Ray Cash Care: Navy SEAL Pushup Record & MDK Training Philosophy

Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 600 with Ray Cash Care.

Meet Ray Cash Care

Tom Rowland: This is the Tom Rowland Podcast. Fascinating stories to amaze, encourage, and inspire you in fishing, fitness, and the outdoors, and we're brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. I started this podcast as a way to connect with my friends, people that I admire and respect, and you. It has been a learning journey that's made me a better person, a better fisherman, a better father, and a better athlete. I'm so happy that you're on this journey with me, and I'd love to hear from you with show suggestions, guest suggestions, or questions. The best way to get a hold of me is through text. You can text (305) 930-7346 for the fastest response. But if you prefer to email, you can send that to podcast@saltwaterexperience.com. That's a dedicated email address just for the show. If you like this show, you can show your support by posting about it on social media and tagging me. Text the link to a couple of friends that may also enjoy it, and subscribe and leave a five-star review if you feel like I've earned it. The website is tomrowlandpodcast.com, and that is where everything lives — all past shows, the How-To Tuesdays, the Full Links, and the Physical Fridays. And the social media is tom_rowland on Instagram, or you can go to our big account, saltwater_experience. I hope to hear from you soon. So now let's get on to today's show.

Ray Cash Care: Hey, guys. I'm Ray Cash Care, and I am here on the Tom Rowland podcast.

Tom Rowland: Alright, Ray. How you doing, man?

Ray Cash Care: I'm doing good, sir. Thank you for having me. It's a complete and utter honor. Thank you.

Tom Rowland: Man, the honor is all mine. I've been following you for a long time. I love your message. I love what you're putting out there and your energy. I'm really excited about this conversation.

Ray Cash Care: So am I. I'm looking forward to it. Let's get to it.

Tom Rowland: When I do my research, I didn't have to do a lot of research on you because I've been following you and I've listened to a lot of other podcasts you've done. I always try to come up with a few things that I might have in common with a guest. With you, we both have a relationship with Black Rifle Coffee of some sort — I was planning on using that as a way to maybe connect with you, but then we connected through a mutual friend, Rich Vanek. So really happy to have that. We both like to do push-ups. We just finished the 10,000 push-up challenge — we had about 500 people do it. So you like doing push-ups maybe even more than me or any of the other people out there.

The Push-Up Discipline: 6,320 a Week

Ray Cash Care: I try to knock out 6,320 a week.

Tom Rowland: 6,320. Now I'm kind of familiar with that number, but why don't you tell me what the significance of that number is?

Ray Cash Care: Well, Monday through Friday, I do a thousand push-ups a day because I'm a huge fan of Herschel Walker. He did that growing up — a thousand push-ups, a thousand sit-ups. If it worked for him, it worked for me. I actually met him through Bob Ritchie — Kid Rock. And then I just took it from there. On Saturdays, I do my Ray Cash Care thing: 1,320 push-ups in one hour, which is really 22 push-ups on the minute, every minute, for sixty minutes, to pay respect for veteran and first responder suicide. The actual number should probably be 30, but I can't do 30 on the minute every minute for sixty minutes, so we do 22. I have a huge following of individuals, and it's "do more, do less, just do." We have everyone from toddlers to one gentleman who's 67 years old. We get in there, we do it, and I call it the power hour of positivity — making a difference one human at a time, one push-up at a time.

Tom Rowland: I love it. I've actually jumped into some of those live videos just to watch and do some push-ups. You taught me about the every-minute-on-the-minute approach, and that's how I finished the last stretch of the 10,000 push-up challenge. I had about the last 3,000 doing 20 on the minute every minute. On the last day I had 1,970 left, and I thought, well, he says he can do sixty minutes straight like that — so the two days before I tried twenty minutes, then forty minutes. Then on the last day, with 1,970 left to go, I did the full sixty and then kept going to ninety-four minutes to finish it off.

Ray Cash Care: What I love about that story is people would think you had, like, 500 left on your last day. You had 3,000 left. We put numbers around things like that.

Tom Rowland: Well, if I see the finish line, it's just easier for me to go ahead and finish instead of splitting it up over a couple of days. But with the 10,000 push-up challenge this year, I heard from so many people who finished it and were really surprised they could do it. It seemed impossible, but they finished. That's what it was really about, in conjunction with also bringing awareness to the water issues in the state of Florida, so people could use it as a conversation starter. Anyway — we're both about the same age. I'm 53.

Turning 50 and Refusing to Slow Down

Ray Cash Care: I'll be 50 Saturday.

Tom Rowland: Do you have a plan for your fiftieth birthday?

Ray Cash Care: My wife just told me she's going to take me out for my birthday. She and my daughter are going to take me to a little country club right around the corner, and we're going to get a meal — try something different. She's making it more of a big deal than I am. I look at 50 as I'm halfway home, and now it's time to start turning it up. I know it's supposed to be a big birthday, but for me, it's just another day. My wife says I'm being so "poopy" about it. I'm not — I'm just an overachiever. I'm 50 years old, and I'm not where I want to be. My mindset is, let's get 50 over with and just start grinding. That's how I am with everything. The finish line is never there. So I'm gonna keep grinding, man.

Tom Rowland: I love it. That's awesome, man. So we're also about the same height — I don't know if you can tell because I'm sitting, but I think we're about the same.

Ray Cash Care: How tall are you?

Tom Rowland: Five-seven. It says five-eight on my driver's license, so I'm five and a quarter — what does it say on yours?

Ray Cash Care: I like to say I'm five-eight, but my wife will put that in check real fast.

Tom Rowland: My wife does too. She's like, "You're not five-eight, look, it says right here on your license."

Ray Cash Care: Let me see what mine says… five—let me put on my reading glasses. It says five-seven. Five-seven. I was honest.

Tom Rowland: Well, at least by the numbers I edged you out. This is where our similarities differ — you went through the real BUD/S and became a Navy SEAL. I just went through a "fake BUD/S" with Mark Divine and learned a lot about leadership and life at SEALFIT Kokoro. And you probably went through lots of other selection courses on top of that. I went through GoRuck Selection with your friend Bert, who was my cadre leader there, and I learned a tremendous amount from him. So that's where we differ — you went through the real stuff, and I only went through the fake stuff. But I learned a lot from both experiences, and I was ready to learn from people like yourself who had taken it to the extreme. One of the things I came away with from both experiences was how the cadre boiled things down into the simplest form, and I've noticed you do that as well in a lot of your message — you've got a lot of acronyms, you've got the Four F's, you've got your team acronym right there on your hand. I wanted to ask you about that, and how regular people — not military, not former military, just people trying to be the best they can be — can take the lessons from someone like yourself, a former Navy SEAL, or like Bert, a special operator. You guys have learned these things on the extreme end of the spectrum, and they've been tested. How can we learn from your lessons?

Three Battlefields and the KISS Principle

Ray Cash Care: Well, I think in order to learn, you've gotta go back. So the first thing I try to teach is obviously KISS — keep it simple, stupid. I'm not trying to insult anyone, it's just an acronym. But what each human being needs to understand, whether they're a Navy SEAL, Special Forces, or a regular Joe, is that each human being has three battlefields in their life. You have the battlefield, which we call the internal struggle. You have the business field, which is whatever you're doing with work. And then you have the home field, which is your family. What I try to instill is that you can be really good at making a lot of money, or really great at one thing, but being successful at life is like fitness — it has to be three-dimensional. Physical fitness is also mental and emotional fitness. So in order to be successful, you have to find balance across your battlefield, business field, and home field.

What I do whenever I'm teaching is take what I've learned from the battlefield — overseas, as a child, as a husband, as a father — and make it resonate with whoever my audience is. If I'm talking to corporate lawyers, I can't just throw a bunch of SEAL team acronyms around; I have to explain what I'm doing so it resonates. Number one, I want to make sure it's hitting home, so I keep it universal. Number two, I make sure people understand it's more than being one-dimensional — a lot of people define success from a monetary standpoint, but you need to be three-dimensional again: strategize, prioritize, monetize. Everything is in threes or fours. The minute you understand that and slow it down — decision-making: ask, make, take — you break everything into little segments.

There are times I'll have overlapping fields of fire, where my morals and values cross over into my work and my personal life. But then there are other things where you have to compartmentalize — I keep that here, this here, and that there. Case in point: Bert and I were on the TV show The Selection together. We had a heated, passionate discussion about something we weren't agreeing on. We went off to the side, had it out, compartmentalized it there, and came back on set professional. Most people can't compartmentalize, so they bring it over and it becomes what I call the domino effect of crap — they start taking things personal. The only thing I take personal in my life is if someone comes at my family. Other than that, it's business. Becoming a better human being is a business, and that's what my business is — trying to make human beings better, one word, one push-up, one motivational talk at a time. Everything is one step in front of the other.

My message is meant to resonate. I speak to hundreds and thousands of people, and I'll tell them, if you don't understand what I'm saying, raise your hand and ask me. Don't be the kid in left field chewing on his glove when the ball's hit right at him. I use a lot of symbolism when I teach, so it resonates — whether I'm teaching kids in my father-son course or coaching successful entrepreneurs in business. In order to be a great leader, you must lead, listen, and learn, and you need to understand who it is you're leading, because when people take your advice, that's a reflection of your leadership. People listen to you because you're a solid leader. Guys like Bert and Mark Divine — holy crap, the guy's a god in our business. He's a very intellectual, physical, and spiritual man, a Lieutenant Commander in the SEAL teams — you can't say a bad thing about him. Mister Divine, if you hear this, I know you didn't tell me to say that, but I respect the hell out of you.

The Three L's of Leadership: Lead, Listen, Learn

Tom Rowland: I learned a lot from him. Let's talk about leadership for a minute — you have the three L's of leadership. What are those three L's?

Ray Cash Care: In order to be a leader, you must lead, listen, and learn. Leaders lead — they lead themselves. They can lead from the front or the back, and they lead always. Leaders lead; they're not led. Even if I'm letting someone else lead, I'm leading in some fashion. Number two, we listen. The difference between listening and hearing is this: when you're hearing something, you're just waiting for your chance to talk. When you're listening, you're actually absorbing information. When you're listening to somebody, eye contact is established — there's no other place on earth you'd rather be. I learned a valuable lesson about this. I used to be guilty of texting while my boss, Bedros Keuilian, was talking to me about business. He ripped the phone out of my hand and said, "Ray, you have a button on your phone called voice memo — use it." So now, even when someone else is leading, I'm leading myself by recording those messages and turning them into audiobooks. I've got about a hundred of them. Instead of listening to the radio, I listen to people who've been there and done that.

And next is learn. I don't care who you are or where you are in the game — there is always someone out there with a different perspective you can add to the tool bag. As a leader, it's all about guarding your time. You're always going to have people who want to reach out and tell you things; there's a time and place for it, but I'll listen to every one of my team members — I don't believe in "employees," I believe in team suggestions. If I don't agree with an idea, I start with the positive: "Tom, that's a great idea, but let me tell you why we're not doing that right now — I really appreciate you taking the initiative to come to me with it, and I don't want you to ever stop." Because other leaders just dismiss people — "I don't have time" — and that person doesn't know what it took for them to come talk to somebody at that level.

So: lead, don't be led. Listen — everybody has something to say, everybody has a voice, and you have to figure out whose voice is positive and whose is negative. Don't just hear people — hearing is waiting to get your own voice in, and you might miss the point entirely. And last, learn. As a leader, you only do two things in this life — you win, or you learn. You only lose if you quit, and quitting means quitting on yourself, your team, or the objective. I've made mistakes as a father, a husband, and a businessman — mistakes that have cost Bedros a lot of money — but as long as you do an AAR, an after-action report, with yourself and your team, you learn from it and you don't make that mistake again.

Just because I had a lot of negative stuff happen in my life doesn't mean I need to be a negative person. I am the author of my own book, and I'm going to create the best version of me I can, physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, spiritually, and financially — six forms of creating greatness. I'm 50 years young, and I'm just getting started. A lot of people think you're going downhill at 50. No — I'm just finding another hill.

Attack the Hill, Control the Descent

Ray Cash Care: I love running up hills, because even though my legs get sore, I get stronger as I acclimate to the altitude — that's the symbolism. I call it "attack the hill." That's what I do in everything in life — I run up the hill, and I walk down the hill. I control the ascent and I control the descent. Most people do the opposite: they walk up the hill, cautiously pacing themselves, and then run down it. But if you run down a hill too fast, eventually you go ass-over-teakettle, because you're letting gravity — the symbolism of negative entities — control you. You have to control yourself. I'm a master of control.

Tom Rowland: I've heard you talk about attacking the hill before. Everybody understands that part — you have a goal, you attack it. But when you talk about controlling the descent, give me an example of what that actually looks like. You make it to the top — what is the descent for you? Where are you being controlling on the way down?

Ray Cash Care: By "attack the hill," what I simply mean is you need to reverse-engineer things. Case in point: most people hate Mondays — I love Mondays. Most people hate doing pull-ups — I love doing pull-ups. People hate doing burpees — I love doing burpees. Why people hate doing things is because it's hard. But if you learn how to control the hard and master the hard, you build stamina and speed, and it gets easier. I can go to the biggest meathead gym on the planet, get under a pull-up bar, and start doing fifteen or twenty burpee pull-ups, and the biggest guys there will step back and say, "Dude, you take it," because they can't do that — I'm conditioning myself for the fight.

So most people, when they see an obstacle, pace themselves going up, get to the top, and think they've accomplished a lot. Then they run down the hill. My thing is: run up the hill, attack it as fast as you can to accomplish your goal, take a breath, do a 360-degree situational-awareness check, and start looking for another fight. The rest is on the descent — not the ascent. If I'm trying to improve myself and I have a goal, I want to get there as fast and efficient as I can. When I'm walking down the hill, I'm not just resting — that's me controlling the situation. If you run down a hill, you lose your situational awareness. Going up, you know where you've gotta go. Going down, you don't know what's next, so I walk down and scan for another goal, objective, or challenge.

Programming Yourself for Greatness

I tell people this: I'm a control freak, and I say it over and over. I control what time I get up. I don't get up with an alarm on my phone — I hate that. I have an old-school alarm clock. I don't believe in a snooze button; the snooze button is for people who are prolonging greatness. And I'm talking old-school alarm clock — it goes off, and what that represents is incoming fire, chaos, being overseas, getting woken by mortars. What it does at home is, if you get up before your wife and set that thing about twelve feet away from you, it's going to wake her up too. What I'm also doing is programming myself — I'm a master programmer, and that's why I'm successful at what I do. If you do that for about a week, getting up before your alarm goes off and waking your spouse up with it, eventually you will get up three minutes before that alarm goes off every single day.

So why can't we program ourselves to do that with everything we do? Because most people aren't willing to shock the body — the shock and awe. I am. My wife did not like this at first. People ask me, what time do you get up on Sunday? The same damn time I get up Monday through Saturday. I'm programmed. And what the world needs more of is programming. I have two great kids — a 27-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter — and dads, if you have a daughter, this will hit home a little harder. I call it an MOL, a motto of life. The first thing I say every morning, and I'll say it till the day I die, is: "Be great today, I'm gonna be a bitch tomorrow." That's the first thing I say when I get up and the last thing I say before bed. My daughter gets up and I ask her, "Nyla Jane, what are you?" And she says, "I'm a winner, and I'm a champion." My son has his own saying, my wife has hers. Why would you not want a motto for life? If you just get up thinking "another day," you're already programming yourself for a bad day. Instead: I'm alive — that's a win right there. And I get a lot from the "make your damn bed" mentality — Admiral William McRaven, I absolutely believe in that. You get up, you make your bed within minutes, you've already accomplished a goal, and you're on a positive mindset.

I have sixteen to eighteen hours to do one or two things in this life, every single day — I'm going to get up and kick ass, or get my ass kicked. And for those who haven't gotten their ass kicked, I'll tell you: kicking ass is a lot better. You're not going to win every time, but what's great is I'm going to give my maximum output every day, because my "why" in life is to be a better me. It's not "be everybody else's why" — my wife, my kids — no. If you want to be better for your family, you need to raise the standards of yourself, not lower the standards of your family. You do that by programming yourself.

The Four F Bombs and the T.E.A.M. Acronym

The average human being has 60,000 thoughts a day, and 48,000 of those are negative — look it up. My goal in life is to make that 48,000 a zero. You're always going to have negative thoughts, but usually it's the same four or five things: your family, your fitness, your finances, your faith — your four F-bombs. My goal is to make that negative number as low as I can, so I have as many positive thoughts as possible, because motivation isn't enough. It's discipline. It's integrity — it's what you're doing when no one's watching. There are days, Tom, I don't want to get up. But then I take a second and think: you're alive. There are people who aren't. There are people who are sick, and you aren't. There are people whose kids are sick, and yours aren't. I'm blessed — so what can I do with that blessing?

My mindset is, I'm going to get up, create an MOL, create positivity, and create results. I control what time I get up, how I get up, what I put in my body, who I surround myself with, and what time I go to bed. When I get in the car, or on a plane, I can only control so much. I even control the tempo when I go to sleep — never go to sleep angry at someone, especially your spouse. A good friend of mine went to sleep after an argument with his wife and never woke up. I will never leave her that way. So I get up on a positive note, even if I've been getting kicked in the you-know-what for eighteen hours, and I go, "Be great today, be a bitch tomorrow." I'm going to relax, and when I get up the next day, I'm going to do the best I can. And that's how a nobody kid from Baltimore, an Irish kid, is running with the big dogs — because I know the true acronym of TEAM. It's not "together everybody accomplishes more." TEAM is Trust, Effort, Attitude, Mission. Trust in yourself, your wife, your kids. Effort — don't give me 100%, give me everything you have and then some. Attitude — nothing opens or closes a door like a good or bad attitude, in all three fields of your life. And Mission is physical, mental, emotional, social, spiritual, and financial growth.

Once you learn how to tackle that — focus on family, fitness, finances, faith, teamwork, problem-solving, leadership, communication, keep it simple stupid — you will succeed in life, because otherwise the world is a complicated place. I focus on me and my few, the people I know. The more you know, the more you'll grow. The more you know about yourself, the more you test and challenge yourself, the more you put yourself in the emotional red and the emotional blue. Do hard stuff, and be thankful you have the opportunity to do hard stuff. People say, "Ray, it can't be this easy." It is. I'm living proof. I'm probably one of the most simplistic people you'll meet — I'm not saying I'm an idiot, I just keep it simple. I'm like an old '69 Camaro with 700 horsepower under the hood and an old carburetor — she's old-school, she's simple. I don't need a lot of fancy technology to still run a solid quarter mile. The problem with the world is everybody's trying to find a better, easier way. You just have to find the right way. Everybody's trying to find shortcuts — there are no shortcuts to success. Trust hard work.

An Extraordinary Follower Makes an Extraordinary Leader

Tom Rowland: So many of the things you just went over — I actually have them all written down, because I wanted to make sure we discussed them. The first thing was, when I did an after-action review of SEALFIT Kokoro — everything there is about being a team. You were punished when you weren't a team, and rewarded when you became one. And one of the things that stuck with me, in big letters, was that in order to be an extraordinary leader, you must be an extraordinary follower. That changed a lot for me in business — if you're going to empower people to do things for the mission, you have to support them, be their number-one cheerleader, and be the best follower. You're being a leader by being a follower.

Ray Cash Care: Yes. That's exactly what I want people to take away.

Tom Rowland: It was a hard lesson, and some people ask why you'd go to a beach in California and let Navy SEALs beat the crap out of you. Because you go through those exercises to learn that you're the leader — okay, you're the biggest, the strongest, the fastest, let's do it this way — and then you do what you can to help however it works, and you create the best team, because you're a leader and not everybody is going all over the place. I take that back into my business: in order to be an effective leader, you must be an effective follower. The other thing was the way you wake up in the morning, which you were just talking about. Do you know Brad McLeod?

Ray Cash Care: I love Brad. Love Brad McLeod.

Tom Rowland: He was my coach going into SEALFIT Kokoro, and one of the things he always talked about, which I loved and incorporated into my life every single morning, is that the first step you take out of bed is "thank," and the next step is "you" — thank you, thank you, all the way to the bathroom while you brush your teeth. What you've done there, just like you said, is program yourself for gratitude. I'm happy I'm here today, thank you for this opportunity. What an effect that had, doing it three hundred sixty-five days a year for years at a time — every morning, the first thing you think is thank you. So thank you, Brad McLeod. So many of the things you've touched on are lessons I learned from those two experiences. Your motto for life had seven points of performance, right?

The Seven Points of Performance: C.O.N.Q.U.E.R.

Ray Cash Care: My seven points of performance spell out "conquer." The symbolism is for anyone who's ever shot a weapon — there are seven points of performance to become a marksman: the grip, the stance, the follow-through, the breathing, the trigger control, and so on. For those who've never shot a weapon, think of it as the ingredients to bake whatever it is you're making. My job and my business isn't making people money — it's making people better from the inside out. If you believe in yourself, you will achieve whatever you set out to accomplish, as long as the goals are realistic.

C is for Clock — that's time management, and I give three drills for how you can make the most of your day. O is for Obligation, which is your four F-bombs: family, fitness, finances, faith. N is for Non-Negotiables — there is no plan B. There are contingencies for plan A, but the minute you start having a plan B, you're already getting off the path of plan A. I'm going to consume every resource I can to become the best version of myself. If I physically or medically can't do something, I'll come up with an alternative plan A — maybe I'll become a diver, or something else — but there's no "if I don't." It's "when I do."

Q is for Quit — in order to be successful, the first thing you have to do is look in the mirror and quit the excuses. If you're not where you want to be in life, I don't blame you, but if you don't use the knowledge you're given and seek out subject-matter experts and still don't make a change, then it's completely your fault, because if you don't change anything, nothing's going to change. U is for Unlock — unlock is "unleash the worry within," and that's where you create your MOL, your motto of life. My daughter's is "I'm a champion, I'm a winner." My wife's is "I may not always win, but I'll never lose, because I'll never quit." You have to come up with something you believe in, something that resonates with you.

E is for Educate yourself — be the sponge. If something interests you, read about it, listen to the audiobook. When you get in the car, turn off the radio and the news, and put on an audiobook. When you go to bed, read instead of watching TV. My wife and I are thinking about going to Greece someday, so we're reading about the history of Greece together — she reads ten pages, I read five, and we discuss it for thirty minutes before bed. We do our own quick AAR, an after-action report, we debrief, we talk about it, and we go to bed with our minds full of good, retained knowledge. And last is R, for Repetition. This twenty-one-day or ninety-day habit-formation idea is the biggest load of nonsense I've ever heard. You didn't become a professional fisherman in twenty-one or ninety days — there's always more to learn, every single day, as a father, as a human, as anything. We're constantly growing. We're like the universe.

No Days Off

If you want to be a great human being — I don't care what you are, what color you are, where you're from, who you vote for — you need to understand it's not twenty-four hours a day, it's twenty-five hours a day; it's not seven days a week, it's eight; because as a human being, we don't get days off. People ask what I do when I go on vacation. Have you ever gone on vacation with your family?

Tom Rowland: Oh, yeah, of course.

Ray Cash Care: You're still the savage and the servant — you're still protecting your family. There's never a day I just take off. I could be laying in bed sick, and if someone's breaking into my house, I'm getting up, because I'm still the man of the house. The minute human beings realize they don't get a day off — because every day is a gift — they'll be more successful. People say that doesn't work with fitness. It does. Even on Sundays I do active recovery. I don't just sit around and do nothing unless I'm sick, and even then I can't wait to get better, because I'm so pissed off about what I'm missing out on — what relationships, what opportunities. I give people homework: go meet three people a day. You might meet your soulmate, your new best friend, a business opportunity, or just someone amazing — or you might meet someone who's miserable, and you might change their life. It's all about making an impact. That's all I want to do in this life.

I'll give you a case in point. I see the wedding ring on your finger — I'm married too. My wife isn't the first woman I've ever been with, and she won't be the last one I remember, if you know what I mean, but then once in a blue moon a meteorite comes down that's so big and so powerful that even the atmosphere doesn't burn it up. That's my wife. Two kids later, my universe keeps expanding — I'm a grandfather now. It all starts with having a great mental, physical, and emotional attitude about life. You need to get up every day and realize you're blessed. If you don't, shame on you, because there are so many people doing so much worse. Don't focus on the people doing better than you — focus on where you are and where you want to go. I don't get jealous of people posting pictures of nice cars. If I don't have the Lamborghini, that's on me — I just need to work harder. Right now, I don't have the desire for one. I'm old-school. Keep it simple, stupid.

Finding Abundance in Every Area of Life

Tom Rowland: One of the things I was drawn to in your message — I've learned a tremendous amount from a lot of people in your community, from Jocko, from David Goggins, all these different voices, and they're all different. But one thing that really resonates with me in your message is abundance in every area of your life. You could be a really great businessman and have a terrible family life. You could have a great family life and a horrible job with no money. But to have abundance in every area seems overwhelming to a lot of people. How did you come to realize you could have abundance and excellence across all these areas and achieve true happiness?

Ray Cash Care: Because I came from nothing, and I never had it. Everybody who doesn't find joy in what they're doing is looking for the wrong stuff — the million-dollar house, the Barbie-doll wife. Abundance isn't materialistic. What works for you may not work for me. Bedros Keuilian gave me the best piece of advice I ever got — he said you need to be a man who takes his family on three vacations: one, because you have to; two, because you want to; and three, because you're the man. Those vacations don't have to be Tahiti — it could be renting a place at the ocean for a hundred bucks, turning off the phone, and spending a day with your family. That's empowering. In business, you're not always going to close the million-dollar deal — are you making million-dollar relationships? I just focus on the bare minimums to be successful, with daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals. That's how I create abundance and balance. You're not going to get all three every day. But you can't let one category slide — I've been guilty of that in business. My wife told me we hadn't had a real vacation in two years, so this year we're taking two vacations instead of the usual one. Next year, hopefully three. How did I learn that? My wife called me out on my BS. You need people in your life, a support system, who will do that.

My wife calls me out on my BS all the time. I don't want people just telling me how awesome I am — I want people telling me how I can improve. That's what's so great about having a boss like Bedros. When I first met him, I gave a speech and asked how I did. He said, "You did great." I said, "Really? You're a $50,000 speaker, I was a $5,000 speaker at the time." He said, "You want me to be honest?" I said yes, and he told me straight. I said, "I just got $50,000 worth of advice for free — thank you." That's how we kind of met. Be open to constructive criticism. If you're not where you want to be, it's probably ninety percent your fault. The other ten percent might be that you're surrounding yourself with the wrong people. For every negative person in your life, you need seven positive ones. Be aware if you're out of shape because you're not prioritizing your time. Be aware if you say you're spending time with your family but you've got your phone glued to you — you're really not. The more in tune you are with yourself, the more aware you'll be of the things that matter. You need relationships built on real communication — transmitting and receiving, open dialogue, constructive criticism. I do an AAR with my family every Sunday: what did I do well, what can I do better, what's one thing I did good and two things I need to work on. I always want more room for improvement than credit for what I did well, because life is about improving. I'm always tweaking that carburetor, making it perfect — same as you adjusting your fishing tackle for different conditions. You need different tools in the tool bag. And that's how you catch the picture of your dreams. That's what I do every day — I'm chasing my dreams, and my dreams and goals keep changing, like tastebuds.

Seeking Mentors and Refusing to Peak

Tom Rowland: I like that you're really open about finding mentors at this stage of your life. Bedros is obviously a very important person to you. For somebody who's had great success in the military, you could think, well, if I can do that, I can do anything. But business is maybe similar in a lot of ways, maybe not, and you went and found another mentor. How important is it to seek out a mentor even after you've already found success?

Ray Cash Care: The reason you seek out mentors is because you never want to peak. You can be at the top of your game, but your game isn't the game — that's how I look at it. My "top of my game" at one point was a decent relationship with my wife, making $150,000 a year, deploying overseas half my life. I was really good at that, but I thought, there's got to be more — how can I make more money, spend more time at home, have a better relationship with my wife, get in better shape? So I started looking around and listening to people. I heard about Bedros, I heard about another guy named Steve Eckert. I'm the kind of guy who just reaches out — "Hey, my name's so-and-so, I'm a former operator, I was wondering if we could get on a call." With Bedros it worked out because I opened for him at a speaking event and we hit it off. But I've reached out to plenty of people cold on social media — I've messaged Mr. Olympia Phil Heath, seven-time Mr. Olympia, just saying, "Hey, I've got a couple of workout questions." He checked me out. Gunnar Peterson, fitness and business people — I just reach out and say, "My name's this, I do this for a living, I'm looking to be a better human being, do you have four or five minutes for a call?"

Tom Rowland: How often do you get rejected on something like that?

Ray Cash Care: Not as much as you think. The hardest part is building up the courage to do it.

Tom Rowland: That's actually one of the reasons I started this podcast — now I have a reason to contact someone like you and have an hour-long conversation with somebody I'd maybe never meet otherwise. I've only had one rejection.

Ray Cash Care: What I've learned, and what most people who've been through it will say, is — I remember early on, someone told me, "You're hungry." And I said, "Sir, with all due respect, I'm not hungry, I'm effing starving. I'm starving for knowledge, feed me." And he did. It's all about being loyal with people, the same thing I learned in the military — what I learned in the military applies in life. I work with Steve Eckert, and it's the two of us, like the ops chiefs — we get things done, we hold ourselves accountable. One of the biggest lessons Bedros taught me is when you mess up, you have to fess up. I made a mistake recently that wasted an hour of his time — and his time is worth as much as I make in a year for that hour. He asked why I wasted his time, and I took a breath and said, "Sir, I take full responsibility for what I did, here's why it's never going to happen again, and here's what I'm going to do to make sure of it." All he wrote back was, "Thank you." Imagine if the world just took more accountability for itself.

I take full accountability for where I am. I'm doing much better financially now, but I'm still hard on myself — I'm my own best and worst critic. Some people call it sensitive, some call it aggressive, I call it passionate. I like where I am and where I'm going. I'm not deploying overseas anymore, I get to spend more time with my family, and at 50 I think I'm in the top third percent of how I've felt in my life. I'm grateful, not greedy — the only thing I'm greedy with is my "why," and my why is to be a better me. I'm selfish when it comes to being a better version of myself, but selfless with the people around me. There's so much good content and so many good people putting things out there, but the problem is people don't implement it into their day — they hear the Navy SEAL talk and go right back to their old life, wondering why nothing changed. What you're doing with this podcast is a service — people sign up, listen, and get little nuggets out of it. If somebody takes one thing home from an hour of conversation and puts it in their tool bag, that's a win. That's why I listen to as many podcasts as I can — I'm rebuilding my pack to be bigger, better, faster, stronger, and I'm going to be more successful in the next fifty years than I was in the first fifty, because I refuse to peak. When I die, I want people to remember I was a human being who made an impact on this world.

Raising a Daughter as the Savage and the Servant

Tom Rowland: I love that. I have a daughter too — just got back from an incredible fishing trip with her, just the two of us for two days, some of the best time we've ever spent together. I want to ask you about raising daughters as an alpha. Where's the line between protector and nurturer — being the sensitive person and being the alpha protector? Your daughter's a four-time state champion in gymnastics, at least the last time I heard. You clearly have a very good relationship with her. It could be easy for someone of your stature to be intimidating to everyone around, including her — but you're not. How do you find that comfortable place where you're supportive and positive without being overbearing?

Ray Cash Care: It's actually easier with my daughter than it was with my son, because my son felt like he was living in my shadow. I think the key is, number one, she sees how I treat mama. My wife is five-three, maybe a hundred and ten pounds, and my beard is this length because she grabs it — I love it. In our house, everybody knows their roles and responsibilities. If I'm not home, my son is the man of the house when he's there. My job, and what I've taught my daughter, is that I am the man of the house, and my job is to be the savage and the servant — savage to protect if I need to, servant to serve them. I'm a double-edged sword. Mama is also a protector, and my daughter has to understand that too.

The reason I have a great relationship with my daughter is because I have a great relationship with my wife — she sees that and she expects that. I've opened the car door for my daughter since the day I wheeled her out of the hospital with mama. She's 13 now, and if I forget, she'll say, "Excuse me, daddy?" She has a lot of my wife's mannerisms. A few months ago, I was walking with her at school, and she's 13, so I know it's not exactly typical to hold your daughter's hand at that age — she grabbed my hand, saw some kids looking, and pulled her hand away. I asked what was wrong, and she said she didn't want the kids to make fun of her for holding her dad's hand. I told her, "What you should ask them is why their dad doesn't want to hold their hand." She held my hand again after that. I think it's about making her feel comfortable knowing that yes, daddy will protect and provide, and I am very protective of her when it comes to boys. There's a little boy who likes her right now, and I had a talk with him — I pulled him aside and said, "I'm not around, you're in charge of her, and if you can't handle that…" I gave him a few choice words, and his response was, "Yes, sir."

I think it's how you deliver the message. A real man is comfortable showing his emotions, comfortable being vulnerable, comfortable being a dork if that's what it takes to put a smile on that little girl's face — because he's secure enough to know he can flip the switch if he has to. I will kill for my family, but I will also do whatever it takes to put a smile on her face, because that's the role I took on the day I got on a knee and asked my wife's father — a man the size of Nebraska — if I could marry her. Being a hard-ass doesn't do anything except make you a hard-ass. It's okay to laugh, it's okay to cry, it's okay to tell people you love them. My son is 27, and I still hug him, still kiss him on the cheek — if somebody doesn't like that, come talk to me. I will hold my daughter's hand until I can't anymore. I tell my daughter and my wife I love them every morning, and I tell them they're beautiful every day. I thank my wife every day for being a stay-at-home mother — she's the reason I have great kids, the reason I can go out and do what I do, the reason I've doubled my income, because I have a great support team at home.

My daughter understands the give-and-take at this age — daddy can't be here for this event, but it's because he's doing this for us. I might miss one of her events because I'm taking her, mama, and her friend to Cancun for five days, and when I ask her, "Would you rather I go to your event, or go to Cancun?" she says, "Daddy, you go." It's about having that dialogue with your children so they know you're well-rounded. Mama handles ninety-nine percent of the discipline; if I have to step in, it's because there are outside circumstances I need to handle. But other than that, be vulnerable with the people you love, especially your daughters, because they're going to look for a man who's similar to you. I want her to find a man who opens the car door for her even though she can do it herself — who treats her like a queen, tells her she's beautiful every day. She expects it. She deserves it.

On Masculinity and "Harden Up, America"

Tom Rowland: I know your time is valuable, so I just want to finish with one more question. So much of what you're talking about could be called old-school — it's a very masculine message, and I love it, because it's exactly the message I try to put out too. It's not the message we're being told today through the media, and it's not the message children are being told in school. In your opinion, how did we get to this place where we're being told you shouldn't be masculine, you shouldn't be the protector? And how do we push back against that and create our own message?

Ray Cash Care: Good question. I don't know exactly how we got here, but I think it all started with the internet and social media platforms, where people can hide behind fake accounts, and the cyberbullying that comes with that. I don't know where it's going to go, but all I know is I'm going to teach my children and my own universe what I was taught. Think about it — back in the day, we didn't even have cell phones, and I'd jump on my bike and ride fourteen miles to go get a milkshake and meet a girl. Young men had a verbal or physical confrontation, and it was over, done. I don't know how or why the world has gotten softer, but if you watch what's happening globally, other countries are testing our weakness. If we don't make a change soon, it's only a matter of time before that comes here. We've never been invaded because we've got water on both sides and a strong navy, and because we've always been the dominant force — but right now, we don't have the strongest leadership. Junkyard dogs always challenge the big dog when they think the big dog is injured, and right now we look injured. So what am I going to do? I'm going to stay vigilant. My wife, my daughter, and my son all know how to shoot, how to survive in the wilderness, how to protect themselves physically, and they're going to stay on the course my wife and I set for them.

I don't get political and I don't get religious on here, and I'm not going to change my values to please anyone. This is my body, and this is America — we've been given choices, and it feels like those choices and freedoms are being taken away, and I'm not going to be part of that. If people want to make certain choices, by all means, go ahead — that's their business. If I think you're a guy, I'll call you sir; if I think you're a lady, I'll call you ma'am, and if that offends someone, I'm not going to change. I'm 50 years old, I'm set in my ways. This is the greatest country on the planet — I've been to a lot of countries — and we need to make changes to keep it that way. I'm not saying it's about one person in office versus another. I'm saying we need to toughen up.

Tom Rowland: The only thing I've heard recently is that if there's a nuclear explosion, you're supposed to wear a mask in the shelter and stay six feet apart, because that stress on top of the stress of the pandemic could be a problem. That came out just yesterday.

Ray Cash Care: A nuclear fallout — that's exactly what I'm talking about. Harden up, America. If you don't like the message, tough. Work out. If your kids do good in school, listen to your parents. Stick to your guns, stick to your morals, help people out, be positive, be motivated. Even though we're going through a lot of stuff right now, realize we still live in the greatest nation. If you don't believe me, go to Iraq, go to Afghanistan, go to Yemen, go to Syria, and see how you feel when you come back.

Where to Find Ray Cash Care

Tom Rowland: Well, Ray, I appreciate your time today. I really like your message, and you're helping a tremendous amount of people — you're to be honored for that. Thank you. If people want to get coaching from you, or connect with you, how do they do that?

Ray Cash Care: You can go to raycashcare.com and fill out a booking to work with me, or find me at Ray Cash Care on Instagram. Hit me up, send me a DM — keep it clean, keep it fun, and I will respond to every single DM personally. That's @raycashcare, or raycashcare.com.

Tom Rowland: And you've got 500 savages right here who just did 10,000 push-ups.

Ray Cash Care: We're doing the power hour this Saturday, on my birthday, March 5th, 10 AM Eastern time.

Tom Rowland: Right on — Saturday at 10 AM. Get ready: 22 push-ups on the minute, every minute, for sixty minutes. That's it for today. Thank you again, Ray, I really appreciate that, and we will be back next week with another awesome guest. Thanks. See you.