12] You’re going to die, your bones were going to turn into dust unless you ate these chocolate chews with calcium. And it turned out, it didn’t move the needle because people weren’t loading. As a physical therapist, one of the magical pieces of this is you don’t have to jump rope, you don’t have to bounce, you don’t have to lift weights, you just have to carry more weight than your body is accustomed to. If you weigh this much, you can put on a little bit more and you can have all of the benefits and very quickly. Your bones start calling for that calcium after just four or five minutes of that kind of loading. And one of the things that you’re describing, which I think is so powerful, is I don’t have to put all my loaded walking, rucking together. If I just walk the dog and put a 10 pound backpack on, my body is perceiving that load multiple times a day and it calls for it again and it calls for those nutrients and it turns on all of the signaling. It really solves so many problems. It’s such an elegant solution. I’m such a fan. 

And I just want to say, whenever I’m in the airport I see GORUCK bags and I always tap them on the shoulder and it’s like this object and sort of source point. I’m like I know you and I know a lot about you because you’re choosing to wear this backpack. It gives us a reason… Like in New York City when you choose to walk a dog you have a reason to talk to someone, that backpack gives us a reason to chat.

Jason McCarthy: [00:40:23] It’s a lot better than a smoke break out front, you know?

Kelly: [00:40:25] Is it? I mean smoking is more fun.

Juliet: [00:40:27] So I have another question. I think you mentioned it when you were talking about your first nighttime GORUCK challenges. But there’s this whole part of the GORUCK culture that’s about these badges or patches, which I think is really cool. And when we were at the event, we brought our own and gave them out last year, which was cool to see them on people’s packs. But can you talk a little bit about what that is and what it means and why it’s this cool part of the GORUCK culture?

Jason McCarthy: [00:40:55] I can. So it’s another idea I stole from the military. I mean if you pass the Special Forces qualification course, they give you a Special Forces patch. If you pass Ranger school, they give you a Ranger pass. If you pass Airborne school, they give you an Airborne patch. And the second set of uniforms I got there was patches, they moved to Velcro instead of sewing everything on like in the Stone Ages. 

And so when it was this is GORUCK worth doing? That was a question in my head circa 2009, 2010, that time frame. And with the first GORUCK challenge, it just simply made sense that if you do this thing, then you earn this patch. I claim no credit. I was doing what I knew. And people really took to that. And by the way, it’s not for sale. You can’t buy it. You have to earn it. And so immediately you’ve got hierarchies of patches in the universe. Some are 5 hour events, some are 12, some are 24, some are 48, some are 50 miles, some are 5Ks. You’ve got all these different things. But I think no matter what it is, it speaks to the kind of person who wants to just go do something that is not for sale. And there’s too much stuff where people are just trying to buy their way to success, happiness, health. You can do some of that I suppose. If you have better medical or whatever, you might be a little bit healthier. But at the end of the day, that’s not a holistic change. The holistic change is change the mindset, to say, hey, I want to go do this kind of thing. And so that’s gone on since forever for us. And we’ve put on 10,000 events or more since 2010 all around the country, all around the world. There’s a bunch of patches, all of them unique or different in their own way, running around where people have done something hard with other people and we’re really proud of that. Proud of them and proud of that.

Kelly: [00:42:49] We just interviewed. Joe DeSena, founder of Spartan, and he says that people oftentimes are looking for an experience of being alive and doing something hard and coming through it and doing it with other people. He’s like I’m not sure what it is that’s primal about that experience. Ten thousand events of communal suffering and dealing. Shoutout to my friend Rodney Hines who is such… He’s done the 50 miler, he is such a champion. One of your big champions is Michael Easter who wrote this wonderful book called The Comfort Crisis. What do you think is the most popular event that you put on and why is it that this notion of doing something hard is really resonating with people, do you think?

Jason McCarthy: [00:43:34] My favorite event that we “put on” is not the event that we put on. It’s the one that you organize with your buddy in your community or your neighborhood. Because that is something that you don’t always need another training plan or another downloadable PDF or another you fill in the blank—you need a friend, you need a partner in crime. And so those are my favorites, when people can kind of sustain that with a training partner. That said, COVID has been terrible or was terrible for events and there’s just a total reset. So we pushed it out to Ruck Club leaders. So those are independent community led groups of people where it’s free to show up, it’s free to do whatever. We have like 500 of those in the world. And what that means is they have, hey, come meet me at this park or come meet me in my driveway or come do this and we’re going to do some pushups and go for a ruck or just go for a ruck or just do some pushups. I don’t know. everyone’s got their own flare. Really proud about that. 

My personal favorite event to do is the 50 miler. It’s with 20 pounds on your back and the cutoff time is 20 hours and I’ve done two of them and it was a lot harder than I expected. My favorite of the two was in Normandy, France. Em and I did it together for the 75th anniversary of D-Day. We’re going back for the 80th in 2024. And you’re just so exhausted at the end. Early on, someone said that GORUCK was the Lord of Exhaustion. You feel like you have been struck by GORUCK the Lord of Exhaustion by the end of that. And then the first event that we ever came up with was the GORUCK Tough Challenge. That’s worth doing if you want to live a day in the life of Special Forces training and all that. And so there is just a whole catalog of it. Ultimately, it’s about the team, it’s about succumbing to the Lord of Exhaustion a little bit and smiling through it with great people.

Kelly: [00:45:41] One of my favorite things on the internet is the Army’s recipe for sleep. You have a hard time sleeping? They’re like we’ve got you covered. And we’ll just make you stay awake and grind you and make you do so much work and make you work so hard that wherever you fall down, you’ll fall asleep. The Lord of Exhaustion. One of the things that Juliet and I see in our work and especially in this new book Built to Move is that people really do struggle with sleep. And the one thing that they don’t reach for is movement and loading during the day. And we think that and we’ve seen it even just with our work with these Tier 1 Army groups is that one of the ways that we’ve been able to solve that and untangle that Gordian knot is to improve step count. And if people feel like they can’t get enough step count, we’re here to tell you that if you wear a backpack on your normal walk around your neighborhood with some weight in it, that will increase your fatigue level and it is a really simple way of getting people tired, as you’re supposed to be at the end of the day so that you get into bed and you black out. And I don’t think people have ever been truly exhausted before where you just cannot wait and you’ve got to finish it, you’ve got to finish this 20… I think the furthest I’ve ever gone on my feet is 50K in a day in the mountains. And I was like, I’m good. I mean I killed myself on that. Every time my friends were like, “You should do the 50 miler.” And I’m like, nah, I think I’m good at this 20 mile mark. 

Jason McCarthy: [00:47:04] I’m very appreciative of you all fighting the good fight the way that you do and helping people. I mean I will say I’ve been listening to what you guys have to say for a very, very long time now. And you’ve impacted my take on the basics of human health more than anybody else. And that’s a factual statement. Whether it’s sleep or water or movement, I mean the basics are the basics. And when you get into… The Army is trying, especially in the Special Operations community to focus more on the basics. And I think the more that we’re able to give the people more of that knowledge, the SF forces, Special Forces, will try to implement it themselves and where do you start? It’s like, well, should I focus on sleep or should I focus on step count? Yes. Either/or. 

And I’m not immune to this and neither are you all. I mean when I go outside and I take enough steps in a day and more of it is loaded or more than none of it is loaded, I sleep better. When I sleep better, I wake up, I feel better. It’s a great cycle to be in. And then you stack the other more complicated stuff in life. But if you can’t get 10,000 steps, I think the first thing to do is have a hard conversation with yourself about why you don’t prioritize that. And I don’t say that in an aggressive way, I don’t say that in a mean way. It’s like what do you want out of life? What kind of life do you want to lead? And it’s just so foundational to it. And it’s taken me a long time of listening to you and others to learn this about myself because the Army, it manages to beat you down and you learn lessons through pain, agony and suffering. And then I spent years trying to unpack all of that stuff, including about rucking. And the basics of human health and how do we lead better, more productive lives? Well, a good way to do it is to feel better. 

Kelly: [00:49:00] I was going to say, I am so surprised that after all of that rucking challenging that you did and selection that you were still like, it’s cool, I still want to backpack. I have talked to so many people who were in special parts of the Navy who were like, “I don’t go in the pool anymore. They tortured me in the pool. I’m out of the pool. I’m never going in the pool again.” This one thing must be true that you came back to it. Phillip Beach, who is this great writer who wrote a great book called Muscles and Meridians really says a couple things about being human. Getting up and down off the ground, throwing, and wait for it, carrying resources back to your tribe. Carrying wood, carrying water, carrying animals, carrying each other. Those things are the only things that humans are really good at. He’s like those are the physical practices. And what you’re describing is carrying this backpack around as a surrogate for resources is the thing you were designed to do. 

Juliet: [00:49:53] Well, I was just going to say that Kelly and I have taken to watching the show Alone lately, where you’re put out alone in the wilderness. And it’s like a primitive living survival show. And Kelly and I concluded that the only skill we have that would be relevant to that show is that we could carry the wood from wherever we got it back to our shelter, which we don’t know how to build. So yeah, I mean we’ve got that in our arsenal, and that’s it.

Jason McCarthy: [00:50:20] It’s funny you bring that show up. So Em and I have watched that as well. And I’m like, “I would be so good at this.” And she’s like, “You would be terrible at this. You have no skills about this stuff whatsoever.” I go, “Babe, I can suffer.” All these other people quitting over some noises and whatever, I’m like I can suffer. And that comes back to the Army though. I was super reluctant, when I got out of the Army, I’m like I’m not doing any of that Army stuff ever again. I’m not waking up early. I’m not doing any of that stuff. 

And there’s a lot of people in Special Operations and the Navy, the SEALs is the exception to the selection stuff that I was talking about. They start with swimming, they don’t start with rucking. But when you get into the Army, it’s like, look, when you go out rucking in a lot of the infantry training, there’s a lot more people in the infantry than just in Special Operations. I mean you’ve got massive amounts of weight on your back because ammo’s heavy, weapons are heavy, tripods are heavy, mortar tubes are heavy, all this stuff is a big machine. It’s just really heavy. And you’re going and you’re learning how to fight through sleep deprivation and food deprivation and you take this terrible experience, right, and you get to somewhere at 2 a.m. in the morning and your “hit time” your training ambush time is 4 in the morning. You lay your ambush in, you dig your fighting positions, you’re not allowed any snivel gear, so no blankets, nothing to stay warm. It’s 35. All of a sudden, you stop moving. You’re covered and it’s all over your body. And then you’re supposed to sit there, jackhammer PT, jackhammer physical training and stay awake until it’s time to go. And then you wake up and your bones feel like they’ve got concrete in them and you wake up and the kill zone, this is in the training environment or a real world environment. 

But you associate that with rucking, somehow. We’ve had to unpack this with a lot of guys. I had to unpack it for myself, frankly. Because it’s miserable. It’s really miserable. And it’s not stuff that you should do. That is completely different. On every planet, every veteran out there, yes, you should put 20 pounds on with the dog that you have because veterans have dogs, with the dog that you have, you should go for a walk with that dog and you should have 20 pounds on your back. And you should go outside and the dog’s going to be happier, you’re going to be happier, your transition’s going to be happier, your transitions going to be better, your life’s going to be better because you’re out and being active and just the basics of human health and movement and carrying weight and movement and all that stuff. But there’s been the “brand” of rucking as it relates back to the way that the Army and infantry soldiers train. We’re not talking about the same exact thing here. 

Juliet: [00:53:03] So one of the things I see is a throughline through your entire life is your commitment to service, obviously through the military and then I think through your work in GORUCK because you’re so community focused and supporting so many humans and being better humans. Where does that come from? Is that from your parents? What’s the story there? And I will say and I don’t mean to sound judgmental of people, but I do think the commitment to service is something we’ve lost a lot. I think there’s fewer and fewer people who I think are driven by that in our current society. Where does that come from? Why do you have that? Why is that important to you?

Jason McCarthy: [00:53:42] So I was not destined per se to grow up and know that I was going to serve in the military and just know that I was going to do something else. And it took 9/11. And I signed up for revenge. And that is the hate filled heart revenge. I wanted to get a piece of the action for what was done to us in New York City and Shanksville and D.C. and the lives that were lost. And what I found is that revenge will inspire action but it’s a terrible way to sustain motivation. To do that, you have to have love. And the love that I found in my heart came from the men that I served with in Special Forces. And the love that they showed me. And it’s not a place where you sit around and you start talking about feelings. Feelings are five, five, six and nine, right? But you feel it. And you love each other. You fight, bleed, and die together. And I go through training for years with guys, just the best people I could ever hope to get to hang out with, let alone be doing these hard and difficult things with. And then you graduate and feel like you’re king of the world. And then you go to your group and get to your group and you realize you’re the rookie. Nobody cares about what you did at training, everyone’s done it. Mop the floor and clean the head, man. That’s what you’re good at now. And so you do that and then you go to war with those guys. And a lot of people that I knew aren’t here anymore. And it’s not something where that’s an easy thing to process. And so I know a lot of their families. I was their friend. It’s an enormous loss. It’s a hole in your heart. 

And so meanwhile, you have me and I’m here to tell you I’m a better person because I went to war. I’m a better person because of the lessons that were taught to me in very challenging circumstances, but nonetheless taught by the people that I was around. And so in essence, I say all that to say that deep down inside of me I feel like I owe, and it’s something where it’s impossible for the rest of my life to completely pay what I owe, so I have to just keep trying. It’s kind of like a fountainhead or a well that just keeps filling up because the more that you view your life like that, like your goal is to help other people or do the right thing or to sleep well at night not just because you’ve exercised but because you feel a sense of fulfillment at having fought the good fight for the values that you hold dear, it begets even more service. And that’s not why I joined the military, it’s not something that I grew up expecting that to be. I thought I was going to get some revenge and feel validated and vindicated and like I was going to be a real man now. And maybe I turned into closer to a real man, but it was for the opposite reasons than why I signed up. 

Kelly: [00:56:35] Last year was the first ever Sandlot Jax. Pulled off this huge event, brought in multiple areas of fitness together, people who are part of the greater community. Melissa Urban is there speaking. I mean it was just really an extraordinary event. That represents I think definitely an evolution in your maturity and growth. Where are you trying to do and where are you going in this year that you’re excited about that’s geared up as a company?

Jason McCarthy: [00:57:05] Yeah. I mean I think GORUCK founded as, hey, more people need to get out and ruck. And there’s always an element that will be that for us. I mean that’s the core message that we have. And nobody else has it. We own the “high ground” on rucking because we’re the only ones that are just in the space and really getting after it every day. But I think there’s a deeper sense of what we want to stand for, which is you saw the precursor at Sandlot Jax Fitness Festival, which is about a way of life. And for me what I know, what I always come back to as a northern star is the way of life in Special Forces. And my job is to make it more accessible and to not just pretend to be this robot without feelings or this dude that wakes up every day at 3 in the morning and eats nails for breakfast. That’s just not me. That’s not me. And so it’s more about supporting our friends and the people whose message that we love very much like yours and just people that are also fighting the good fight across any kind of modality that brings people together, it educates people, it inspires people, it challenges people. 

And that’s something that on the gear side or the apparel side or the footwear side we can build a lot more stuff for a lot of different types of activities, be it running/ruck running or you pick. So there’s an expansion in the gear and there’s a broadening of the people that we want to be around doing other stuff because I have a lot to learn from you guys no matter if you’re talking about anything. I mean and no matter if Melissa Urban, she’s in a lot of things, most of them I love her for the way that she empowers others. But there used to be a time in the Army and in the Special Forces where you were supposed to eat cheeseburgers and fries all day long and you just sort of keep on driving on and get whatever calories you want to get and keep on after it. And I think there’s so many different ways that we can get smarter by listening to experts. And I want to be in those conversations with people that I love and that we respect. So I think there’s just more of that. Support our friends, SOF, is kind of the Northern Star in how we approach the way forward. 

Juliet: [00:59:38] Well, one of the things I just want to shout you out for, I mean, A, we love rucking and we totally get it, but one of the things that’s so fun about knowing you is that you are always stoked. And I am sure, by the way, that you have moments where you are not stoked and whatever. But I mean the vibe that you put out into the world is community, stoke, friendly. And I’ve never encountered you where that’s not the vibe and it’s fun to be around you. So I just want to give you some props.

Kelly: [01:00:10] Over the course of 10 years, we’ve just happened to catch him on the right day.

Juliet: [01:00:13] Yeah, I mean maybe all the other days are bad.

Kelly: [01:00:15] The other 50 days.

Juliet: [01:00:16] So anyway, thank you for bringing the stoke to people. And where can people find out about what’s going on? I mean I do want to give, especially because it’s coming up in like six weeks, the Sandlot Jax Festival in April is a blast and I can’t recommend it highly enough to anyone. But where can people find info about you and GORUCK and the events you’re putting on like Sandlot Jax?

Jason McCarthy: [01:00:39] I mean Sandlot Jax is sandlotjax.com. J-a-x. That’s the airport code to Jacksonville, Florida. GORUCK is @goruck on pretty much all the things. And I am @jasonjmccarthy on Instagram. Send me a note. There’s a couple imposters out there, which is the mark of a whatever these days. Don’t fall for it.

Kelly: [01:01:01] Look for the guy with the smart wife and the handsome dog.

Jason McCarthy: [01:01:05] The hot, smart wife.

Kelly: [01:01:06] Fact.

Juliet: [01:01:07] Check. 

Kelly: [01:01:08] Check. Hey, thank you so much for joining on. Everyone, there’s a reason why rucking is part of our prescription for being a durable member of your community and this is the man who brought it to our attention. Thank you so much for joining us. 

Jason McCarthy: [01:01:21] Thanks guys. Great to chat with you.

[music]

Kelly: [01:01:28] Thank you for listening to The Ready State Podcast. If you like what you’re hearing, check out all our episodes here or at thereadystate.com. And be sure to subscribe or leave a review on iTunes to help others find our show. 

Juliet: [01:01:40] Check us out and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @thereadystate.

Kelly: [01:01:45] Until next time, cheers everyone. 

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