ADR 033: Jason McCarthy (GORUCK Founder 2017 Recap & 2018 Looking Forward)

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:06:31 — 60.9MB)

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Jason joins us for a second time to chat about how 2017 at GORUCK wrapped up and what’s happening in 2018. This was a great conversation and it’s reminds me of the times I’ve sat around and chatted with Jason.

Jason comments on the release of the new GORUCK Rucker and how much he likes it better than the original model. We have a great time talking about all of the accomplishments GORUCK had in 2017 and where they’re going in 2018. Hopefully you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it!

Resources

• GORUCK & Rucking Glossary
• GORUCK Apparel
• GORUCK on Reddit
• GORUCK Shooter Ruck Attachments
• GORUCK Constellation
• GORUCK Rucker 2.0
• GORUCK GR3

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:06:31 — 60.9MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS | How to Subscribe

What’s Next

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Podcast Transcript

Brian: Today, I’m chatting with Jason McCarthy who is the founder of GORUCK. I’m very excited to have him back on the show and I just can’t wait to get going, because we have some awesome topics to get into. Jason, how are you doing today?

Jason McCarthy: I’m great. I’m ready to dive in.

Brian: Awesome. To start off, happy 2018.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah, it’s another great year. Life’s good.

Brian: It is. Life is good and I’m very excited to get going into 2018.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. Your family grew in 2017, my family grew. It’s just great. Life’s good. GORUCK Nation is growing, meet more people, more adventures. It’s a pretty good time.

Brian: It is. It is. I’m excited for this year. I think it’s going to be really fun. Before we dive into 2018, it’s been a couple months since we talked about 2017, which was also a huge year for GORUCK. There were major changes, major additions, just lots of really cool stuff going on last year. The first topic I want to get into is the service action requirement, which it’s hard to believe that it’s not even a year old, but it was just introduced in 2017.

For those who are listening and don’t know what the service action requirement is, it’s a requirement for GORUCK light, tough and heavy events. It’s an action that your team must accomplish either before or during the event that does some good in the community. Examples that have happened are like canned food donation drives, cleaning headstones and obviously donating cab fare to a charity at the end.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. By the way – yeah, yeah, I’ll get into that. My least favorite is donating cab fare. It’s not that that’s bad. That’s fine. I think that we as a nation and we as communities are best when we find something and we give our time to it. We pour a little – we do something. It’s easy to write a check, I mean a dollar, $2. Bill Gates is billions of dollars. God bless him for that. It’s awesome. He also pours a lot of time into the stuff that he does.

The goal is that people come together and find something that matters to them in their community. We’ve seen things that have required a lot of time and we’ve seen things that have required a little bit of less time. I mean, dropping stuff off at a homeless shelter. Everyone’s got – not everyone, sorry. Lots of us have too much stuff.

Have you said, “Hey, you can do something great for someone if you donate some jackets to a homeless shelter.” “Fantastic. Let’s go do that.” So much of the value that we get in life is in being something part of something that’s bigger than ourselves. We just want to further encourage that and it’s not overwhelming the GORUCK challenges. It’s not all of this time and all – These are service actions, not enormous experiences. It’s the thought that counts and it’s been turning that thought into actually doing something.

It’s gone well. I mean, there’s been no real pushback. I mean, how do you push back on that? That’s been a good addition. It just sort of strengthens the community and the values that we hold dear.

Brian: Yeah. I’m glad you brought that up. The donating cab fare, GRTs have been doing that for years, right? I mean, all the way back to 2011, 2012 I remember donating the cab fare after the event. It doesn’t really bring the sense of community together that I’ve seen some service actions do.

My follow on question to this was going to be, service action has been around for 10 months and what are some of the actions that you’ve heard about that have really made you smile and say, “Yes, this is why we added the service action component.”

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. I was a cadre in Spokane. If I would’ve read about this and hadn’t been there, I probably would’ve hit home, but it just so happen that this was the one and they class-organize donating a bunch of items that were important for – this home for – I think the requirement is something like single mothers under the age of 20, so with their kids. Of course, my mom was 18 and five-days-old when she had me. She was barely 18. It really hit home.

They organized it. I didn’t even know really during the event. I didn’t hear the story exactly. “We’re going to go donate some items to this great cause.” Okay, great. Fantastic. That sounds awesome. Where are we going? Looked at a map recon. Great, that’s fantastic. Went there and just saw some of the moms and saw some other kids and saw the lady who was running the shop.

It was really cool to be able to give a lot of – donate rather, the stuff that the team had put together there, because it just – I mean, I would’ve been one of the little kids running around in a diaper or something in the front lawn. Who knows, right? That really hit home really, really a lot.

Brian: Yeah, that makes total sense. I think one of the big takeaways from that is – I guess, a story I’ll tell on a second is that actually being there and going to it and seeing everything, that that has just another layer to that service action.

When I did the Santa Ruck back in December, we got a ton of toys together, we put it on this giant wooden sleigh that had GORUCK painted on the side. It was really cool. It was fun getting all the toys together. We knew where they were going. It was to the Ronald McDonald House. It wasn’t until we actually got to the house and we saw the families with the kids looking up at the Christmas lights, up the Christmas tree that everything really started to hit home on what we were actually doing.

Jason McCarthy: Which is awesome. It’s again, yes donating money is cool. You write a check, but does it change your heart at all? Does it make you want to go do more stuff? I mean, there’s room for both in life. I’ve done plenty of things where it was just, “Hey, I can’t be there, but I’ll support it some other way.”

The things that really change us that impact our lives are when we do something, and we see something and how it impact someone else’s life. The goal is that someone spends a couple minutes, or a few more than a couple minutes and actually feels something, it inspires them to go find a greater cause to serve, that only strengthens their community, our communities and our nation.

Brian: That’s such an awesome goal. I love it. I’m glad you guys introduced in 2017, and I’m excited to hear even more stories in 2018.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah, me too.

Brian: Moving on from the service action, since last we talked there’s been just a couple gear releases from GORUCK. The largest not just in size, obviously is the GR3. How does it feel? That I think has been in the work for ages. How does it feel to finally have that out?

Jason McCarthy: I mean, the funny part is it’s – I’ve heard musicians talk about this where by the time the album comes out, they are so far removed from the process of the album that they’re already working on something else. Full disclosure, it always feels like that around here. Except, in this case I’ve gotten to use it a few more times since it came out. It feels good to get things out. I mean, to say, “Hey, this is out there in the world. What do you think?”

We believe in our process and our – all of those things, right? It won’t bore you with too much of that, but we believe in what we do, so it does feel good to get it out there. The responses was good. It’s a big ruck. It’s awesome for travel. It’s different than GR2 in a lot of ways. I think that we’ve only scratched the surface in terms of showing people how to use it best, which is an important part of the conversation.

I would expect to see more accessories. Not immediately. We’re not working on any right now, but more accessories over time, except for in the firearms line. I guess some. That have the Velcro backing in them. It’s a neat form of compartmentalization and all that gear door stuff that MOLLE doesn’t really allow, because MOLLE is just really difficult to work with, but it’s very stable and secure. Velcro on the interior is a really cool thing, because it lets you mix and match whatever you want accessories that are – You put your stuff how you want it, right? Which is cool.

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, MOLLE definitely has its place because once it’s in there it’s not going anywhere. There’s just something about the Velcro. You can easily reconfigure how you’ve got everything set up. You can travel one way, and then you get to your destination, you can rip all the pouches out and reassemble them for how you do your daily carry. Then you can quickly put it all back together when you’re traveling out.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. Here’s a good story. I went and ruck them out in Montana, which by the way hiking is just rucking them out. I went hiking. I brought up, I think 24, 40 beers, whatever it was. We got to the top and we drank them all, or almost all of them. We tried to drink them all. Do or do not. But we try to drink them all. On the way down, my load was a lot lighter and I also just had different space stuff.

I ended up having a bunch of cameras and some other stuff. I took the pockets and moved them around to the top, so that the new heaviest stuff was at the top. It was just really easy that morning that we woke up and then we rucked down the mountain and about the rest of our day. It was awesome. It was really easy in the interior to reconfigure stuff in a way that I never would’ve adjusted if it would’ve been MOLLE.

Brian: Yeah. That makes perfect sense. I’ve bought some of that Velcro tape and I’ve glued it into some pouches from shooter ruck. I’ve got a decent modular camera setup now for that. I mean, you can’t beat the versatility of it.

Jason McCarthy: Glad you’re experimenting. That’s how we all get smarter.

Brian: Yeah. I mean, that’s the drive GORUCK products right there. In addition to the G3 coming out, you guys also launched at the same time the GR3 compression tough bag. I got one with my GR3. Is that tough bag going to be replacing the current version of the tough bag, or are they going to live together?

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. I don’t see them living together. It’s just not enough from a skew perspective. We’ve had to scale up a lot of skews, new skews on the apparel front. You can have skew creep. Too many skews gets really hard. It makes everything more confusing. We’re trying to reduce skews where possible. I do not see two tough bags being around. The compression one is the way to go.

Brian: Awesome.

Jason McCarthy: Because you can also use it standalone. I haven’t done anything on the compression tough bag yet as far as explain tough goes. The heavy amount of R&D time we spent in not wrapping around the whole system, but only giving it part of the compression tough bag, because if you wrap it all the way around, the problem is those loops then, they find their way completely removed from the cylinder part of the tough bag itself. It looks terrible. You got to fix it every time. It’s bad. When it only compresses a third or a half whatever it is of a tough bag, then it stays those – the compression straps stay in place and it works. Yeah, that’s going to replace the existing.

Brian: Good to know. I mean, that makes total sense, right? You should be putting stuff in it that takes up roughly that amount of space, or else you’re probably bringing along too big of a bag for what you’re trying to bring with you.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. I mean, the thought being too is that even if you have another ruck, you can use it as a gym bag for dirty clothes or whatever if you want and put it in the ruck. If you have too much space, then you can expand your ruck, or if you’re hiking – it was perfect on hike the Grand Canyon. Hiking is rucking in the mountains, by the way.

I went in to hike the Grand Canyon and I just have my sleeping bag in the compression tough bag on the bottom of the ruck, and it’s perfect. It’s lightweight at the bottom, so it’s not dragging the weight down and stuff like that.

Another usage is that we saw a world where someone goes backpacking through Europe, or backpacking through wherever and they have that as an accessory. Sometimes people buy souvenirs or whatever the case may be. If you want to expand it, it will actually attach to the ruck so you don’t have to carry it with your hands. There is some versatility to it, and I think that we’ll see over time that people will like that.

Brian: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, what’s not to like about it? One of the final major, I guess additions, so to speak in 2017 was the creation of the GORUCK Show, which has been awesome. I’ve enjoyed watching that week over week and it’s great that you guys are bring them on YouTube so people can find them there too. How has that been going for you?

Jason McCarthy: I mean, first of I would say it’s not execution-wise, Blaine and I are both pretty comfortable. We’re both have been in positions where we have to talk about really big ideas and then we have to transition to really small ideas. It’s been fun. That’s probably the most important part of it for me and us. I’ll speak for Blaine now. You can ask him separately, but it’s been fun.

You put it on the calendar and you say, “Hey, we’re doing this.” There’s nothing bad that’s going to come off it. I don’t foresee it in its existing state spanning the universe and this is going to be the world’s most popular podcast. It’s just to do that, you have to get richer brands in and then you’ve got to get some former president. You got to do all that stuff, right?

What we want to do is lead with transparency for the people who know GORUCK and love GORUCK and want us to be successful and want to know what’s going on. Because you all are the ones that use word of mouth to get your friends involved.

We like to have something that puts our time where our values are, the value being lead with transparency. It’s been fun internally for Blaine and I to get to do it. I found out a lot about him through just shooting the shit with him on the GORUCK show, and I’m sure vice versa.

It’s true, so as with almost anything it comes into like how you do in the world, what the world sees is so much – is so dependent upon how you’re doing in your own life. If we love what we’re doing here at GORUCK and I do. I think we do, right? Then that over time really gets communicated to the world. Culturally it’s cool. We get to spend a little bit time and check-in and we get to talk about whatever topics we want, or you guys want us to talk about. Then we always try to throw in some – whatever the community wants us to answer, we’re happy to talk about.

Brian: Yeah. I might experience from it. I’ve had two awesome takeaways from it. The first of that, it’s just great to see you guys joking, talking, just having a really good time. I mean, clearly you guys are having fun because you could see it through the video. It’s just, I guess – I don’t want to say reassures, but like you said, leading the transparency. I mean, the people in that video, that you and Blaine. I have hang out with you guys. That’s you guys, so it’s great that you’ve got an avenue to just be yourself and talk to the community and go through the topics that either you guys have got, or the community presents.

Then the second piece is that it’s just been awesome to have like a consistent check-in, I guess where people can show up and ask questions. I know you guys have always answered a couple at the end, and it’s been really cool to see.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. I mean, the worst thing I think that happens is that people forget that we’re human. I mean, our why. The magic is in the why. It’s really hard to consistently execute, because it requires a commitment to explanation. It requires a commitment to putting yourself in front of the jury of GRT opinions, which matter infinitely that sort of how business works. It’s how life works too, but it’s really how business works is that you all get to vote every single day. The why we’re doing stuff, I mean that’s important for first, for us to know. Second off, for us to communicate. We’re happy to do it and we do have fun doing it. That’s a double win.

Brian: That’s awesome. Yeah, definitely feels like a double win watching it. Is there any timeframe for when that will be out in audio file?

Jason McCarthy: I guess, there was some delay in terms of how you go to iTunes or something. I don’t know. Not my lane. I think I heard mid-January, which it’s already mid-January. I got to think someone is beating on the doors in Cupertino. We’ll see.

Brian: Yeah, it’s a little initial hurdle that once you get in, that’s all good.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah.

Brian: It will be nice.

Jason McCarthy: Then there’ll be a big dump of them. “Hey, here is a bunch.” That would be cool.

Brian: Yeah. It will be fun. I mean, it’s just podcast are nice because you can listen to them on your drive to and from work, on the bus.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. You really don’t need to look at our faces really. I mean, we’re having too much fun, you’re driving in your car. You don’t want to watch us drink beer and stream it on your whatever. Just download it and just know that we’re drinking beer having that.

Brian: I’m jealous enough as it is. I don’t need to see you guys drinking the beer. Especially if you’re listening to it driving to work. It’s like, here you are driving to work and these two guys are having a blast. That’s awesome. Is there anything else you want to talk about for 2017? Or else, we can move.

Jason McCarthy: Basically, I spent a ton of time on our apparel line, and so expanding those and all that stuff. It’s one of those laying the foundation things and that went really well for us. The apparel is grown a lot. I think it’s a testament to the soul of the team that’s building it and the designers and our commitment to serve simplicity and just staying true to our roots of the Baghdad, New York City, GR1 vibe of, “Hey, this can fly in a lot of different environments and it’s built to perform.”

It’s also really expensive stuff. It’s a double-edge sword. Sometimes you get what you pay for, at least that’s the hope and that’s our goal. That was a lot of my time though in 2017. I would say I spent more time on apparel than anything except for managing the business of sorts.

Brian: Yeah, 2017 really seemed like the year of apparel for you guys. I mean, you’re just talking about skew overload. I can’t even imagine. One new pair of pants in four colors, all the sizes, that’s got to be somewhere in the 30s in terms of skews.

Jason McCarthy: It’s a lot. It’s why if you go Google why you should not start an apparel brand, it’s a real thing. I mean, the community has done historically supported us a lot. I think that time is showing that it’s really good stuff. If it’s out of your price range, hey I get it. That’s the deal, right? It’s really expensive.

Brian: It is.

Jason McCarthy: I pay a lot more for – we pay a lot more for the GORUCK than a lot of stuff that you go buy RTI at full price. Part of it is what it is.

Brian: It’s quality too. I mean, I bought a new pair of challenge pants and a new pair of simple pants just so I could get up a comparison post, but by no means you need to make those purchases. The original challenge pants I have, which I – I mean, I think I’ve taken them through double-digit events now. I mean, they look brand new. The only thing that’s got any wear on them is the printed internal label, because the first version had the printed label, the new version’s got the sew-in.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. Which we’ve changed of course, because we like things tough and we don’t like anything to fail. We like to fail quickly and we failed on the internal labels of the version one challenge pants. You can take me to task for that. Yeah, we like the American flag and stuff like that too. It’s been fun. It’s been a lot of work in a great way. If you like who you work with, it doesn’t really matter how hard it is.

Brian: Absolutely. I mean, especially the position you’re in, you like who you work with and you like what you’re making. What else is there?

Jason McCarthy: Yeah, it’s great.

Brian: Coming in to 2018, I guess some of the biggest news so far has been the release of the Rucker version 2. Congrats on getting that launched and out the door.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. That was a couple years later, or – It felt like we were working on that one forever too. It’s jus taking something and making any changes takes a lot of time. The old adage time is money and it is. It’s not just money from a direct cost, it’s money that you can’t spend on other stuff.

We try not to tinker with stuff unless we really need to. We just saw a need on this one and it’s 2.0 is for more people, it’s better. I’ll put myself in that category. I don’t have to go to the website and buy one. I still have my V1 Rucker, which is great. If I’m going to go do an event, I’m going to do it with the 2.0 for sure. It’s better, period, the end.

Brian: Period, the end. For those who are listening and haven’t had a chance to check out the version 2 of the Rucker, the major change that was made is that there is an elevated ruck plate pocket now. The ruck plate doesn’t go straight to the bottom. It’s like this awesome elevated pouch, so that when you put it in there, it’s off the lower back.

Jason’s got an awesome video that he just shot today on Facebook live. I’ll link to that in the show notes. Between that, there is the deering added for the bladder hole through, which is awesome, reminiscent of what’s on the GR3.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. We paralleled that development a little bit. I mean, the big consideration was I don’t love making things that are specific. We add a toy in the pocket at the top of the Rucker at first glance is specific. I mean, it will fit the expert 20, or the expert 30 ruck plate perfectly. Singe it down and you flip it upside down, it’s not going anywhere. Perfect for a GORUCK challenge.

The thought process was well, you can actually throw other – say you want to use a Rucker as a gym bag. You can actually throw other stuff in there as well. We like you to take the gear and make it yours. You can put plenty of other stuff in there and you will.

It felt better about it in that regard. The Rucker 1.0 I’m sentimental. I got the first one of those, go figure, and it’s got my cool little R&D label in it. I look at it. I did my first ever GORUCK challenge wearing that one. It’s awesome. Frankly, this one is better; 2.0 is better.

Brian: I’m excited to get mine. I already got that on order and it should be fun.

Jason McCarthy: I remember last time, you – the only almost hard question you gave me was about the embroidered spearhead on the Rucker, right? This one it’s on the MOLLE. Hey, sometimes you got to get people talking, right?

Brian: Yeah. What do –

Jason McCarthy: Change things up a little bit.

Brian: It’s funny you bring that up too, because the views are so polarizing. On Reddit, like I don’t know any other way to say this, but it just seems like you guys got – people shit on the spearhead being sewn into the bag. Then on Facebook Live today, there were just tons of comments, “Oh, the spearhead on the bag is awesome.”

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. Hey, look. I mean, different strokes for different folks, man. Here is what I know though, the people that know us at all, that take the time to criticize are usually are the ones that love us the most. If not the very most unconditionally like mom or something, then just one wrong below that. You know what I mean? It’s just dealing with those people like humans and saying, “Look, this is the thought process. You can like it or you cannot like it, but this is the thought process and GR1 is not any different really since the beginning.” GR1 is GR1. The Rucker, hey you might see some changes. There is that.

Let me be really clear. Definitely not ruling out bringing back embroidery at some point. It’s just not on the production cycle right now. Right now the spearheads in the bottom MOLLE, personally I prefer that personally. GR1 was also our first ruck sack and it has zero external branding. That’s my style.

I also love what the spearhead stands for and I love what it means. I mean, I believe in GORUCK and the values that we hold dear. I’m also happy to wrap the spearhead in big ass spearhead t-shirts and all that stuff too. You know, we’re all complex and it’s fun. I like both those communities, but they are different. Reddit and Facebook is – they’re just different. I like that they’re different.

Brian: It’s nice, right? I mean, you definitely get different opinions from both spots.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. The gear door stuff can happen on both. Reddit likes to go a little deeper most of the time on that stuff anyway.

Brian: If you’re listening to this and you haven’t been to the GORUCK sub-Reddit, you can hit that up at reddit.com/r/GORUCK and you can see what we’re talking about there.

Jason McCarthy: It’s fun. It’s a lively crew. Kudos to James for easing me into it a little bit. I like that dude a lot.

Brian: That’s awesome. It’s a great spot and I’m glad someone got you in there.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah, I enjoy it.

Brian: I have this on the question sheet, but it sounds like I already got the answer. I was wondering if the original Rucker is ever going to be making a comeback, or if everything moving forward is going to be Rucker version 2?

Jason McCarthy: The embroidered spearhead at some point maybe. I just don’t really see – the V1 it’s not bad. It’s great. I did my first event with it. I really liked it. 2.0 is as we say more better as Palmer says. More better for more people. I don’t see the 1.0 coming back. 2.0 is good.

Brian: Maybe like a 10-year anniversary throwback Rucker.

Jason McCarthy: Hey, never say never.

Brian: You mentioned in that video today that you shot that in 2018, did you say you’re signed up for 15 events that you’ll be running?

Jason McCarthy: No. I think I said a few.

Brian: A few? Okay.

Jason McCarthy: Okay, so here’ sa big event. We are doing a 50-miler, a Rucking 50-miler-only, 20 pounds, meaning 20-pound of ruck plate, or the equivalent. We’re going to start that out in DC. I don’t know when exactly it’s going to be. Thinking early summer. It could be as late as fall. The cutoff is 20 hours, which is very, very doable. Yeah, looking forward to doing that. I’ve never rucked 50 miles consecutively like that. I’m excited to do that and see how it goes.

Brian: That should be awesome. You might not know. Didn’t Palm Beach Rucking Crew just put on a 50-miler, they’re rucking for GBF?

Jason McCarthy: I did. I think that’s right. I think I did see that. I have to get some foot care tips and stuff from them, ask them which boots they wore and all that good stuff.

Brian: When I first saw that, I thought it was a typo. I thought it was 5.0 and they just forgot the period.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. It’s awesome. I don’t know. Everyone gets to vote with their wallets, of course. More importantly their time, which is I’ve done some challenges. Lots of us have done some challenges. Lots of us have done other challenging things. Yet, I think it’s time to focus on longer rucking. I mean, that’s a new challenge. 50 miles, I’ve never done it and I’ve done a lot of rucking in my day.

I want to check that one off. I think that more people will want to do it, because they’ve never done it. It will be mandatory buddy pairs, stuff like that. Other details you’ll see at launch, but this is a historical thing. Teddy Roosevelt, JFK, 50 miler. We just want to take it up a notch with 20 pounds on your back, and institutionalize and standardize it. I think it’s going to be great. I mean, it’s going to be great for me because I’m going to do it and I’m really looking forward to it.

Brian: That’s awesome.

Jason McCarthy: Blaine is going to join. Blaine is going to join as well. He’s going to do it.

Brian: Is he your buddy?

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. I was up in DC and there were a couple other – this past weekend and there were a couple other guys up there. I gave them the same warning where I’m giving you now about the 50-miler in DC. Then we’ll expand it to lots of different places. I could see them saying, “Yeah, that would be cool. I’ve never done that.” “Hey, I’ve never done that. Sounds like a terrible idea. When do I show up?” It’s cool.

It’s not too much weight. I mean, 20 pounds so you’ll probably have 30 total on your back really when you stuff on water or a snack or two. You can stop and eat if you want whatever, all that kind of stuff. It would be cool.

Brian: Awesome. Yeah, I can’t wait to see how that develops. It’s exciting to hear that you might bring that to other locations as well, because that sounds like just another new challenge. There are a lot of people who have done multiple lights, toughs, heavies. 50 miles, 20 hours?

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. 20-pound ruck plate, I should say.

Brian: Yeah. Then plus water, plus food. If you’re listening, bring water and bring food because you’ll need it.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. For sure.

Brian: Coming in 2018. Other things for 2018 constellation completely changed up. That’s exciting.

Jason McCarthy: Hey, I feel good. My vote doesn’t really matter that much anymore. You guys get to show up. As promised, constellation is more along the urban survival route. It’s all rooted in our special forces cadre what we’re able to teach people, this line about building better Americans. We hold that dear. A different scenario than maximum physical challenges and it’s more skill-based. It’s urban.

It’s a good time. My dad did it in Cincinnati this year. He’d been in a couple motorcycle accidents and stuff. He almost died. If the EMTs wouldn’t have seen him get side-swiped into the guard rail in West Virginia and I think ’99 or something, he would’ve been dead. He had a femoral bleed out. Anyway, he can’t do a GORUCK challenge, but he did constellation and it was like, “Yeah, it was cool man.” He brought some buddies. They all did it from his print shop and they all did it. It was something fun to do with his friends and they learned some stuff. Cool, right? We’re excited to bring that and that’s just different running parallel to the challenge.

Brian: Yeah. it’s definitely different from a challenge on almost all accounts. It’s great that urban survival aspect. I guess back in 2017 there was a beach beta, but there was also the beach tough beta and beach light beta over in traverse city, which seem like a survival esk version of the light and tough events.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. Last I checked, I think some of those are coming out at some point soon. I’m not sure the date, but more marathon-based. Cool.

Brian: Is it officially renamed Poseidon yet? Or is that –

Jason McCarthy: I’m not going to say officially, but I think so.

Brian: Okay. There’s a chance that those tough and light events are going to be coming out of beta for 2018?

Jason McCarthy: Yes. They’re coming out. Some cobwebs upstairs, I got to kick out. I’m not exactly sure beyond that. Yeah, they’re coming out soon.

Brian: Nice.

Jason McCarthy: There’s been some debate about how to launch that is what I’m getting at. Where do they belong in the hierarchy of things and all of that type of stuff. I think it’s more survival series and survival series are constellation plus these other kinds of series, right?

Jason McCarthy: That’s what it feels like, right? You’ve got constellations, urban survival, you’ve got this beach/possibly Poseidon event, which is water survival, then possibly who knows? Mountain survival. I mean, you could go anywhere. Desert survival, rain forest survival.

Jason McCarthy: I think that’s right. Yeah.

Brian: Who knows what those would be called. It would make sense, right?

Jason McCarthy: I actually know who knows. They’re just not in the room with me right now. I could guess, but I don’t – We tossed around a lot of different things and yeah. Anyway, I can’t give you a 100% yes or no. They’re launching soon though, which is cool.

Brian: Awesome. 2017, I mean that definitely feel like the year of apparel from a sense. From this conversation it’s seeming like 2018, at least the start might be the year of survival events. Is there –

Jason McCarthy: I would say a part of it. I mean, survival plus rucking and then we’ve got women’s apparel that’s progressing really nicely. I promised Badass Bates Community that we would have it in 2018. I’m going to hit a homerun on that one from the standpoint of timeline anyway, you all get to determine the output, but working on all of that stuff which is great. A lot of women stuff. We just don’t know how to gauge demand on it is our big problem, so I don’t think we’re going to make very much. We’ll see.

If there is a vote for what we’re building then we’ll do what we can quickly to build more. Women’s apparel. What else? Rucking events, more survival event. With the GORUCK challenge, we’re seeing a big spike in GORUCK light participants, mostly for a lot of reasons. We talked about it a little bit more, but we also lowered the price point on it. The hope is that the classes get a little bigger – big light class is just more fun, and that’s the vibe we’re going for. It’s also the best way to get people into the GORUCK community is through the event side.

I mean, we’re always happy if someone sees the gear and says, “Hey, this is badass. I want to buy it.” We would always prefer just to use and just ship to use. Trying to get more people through the light and that’s the goal. We’ll need your help and everyone’s help to wrestle up your friends. The hope is that the price point isn’t prohibitive and the vibe comes across clearly that it’s – it doesn’t have to be easy, but it is fun.

I really personally love the white. It’s probably my favorite event to lead. If I’m to lead a hundred events, I’d probably lead a lot of lights, the majority lights, because they’re less disruptive to the weekend and yet, you still get to meet with people, do it with friends. You can show up and have a good time and then you get to reconnect, or join this great community of GORUCK. I love it.

Then sometimes though you want more challenges and then there’s other events, right? Now that you’ve listed off some of these stuff, sort of I started thinking, “Wow, there has been quite a fair amount of stuff. That’s cool.”

Brian: That’s awesome. Lights are just – they’re so much fun, especially now, especially now. They got off to a, I don’t want to say rough start. They were a tough start. I remember my first light event was –

Jason McCarthy: That’s fair.

Brian: It was a difficult event. If you listened – I guess just a side note, for anyone listening who listened to the last podcast episode, which was with Mickey about GORUCK constellation, lights are very fun now. Sign up for a light event. Mickey and I went on a spiral down the original GORUCK light events.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah, it had to evolve. It’s that light 2.0 now. Maybe we should call it that.

Brian: Yeah. I mean, they’re way different than the first 50 or 60.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. Because at that point, the cadre thought, “This is awesome.” Half the time when they cram in all of the challenge, right? It had to evolve. That’s cool.

Brian: Yeah. You’ve got the equation there right. You’ve got time and you’ve got difficulty. I guess, you’ve got time, difficulty and distance. They divided time by half, but it’s like they forgot to divide the other two. They are really fun events. Maybe that’s something that can be 2019. It’s the retro lights or something, where you get the brutality and distance of a tough event crammed into five or six or eight hours.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah, let’s do it. GORUCK tougher. How do you think that would do?

Brian: I mean, I’d sign up for it.

Jason McCarthy: Maybe really well.

Brian: Yeah. We should beta one.

Jason McCarthy: Wouldn’t be that hard.

Brian: No. You’ve got I’m sure a lot of cadre who would love to get in on something like that.

Jason McCarthy: Yup.

Brian: That’s awesome. I don’t even remember how we got here, but 2018 is going to be a fun year. That’s a fact.

Jason McCarthy: I also think so.

Brian: Stepping back, there was a lot more special events in 2018 than there were in 2017, or I guess like types of special events. That’s probably a great way to drive in more people in to those lights and toughs now.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. Part of the thinking also is that it’s a forcing function. If there’s a special path, you can prize a special execution. Meaning, if a cadre shows up and there is a patch that says, I don’t know, Mog mile or whatever, whatever the special event – that’s not a good example of a new one. But if it says Normandy, or if it says Mob Wars, or if it says whatever the case may be, it’s just battle – almost gave the spoiler alert, because I think 2019, we’re looking at battle with the bulge in the first part of the year, because it’s cold and stuff.

If someone shows up and says, “Hey, this has a special patch,” then you have to do something that is with that patch. You can’t just have a cadre that says, “Hey, I’m just going to lead my event my way.” Which is a good thing. A cadre having complete autonomy is good in some cases, but you still have to have a left in a right bumper. With the special patch, there is just a forcing function and say, “Hey, build this into the concept that you need to teach someone what the battle of the Alamo is about if you’re going to do that in San Antonio, or JFK and Dallas, or in Washington, DC.” You need to do the things that make DC and JFK’s type of event. There are several.

JFK is buried there. It’s where he took his last communion. It’s where he proposed to Jackie at Martin’s Tavern, which is the best spot in DC. It’s awesome. If you’re ever there, go to Martin’s Tavern. I spent a lot of time there with my dogs on the patio and with friends inside. It’s a good spot.

That’s really the forcing function though is, hey it is fun. It’s more fun for you guys. You guys get to vote with your time and we have to make sure deliver on the promise that the patch makes. Does that make sense?

Brian: Absolutely. It’s awesome how the cadre take ownership of the events. They definitely deliver, because it’s just really cool how GORUCK is setup that way. You’ve got the list of cadre on the website and then you can see what cadre is going to be at the events. The cadre know this and participants know this. Stories about cadre get around, so everyone is trying to do their best and deliver the best event, because it definitely comes back.

Jason McCarthy: It comes back to your reputation too, right? That’s the most important thing that any of us really has, so you pour your heart into something and let the chips fall where they may, but you got to go through that planning process and you got to really give it your all.

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. Speaking of planning process with events, 2017 Mogadishu Mile, those events were amazing. I mean, all the veterans at the start of the event. How did you even start planning something like that? That must have been something really tough to put together.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. We’ve been running that event for a while now. We just over the years met a lot of people who were there, and the cadre know the guys who were there and there’s one cadre bellman was there as well.

It’s like people want to share their stories. This is not a crazy concept. The idea of someone is too busy, no you’re not. I mean, the idea that someone doesn’t want to. Some people don’t. I’ve got a really dear friend who is in Mogadishu, who has talked to me about a lot of other experiences he had. He says, Mogadishu is just not what I want to talk about, because I just lost too many friends there.

I just got goosebumps thinking about him saying that to me. He’s not ready to talk about that, but other people are. Everyone’s experience is a little different and we react to it differently. It’s pretty therapeutic a lot of times to get up and talk about your story. It’s hard, but it’s therapeutic as well.

People want to do it and we know those guys. If they want to do it then great. I want to hear it. I’m going to go to a Mog Mile event and there’s going to be someone who is at Mog Mile and the floor is theirs. We try our best to put together as many of those as possible. The guys that talk, talk. It is pretty cool to see pop-up in so many cities now around the country, where the people who were there are able to talk.

Brian: It was absolutely phenomenal. I showed up to take some pictures at the start of the event and I had no idea that there is going to be someone there to talk. It was wild. He actually talked a couple times. It was really powerful. That was definitely one of the things that surprised me when I showed up to an event in 2017. I mean, you guys did great with that.

Jason McCarthy: Cool. Glad you guys liked it.

Brian: Yeah. You got a lot going on in 2018.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. It’s good.

Brian: It is good. Is there anything that’s going on in 2018 that we haven’t talked about here? I feel like we’ve hit a ton of different stuff.

Jason McCarthy: I mean, Rucking events, women’s apparels, new event series. Yeah, there is a couple other things, but I just don’t want to talk about them yet.

Brian: Still on the works?

Jason McCarthy: Yeah, still on the works. Don’t know when they’re coming out. Not built out at all. We’ll see where it goes. Might not be for a long time. Because you never know when something’s ready until it is. We’ll see.

Brian: That’s right. It’s absolutely true, and something might feel 50% one day and then like a week later you’re there and it’s ready. Then other items feel 50% one day and it’s been a later and they’re only – they only feel 60% then. You never really know.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. I try to avoid the latter. Those are not fun projects. Usually those ones end up starting over.

Brian: Yeah. It’s been too long. Man, I’m very excited about 2018. Do you have any events on your list already?

Jason McCarthy: Let’s see, so I’m doing – I’m going to do this 50-miler in DC. I’m spending a little bit more time in DC, only not a lot, a lot of time, but just checking it up there some – It’s a good – love the community up there. Still have a small little place up there, so I get up there from time to time and it’s capital freedom, so that’s pretty awesome too. Doing the 50-miler up there. I might try to lead an event or two up in DC as well throughout the year.

Going back to Spokane again, I’m going to do that in August. Doing the GRT reunion in Austin in April and geez, I don’t know what else right now. Do some stuff as it comes up. Doing the battle of the Ruck clubs here and I think it’s next weekend or something, or something like that, here at headquarters in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.

Brian: It’s coming a little quick.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. It’s coming quick.

Brian: Are you excited about that one?

Jason McCarthy: Yeah. I mean, I forgot about it for the last 20 seconds. But now that I think about it, I’m super excited. Because there is a 120 people or something signed up for it. That sounds awesome.

Brian: Yeah. For those who are listening and haven’t heard of this event, it’s called The Battle of the Ruck Clubs. It’s a GORUCK light event that’s happening down at GORUCK headquarters. There’s just a ton of ruck clubs coming together for this custom event. I don’t think anyone really knows what to expect yet, but hopefully we can score an interview with Bam or something afterwards and get the details on what happened.

Jason McCarthy: I think it will go pretty well.

Brian: Yeah. It should be fun. If it goes really well, maybe we can replicate it in other cities, because there is – I know there is some cities that have a high concentration of ruck clubs, and over – at CARC there’s a number.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah, sounds good.

Brian: Yeah, well I’ve taken a ton of your time. It’s late there. I’ve got two more questions and then we can talk about if there’s anything else you want to talk about that we’ve forgotten to talk about.

Jason McCarthy: Shoot. What do you got? You got any hard questions today or no?

Brian: Define a hard question, because I can always come up with something.

Jason McCarthy: I don’t know. Something that might make me blush. It hadn’t happened in a long time, but I’ll bet you don’t.

Brian: All right. I’ll think of something tough. The first question I’ve got on here is 25-liter Rucker, is that ever coming back, or do the lucky people like me who own one, do we just have like a gem on our hands?

Jason McCarthy: Well, you definitely have a gem on your hands, but I would say, we’re in skew reduction mode right now. I think we should be using GORUCK workshop more from the standpoint of it’s a presale. It’s surprisingly hard surprising, because I wish it weren’t. That’s really my definition of surprising.

It’s surprisingly difficult to execute on a presale with hey, this is when you’re going to have it. Then execute that well. I mean, GR3 we had to pull a lot of strings at the end to get it out when we did and we were delayed. There is always a delay. When it comes to the – we have all of these archive of things and some of them we can modify a little bit, or – like a year ago, for instance the Radio ruck. We’ve got I think 300 units that we’re building right now. I think they’re coming out late Q1, early Q2, something like that.

It’s one of those things where should we do a presale for, or should we just build a limited stock and see how it goes? I don’t know. Those are the decisions that we have to make. Sometimes it feels like a bigger thing if it’s a presale with more promises and all of that type of stuff.

Anyway, I would like to see us use workshop a little bit more, but not necessarily from the customization standpoint, but from the presale standpoint. It’s just building that a little bit more into our DNA. It takes time. The 25-liter Rucker to answer your questions, if I were a betting man, I would say at some point probably, but it’s just not on our radar.

Brian: That makes total sense. I mean, presales are just tough because you presale all these items and now you’ve got an expectation on a delivery date. Even if you guys can crush everything on your end according to deadlines, I mean there’s just so many other areas, like the sew shop, the materials. Even as far as like buckle suppliers or something, like who –

Jason McCarthy: Yeah, our labels. The wrong labels get ordered and that’s two to three weeks to wait. Those are just realities. All we can really do is over communicate what that is. We thought we had built in a lot of leeway and we ended up really cutting it close as far as deadlines. I mean, that’s just where the behind-the-curtain, the relationships with the vendors that build our rucks in California and Washington state and stuff. I mean, those end up – but you have to nurture those all the time.

It’s just we’ve got a great team that’s been doing this a while. Those relationships keeps getting better. They just have to keep always getting better. We’ll see. There’s lots of little stuff out there though that we’re not hesitate to bring back. It’s not like we don’t want to sell you guys stuff if you’re going to use it and do it.

If we did do the 25-liter Rucker though, it would be an updated version with the updated layout for the ruck plate and stuff. The V1 internal stuff in the Rucker is I would be surprised if that comes back.

Brian: Nice to know. Yeah. I mean, that’s like you mentioned, it’s just – it’s a lot going on. I mean, especially for all those products every single one you bring back, I mean that’s just – that’s more time you have to spend on that. That time just got shifted away from something else.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah, from something else, something new. Look, these are all problems. I could sit here. We could have a whole show dedicated to problems and we could have cheese with our wine and all of that stuff. We’re not in the business of cheese with our wine. At the same time, it’s a fine line between never explaining anything and just pretending that things are easy, which they’re not.

My hope is is that this doesn’t come across as any type of wining. We’ll always need – that’s just not who we are. It’s not what we do. It’s just more, hey there’s a lot of factors that go into all of these and this is difficult and we don’t get to control everything. See, that’s the other part of it. Because the parts that we can control, we’re better at those than the parts we cannot control. Those are the just the factors that go into manufacturing and all of these other kinds of components to the businesses that we run.

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. Once you’re dealing with people who aren’t on your – the internal core GORUCK team, then it’s – it can always get interesting.

Jason McCarthy: Cool. You had another question.

Brian: I did have another question. What was it? Oh, man.

Jason McCarthy: Hey, I do that all the time.

Brian: I know. It was there and then I just got – I got too excited about the prospect of another 25-liter Rucker, because the thing with the Rucker is that – this is my opinion and other people have – a couple other people have brought it up to me too, but the 20-liter Rucker is awesome for tough events, it’s awesome for light events, but I’ve got some friends who combine that –

Jason McCarthy: You’re talking about heavy, where you got – you bring too much stuff.

Brian: They borrow my 25 for like a winter-heavy.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah, you guys bring too much stuff. Got it.

Brian: There you go. I mean, the 20 liters I cap there, so make sure you don’t bring – don’t bring too much extra junk.

Jason McCarthy: I mean, a part of me wants to just say GORUCK selection for instance is 20-liter Ruckers required. You can bring your own, or you can just borrow one from us. I mean, it’s like a part of me wants to say that, because – we probably won’t. But if these people bring these big rucks all over the place, I mean just bring less stuff. It’s not that hard.

Brian: What’s the most ridiculous someone has brought to GORUCK selection?

Jason McCarthy: A baguette.

Brian: For real? Okay.

Jason McCarthy: Yes. I think it was a bag of bread and baguette and all that stuff. I mean, it’s like I’ve seen – after almost seen it all, right? It was, “Hey, I’m going to put my meal in a plastic bag for when I can get it or whatever.” It’s before we just said, “Hey, bring an MRE.” He had some bread or baguette or something in their bag. I mean, it just never ceases to amaze me how someone can sign up for that event, GORUCK selection and then not go through the packing list.

I saw it a little bit in Special Forces, or in the training, special force qualification course. You see people that aren’t really there. They’re not really in it to win it, so they don’t read the pack and list. No attention to detail, whoops. Just is what it is.

Brian: That’s tough. I mean, I feel like you’re spending the – well, that is the GORUCK selection. If you’re spending the money on the ticket to be there that you don’t want to check over the packing list.

Jason McCarthy: You would think.

Brian: Yeah. You would think.

Jason McCarthy: You would think.

Brian: Is there anything else you want to cover before we get going? I mean –

Jason McCarthy: Do you think of that hard question yet, or are we ready to break?

Brian: See, any question for you that other people would consider hard. I mean, I feel like it just rolls right off you. You’ve got something – You are who you are.

Jason McCarthy: Well, the hardest like what’s the most condemning thing someone could say about anything we do? Roll that up into a question and let’s talk about it.

Brian: Condemning thing. While I think of the most condemning thing. When is trek coming back?

Jason McCarthy: I don’t think trek ever even existed, Brian.

Brian: I mean, outside if you guys are selling trek on a t-shirt, which is it’s probably just a joke, right? The event that never existed.

Jason McCarthy: I don’t know. I think constellation is the feeder to that. It depends upon that. I mean, we always lost money on trek. It was fun and we’re still talking about it to community. I had lots of feedback at the time, but now everyone loves it. It’s one of those events.

Brian: Charge more for it.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah, I guess.

Brian: Limit the number of participants and charge more. Roll it through GORUCK workshop.

Jason McCarthy: Yeah, something like that.

Brian: There you go. Trek rolled through GORUCK workshop. If you don’t hit 20 sign-ups, that’s all you’re doing, then event is not happening. If you do, then we get trek.

Jason McCarthy: More workshop. I like it.

Brian: I can’t think of any condemning questions.

Jason McCarthy: Good. I feel you struggling. It’s almost like we’re out of GORUCK challenge.

Brian: I know.

Jason McCarthy: Think good, man. Look, here is my point. It’s like I would rather just get things out there. If there is some burning question in someone’s mind – People come in here and I don’t – we’ve known each other a while so I’m happy to ask you that kind of stuff. People come in to GORUCK all the time and it’s like, “Hey, how did you find about it?”

I don’t want to become removed from the people, like GORUCK Nation. That’s why I love going to events. I love showing up for ruck club this, or ruck club that. You’re plugged in to the community. There are big things that we should talk about, let’s just talk about them. This doesn’t have to be difficult, right? We’re not sitting here plotting on how to do careable things and everything that comes with that.

There are a lot of values that we hold dear and we do our best to live that life, and we’re proud of what we’re building together. We’re proud of all of the miles that people are doing together. We’re proud of how people meet more people and maybe spend a little bit less time in front of the screen and maybe a little bit more time with their friends.

We’re proud to see people empowered. That’s really fun for us to watch. Sometimes there is a, “Hey, why did you do this?” Or, “Hey, why did you do that?” It doesn’t need to be the elephant in the room.

Brian: That’s the thing, right?

Jason McCarthy: If there’s a question asking me – I’m not just saying to you. It’s sort of, “Hey, if there is an elephant, let’s talk about it.” There is a reason. If there’s not a reason, then I’ll tell you that we either messed up, or that’s just the way it was, or something like that. That doesn’t happen very often.

There are always decisions you have to make. It’s not always black and white. It’s not always perfect tradeoffs. There’s a lot of ways to get from point A to point B, but you don’t always get to have your cake and eat it too.

I just see a lot of things out there about – I mean, the easiest one to default to is price, or all these things. It’s like, yeah you build something really high-quality, it costs more. I mean, that’s the easy example, but it’s not a – it’s been around for so long, it’s like I get it. It’s really expensive. At this point, it is what it is.

I guess, my only ask which one of you is – if there are ever big things that come up, the elephants in the room or something, I’m happy to talk about them. I hope they are not, which is what I’m hearing from you. That’s good. That means that we’re doing our job well. If we stop doing our job well, then we need to take a step back and then we need to start doing our job better, which usually means over-communicating what the reasons are on things and engaging people at a realer level. That’s good news.

Brian: Yeah. I think one of the big things about it is that whenever anyone has an issue – I mean, the place that I frequent probably the most is reddit.com/r/GORUCK, you’re there. If someone brings something up and then you’re like the third comment on the thread explaining exactly why something happened or why something is the way it is. It’s just been awesome, because I don’t think anything’s ever able to become an elephant in the room, because you’re so tapped into the GORUCK community that –

Jason McCarthy: Let’s talk about this one. I was on the Reddit – I was actually Rucking the Grand Canyon. I’ll say it again, I think for the third time, hiking is just rucking in the mountains. Rucking is the umbrella, hiking is underneath it. There is this whole thread about GORUCK’s e-mail marketing and all this stuff sucks and it’s terrible and all these stuff. That’s not one that I really delve into. I found it fascinating.

My initial reaction was to say, the next e-mail will be twice as long. If you don’t like it, unsubscribe. I peel that back a little bit and I never posted anything. It’s more like, look if there’s a lot of people out there and everyone has an opinion and we’re happy to hear almost all of them. What it boils down to though is if you want strip mall marketing, go find a strip mall brand.

Part of the hopefully its charm, sometimes you might not like it, sometimes we miss the mark. We’re not perfect. I’m not perfect. But we’re willing to wear our heart on our sleeve a bit. We’re going to talk about the values we hold dear, and we’re willing to put our time and our money and our efforts and our team’s efforts in what we talk about. You never know what you’re going to get.

Sometimes you’ll get an e-mail that’s, “Hey, maybe New Year’s resolution isn’t the right way to say it. Maybe you should go do something –” not be shamed into running more that you’re not going to do, or shamed into a $200 gym membership that you’re never going to use. That maybe you should take a big adventure and do that, which I’m really happy that I’m doing this year. Done that without defaulting to it over the past years, so to say.

I’ve seen all of that and I read it. Sometimes I say it influences me one way or the other a little bit. I mean, I think with e-mail marketing, I think as a business as we mature we probably do need to segment out who gets the monthly national or bi-monthly newsletter and who gets more newsletters. That’s a reasonable thing. Not everybody wants everything all the time. I get it. Some people are more on the periphery, some are on the inside and you have to segment that out a little bit. Great.

I think we’re actually in the early stages of growing that out if I’m not mistaken. I think there was a note about that in our most recent Rucker launch e-mail. There’s some of that stuff going on, but ultimately if you strip mall marketing, go find a strip mall brand.

It’s always, hey here is a beautiful picture with a 30% off. What do you stand for doesn’t matter. 30% off. I mean, stuff like that. The world needs fewer of those brands and the world needs more brands that stick to their guns that really have something to say, that have values that want to share and experience with people that also want to share an experience and like the experience that we’re sharing.

We strive to be one of those kinds of brands and not one of the kinds of brands that if you can call them a brand. You’re on some marketer’s e-mail list and that’s how they reach you, and you can buy if you want. Or maybe go to Amazon, or buy the same thing. Or you can price hunt and do all of these stuff.

I’m not against a good deal. I get all of that stuff. I don’t aspire to be one of those brands. I want us to really mean something and do something really important. Be a part of a revolution that changes the world, that brings people together more, that gets people out, more active that gets people more empowered.

That’s fun for us. Like I said, the next e-mail might be twice as long and it might have a picture. It might have none. It might have 12 pictures a monster. Might have 27 pictures a monster. Your dad might struggle to load, there might be so many awesome pictures a monster. I don’t know.

Sometimes we want to do something and we do it. It’s pretty simple. That’s really what goes on. Yes, there is other sort of campaigns that are built-in to a cycle and that’s great and we send those out too. Sometimes things come up and we do those too, which is great.

Brian: Do you know what e-mail reminded me off?

Jason McCarthy: What?

Brian: It reminded me of the blog back in 2012, 2013 when it was just you writing it. I thought it was – I mean, personally that’s what threw me back to. It was awesome. I remember that was just – whenever anyone brings that up in my head, that’s just your writing style. That’s just Jason writing. That’s how all those posts were back then.

Jason McCarthy: People like it, people don’t. Maybe I’ll put a few more periods here or there throughout the years. I don’t know. Maybe post something big, writing a rucking book this year too, by the way. Spending a lot of time on that. That’s the final little nugget, I guess, if you will. Look, our people are great. I’m happy to have all these conversations.

Everybody does have an opinion, but not everybody shares where their opinion is coming from. That’s the challenge in some of these forums. I really only get with two with the tough group and Reddit. Reddit is just a 100% anonymous for most of the people, which makes it a different challenge. The tough group, it’s pretty easy because it’s Facebook to figure out who someone is. You’re responsible for your post to some degree. Reddit, not so much. I like both. I like both platforms, but they are different like that.

Brian: Yeah, they’re definitely different.

Jason McCarthy: All right, Brian. I got to run, because I got to get home by 7, or else I’m going to be in trouble. I’m going to bike fast on the way home. It’s been awesome to chat with you and it’s been awesome to connect with GORUCK Nation through you. Thanks man.

Brian: Thank you. It’s been great catching up. Get home quick, man. Good luck.

Jason McCarthy: All right. Thanks, bud. Good times.

Brian: All right. Take care.