Life of a Delta Force Operator - Dale Comstock & JP Sutton

all right i'm here today jp sutton here with dale comstock i appreciate your brother coming on and speaking with me today uh i really do admire you everything you've done in your career and everything you've accomplished it's it's been a just amazing experience from what i can tell for what i'm reading and i welcome you to speak with me today i appreciate you happy thanks for having me on man appreciate it excellent we have uh in case anybody doesn't know um mr comstock is a delta operator uh green beret u.s army career been in every combat situation from here to 1980 is it or x83 grenada team conflicts um you aim it right up the game the only thing i didn't do was um bosnia okay this is my retirement excellent excellent yeah and you know everybody look you know everybody i think in you know in the world kind of like researches like special forces special operations you know and always that the top tier is the first ones i looked at you know dev grew you know in delta and i think one of the biggest things is is what does it take to be a delta operator like what's the selection process like how what what do you have to go through and because there's not a lot of information on on you know that community at that level you know so i i would love to hear your thoughts on kind of what you had to go through your career that kind of went from being airborne infantry in the 82nd all the way up until until the the maximum tier level there what does that process look like and what does it take you know yeah all right so um i've actually got kind of uh a little bit of blowback when i tell people this side of story about selection delta selection uh so [Music] it is uh probably the the hardest uh selection course in the world um bar none and the reason i ask well how can it be so hard you know because you see all the videos of you know seals you know running down the beach rolling around sand carrying logs you know blah blah blah okay so what that's you know ranger school by the way um so if you look at special forces qualification sfqc um you know there's in order to go to sftc it's like we're going to raider school you have the rip right the predoc ranger indoctrination program i think it's called right the initial like two or three week gut check and then you go to you know it's a phased approach well same day with the q course now you've got sfas special force assessment selection you've got to pass that just to go to the special course qualification course but now they've actually got a pre uh sfas course that you've got to pass that in order to go to sfas so it's three stages and apparently um what they've done is they've looked at from the start of the uh from the time you enter the pipeline to enter the pipeline they look at the attrition rate and the attrition rate's actually higher for special force qualification to be green right than for navy seals um but talking about delta um so let me kind of just kind of share a little bit about you know what i can about the about the selection process there first of all unlike any other selection course out there to include special force qualification navy seals um it's an individual effort in other words the selection i'll give you an idea so i got a letter um right after my right at my four year mark i just enlisted and i was a i was 22 e5 and i got the letter said you're qualified to apply to try out for delta right so a lot of people go i they got to send me a letter they wanted me no that's not how it works the letter meant i can go down and do the application uh the five minute pt test psych evaluations uh you know background checks there's quite a bit you have to do and uh you hand the whole packet into it they take it and then they go through their background checks and then they decide yes or no this guy's gonna make it if you make it then it's they send you congratulations or a letter orders um allowing you to come to special to the assessment selection program of up north um so you go through that program and now that program is the gut check but it's all by yourself so you're literally going through delta force assessment selection by yourself you're not going through with a group you're not carrying logs you're not rolling around the sand you're not doing flutter kicks it's day in and day out it's just nothing but overland movement you don't know what the time standards are you don't know what the distances are the only the only thing you get is um do the best you can sergeant how far do i have to go what would do the best you can how fast do your best it's all and it's with a very stoic look to their faces i know that because i was a cadre as well later on um it's very scripted and the whole idea is so that the candidate is not encouraged by the cadre or his or maybe what he thinks he's doing he's doing well um he's also not in any way harassed or discouraged right so this is why the instructors don't talk to them other than give them very short concise orders your next rv is under that rock on a 5x7 part okay you go type it out write it all out on your map you come back you know where you at i'm here where you going i'm going there i have a good one how far do i go where i'm going how much time have a good one like fun you know you know and so and so what happens is you put a lot of pressure on yourself because you don't know what the standard is you don't know the standard performances you know how well you're doing compared to anybody else because you're not around anybody you're literally on your dome day and night through them three states you travel through three states in the mountains okay um every day every day and you have no idea when it's over none you just every day do the best you can every night do the best you can and uh and so in my class give you an example my class had 110 candidates now this was selected army wide these are the guys that qualified um i qualified justin so i just got my e6 stripes um i just turned 23 and i was the youngest guy ever to make it through delta for selection at the time the average age was 33. um i made it at 23. but um all i remember is you know we started with 110 which was kind of a high number it's like we had a balloon class for some reason but uh i don't know why but of the 110 that started six of us completed the selection process and three of us got selected um me being the youngest guy the other two guys were 33 years old both of them were starting first class in the sevens um so the program is it's not just um you know how many flutter kicks can he do and how far can you run with a log you know in a zodiac 470 it was um you know what they want to see is do you have the willpower the initiative to drive on even when your body's broken because your body will be broken you will push yourself so hard that uh that you don't even know what's keeping you on your feet anymore i mean i'll tell you what it is it's your mindset and uh it's it's and it's designed to break you down physically so that once your body's broke then your mind breaks right and the only reason to keep your body functioning is is your thoughts your brain and uh and that's why only so few make it is because the mental aspect now the question is so the thought is well you know delta force picks the best men i actually know they picked the right men um okay they picked the right man i've seen guys come in there were super studs like wow you know these guys were water walkers you know and uh never made it why because they didn't have the aptitude the mental capacity didn't have the drive the initiative they didn't have those characteristics which are actually um unknown to us because one of the best kept secrets in the organization is which guy do they pick and why and it's not because he can go really fast a long time over mountains with a rucksack on his back in all conditions um it actually is does this guy have effective intelligence and can he operate unilaterally and represent the organization can he go downrange and get on aircraft carrier and admiral and stand right next to his admiral and give this guy guidance and direction and uh you know and support him and as well as advise him on special operations uh capabilities particularly as it applies to unit that's what they're looking for um and so um they're in is why it's so hard you know people you know talk about how the heart of navy seals are well let me ask you this you'll never see a delta force operator try out for navy seals but you see native seals always trying out for delta force because now the unit because it is so difficult they've opened up their recruiting blanket to all services so they're literally recruiting for everybody they're looking for the best candidates they can find and because it's so difficult they had to open it up to everybody and so there are seals that have tried there are marines that have tried out and have made it all right so they're looking for the best the best and uh and so it is one of the most difficult i've been through cue course i've been you know i've done a lot of stuff and i was a larp you know as the 82nd um and you know i was a professional athlete you know professional biter boxer and stuff and i can tell you man um best [ __ ] i was in the best [ __ ] in my life because i prepared for it and even in the best shape of my life it just completely broke me down um towards the end i was like damn i don't know i got a friend my teammate went through two broken legs never told anybody went through two broken tibias um literally broken and uh muscled his weight through at the end he finally revealed that two broken legs and i'm like whoa and uh he he went to the uh the board did everything they sent him to i think san antonio texas he actually went to a veterinarian um that specializes in racehorses many important legs or racehorses and they put a bunch of rods his legs put him together and about a year later he was healthy enough to come back and he was on my team so they're looking for that kind of guy man they're looking for a guy that ain't got no legs left and we'll crawl through the course okay that's wild man that's wild that's really important that is crazy what what's your thoughts on when it comes to uh the team those guys um i imagine you guys are really close friends almost like brothers really kind of our brothers um being that close bond uh i know there's probably a lot of bad experiences probably a lot of good ones too uh do you still still keep in close contact with all your team members even from i mean even from the 82nd all the way up or or just because someone might do actually some of them i do and uh you're right man and i always tell people it you know the team that was really my family because we we we stayed together all day worked all day long on nights traveled together fought together slept together died together pride together you know and uh you know you spend most your time with your teammates more than your family you know in that line of work and so not saying my family wasn't close to me or wasn't meaningful it was but i was with really you know i hate to use the word but banter brothers you know and uh and yeah i do keep up with a lot of them i'm not all because we all you know as we get older you know now we're in we're in civilian world you know we've got to maintain our lives we've got to we want to do things you know and uh one of the things i refuse to do is define myself from the past although everybody else does i don't look back and i don't you know believe it or not i look at my time in delta force just like being a green beret just being like being alert by working for oga um being a mercenary all these things are nothing more than uh you know benchmarks in my life that i've already passed by right now i'm looking down the road for the next one where am i going to go next so um i very i mean i learned lessons from the past um there's things that i've done in the past i've learned from to help me move move forward but ultimately um i don't look back i don't go back to any of the unit functions i never have um i just because i know too many people and too many soldiers that do they're defined by who they were and not by who they are today and and so they get caught in this cycle and and i'm always amazed when i meet a lot of my teammates and my friends that uh you know they've just let themselves go physically you know um they're just slogging along and uh they're working for somebody else and i'm like wow what happened you know and uh now i'm not saying all of them are like that but uh i hate when i do see that because it's like man you're a better man than that what happened to you know but we're all human too you know that's the other thing we're we're human we're vulnerable and uh and sometimes you know we have circumstances in our lives that um you know change the course of where we're going to go you know sometimes guys can't move on because things have happened you know and so they're stuck in the past because that's their either comfort zone or they're just trapped in this nightmare they can't get out of you know i don't know yeah yeah no yeah i know i agree you know people i have to remember you know we're all humans right i mean we can put our bodies through that test and and and come out on the other side the strongest survive but your mind you know going through combat so much it will affect you i don't care who you are you know if you go through some you know nazi germany war stuff and you're sitting there throwing bodies off of you that's going to have an effect on you're not going to be the same guy you know coming from that you know you know especially when you see your friends dying and things like that you know i think that's the the psychological aspect is very tough you know all the high level guys that i know like like yourself very tough hard to break uh guys but there i think you know i think there's an effect on on the mind doesn't matter who you are right and and the strongest can can get over it and and accept it and process it correctly and like for me like the first time i saw a dead body i was in i in in baghdad in fallujah you know and when i when i kind of see how the dead body changes over a three or four day period how it blows up and turns green and you know smells and all this other stuff you know and then you're like whoa you know and some people just have a hard time processing that you know they're just like hey oh my god that's a human you know that's not how it should be they let their like ideals of how life should be with barney or care bears or some [ __ ] like that come out and that's not how reality is and overseas you know it's like a you know it's it's the real world you know and i i think you can agree with that you know and it's uh it's a tough thing we we tend to uh like you said you look at a body you identify with that because is that what's going to happen to me is that you know is that you know and so yeah it has uh it has an impact on us you know and then on the other hand you know sometimes you know you dunk a bunch of bad guys and you don't think twice about it you know you don't even care what happens to them you know so it really is context is it somebody an american someone you know is a friendly is it a woman is a child that's the worst ones man oh yeah oh yeah definitely that part of it um in fact you know i'm not ashamed to say this but i was diagnosed with severe ptsd and uh i will tell you that the worst part of combat was not you know killing bad guys because look it was me or them you know we we volunteered to do this and uh i hope i hope they enjoyed it as much as i did you know it's like a boxing match you know whoever wins but when i seen innocent people especially kids and i saw the screams and and the carnage you know inflicted on them that's the part i had a part-time helping with because when i saw these kids and these women all i could think about was my kids my family you know and that's where it really hit impact because what if this was my family you know and you and i can live with the war of getting maimed and killed and our friends getting killed you know because we all did this we all volunteered for this but our families didn't and uh their families didn't and so you know when they become the victim um that's where it gets personal for us and and that's where the that for me is where the real trauma is it's not about you know sleeping at high because i blew some guy's face off i'm so wet you know and um but when i i even now when i think back you know there was one time it reminded me um you know i was in uh we were in tikrit and um we were doing a daylight raid actually i was i was in support of the unit i was with the other agency and my job was to go into this neighborhood pid the target building with broad daylight though it was it was you know bad village and go in and identify the sky's compound and then drive back out and uh and then picked up the organization unit and then they would follow me and i would lead them right up to the doorstep and go to that one right there well when i drove through the first time the streets were clear um and then uh i was looking for a red vehicle and i i and all you know you remember in baghdad all the houses just they're just row house they're all buttoned up together right and uh all connected they all have walls and for zones all looking like you know this was a long street and i i rolled out my pid to go here to the red vehicle i got it went out and i'm all dressed up like you know arab and i actually used to look like an arab i actually have a beard you know and i did man i was a lot skinnier i blended it pretty good but you know how that goes you get i get popped in that vehicle by myself i'm done man so i roll out i said follow me boys i bring him in and then when i go back the red car wasn't there and so i was freaking out looking oh [ __ ] and which one was it now because i was kind of keying off the red car and uh and i kind of got it right you know and i stopped my vehicle and there was a little boy maybe two years old standing out there you know playing with his toy on the sidewalk and also and all the delta guys jump out the back of the vehicles and they just assault the building full on right broad daylight guns going and this little guy man was just coming on me and screaming and hauling because it was a dad going after him and he was like two years old and i run out and i got my you know i got my sr16 with me and and uh you know and i'm i'm trying to cover down full security you know and all i could think of i see my little i see my son standing there crying man when he was two years old just losing [ __ ] and all i could think of was do something for him you know i grab him i pick him up i'm holding them you know next to me and i'm and i'm i'm working the weapon and stuff you know and i'm just trying it's okay little black little guys okay but those are the kind of things that affect you you know i think you know especially if you have children or you think about your you know family members and brothers and sisters and stuff like that so absolutely that's that's that's uh something most americans never experience you know and then and they don't understand i don't think that's that's a hell of a experience uh dale that's that's crazy is that is that one is that one of the what's another i mean what's is that one of your many experiences what would you say the worst mission you had to to deal with uh the craziest mission what would you think i've had a lot i mean i've done you know quite i've done over 500 ops um in my career um i've done a lot you know a lot of them are crazy i don't know which one was worse but when it relates to um what's the one that what is the one time that has left a lasting indelible traumatic impression on me that is a hard one to shake actually had nothing to do with combat which is really strange so i ended up on discovery channel years ago um i was i was one of the hosts on those three of us um myself joe tedei from dual survival he's a good friend of mine in fact he's here with me right now um and then another guy named michael donatelli green beret ranger um also in the unit as i think he's our assistant ops nco but uh all three of us did a tv show called lone operator and uh it's a really cool show and uh right in right out in the beginning the first few weeks um we had a tragic helicopter crash i was supposed to be on the helicopter last minute mike and i switched out um and then it's 3 30 a.m in the morning with north los angeles in the desert and uh i watched this helicopter crash in front of me and it was just me a couple guys out there the producers and stuff and uh killed everybody on board might survive initially for a while i ran out there by myself um everybody else just came there was out there i mean these were all you know cameramen they just young people they just lost their [ __ ] they didn't want to go out there and they ran back to the base camp about half a mile away the producer was running with me and he's like losing his [ __ ] he's like what do i do what do i do you know and i said just i said go back i said get aid bags fire extinguisher get help you know and get everybody up here we're gonna need help i know we are so i go running down this ravine it's actually my book on american badass and uh anyway that long story short i found all the bodies eventually um pilate was dead the cameraman was dead mike done until he was actually still alive when i found him but barely um and he passed away in my arms and you know it was just you know helicopter crashes man when they crash like that this they he fell out of the irish sky probably he was probably 200 300 feet agl doing about 80 knots no lights running black pitch black no nvgs and they still don't know why the helicopter crashed they've never been able to determine white crash my suspicion is something happened to the pilot maybe he had a heart attack fell forward on the yoke i don't know something happened because i watched it flying flat and stable you know doing about 80 knots getting ready to come in for a hover and also they just did a 45 degree nose dive into this canyon and uh it was really bizarre how it went down but uh anyways um i'm standing there you know the carnage was just i don't know i won't describe it here but it was bad um you can imagine it was bad right so um but mike was still to attack somewhat and still breathing unconscious and he lived for about another four hours and there's a funny it's not a funny story but it's kind of a story that i share sometimes with people because um it's it's things happen in this role that sometimes we just can't explain so i'm just if you can imagine man i'm i'm in this desert middle night it's 27 degrees i'm freezing my ass off because i didn't bring it jackson's i really expected to be out there alone um it's pitch black and i got three bodies laying around me i'm still holding on to mike in my arms trying to hold and trying to control the bleeding you know just trying to do whatever i can with my hands just to keep them alive and i got no help and i don't hear any help coming and uh and i'm actually at this point i had found the pilot and i had found mike and i'm missing the cameraman and and so um eventually i started you know yelling hey i need help i got two i missed one he held can anybody hear me right and nothing right just definitely just blackness and uh and i had a coal miner's light on this the only thing i had on me and i was you know looking at a mic and i'm trying to hold him to his side clear it clear his airway he's bleeding really bad um just a lot of damage not just trying to keep him stabilized as best i could and uh nobody was coming and i knew i had one more guy that might still be alive and i might be able to save him right but i don't know where he is and so all of a sudden from the open desert there's nothing out there this black open desert i see this woman walking towards me i'll never forget it man and she walked within arm's reach of me and she never broke pace she didn't say a word she was moving like she had a purpose and walked right past me and i'm looking at my cold lines with my uh who's that she goes behind me probably about 15 feet and i'm still holding mike and i'm trying to look around what's going on and then i hear a gasp right and she turns around and walks right past me again it goes right back out in the desert disappears never says a word in gas out gone i've looked back and there he is there's the other uh the government so i rolled mike to the side to kind of balance him and i you know i know he can't hear me but you know i figured maybe if he has some consciousness maybe he can and i tell me i'll be right back you know brother just hang on i'll run back to find the other guy and you know it's obvious you know when i saw that he was gone and i go back to mike and i hold on to about another 30 seconds and he finally expires um and it was probably about a minute after that the first uh emt comes sliding into home base with his aid bag and i'm just standing looking around going jesus christ this just happened and i'm looking down at mike thinking that should be me laying there not him you know and uh those are kind of things that you don't forget and you wake up i woke up every day for like two years that was the first thing on my mind the first thing on my mind every day and it took a while to kind of resolve that work through it you know and here's the other thing man you know people think that oh if i go to a psychologist as a psychotherapist he's going to give me all the answers and it'll be taken care of actually you know what they do um because i'm a counselor as well um what we are is a sounding board for you to vent and actually when you talk about enough times you start coming up with your own solutions and you resolve it yourself and that's the mission right get you to figure it out for yourself and accept what has happened and move on um and sometimes people need that right and we all do it sometime at some point it's almost like leading them through a dark room would you say yeah something like that you have a lot of veterans reaching out to you for for help and advice sometimes i do um sometimes i get guys that are suicidal you know they're contemplating it um you know it we'll try to from somebody and try to you know get somebody to connect with them and try to help them but uh you know it's you're better man that's stupid don't do it you know what nothing's ever as bad as it first seems you know that's one of my mantras um you know in time things will get better what you got to do is deal with it cope with it figure it out right and and try to bring yourself to an understanding um and know that it's not your fault okay it's not your fault so don't feel guilty you were cast into something as i was because i wanted to be i wanted to do something for america i thought you know i looked at the soldiers i grew up in the military life my father was an army for 20 years i grew up in that culture it was just who i was and uh and i went out there like all of us thinking that uh i'm doing this for a noble reason and i and the good thing is i'm actually enjoying it i wasn't forced to do it i volunteered to do it you know and uh so whatever happened happened and all i volunteered i did it for a just cause and uh and so nobody told me you know i went to afghanistan iraq because i was sent there on a mission i was doing my job you know and uh it wasn't because i'm you know i have a blood lust or anything like that but it just so happens i do enjoy my work um and so like i said in the beginning my ptsd doesn't stem from you know how many dudes i shot or anything like that and killed that's that's part of my job um the part for me that was hard to cope with was when i saw people die get injured right had nothing to do with this even mike you know right you know it's like what a tragedy and i feel like in a lot of ways um you know he he took my place and so i don't in some ways i feel um this is what i'm looking for indebted i guess to his family you know i feel like i'm i am now obligated to live a a good life and set a good example um on his behalf before his family's house right i don't want him yeah our husband died for a douchebag you know right right yeah you know there's a lot of um you know it's a lot of tough experiences especially i can only imagine from from where you're coming from and everything you've done uh i would like to kind of what do you think about the leadership qualities the qualities of of becoming a an elite soldier what's the difference between those guys and the average civilian you know like not physically obviously there's a physical portion like you got to be an athlete obviously and then the second thing is your mindset like as a leader i know for me personally i learned some of the best leadership you know techniques and and training ever imaginable that i could ever go through and it's really helped me out in the civilian world running a business starting up businesses and things what would you say and i'm sure it's done the same for you the per the the main difference between an elite soldier an elite operator compared to the average joe leadership wise and quality wise what would you say that would be so um i'm gonna start with self governance okay self-leadership right um can you lead yourself can you govern yourself can you do the right thing when nobody's looking can you get out of your fart sack in the morning and put your bed together go to toilet [ __ ] shower shave clean up take your vitamins your supplements eat properly do your physical fitness take care of your body take care of your your your living space okay and what that does is it uh it kind of sets the precedence for the day every day moving as you move on throughout life having the uh the self-discipline to do the hard things that are required so i do a lot of performance coaching um a lot that's really what i enjoy doing the most where i help people particularly veterans but everybody um how to be the best version of themselves and and so what happens is everybody comes to me for the most part um they don't have a purpose because that's my first question what is your purpose and what do you want your legacy to be and so think of purpose as um what is your mission your whole mission for you in life and a lot and of course the the standard answers well i want to be a good person help everybody yeah we all want to do that but what is the purpose for you in life what do you want for you your mission so think of um purpose as a mission and a compass heading the direction you're going to travel in life you have to set that bezel and lock it in right doesn't mean you can't deviate but you've got to have a general direction most people don't have that however veterans tend to do have that um especially special operations guys because you know they're self-starters that's why they were selected they're not looking for guys that are followers in fact in delta every guy was um regardless of rank and age was expected to be a leader at any time right we should be able to act uh unilaterally act as a team and we like i mentioned in the beginning you should be able to stand right next to an admiral or a general officer and give him you know consult him on operation whatever requires right they should be able to trust you and you should be able to motivate others to follow um so you know that's is that an inherent trait or is that a learned trait i would say it's both um i think those that are both that trade are going to be more effective um and then there's the there's those that learn it um i think it's always better when intuitively you know how to lead it's part of your dna it's you know you can you know you just have this drive to be out front i'm that guy you know um i've never liked to follow in fact i would say it's in my it is in my dna because i'm both my size and my family all the male men on both sides family are entrepreneurs they're all self-starters start their own businesses nobody works for anybody uh we all are entrepreneurs it was and i've always felt like that's me i don't i wasn't comfortable working for other people and making them rich and uh and taking orders um and so um i didn't actually feel like i had that drive my leadership drive and um can you learn it yes um you can learn it um i think you have to just work harder at it to remember those traits and be able to apply them and i think one is you know again you know self-governance being able to discipline yourself to do what needs to be done um moreover secondly is um task and time management okay what is it you want to do what do you want to do today and what do you want to do next week next month next year and for the rest of your life right have an agenda have a plan and then with that task management that that task management plan okay these are the things i want to do um now come up with your timeline and set your deadline too many people procrastinate i'll get to it tomorrow next week let me get this out of the way first um all know most niche coaches out there you know will tell you they'll use that the you know the attitude how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time right so what they're telling you is you want to be good at something you know focus just on that one thing you know and and here's the difference between and i'll just use my example um from the average guy out there you know who's trying to eat one elf at a time to get hit in life okay he ate you know he's gonna eat maybe two or three elephants his entire life um i've done a you know 100 herds of elephants all at one time because what i do is um i eat this elephant a little bit today a little bit out of this one today two bites out of this one by others three bites out of this one uh and then i keep moving that herd along down that down that way so i've consumed them all he had all my all my my goals and i get another herb right so you have to be able to manage your tasks time tasking time management time and task management um you have to be able to do a lot and there's where the self-discipline comes right it's easy just to do one thing um i'll give you an example so when i was in the army um i was in special forces of green beret so now i'm a full-time green beret team starter okay that's okay that's a long day every day i'm out there training my troops and we're doing stuff we're deploying i was a full-time college student i was going to college eight hours a night or eight hours a week four hours a night two nights a week i was a as a husband with three kids um ready for this i was a professional boxer boxing to fight professionally um i was a martial artist wow i've been a martial artistry i got two six degree black belts and first degree blackmail um i ran a side business training bodyguards out of mexico they were coming up to north carolina and then in the evenings okay i was set inside time to go out there and train these guys and train them and send them back downrange um that's just one example of my date right every day jesus how much do you sleep how much did you sleep during that time well and see here's the essence how many moments we've come to play here it's like yeah okay so okay and then there was another issue was dan coughs like do you spend any time with your family well actually yeah we did because we did martial arts together as a family right we go to training a couple nights a week um then of course now i'm in school full-time so well how do you manage going to school full-time you know and your homework stuff is like ah there it is right so i i never spent my time on my family's time studying and doing my homework okay i figured okay it's enough that i'm going to school at night i got to give them something too and so i always waited until my wife and my kids went to bed and i'd go to bed too with my wife and i take care of my wife dude there's a man thing right put her to sleep okay we're good everybody's happy cat and i get that's right clothes on go back out into the kitchen turn your kitchen light on break the books and i sit out there from burning midnight off for several hours i might only get two three four five hours of sleep at night you know is that healthy no but i would and you can't make up sleep either by the way um that's a fact you can't go i'll get two more hours tomorrow you can never make it up um it's not how it works so yeah i had to put in um you know i had to put in the extra effort i had to i lost time but the payoff at the end was worth it okay now i'm self-employed okay i have been since i left the military and i get to sleep all i want when i want get up when i want to go to bed when i want i get to now i get to enjoy the fruits of my labor i'm 59 years old i'm not going to say i'm in the best shape of my life but i'm in pretty damn good shape probably better than most 20 year olds and so i have no issues with my health because i take care of myself i ate properly i exercise all my life um and so at the age of 59 i feel like wow i'm living the dream i got a beautiful young wife i got you know great life in bali indonesia i got business there i got a home there i got a business and a home in florida i got a home in the philippines and you know i'm living the dream you know that goes into my next question what that kind of goes right into the next thing entrepreneurship what was your challenges and what did you learn when you started your own business coming out of the service like what what what was that experience like like coming from an elite soldier you know warrior into the entrepreneurial world um any difficulties there or and because i get that question a lot from young entrepreneurs coming out james how can i do this jp how can i do that and you know you've done it you've been successful with both what's your thoughts there yeah it was a culture shock right and it's because you're coming out of the military culture which is vastly different than corporate america any corporation um civilian life period uh most civilians won't understand that but if you've been in the military um particularly if you've been in a regimented regimented type of military like you were in a range of battalion special forces um you know when you're when you come from particularly that mos and you come out to the civilian world it's like wow it's a night and day different i actually sometimes i'm stunned i'm like how do how do i get anything done here in corporate america it takes them two weeks to approve a memo for something like we got to buy more toilet paper for the men's room and we knocked this stuff out in 30 seconds all day long you know i mean you know boom boom boom there's no procrastination there's no waiting uh you know shelby for a couple of weeks let me address it now it's like we get on now if we have to stay after work and all night to do it that's what we do it doesn't work like that in corporate america a huge difference man and so it is a culture shock and uh what i and honestly i've never um the only reason i can assimilate is because i can camouflage myself i can blend in but i'm still operating as a delta operator as a veteran with the military mindset and i'm getting i'm light year years ahead of my peer group in the civilian world um because i just kind of looked like them you know kind of like a wolf in sheep's clothing you know but uh you know but i'm moving to her in the middle of it you know and so that that's what i have learned how to do and then the other side of that is um i found that my military training okay has paid paid off a huge dividend okay in a corporate world what guys don't realize in girls in the military is you have skill sets that you don't even know you have for example i so right when i started retired um i started my company and i just hadn't gotten it off the ground yet i'm waiting for that moment um and i needed to get a job and so to feed my family because i'd be possible from retirement so i ended up getting a job i won't name the plan but it's a large class glass factory and uh fortune 250 company very big um they hired me to be uh um basically to run the the plant every 24 hours as uh i'm a superintendent and i started off supervisor and they really would be the superintendent but you know being in this world so i show up and i'm looking at for example all the all the uh managers before me i'm looking at going through the computer system looking at the documentation for example you know the evaluation reports for um you know their employees and their evaluation reports i still remember it went something like this um you know john doe comes to work every day on time you know and like that's an excellent bullet right like he's great he comes to work every day on time i'm like that's what john doe's supposed to do in fact his ass should be here at least 10 minutes early and if he's here 10 minutes early he's 10 minutes late right so and uh and i'm like wow and so so the next thing i found is like i have an opportunity here i wrote the i rebuilt the entire evaluation report system for this factory right and so and i modeled it after the seo er a format right that's right yeah so all of a sudden i'm a water walker i'm light years ahead of all the other supervisors right and then you know okay and so now for example my company in indonesia i say it's my company my wife and i started the company and basically i handed it off to her she runs it now because i'm the kind of guy i start something and i get bored i gotta go do something else i'm always looking for another challenge so i i created this thing with her uh i trained her she runs it you know very successfully and i'm like okay i want to do something else now but so the what we had is this uh it's a it's a it's a security company we have security guards and we also have um uh what called uh well canine security so i provide explosive detector dogs narcotic detector dogs patrol attack dogs for all the marriott properties and the local venues and other hotels in bali so we have literally teams assigned to every venue we have kennels already there um we have teams that's their destiny of site they work 24 7 365. um and they're they're spread all over the place so we had you know you know one time we had 65 handlers and 45 canines working right now and uh and so now you've got to come up with a duty roster right for you know shift work because we're working you know 24 24 hour shifts around the clock um and then he days off and you got guys that don't show up you need to feel you know so how do you manage that well guess what the military teaches you uh doing a dd6 [ __ ] duty roster right you have to do it right that's right man that's big medicine like i got this figured out actually i still really haven't figured out i'm not that good at it but my wife can do it and my the supervisor i admire when he's doing it and so that skill set is invaluable right it's very it's it's essential to run this business properly take an initiative yeah take the initiative yeah speaking of leadership so when we started this business um i told my my wife literally did not know how to run a computer five years ago because she never had a need for it and uh and so now she's running a macbook pro excel sheets everything um as i trained she was the she was the nucleus i trained her and we started training the trainers and the supervisors and then you know my wife trains the canines she trains the handlers to train the canines trains to train between canines she does all aspects of it to the life between licensing payroll everything and uh the first thing i told her when we started this business i said there's two rules two rules i said every man gets paid on time every time no except ever right two they screw up i said you don't chop their head off day one i said they screw up you counsel them show them where their error of their ways let's take corrective action two they do it again we punish them we take some money but we didn't get to keep the job three they do it again cut their head off all right so so i said that's our that's the approach because that is not the approach they use over there they don't pay them on time ever nobody does okay that's a big problem um two um you screw up get your head chopped off the first day you know no matter what it is um and so i said we'll never have that here and so we actually had a good morale um and we had a pretty effective organization um so you know these are leadership traits that i brought in because i run those in the military and they work right treat everybody with dignity respect not yell at horror and treat them like dogs which is typical especially in third world countries um the other thing was kind of cool is so my wife is only five feet tall she's 90 pounds the indonesian woman kind of in a male dominated society kind of like in central south america and uh and suddenly she's running 65 dudes and 45 hard-hitting canines okay and she's the boss they call her boss canine in fact every police everybody knows my wife that's awesome yeah that's awesome welcome to the k-9 company she's one of these dudes too you know um but she's able to do that because she listened and i was able to teach her those leadership principles that i thought were necessary to run an organization like this that's fluid okay and constantly operating we don't close the doors at five o'clock in the afternoon it's 24 7 which means phone calls at two o'clock in the morning complaints issues emergencies you know and this is part of the bit this is this is the cost of running your own business and if you're a veteran there's absolutely no reason why you can't do this you've got all the skill sets you you just probably don't even realize everybody's every bison buys into the notion you got to have an mba you know and all this formal education that's right couldn't be further from the truth man that's right you know you've already got the education the us military is the best college in the world if you pay attention that's right yeah that's what i tell the vets coming out you guys got a leg up already coming into the into the private sector you know because you guys got skills you don't realize you have you know and and i think that that's a big big piece like as you're saying uh you know guys coming out looking at how to make money maybe they're retired maybe they're they just serve one term they went to to the army or the navy or whatever to get college money went to school and now they're looking you know for what what's the next step and and i get a lot of those questions as well what's your thoughts on when it comes to performance coaching i know you've managed a lot of elite uh private business guys uh a lot of those guys the high-end guys those multi-millionaires even billionaires probably um what what do you normally see through those guys what what are they missing do you think is it the military piece or is there something in common that they're all kind of like missing in your mind what's your thoughts yes so you're right i've coached a lot of wealthy people i've never been to military you know millionaires um doctors educators um entrepreneurs veterans law enforcement goes on and on but um so the the non-veteran non-military types that come to me even though they're successful they come to me because they're still they feel like they're still missing something and so and this in fact i will tell you this people that are very rich have the same problems the poor people do the only difference is um the rich people's problems are proportionate to their bank account so they're just bigger all the time but they still got the same stress and the same drama so they have coping issues as well how do i cope with this stuff um just like everybody else the guy that doesn't have any money he's coping with i don't have any money life is tough the guy has all the money you would think his life is easy a lot of times it's just as tough um and so i'll give you an example i had a i won't mention the name or anything like that but i had a guy very wealthy um built a house in the out in the ocean on stilts in bocas del toro off the coast of panama i'm sure you're familiar with that right yeah yeah i know vocos yeah absolutely and this thing was amazing man he built it on stilts out in the bay uh i mean you had to take a a small boat and it took us about 30 minutes just to get out to the to the island to the to where his house would and there was no other houses out there um and so he was custom building his home by himself he was uh bringing in materials from everywhere um to include colombia he was bringing stuff materials in his anyways so he's got this whole thing built and uh and he calls me one day and he's just losing his [ __ ] and he's looking i'm in indonesia now he's like dude can you know i got a problem can you can you come here and talk to me i need to talk to someone like damn okay would you just go down a freaking focus tour and pick up a hooker or something you talk to somebody right it was like yeah you know and so um so i fly 52 hours planes trains and automobiles man i go to china and i end up finally going through miami into uh panama city panama i get to around 5 30 in the afternoon now i still got to get to boca del toro there's no flights going and they're all booked up for the next couple weeks right they just got this little you know grasshoppers going there and so i had to catch a bus a 12-hour bus ride just to get the boca cell toilet you know so i'm riding on a bus hole now you know what it's like in panama right oh it's nuts man it's not riding that bus up there i show up in the morning and i'm at another uh launch point for boats i take another boat across to the island i get over there and it's probably about seven o'clock in the morning and my friend shows up um he lands his boat gets out meets me and go eat some breakfast and you know and i'm smoking i actually got the flu too you know and i'm just wore out man from all the travel and uh he's like uh i'm kind of giving orientation so i look at him go man i said this better be good better be god damn it what can i help you with you know and let me carry out there with i'm not a psychologist okay so and uh so we get on this boat and we drive out to his place and that's pretty amazing man like wow you live out here it's so cool and isolated oh my god the only neighbors he had were the indians the local speed indians and stuff right yeah that's right i'm going to steal all this gas and stuff and you know anyways um and so i said what's the problem man what's going on he goes well he goes i bought this two thousand dollar boat lift because you don't have a garage the boat park your [ __ ] ocean lift up all the water because that's where his house is out in the ocean right which is kind of cool and he goes i bought a two thousand dollar boat lift from ace hardware in the us had a ship to me and arrived because i have this guy that's been doing the work around the house um i gave him the boat lift he's supposed to put it in he hasn't put it in months i kept getting on him and then he wouldn't put it they said i want money it's not true i paid him all the money and finally put the boat lift in but it wasn't my boat lift it was a local boat lift it wasn't a two thousand dollar ace hardwood boat lip and and he puts it in and he's mad because it's not the one he bought and he's losing his mind over this thing he's like i can't believe this guy would do this to me and where am i there this is two thousand dollars is this one working yes it's not the one though and i'm like dude you're a multi-millionaire and you fill me around the world for a 2000 damn boat if you actually i would have just sent you the money for another one or something jesus he calls he calls in delta i've actually done that more than once actually right so and i said i said man this is you this is what worries you a two thousand dollar boat lift i mean that's like you know two cents for the average person and uh and so you know and i've worked i've had billionaire business partners literally partners who are billionaires i've worked for billionaires um i'm millionaires i've been able you know i've been able to look behind the curtain and i see what goes on and uh it's not what we all think it is tend to think um what's going what's going on behind that curtain what's what's up well it's like i said they have the same issues you know um that is everybody i've worked with you know same personal issues you know a lot of them have you know just issues coping right in life so you would think well why how's it so hard to cope when you have so much money you know it was john wayne who said uh you know it's easier to cry inside of a mercedes than on a bicycle right but you're still crying no matter where you're at right it's kind of the same thing and uh and so money doesn't make you happy um i'll tell you that right now money doesn't make you happy you know i look at like for example tony robbins grant cardone you know you know a lot of very wealthy people um and they're linear niche you know performance coaches mentors instructors um you know they they got really good they need one elephant right and they were successful but their metrics for success is measured in money um and i can tell you money doesn't make you happy it might make your life a little bit easier but it doesn't make you happy and in fact i always joke and tell all my clients that tony robbins at grant cardone they're laying in bed every night looking at each other like this going i wonder what it'd be like to be dale comstock because they'll never buy or get my experience ever i'm the richest man in the world if i use experience as the metrics right uh i can always get money if i want that i don't want that it's that i want money to be comfortable i don't want to be i don't want to be like these guys so rich that actually they're so rich all these guys i know they have everything they want that's no longer because they want more it actually becomes a competition against the guy over here who can now make more money all right so it becomes a lust for power yeah you use money as a metrics to measure that right and so and i watch these guys do that millionaires and billionaires and they have a miserable life they don't get to look i've gone out i had one client and he had this yacht that would just blow your mind it was amazing man it's like wow and they would take it out like once every two months for about four hours and they'd go out and splash around in the water and then get on the boat and then we'd go dock at some place and go to a restaurant and his crew would take the bone park for another couple of months i go okay you spend how much money on this damn vote and then the thing was he couldn't enjoy they couldn't enjoy being around other people because they always felt like they were being targeted right so for example his wife was very young she was 32 years old she was a model from mexico he's a whole chinese guy um let you interpret that any way you want right on the party go out and have fun so they would we'd go to clubs and bars together and he couldn't dance right he didn't have the groove uh but she did and i would have to go out there and stand by garter wash his dances just to keep all the other guys off of her right and then i would have to guard old man because he's a frail asian guy and you know he was getting bullied and stuff so i'm like you know just so they can kind of have a little semblance of fun which really what could have been fun you know how's that fun i'm i'm hovering around her like you know like get back like a linebacker you know exactly and so uh anyways uh so where i'm going with all this is you know gotta probably what makes people happy it's been my experience that it's not the money it money makes life better yeah it's cool um but what makes life great is experience how much have you achieved have you hit all your life's goals um here's a here's a interesting thing there's some surveys that have been done one of them they surveyed people around my age okay i'm pushing 59 and the question was asked what is the greatest regret in your life thus far 76 survey said they they regret having not lived a life fulfilled in other words they didn't do all the things they would have liked to have done skydiving scuba diving spend more time with the kids the family you know i always tell people to have a threesome before so whatever your fantasies are right they always have that regret and then there's another survey where you ask people literally in their last week's life you know which was your biggest regret almost 98 surveyed said the same thing i didn't live a life fulfilled and they didn't have a life fulfilled because they were so focused on you know i gotta put a roof over their head put food on the table send the kids to college and when the kids are gone the wife doesn't talk to you anymore the husband doesn't talk anymore and you're just kind of sitting on your ass going you know i'm fat i'm a dude and i'm nine months pregnant you know and they look at me you know they go jesus how did you do that it's because you let yourself get swallowed up and you get caught in this trap because there's these expectations that are set very early unwittingly our fair our parents our friends the media our teachers you know everybody tells us that we we have to live a certain life a certain way and follow a certain track happiness is found if you have a college degree right and uh and all these things right and we buy into this lie unwittingly and if you're lucky at some point before you die you realize oh [ __ ] that's [ __ ] and so you catch on and you can and those are the people who come to me these are my clients are between 45 and 59 mostly males but women as well that demographic and they're always coming that to me with the same thing hey kids are gone went to went to college wife you know she doesn't want to talk to me anymore doesn't want to have sex you know we're just kind of you know doing nothing and i'm 45 years old and uh how do i recapture recover my life and so now they've got this good for them because they identified what's going on and they didn't let their lives languish you know into the sunset and die on you know unfulfilled so they have a chance to take corrective action we all do um you have to reinvent yourself literally i reinvent myself probably every three four years i know some metabolism changes um i take a hard look at myself in the mirror i look at my behavior and say how what can i do modify myself make myself better so that i'm living an optimal life um and so you know that's the key you gotta it's gotta you have to have that self um but at the end of the day you know again you you know you really are you know the captain of your ship the master of your destiny right so you know if you put yourself in a box and you follow the herd um expect to have a meteorological life if you want to i saw a pic i saw a t-shirt in hong kong one time i was in the subway a few years ago the guy had a shirt said um on the back of it and said uh you can work for somebody else and make them rich or you can work for yourself and make yourself rich it's a choice right and i thought you know that's pretty profound because that's what most people are doing in america they're working to make other people rich because they're thinking small they think i just i got to make a paycheck you know i got to pay for my bills my house you know and and they're that's it right that's like if i can do that i'm a success man you all you're doing is surviving right that's they have a survivor mentality that's right driver mentality in other words you gotta come in this is small time i'm gonna have all this and more because i can and i will right and so too many people they live a limited life you have to limit live a limited life and this is where veterans excel because you've been exposed to so much in your life you've been challenged so many times you've endured so much you you know you you made friends with people very diverse you know that's the other thing man the military is very diverse i hate it when i hear politicians in the left yelling about you know racism in the art military i'm going to tell you what my military that i was in i didn't see that i just never saw that man my brother's a black asian and we never treat each other differently man ever you know it's like it didn't matter everybody's green yeah exactly exactly right yeah so um so you we have that experience right and we know that hey man we're we're not better than anybody else you know and uh so we have this experience we have this culture that we've been immersed to we have these friendships these camaraderies we have these experiences that have put us slightly like years ahead of the civilian culture um and sometimes it is hard for us to adapt it's like a lot of guys can't adapt right and they and they come right back in the military or start getting in trouble um they can't find a job because you know they can't work for these people because it's not the same as the military and this is where you've got to become a chameleon you've got to learn how to adapt doesn't mean you have to change who you are you just got to figure out how can i blend in that's right what i need out of this thing right that's right and that's what i've successfully done not everybody can do that it's not hard you just got to think about it do it you know dale um our time is about up i really appreciate you coming and speaking with me today it's been it's been a hell of a conversation and uh i can't wait to meet you in person uh i invite you to medellin colombia we'll have a we'll have a pickup for you a nice party bring the wife kids whoever and we'll be here um but yeah i just want to thank you again uh really respects you everything you've done you've lived you've lived lives a lot a life that most people don't see in three or four of them you know so i really appreciate everything um you do and and call me anytime and i'll call you and let's keep and keep in touch sure bro i appreciate it man thank you all right i salute you my friend all right

Channel: Virtual Employee Services

Views: 126,871

Keywords: Delta Force, The Unit, Special Forces, Delta, Force Recon, Scout Sniper, Marine Corps, Devil Dogs, NCO, Non-Commissioned Officer, Ranger School, Army Ranger, Iraq, Afghanistan, CIA, paramilitary, 1st SFOD, Grenada, Panama, American Badass, Colombia, Medellin, Entrepreneur, Virtual Employee Services, JP Sutton, James Sutton, Dale Comstock, Virtual Recruiter, RPO, Recruitment Outsourcing, Veteran, Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Start-up, business, military

Id: uuYp_TM0H6E

Length: 60min 8sec (3608 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 03 2022