Jason:
The Overcome and Conquer Show is presented by The Project. The Project is a full immersion, 75 hour experience designed for men who know in their core they’re not living up to their fullest potential. Rather than waking up every morning ready to dominate life, the mediocre man rolls out of bed and slides into the same unfulfilling routine they’ve unhappily been in for way too long.

Jason:
The Project is for men that have lost their internal flame and motivation to conquer. It’s for men living an unfulfilling life that lacks excitement and purpose. Sound familiar? Then listen up. The Project is specifically designed to challenge you mentally and physically. We push you to the ledge of self limiting beliefs and prove you’ve got much more in the tank. We kill the bitch and unleash the beast. We uncover the demons that holds you back and turn extreme pain into superpowers to dominate life. In the end, we turn mediocre men into modern day knights.

Jason:
We forged a brotherhood and bond that levels you up as a better husband, father, and friend, but the Project is not for every man. In fact, it’s not for most. For men who are okay with being in a run and achieving less than their fullest potential, the Project isn’t for you. If you’re not willing to put in the work to fix what isn’t working, the Project isn’t for you. However, if you’re done white knuckling through life, living one day at a time with no sense of purpose and are willing to do what it takes to improve, the Project holds the key to unlocking the next chapter.

Jason:
Graduates of the Project join a brotherhood of modern day nights and become the authors of their destiny. They are their fire reignited and reclaim dominance over their family, fitness, finances, and faith. If this resonates with you and you want to learn more, we encourage you to apply today at wwwdotmdkproject.com/OC show.

Speaker 2:
Everybody wants to be on top of the hill. The problem nowadays is people want to get dropped off at the top of the hill and not down.

Speaker 3:
Is that I overcome mindset that makes all the difference.

Speaker 4:
See, the way we’re taught is you’re going to crawl, you’re going to scratch, you’re going to bite, you’re going to dig, you’re going to do what ever it takes to get to the top of that mountain.

Speaker 5:
That unequivocally is how I have managed to keep myself moving forward and finding success.

Speaker 6:
Two seals, one mission. The Overcome and Conquer Show.

Jason:
Hey, welcome back to the Overcome and Conquer show. This is an amazing episode for all of you out there who are infatuated by the… Ray, I describe you always as a Greek god, but those out there who are inspired by the Greek gods of the United States Navy seal teams, this episode is going to be all about that today because we absolutely have an amazing guest, a great friend, dude, are you rocking your bobblehead?

Darren:
Yes.

Jason:
Except you have a picture of your bobblehead head as opposed to the actual bobblehead.

Darren:
Because-

Jason:
Without the bobblehead being here that’s called gear adrift, isn’t it?

Darren:
No, because when I bring it, everybody wants to steal it because everybody wants to be me.

Ray:
Two is one, one is none. There should actually be two Ray Cash Care bobbleheads.

Jason:
Yeah, you need one. You need one. Yeah.

Ray:
You know what? That’s all I’m saying, man.

Jason:
Well, we got it made in Japan and it took like four years to get, so we don’t know how to do this again without… I thought it was a done deal.

Ray:
Well, and I did realize that when they made it, I mean it looks like they put your head on top of my body.

Darren:
They don’t have a steroid version. I asked then that, they didn’t get it.

Jason:
Man, it’s really sad. I’m sad when I look at your bobblehead. Anyway, back to the show. Holy shit. We got a great friend and teammate who absolutely is doing some amazing things out there. As a matter of fact, I am sure that there are some of you out there that has seen his amazing, amazing book on Uncommon Grit, which they gave him unprecedented access to United States Navy seal training budge. And it wasn’t just him taking pictures, he has got the most incredible eye photography and he catches these incredible images of guys going through training.

Jason:
So even if you’ve never been through training, even if you just have an appreciation for the hardship, the resiliency, you have to go through this training, these pictures are incredible. And I tell you what, for us, for myself and Ray, when we went through training, when I rode around on Ray’s shoulders for those seven months, those glorious months.

Darren:
Thank you.

Jason:
As we went through training together, it brings back a lot of memories. So today I think we’re going to have a lot of fun getting into this. But without further ado, I would like to introduce our amazing guests Mr. Darren McBurnett AKA McBee, also known as McTeams. You guys, I got to read you his bio because-

Ray:
It’s impressive.

Jason:
…he truly is a modern day renaissance man. And a lot of people that don’t know anything about the seal teams, I think they think that we’re all like Ray, just knuckle draggers. But we are not. I love you brother.

Ray:
That hurts. Proceed.

Jason:
No, seriously though there are some incredibly intelligent, very eclectic individuals that have been out there that have just been there and done some incredible things and McBee is one of these individuals. So he holds a bachelor of arts degree from Purdue University, high school MVP and state honors in multiple sports, cross country track, indoor track, swimming. He’s completed hundreds of road races and listen, he’s one of these guys that started his naval career later. We’re going to get into why that was, but he didn’t even join the Navy until he was 24-years-old. He went through seal training at 26 which I got to let you guys know that is an old man to go through training.

Darren:
Geriatric.

Jason:
Yeah. I mean he doesn’t come close to the record. I do believe the record was 40 I think.

Darren:
Ken Grieves wasn’t it? Ken Grieves was like 38 or something. That guy was a stunt double or something like that.

Jason:
I think 40 is the record. But still, I mean anything above about 22 you are feeling the pain of every day going through training.

Ray:
Yeah. I felt it.

Jason:
Every day. Like for me, I was 18 I was made out of rubber, but I still felt it.

Darren:
It’s like you should get a senior citizen discount or something. You should cut a week off or something.

Jason:
You automatically get AARP when you check in BUD/S and you’re over 24. But he went on to an amazing career in the seal team, seal platoon leader, senior enlisted advisor, worked at multiple East Coast seal teams. Was a free fall instructor, received a ton of awards and now he is out there spreading an amazing message of motivation and inspiration working for other nonprofits to highlight the sacrifice of our brothers and sisters that had been lost and those who have been wounded.

Jason:
But I tell you what, what he is known for today, what he is really getting out there is highlighting his incredible photography. He’s got some big things coming with this book and prints that are coming out. You guys absolutely want to find it but it is my tremendous honor to have on our friend, teammate, modern day renaissance, all around, good looking stellar individual. McBee.

Darren:
Yes. Thank you. That was really cool. I was waiting for like smoke, open fire going on and-

Ray:
It’s coming. Don’t worry.

Darren:
That was a great thing.

Jason:
They had that post.

Darren:
I was just wondering.

Ray:
Bigger sponsors, that shit comes, it’s coming. Don’t worry.

Darren:
Yeah. It’s coming. I’m sponsoring that. Man, I feel like the rock coming down WWF and stuff, so freaking awesome. But thanks for having me. It was really fantastic. It’s just there’s… Something huge I like to think I was like synchronicity, change of the purpose.

Darren:
And the other day I was just basically, I don’t know, basically just screwing around and I just happened to turn on Instagram and Ray was live like literally, what is it yesterday? I’m like, “Oh, look at that. There’s Ray, he’s back on.” I love watching right in the morning when he’s driving to the gym and then-

Ray:
Hold on, hold on, hold on. Stop, stop, stop, stop. I need you to tell the entire world, tell the entire world, the entire world, I was the third person he followed after two other people and before Jason Redmond. So I want the world to hear because we just talked to him at lunch.

Jason:
Did I even have an account then?

Darren:
I don’t think you did, man.

Ray:
Doesn’t fucking matter. That’s not relevant. What’s relevant is the captain was first, but tell them who and what order you followed on Instagram because of their awesomeness. Go.

Darren:
All right, here we go. Instagram was just an amazing thing. Rob O’Neil started me on Instagram.

Ray:
Who’s that?

Darren:
Just Rob. Just in his own Navy seal Rob O’Neil.

Jason:
Obviously he’s Irish. Has he done something?

Darren:
Yeah.

Jason:
His name sounds familiar.

Ray:
He’s a very good shot. That’s what he is. He’s really good. He won skit match.

Jason:
Didn’t he like kill someone?

Darren:
He did. He did and he deserved it.

Ray:
Yeah, he did. That’s awesome.

Darren:
But what I loved about Rob is even at BUD/S he was shooting 300 perfect scores at the island and now all the island instructor staff are looking at them and Rob was like, whatever. We were in a bar in New York city, believe it or not, having booze.

Ray:
No.

Darren:
I know. Say it isn’t so. So him and I were drinking and I showed him there’s two people. There’s two people that saw these photographs right off the bat when I had like 10 of them done. Rob O’Neil was one and I showed Ray the other one. It was Kid Rock. That’s in order of the people that saw the photographs. And Rob was like, “We’ll start you an Instagram account.” He goes on there, we make it up.

Ray:
Wait. Kid Rock was third?

Darren:
No. Not on following Instagram.

Ray:
Check. Okay.

Jason:
We’re not even getting to that. I’m two right now. Don’t worry. It’s gone. Sorry. I don’t want to steal your glory. Hang on. Should I highlight this for a second? So ladies and gentlemen, let me get my announcer voice. So ladies and gentlemen, I just want to highlight that Ray crash-

Darren:
Cash.

Jason:
That Ray Cash Care was number two.

Ray:
To Rob O’Neill, hey, I’ll fucking take it. I’ll take that any day. And I was a barn burner with Kid Rock. So continue please.

Darren:
It was hilarious. So Rob’s like, well, let’s start you on Instagram. I’m like, “What the hell is that?” And he goes, social. I’m like, dude, what is it? He starts my account. I will call you McTeams because that’s what we did in teams. I’m like, “Okay.” Well, you got a three or four, two next day. I’m like, “All right, I don’t give a shit. Now what do you do?” And he’s like, “Okay, well let’s upload that one.” I’m like, “All right.” Here, let me give you some followers. He goes to his Instagram account, “Hey follow McTeams3842 and like 1100 followers literally 24 hours. I’m like, “Now what do I do?” He goes, “We’ll, just post your pictures and talk about them.”

Ray:
Post pictures.

Darren:
And so I had no idea what it was. I would like post one every two weeks and every week I went, there’d be more and more follower.

Ray:
Rookie.

Darren:
I had no idea what to do. And I’m like, “Who do I follow?” And the Rob’s like, so I apparently I follow Rob and Jessica O’Neil’s wife, and I started like searching through Instagram just I don’t know what the fuck the thing is. It’s like what is this? And then I saw Ray Cash, he’s like-

Ray:
Ray Cash.

Darren:
I saw this guy looks freaking awesome. He’s tinged. I’m going to follow that guy.

Jason:
Ryan, producer Ryan, please, Ray’s head is growing beyond what the studio can hold.

Ray:
It is. It is.

Jason:
Can you release a little pressure.

Ray:
He’s staring at himself around here.

Jason:
Don’t you cut that shit out.

Ray:
The pressure release valve, make sure it’s working.

Darren:
And so after I started following and then I press more photos. I didn’t know who to follow. At one point I had like 6,000 followers and I was following like four people then I felt like a douche bag because I’m like, “I should follow people.” I don’t know. What do I do? And so then Samantha Bonilla, she started following me, so I start following her. Then Mikey, Forged Mike and then Forge because I started doing stuff with them-

Jason:
Awesome dudes.

Darren:
…and then I started building from there. But Ray was like number three. I know we said two, we can put them at two, but he was like three.

Jason:
Wait. You just got dropped a number two.

Darren:
Yeah, it was Rob and his wife Jessica and then Ray. That’s pretty much.

Ray:
Technically, they’re a team so I was second. It doesn’t matter. Team O’Neil then me.

Jason:
All right. Let’s move on. So before we get into the meat and potatoes of this interview because I think we’re going to get into… there’s going to be a lot of fun here just hearing about your journey to where you came to, and guys I cannot stress how absolutely amazing these pictures are. After this podcast you need to look it up. You need to look up Uncommon Grit and it is going to be, I don’t want to steal your thunder. We’ll, get at the end of the show.

Darren:
I like you voice.

Jason:
I want you to tell-

Darren:
Your voice sounds really cool. I’m wow.

Jason:
My voice sounds very cool. Ray tells me that too.

Ray:
It does.

Jason:
He asks me to call him late at night.

Darren:
I could just say, yeah, it’s like the color taupe. It’s soothing.

Jason:
Well, he calls me at night and he says will you talk to-

Ray:
Will you talk to me.

Jason:
…will you talk to me before I go to bed. I always ask him what he’s wearing.

Ray:
Khakis.

Jason:
Usually nothing I’m sure. Maybe we should talk about the Halloween party, but we won’t keep going.

Jason:
So as we do with any show, we have our word of the day and I tell you what, I love this word because I love individuals who are totally transparent in their lives and they don’t put on any fronts, they’re just like, “Hey man, this is who I am.” I try to be that way. I try and say, “Hey man, I messed up. I make these mistakes.” I’m all about it. And just I think people can relate to that. And McBee was the same way. So Mr. Care-

Ray:
Yes, sir.

Jason:
…would you do us the honors for the word of the day and then we’re going to kick it right back over to you so that you can tell us why, McBee, this is your word.

Ray:
Hey, this is Ray Cash Care. Today, the word of the day is, this is a great word, and this is you brother, it’s eccentric. eccentric of a person or their behavior. So it means unconventional and, or slightly strange. So what does that mean to you?

Darren:
That’s 100% me man. I’ve always been a weirdo. I’ll be honest with you. I always have, it’s just who I am. I’ve just kind of grew up in the 80s. I was an eighties kid and you know what? I grew up watching Flintstones and the Jetsons and play outside and play with those Star Wars figures. I was in my own little world. That’s the thing about me is I’ve been living in my own head for years and years and years. It’s probably why I’m all weird.

Ray:
You know what I love about that story, he said plays outside. Not computers. I love it. Keep going. Sorry.

Darren:
I played outside, man.

Jason:
He had me on Star Wars. I mean I’m a classic sci-fi geek.

Darren:
Yeah. I was a fan until episode one came out. Good Lord. Anyway, that’s a whole-

Jason:
Wait. Yeah. Just ignore that whole series.

Darren:
…that’s a whole nother episode. If we are going to remotely talk about this and then we’ll leave it alone. I just want Ray to be the offspring of Darth Maul. That’s it. That’s all I’m asking for.

Jason:
Wait, wait. Ray in not the offspring of Darth Maul?

Darren:
I hope that she is.

Jason:
I always thought he was. Ray, you’re here.

Ray:
Three seals picking on one guy.

Jason:
What was the other definition of eccentric? Wasn’t it kinky.

Ray:
Yeah, that’s my word. Kinky. Yeah, you are dude. You’re a freak, but you’re freak in a great way and we love you. If you guys don’t know who McTeams is, you don’t realize. I’m a wide guy. I’m five foot seven, 200 fucking pounds and McTeams literally came to the house and like barely fits through the fucking front door. I mean, his shoulders, ladies and gentlemen are like this big and I had this giant extra large shirt for him and it’s not happening.

Darren:
Not even close.

Ray:
Not even close.

Jason:
Well, what’s so funny, a lot of people don’t realize, I think people think that the average seal out there are these great big dudes, and don’t get me wrong, we have some big dudes in the teams, but for the most part big guys have a hard time making it through training. It just bashes their joints.

Ray:
You’re right. I thought the same.

Darren:
I’ve always been a bigger dude.

Jason:
Producer Ryan.

Ray:
I thought they’d be all really big.

Jason:
Yeah, every body thinks-

Ray:
No, but they’re not.

Jason:
I’ll be honest. It’s kind of funny because I go speak at events and people who have never seen me-

Darren:
You were a seal?

Jason:
Exactly. I get that so often. People look at me and it’s like the wind gets out of their sails. They’re like disappointed to meet me, they’re like, “You were a seal?”

Ray:
We’re going to back to him here one second. I’m going to quote something from a movie because it’s us, “I thought you’d be bigger.” We are the daltons of the Navy seals.

Darren:
Oh my God. Well, I get that too. But I’m like, “Yeah, you look like you had been a seal but you’re a little fat.” And I’m like, “Gee, thanks. Thanks. I’m working on it.” I was big at BUD/S. As a matter of fact, I’m probably much sure that I gained weight in hell week. But I’ve always been a swimmer and all that stuff, so thank God they had a swimming at seal training. But anything about BUD/S is simply this the question I get the most was, “Did you always want to be a Navy seal? Was it your life whole dream?” I’m like, “No, I got bamboozled into it. I don’t even know what the hell was.” The hell is that. Like I said, I got in the Navy first I was a corpsman, so I went to a HMA school in San Diego.

Jason:
Let’s back up for a second because I do want to hear this path. I mean, you obviously you’re a self proclaimed a centric. So you walked a path. I mean, you have a bachelor of arts degree.

Darren:
Arts that should tell you need to know right there.

Jason:
That says a lot about the creative nature of how your mind works and how you ended up. So who were you as a kid and how did you grow and find yourself at 24-years-old saying, “Hey, the Navy sounds good and oh, by the way, I’d like to go get my skull kicked for seven months in the hardest in the world.”

Darren:
I got tricked. Like I said I played outside a lot, just a kid, I used to draw pictures all the time. And I was very artistic. I’ve always been artistic. I always liked to play Dungeons and dragons. And then I’d take the dungeon and I’d like draw the dragon and things like that. So that’s always been my life at junior school. But I was always a flake in high school. I graduated high school with a straight C average, but I always doodle all the time. I couldn’t pay attention for nothing. But I did like-

Jason:
So did you totally connect with the show Stranger Things? Were you like, “I love this show.”

Darren:
Yeah. That’s Perfect. But in high school I did gravitate to athletics. So I started out with cross country, to track that led to swimming. The indoor track led to triathlons. I ran the Boston marathon in 87 as just a regular… we lived down in Inner City Boston. And so probably YMCA where I started training for my first iron man, I’d run up, swim, and then run, anyway long story short, I was like, hey, we’re the inner city youth group that initiates youth athletics out of like crime and things like that. So yeah, I’ll do that. I’m an Irish kid here in an Irish neighborhood, so the YMCA took a busload of us all the way down to the Boston marathon. And they said this, we gave out Exceed. You remember the Exceed drinks way back in the day. So they’re like, “Hey, give all these runners Exceed.” And they’re just like, you can run the marathon if you want to.

Darren:
So they gave us these jackets and we were out of Exceed like in five minutes. And I was like, “Well, I’m going to go run that.” So I ran it, got done in like three and a half hours and then made to the red line, went to the orange line, took two buses home, took a shower, ate a bowl of chili and watch an episode of Star Trek, the next generation that just came out.

Jason:
I want to let anybody know that like three and a half hours is a good time for a marathon, anything below four hours is a pretty good time for a marathon.

Darren:
But that was what I did though. So the next year I did like my first Ironman. And so I was always very athletic, but I couldn’t pay attention for shit when it came to schooling, which is hilarious.

Jason:
You were destined for the teams.

Darren:
Yeah, I was destined.

Jason:
I always say, man, we are the… If you want to describe team guys it’s a bunch of ADD adolescence.

Darren:
Oh God. Yeah. Look at me trying to do time calcs for debts. I’m like, God damn it, this sucks. Where’s an officer that can do math, but anyway, that was a path. And of course with a C average in high school, so I ended up going to state college, but I made Dean’s list for two years in a row. And then I transferred to Purdue because my father went to Purdue and my grandmother, my brother and my uncle, my mom and my grandma went to Purdue. So we had to like kind of like in, so I went in and of course for the liberal arts degree course, that’s what I love about having a liberal arts degree is first of all you know just enough about everything, but not enough about anything to do anything important.

Darren:
And number two, when you graduate, realize that I was in debt, three needed a job and if I wanted the job, I had to go back to school for more schooling. And I’m like, “You know what? I’ve had it,” but my dad was a pilot in the Navy so he flew a A66s and so we grew up on military bases.

Ray:
I was still wondering that.

Darren:
And so it was, yeah, exactly. So I felt at home. I’m like, I’m going to join the Navy because-

Jason:
So this was the path that led you down, you kind of went to school, you were figuring yourself out. You got to enjoy some liberal arts where basically you get to sit around and drink coffee and a fantastic word I like to use pontificate on many different subjects.

Darren:
You analyze all sorts of stupid crap.

Ray:
Christ, I got to look at Pontificate.

Darren:
There you go. P-O, but yeah that was… then here I am in the Navy. I’m a corpsman in the Navy, man. And so I enjoyed it because I had-

Jason:
So it was your dad that talked you in, that basically said maybe this is a good path or how did you follow on that?

Darren:
No. He’s like, “Don’t go to the navy. Just do something else.” I’m like, I needed structure. I really did. Because the running and triathlon and everything gave me discipline, but in college I kind of lost a lot of that stuff. I’m like, damn man, I’m like, “I need to do something.” But I enjoyed the navy life. Literally, growing up, I enjoyed the bases that we went to and I liked that structure, so I needed that. Just went right in and they assigned me a corpsman because I had a liberal arts degree and some of it was like I minored in PE. I’m like, of course I got that going for me. But I did, and then I went to a corp school, HMA school, and then we went to a Belvoir Hospital.

Jason:
That was still in San Diego back then.

Darren:
San Diego.

Jason:
Or corp still in San Diego?

Darren:
No, no, no, it’s in great lakes now. But San Diego right there and then we went over to Belvoir Hospital where I got to the hangout, Belvoir Hospital. It was great and then you saw people-

Jason:
Did you know anything about the seal teams when you joined the Navy?

Darren:
No.

Jason:
So how did you stomp-

Ray:
You didn’t know about me?

Jason:
How did you trip over that brick?

Darren:
Here’s what happened, so I’m in the Navy in like 93 so internet was invented, what? 92 or some something like that where it came it out.

Jason:
Producer Ryan, when did-

Darren:
So you’re a smart guy over there.

Jason:
…when did Al Gore invent the internet?

Ray:
I think it was 92.

Darren:
Yeah. So there wasn’t a lot out there, but how your crew accounts for, time to start to rotate out and looking for the next ship I was going to be on, like the USS always underway or something as a corpsman or USS Mercy or something. I was pushed, “Your athletic scores are really good. You should go to FMS,” and I’m like, “What’s that?” But he goes, “Hey, your swimming scores are ridiculously good.” Because I was doing the PRT and I’d do the swims in like 545 with a sidestroke. However, I couldn’t do pull us for shit.

Ray:
545.

Jason:
I did 832 and I thought I fucking was… I came in like chariots of fire at the end thinking I was the bomb.

Ray:
No, dude.

Jason:
I think the fastest I ever clipped was like 650 something ever. And that’s like ridiculous. But dude.

Darren:
But here’s what’s funny.

Jason:
You guys don’t know how fast, like in order to qualify for training that 500 yard swim, you got to do it in less than-

Darren:
11 and a half.

Ray:
Yeah.

Darren:
Or 12 and a half.

Jason:
12 and a half. Yeah. The run is 11 and a half. The swim is 12 and a half. Now you’re not competitive unless you’re down below about 10 minutes.

Ray:
Thank you. I though you were going to say 829.

Darren:
But the good news is with all that-

Jason:
Damn it, I shouldn’t have said that.

Darren:
…the good new with all that, I barely did the nine pull-ups, barely did the 52 and 42. So is like, I remember guy that actually gave me the test, before I get to test, he looked at me, he goes, “If I electrocuted an octopus that’s what you look like doing pushups.” I’m like, wow.

Jason:
How do you react to that? That’s graphic.

Darren:
I’m like, “Wow, thanks. Thank you.”

Ray:
In my mind I’m envisioning an octopus connected to electric leads.

Darren:
I’m like shaking, but anyway, so my career counselor goes, hey, he said Navy seals. All right. He did. And I didn’t really comprehend but this is how he bamboozled me. He goes, “Hey check it out. These guys scuba dive and they swim all day long. You’re a fast swimmer. You should go.” And I’m like, “I’m a great swimmer. I have to do is swim all day.” So here’s McBee. I’m like-

Jason:
So you’re basically thinking you’re joining the Navy swim team.

Darren:
Yeah, exactly. I’m like, wait a minute, I’m going to go do that to get out of work. That’s what I was saying.

Ray:
Hell, yeah.

Darren:
Yeah. That’s how smart I was.

Ray:
Little did you know.

Jason:
That’s pretty much what I think about when you go to BUD/S. I mean, it’s just getting out of work for seven months.

Ray:
Sun and fun.

Jason:
Or a year for some of us.

Darren:
So I show up to this freaking place. I’m like, Oh, and it’s right across the bridge. Look how cool this is. I barely have to do anything. I come beat bopping across the front desk. I’m like, “Oh yeah, I’m totally going to kill this place. I get to swim all day.” I already had envisioned in my mind what I was going to do, and as soon as I got onto the grinder, I’m walking across in my dumb ass Cracker Jackson, instructor just, I forget, I think it was Gillespie was his name.

Jason:
Yeah. Carl Gillespie.

Darren:
He yells at me, he goes, “You are the fattest man in the world.” And I remember kind of in my head going, “Look who’s talking.”

Ray:
He was not a small man either.

Darren:
Of course I didn’t how to react to that either. I’m like, yeah, I’ve always been big. And then he’s like, he yells at me, “Go hit to surf you.” And I’m like, I didn’t know what that meant. So I asked him, “Well, what does that mean?” Of course that was a wrong thing to ask. And then he starts making pushups, you run out of the surf, you get soaking wet head to toe and you run back. And I’m like, okay. So I start untying my shoes, I’m taking them off. He goes, “What are you doing?” I said, “Well, do you have a locker room I can change?”

Jason:
Gillespie wasn’t known for his patience or tolerating any fools.

Darren:
So as you can see it deteriorated from there. Then I realized this place sucks. What the fuck?

Jason:
What’s amazing though is you continued on because I do think there’s a lot of guys, I mean you see it, you see the guys that show up and you have a month of pre-buds or PTR.

Ray:
It’s called something else now, I think.

Jason:
Where basically they ramp it up and the ass kickings ramp up to basically where you get to the beginning level of when first phase is going to start. So you see definitely guys who quit before ever start. And then you get the mass exodus that quits during the first two weeks. So I’m surprised that you were like, “Oh, I guess I’m going to continue to do this even though it sucks.”

Darren:
Well, I did, but it sort of turned into, because I’ve done athletics my entire adolescents and I didn’t want it to get me. I’m like, Oh my God, I could stay a little bit longer because everyone picked me to quit number one or not make it. I was like, if everyone had a poll, it was 100% McBee was on top of the list. But I wanted to prove to everybody that I could do it. I was like, “Thank God. When are going to do the swimming portion?” I love the two mile ocean swim, like, “Oh, thank God. I’m in the water.”

Jason:
I hated that so much.

Darren:
Oh my God. I was so happy when I got in the freaking water. I’m like, Oh, I can relax. No one’s yelling at me and I’d pull my swim buddy along, come on. But here’s what changed is hell week changed for me because that’s when I stopped thinking about myself and I started thinking about everybody else. And when I started caring about the guy next to me more than me because I knew if I quit then now they have to take all that load and is possibly them getting injured, number one, and more damage could go to them. And number two, it was like, well, if I quit then all this shit I did was for nothing. That’s a big waste of time. I’m like, I’m not doing that.

Ray:
Yeah. The further you get a long, you’re just like, oh my God, I don’t want-

Jason:
So let me ask you this for the people that don’t know you, graduated BUD/S class 208. How old were you? 26.

Darren:
26-years-old.

Jason:
Not a young man. Illustrious career in the seal teams. You’ve done it all. You retired after how many years?

Darren:
24.

Jason:
24 years as a chief?

Darren:
Yeah, as a chief.

Jason:
You were much higher than me. Obviously, not as high as Jason, whatever. But here’s what I have, this is what I want to know and I think this is what the other people want to know. When did you come up with this fucking idea for Uncommon Grit? Because that’s what I want to know because in your career you’ve done everything, which we’re not going to get into. You’ve been at multiple teams, you’ve done it all. You’ve kicked ass, you take names. Because there’s nothing else out there like this. We were talking at lunch today and it’s like I’m trying to work on my book. Jason’s got a second coming out. I mean this is cutting edge technology. And not only is it that, it’s 216 pages of fucking memory lane for me and every time Jason and I turn a page, we’ll get into that. Sorry. The fact is, is when you turn a page, if you have went to BUD/S or you want to go to BUD/S or you even want to know what the hell BUD/S is about, I mean it brought back so many memories, goosebumps.

Ray:
Yeah. You capture the emotion on the faces. It’s you capture the emotion that’s in the air in that moment in time. One of the things, I mean that… you didn’t just pick up an iPhone camera and go out there and shoot.

Darren:
No.

Ray:
I mean, these are Awesome. What led you down the road of photography that then culminated in this book? When did you start that?

Darren:
Oh boy, well, I’ll try to condense it as much as I can for you guys, and I get that question a lot and it’s what the big ones always asked. So I picked up photography when I was a free-fall instructor in Yuma. So I got that gig, the one that everyone avoided when you went through free-fall jump master? Well, that bullet hit me. So I’m like, okay. So I went up to be a free-fall instructor which I enjoyed. I really did. But me, I really enjoyed the ramp that went down at 5:15 in the morning.

Ray:
I love it.

Darren:
The ramp going straight up navy seals.

Jason:
Oh my God. It’s my favorite scene. I actually have a song that plays, whenever I think about that in my mind it’s Van Halen’s. Right now the opening piano interlude.

Ray:
Mine’s running the hills-

Jason:
When the music picks up as it drops.

Ray:
…when we’re running out. But yeah, I love it. Everybody’s got one.

Darren:
Mine’s dancing queen.

Darren:
Mine Gary Newman’s cars. But anyway, but I remember it’s like I love that. And I remember being with my student, I’m like, man, look at that. You’re getting paid to do this right now. Look at the beautiful oranges, look at the Vermilion colors and I use the word Vermilion because that’s actually a color. And my student nearly, he’s like just ready to jump out. And he looks at me like I’m the weirdo. And I’m like, “Well, go.” I slap and he goes out and, and then I just remember really enjoying and I’m like, “Man, somebody should take a picture of this.” Are you looking that up?

Ray:
I have no fucking clue what that word means. I joke around a lot. I have no clue what that word means. And I really don’t think the audience does either and I actually play stupid, but I do not know that word. Can someone please tell me?

Jason:
Isn’t it a form of like an orangish-

Darren:
Yeah, orangish, red sea. See Jason knows.

Ray:
It’s not like a burnt sienna? Is it a burnt sienna field?

Darren:
No.

Ray:
I learned that from working at the gap, but we’ll go on to something.

Jason:
Vermilion.

Darren:
So the colors were just… Anyway, I remember find out, it’s like, yeah, somebody could picture of this. So of course you go to the video debt and ask them maybe if they wanted to give me a picture of that. And they looked at me like, “What?” Anyway, long story short on that one. So I decided to learn photography. It’s like, I want to take a picture of that because I got my MFFI right now, I was in MFFIE, which is a military free-fall instructor and evaluator. So I was like one of the top echelon of guys and I wanted to do that. So I had this skill to be able to do two things at once in the air.

Jason:
Hang on, I got to pause for a second because this is just funny to me that’s probably missing out on a lot of people. The average person out there that’s like I think I’m going to get into photography. They’re walking in woods or they’re taking pictures in their house. You stand on the back of a ramp at 12,500 feet, give or take, and you’re like, I want to start photography while jumping out of airplanes and taking pictures of guys in the air, which is hysterical.

Ray:
Kinky. That’s kinky.

Jason:
Well it’s hysterical to me that’s like a team guy mindset. It’s like, well, I’m already doing this extreme thing, so what else can I add to the equation.

Darren:
What else can I do to… Yeah, exactly. You’re 100% correct. So of course at time I’m unhappily married with kids. And so of course that means I was broke. But I wanted to learn, so I went to doctor Google, number one, to learn photography. And then I learned this, what is DSLR digital, what? Do we have digital photography, what the hell is that? And so I started learning. Then I went to Barnes Noble with my daughters, they went to the children’s section. I went to the photography section. I pull out books and I would sit and read them and take notes when my little green book that we all get in the teams, little red book. And then I’d be that guy. I just put right back and walk out.

Darren:
And so I got all these notes and I’d look them up. And then finally I realized it didn’t really have any money. So a lot of stuff that I had, a lot of comic books that I had and action figures and things, figurines that I had, I sold and I got a Canon 30D with a tokina lens.

Ray:
So that was the first camera you ever bought?

Darren:
First camera. I bought a gold member, Ray, it was a gold member. And that was-

Ray:
Does that have something to do with your lower extremities? I’m just wondering.

Darren:
It’s a little gold plate that actually goes on your camera helmet. And so I drilled a bunch of stuff into Home Depot, made it, and then finally I got the bite switch to take pictures and video at the same time. And then that’s how it started. So I did my first jumps, I couldn’t do while I had an instructor because I really wasn’t qualified. So I got to the VO debt, went to the course, and then I jumped the advanced course and videoed them. And that’s what I’d practiced as my targets. My first shots were at 16,000 feet going like 120. And then you learn there, but here’s something that’s tricky, you had to learn how to edit this shit as digital. And so for six months I didn’t have a camera.

Darren:
So what I tell a lot of people that do photography is I learned it backwards. I learned how to digitally edit, understand it because it’s a digital photo everything is numbers. It’s not a picture, it’s numbers. And your photo is in red, white and blue, excuse me, red, green and blue channels. And it’s all black and white. And so once you start learning the histogram, understanding that everything you’re seeing you’re like a Terminator, everything is numbers and those numbers represent gray scale. And so when I started looking at things, I was like, okay, I know what that’s going to look like. I know what histogram looks like, I know what that means digitally. And so when you get into the… when you finally dumped be like like, “Oh, that’s Photoshop.” No dumb ass. That’s how you get to edit your freaking photo.

Jason:
That’s amazing. So this is a level of genius, no, it really is because it means you are able to look at the world outside and translate it into digital.

Darren:
Yeah, exactly. In numbers.

Jason:
That’s an amazing skill because you’re already taking the picture, thinking about what you can do to that photo, which must be why your photos in here are so amazing because you’re already seeing digitally in your mind what I can do with this.

Darren:
Exactly and that’s-

Jason:
That’s a gift.

Darren:
That’s how I learned and then it just got better and better. Of course, after time I got done the free-fall. I got out, I got back community, I went out, did two years in CENTCOM, [Sodof 00:35:33] and then learn stuff. Then my name got out there a little bit. Hey McBee, take a picture of me or take picture of a tune or take a picture of this. Hey, go on this. It just happen.

Jason:
Do you talk about when you went to LA and you were taking those pictures of the models that were doing those things together? Oh, I’m sorry. We weren’t supposed to talk any of the bullshit. You guys are onto this. No, don’t bring me into this. No joke that was going on a little bit with certain individuals.

Darren:
I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who was that guy? He was doing that-

Ray:
I won’t name names. I won’t dime him out, but there were several guys that got sucked into that, that they were targeting young BUD/S students to go take pictures that were ending up in the back of-

Jason:
Good times.

Ray:
…pornographic-

Jason:
I got busted a couple of times. So my question is, and I’m going to get serious here, is for people that don’t know what Uncommon Grit is, it is a, I don’t even want to just say a journey through BUD/S, but it’s 216 pages of just brotherhood. I don’t know how else to say it because the question I have for you, the question I’ve been wanting to ask you, I should asked you earlier is, we pulled a couple powerful pictures up and my question to you is, as an artist, okay, just like the picture you showed us because I don’t know how to say this without getting emotional. They have so much meaning. When I looked at your… Today you gave me a gift, you gave me a print and I had goosebumps. What inspires you to take the picture that you take? Because like the one that obviously we’re going to show, I mean, when I look at it, I feel a lot of different emotions. How do you draw from that?

Darren:
You’re hitting on exactly what I wanted to do. Especially, as an artist, people look at me as like, you’re a Navy seal. It’s like, no, I’m retired. Really, I’m actually a weirdo artist, I’m just letting you know.

Jason:
Kinky.

Darren:
Yeah, kinky. But what you’re talking about is how this came about, well, the book came about through getting requests on Instagram there was never going to be a book at all, it was not. The whole thing really started with, I got a pacemaker put in, so what that means is like one of my last platoons that I was doing at seal team three is you learn a couple things when you’re 44. Number one is you don’t become the platoon chief of platoon when four of your guys, your new guys, were born when you went through BUD/S So you got that going for you. And I’m 44 so my heart, my heart was like, eh, we’re done. And so I ended up at Belvior Hospital, pacemaker goes in and all that. And so I had a lot of time to reflect. And then I got a call from a lot of senior leadership, one of them was the commanding officer, Duncan Smith. You guys know Duncan Smith, right?

Ray:
Yeah.

Darren:
So he calls me and he’s like, “Oh, McBee, we got this thing going on. We’re trying to do, he’s animal Admiral Stevens at the time. He was Captain Stevens at the time. He was the CEO of the center and now he’s now he’s an admiral now, but they want to do redo like the new command and dog videos and things like that. I have to tell this stuff because that’s what leads to this.

Ray:
So they already knew about your photography skills. I mean you already were making a name for yourself in the community.

Darren:
Yeah, and it was weird. And Duncan Smith is like because when I was actually teaching free-fall and actually teaching our guys free-fall at ATC for a hot minute. He came out and asked me to film some free fall for a movie for whatever, a short video documentary for something else which ended up being Act of Valor. I’m like, “Wow. That was kind of cool, I guess.” So I did all like the air scenes and stuff like that. But anyway, that’s how he came searching me again. And he asked me to do the same frigging thing, but we’re doing it at BUD/S. I felt like that scene at a major league, I’m like, “I don’t know.”

Ray:
I don’t know if I want to come out.

Darren:
I got a pacemaker. I’m watching. My name is Earl. I just don’t want.

Jason:
That’s showing your age.

Ray:
Bag of Cheetos in your left hand, right hand staffed in your pants.

Darren:
I’m living there, just sitting there like I’m on convalescent leave for like six months. I’m just be basically, Oh, but I’m like, all right, so I’ll go out and then I grabbed all my stuff and he go, “Here, here’s what we’re going to do. We want to do this new film. Snap some photos if you will.” I’m like, “Okay, I’ll do that too.” And we’d shot some video and then all the people that wanted this, so this new command video. So it was a high up initiative. And so they asked me, I was like, “All right, I’ll do that.” And we’re all sitting around pow wow and with all their leadership. I’m like, “Yeah, McBee is a great photographer. Take some photos.” I’ll always remember this he was taking photos, like, “We don’t need any stupid BUD/S photos, we have plenty of. Nobody cares.”

Jason:
Who told you that?

Darren:
I forget.

Jason:
Someone.

Darren:
I forget the name.

Jason:
Obviously, somebody without a name.

Darren:
It was a couple people.

Jason:
Forward thinking.

Darren:
Even the guy next to me I was supposed to be working with, he goes, “I don’t need no stupid photos of BUD/S. Nobody cares.” And I’m like, “Okay.”

Jason:
Kicking theirself in the head now.

Darren:
So I’m like, “Okay, whatever.” So I started filming and everything, but in my eye I snap a couple photos and here’s what happens. I did a photo that I had in my head that if I was going to, and I told myself, I’ll do this video stuff but I’m going to snap a photo to put on my wall to remind me of where I started in BUD/S.

Jason:
I love it, love it.

Darren:
That was my initiative is like, for me, Uncommon Grit started with my idea is like, well, if I’m going to get this opportunity to do this at BUD/S, I want to put a photo on my wall of where it fricking started for me. When I made that decision, I’m not going to move forward. It’s in there, you probably saw it. You’re standing right behind a guy holding the log just like this.

Darren:
And I did it in black and white because we all know BUD/S, everything to me in buds was black and white because of the damn June gloom, May gray, fucking Marine layer that always came through. That was always miserable, it always made a fucking cold. And that was the shot. It was the grungy, sandy. If it’s in there, we can probably find it. And that was the first shot and that’s the way I wanted it. That was the shot. And then we got… right after that, I did the purple smoke shot. The purple smoke-

Jason:
Yes, I love that. But everything else is the black and white. I love how you do the contrast of colors. The thing that gets me about your book, and it actually pisses me off about it seriously, is that every time I open it, I get different emotions. If you know you’re going to read a horror story, you’re going to get scared. You agree?

Darren:
Yeah.

Jason:
Every time I open this and what’s so great is if you went to BUD/S, okay, hopefully you pass. I mean, but hey, if you went or you’re thinking about, this book, I mean, it reminds me and brings back memories of shit that I forgot. Like in hell week, I was like, “Oh my God.” On a serious note. Jay and I went through hell week together and it’s just like when I looked at that, when I put it down, I literally went like this. And I know my producer gets mad when I curse, but I literally went, I shut the book and I went “Holy fuck, I did that.” You know what I mean? Jason was looking at it too at the house a while ago and he said the same thing. One, he was like, “Fuck, I should’ve got one of these,” and two, “Did we really do this?” And I was like, “Yeah man, we did.” And that’s where that internal brotherhood comes from.

Jason:
If you are a person that’s thinking about going to BUD/S, I don’t know if you even, because literally we had to beg, borrow and steal to get some of these from you. And we know thank you very much. But-

Darren:
There it is.

Jason:
…look at that.

Darren:
That’s the photo right there.

Jason:
Look at-

Darren:
That’s the one that started everything.

Jason:
Look at this photo, ladies and gentlemen. Let me tell you what, those logs, that’s not fake weight. That’s real weight. I don’t think that’s ol misery though, is she? That’s ol misery though, is she? That’s not misery

Ray:
About 300 pounds-

Jason:
300 pounds.

Ray:
Is the average. No, ol mis is like 600.

Jason:
600 or just [shreward of 00:43:20] But that’s what I love about this and that’s why actually you came to the house today. I have that. I have the limited edition.I don’t have the crappy when you gave them, I’m joking. That was a joke guys. That was a joke. But I actually have the coin that I actually put, if you saw it in my room-

Darren:
Yeah, I did.

Ray:
…I had my graduation of BUD/S and I put it there and it says Uncommon Grit. And then obviously it’s… but whenever I look at that, it’s kind of like the whole shoe thing where I told you about, I look at that, it tells me, if you’re having a bad day, I have done this. You’ve been shot eight fucking times. Mike Dezman shot 50,000 times. I have it. But I did accomplish that and I love it. And it’s such a piece of history that, I mean, I’m going to take with me everywhere I go.

Ray:
People, if you haven’t seen this book, I don’t know if they can get it, how they can get it, if not. But if you want to get the real, no offense, nitty gritty of what seal training is, it’s right there.

Jason:
Well, and even if they don’t, even if maybe you’re out there and you’re like, “Yeah, I’ve never been that interested in the seal teams,” it is the quality of these pictures and that is where your artistic talent just shines through. You are drawn into almost every single picture you have in this book.

Darren:
Thank you. That’s what I want to be. Let me just rewind a little bit. Just answer Ray’s question. We only got like three minutes left. Is that what-

Ray:
No, no.

Darren:
He asked about uncommon grit and I said that was the photo. And so then I did a couple more photos like it and they’ve got all the video and then I remember Duncan Smith going, “Hey, do you have any photos?” And I pulled out my Mac and I was like, “Yeah, I got these ones.” And let me tell you something. Talk about a lot of people. I know our producer don’t like us to curse or anything, but literally you’ve got guys looking at it going, “Holy fuck.” You can see it in their head. They’ll be like, “We weren’t expecting that.” I’m like, “Yeah, I know.” Because it’s me, but no big deal.

Darren:
So anyway, so that started, it’s like you need to do more of that. And then it turned into… then I got attached to BUD/S as requests from the leadership over there because now they had grandiose ideas of what they want to do with this stuff. They saw those pictures like, “Hey, we’re going to put these pictures all around the Grinder. We were going to put them in here, we’ll put them to [inaudible 00:45:33] we’ll put them to Warcom. We want all this. We’re going to name it and they named it like it was project heritage, project inspire. Just include everything. And then we went over to first phase and it was like, “Hey, you’re going to do this, but this is what you’re going to do.” And I’m like, “Oh cool.”

Darren:
And so then it started and then it just built from there and then I finally retired but never really finished because the beginning of the grand specter of this project, it was to take four or five photos that define first phase, second phase, third phase and every block of training in SQT. Yeah. So you can see that was a grand, grand vision. So I applaud the leadership.

Jason:
Hang on, let me interject. Just because not everybody out there… So seal training is broken into three phases.

Darren:
There we go.

Jason:
First phase is kind of the, it’s the weed-out phase. It’s where they try and apply as much physical pressure on you, how weak is part of first phase. And most people quit during first phase. Second phase is dive training where you get still equally hard. It’s the second part where most guys will quit with the culmination in the end something called pool comp, which basically they just kick your ass underwater and try and get you to quit.

Ray:
Try to drown you. Sound good.

Jason:
And then a third phase it’s weapons and explosives and ground tactics. And then if you manage to graduate from seal training, now these guys go on to something called seal qualification training. So if you look at BUD/S as high school, SQT is like college.

Ray:
Christ, we’re old too because it was STT when we all went through that.

Darren:
Seal Tactical Training. Remember that shit, stuff, sorry, stuff.

Jason:
So this is a year long year long pipeline that McBee is talking about photographing. So go ahead man.

Darren:
Yeah, exactly. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I get stuck sometimes I talk about that. But yeah, that was the Tasker. I’m like my, “Wow.” What happened is I do a bunch of photos, I bring them to KO’s office and I show him what we shot, download them and then edit them. It got to the point where I just started racking and stacking photos because then I went up to Alaska, then I went out to diving and I did all this stuff. But then after a while it’s like I can’t do this. I’m broken, I’ve got a medical stuff to do. And it just got to the end where we just really didn’t complete it.

Darren:
And then finally, all the photos, it was 22,000 of them total that I had. All camera raw by the way, not JPEGs, camera raw. Now let me explain what camera and JPEG is. Most people when get a digital camera there’s actually all sorts of choices on there, but you get to choose between two. It’s camera raw and JPEG, 99.9% of the people that have a digital SLR camera will shoot in JPEG. All right. There’s another thing that’s called camera raw. And what that means is a camera raw photos is just taking the data.

Darren:
So basically to describe how that works, JPEG it actually takes that entire 27.2 megabyte information and chops into like seven megabytes. So that would be kind of like, you would be representative a JPEG and then Ray would be representative of a camera raw photo. So now you have a camera photo is all the information, all 27, it’s nothing added, all it is is there. And then now you take that photo and then you start crafting how you see and you craft it. You build your photo, which is basically what people did back in the old day with the dark rooms. That’s how you built your photo because you got this full frame thing with lots of information, lots of data you can work with it.

Darren:
Anyway, so I’m giving him like two terabytes of photographs right? Here you go. Here’s all the photographs. We went through lots of leadership, getting them released was the biggest thing. You got to release photographs, but that all got done. And then the big thing that… none of them were finally going to, what Ray talked about was how this come around is when I got started on Instagram and started working on things, I just released one photo at a time. I didn’t really think about it. In my mind it’s like, well, I got all these cool photos. I really want to do a portfolio of this. In my mind is like maybe like a gallery or just kind of show people what this is.

Darren:
And then after a couple of years passed by, I always got asked to do a book and then this is where the meeting of what you’re talking about is like how, first of all, the whole thing is incomplete number one. And I didn’t want to, “Hey, this is my photograph of all of seal training or anything else.” It’s like I wanted my most powerful photos that I took were all in first phase, hell week to day one and then that’s what I really focused on because that’s where we all start out the same. We all show up here and then no matter what happens in your career afterwards or you’re in the seal teams and everything else, all that doesn’t matter. That’s why a lot of team guys look at this and everyone reflects back to that one time where kind of like these… we’re in the nursing stages of who we are, of human beings and want to do something great. And we can all go back to that and relate to how kind of like innocent we were.

Darren:
I remember that this was like, because one thing you get all bunch of together, one thing we have in common, we’ll always talk about BUD stories, everything, and that’s what I wanted. It took me about three months to come up with what I wanted to call it. And I thought Uncommon Grit was perfect because that’s exactly what it is. It’s uncommon and it’s grit. That’s what defines you going through first phase because there’s so much crap that you have to do and you have to challenge yourself every day, not only challenge yourself every day, you have to care about the guy next to you too. And especially when you’re self-loathing and thinking about how miserable you are through the whole freaking thing. And that’s why it is what it is because you load it in. It’s like all those hard decisions you have to make, whether or not to quit and persevere through all that is right there. And plus it’s through my eye because I went through this shit. So it’s like, okay, this is how I looked at this right here. So you see a lot of vignetting in there. You see a lot of old school grunge in there because that’s how I saw it.

Ray:
So let me ask you a question. Now I told you earlier and I know we’re going to have to wrap up here soon. I was pissed off because I’m not in your book but this is what I wanted to ask you, in third phase, I made myself famous by doing something. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard it or not, but I made myself do something without touching myself. Have you ever heard this story?

Darren:
Well, I’m definitely intrigued.

Ray:
So I actually in front of 55 guys I made myself climax without touching myself. I learned how to-

Darren:
You’re that guy.

Ray:
Yes, I’m that guy. So my question is-

Jason:
I don’t know if that’s a point of pride that-

Ray:
Wait, wait, hold on LT. The E5 of the Navy has the floor.

Darren:
I thought that was urban legend. That’s like Richard Deer shit.

Ray:
No, it’s not. It’s true. It actually still haunts Kate Cortleigh. But my question is, is would you have been dedicated enough to have that camera either deep on my face because I had double hearing pro and eye protection on my junk and my UDTs, would you have filmed it and been the artist that I knew you would start to finish to get it and would you put it in the book? Go. yes or no? That’s all I want. Yes or no?

Darren:
Well, I would have made that one a special edition book.

Jason:
That would have been on the cover?

Darren:
Yeah. That would have been a special edition one that you can only buy if you had a promo code and a code word to get into the site.

Ray:
And a photo of your ID, you’re over 18-years-old.

Jason:
I may do it after we’re done. Just to show you I still got.

Darren:
I believe you, but as an artist I’m like, “How do you do that without?”

Jason:
That’s dope.

Darren:
I’ll be fascinated that actually people can actually do that because I’m older now and it’s like-

Ray:
I need a cigarette now when I’m done, but go ahead.

Jason:
Yeah. Need a lot more help in that arena besides my imagination. So, hey, this book has gone on to do some amazing things. It has gotten out there. It is a bestseller. And you have kind of been catapulted into the spotlight. You’ve been on national media, you’re speaking to all across the country.

Darren:
Yes. Thank you.

Jason:
Tell us a little bit about that. That’s kind of an interesting transition. I know for a lot of us, I felt that too.

Darren:
Yeah. It was really something that was an idea and pushed through Instagram, McTeams3842, if you want to go check it out. It was the Instagram fans that really pushed for it and so we made it. And then I did a small run of it of 2,700 books and I was like, “Well, let’s see all this goes,” and went on Instagram and look, “Hey, I have a book now. Yay, look, check it out.” Went through the roof. We went to print in three days. That’s how fast that it went.

Darren:
And then I went on Fox and friends and we’re like, it got to the point we we’re like, I do a speech and he went on to have 40 books, you know how that goes. You’re going to go to 60 books here. And we’re like, we’ve got this gallery to do. We’re doing a book fair. We’re going like, “Oh shit.” So we started racking and stacking all the books and we’re like, okay, this goes here, this and this, this and this, I’m like… Well, we have this many left. I’m like, “All right, well.”

Darren:
So I want to Instagram again. I think it was like last month. I’m like, “Hey, I got 150 books left.” I did two posts on Sunday, one on Monday, sold them all in 48 hours, done. That’s how fast they go. I’m like, wow. But that’s an honor. It’s a privilege. It really is. I’m very humbled that people like it and you guys liked it. Everyone that opens up the book reminisce and loves it. I haven’t gotten one negative thing from anybody about it. They just loved where it’s going and what it’s doing for us and our communities. Kind of like bringing us all together. And that’s what I really want is like, Hey, let’s just all go back to where we were all just innocent and that’s why I love about it.

Darren:
And now we got picked up at Grand Central out in New York city, so they’re going to do a big run next year for Christmas. This’ll be in like Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Target, just everywhere, which is fricking awesome to me.

Jason:
Are they going to run more books?

Darren:
Yeah, they’ll run it. They’ll run a huge-

Jason:
So they’re going to run a huge amount. So those of you out there who are like, how do I get my hands on it?

Ray:
There we go. That’s what we-

Darren:
There it is.

Jason:
That’s coming. So when is that coming that they’re going to be able to get their hands on?

Darren:
That’ll be next year, but here’s the big thing. Grand Central allowed us to print a thousand books and they’re going to be here last week of November.

Jason:
Nice. So game on.

Darren:
There’s going to 20 new photos in there that we swapped out. Not that they were bad photos, but when you’re an artist, you keep looking at shit over and over again.

Ray:
Always.

Darren:
You’re like, “Well, there’s too many iceboat pictures in here. Let’s put this one in.” It got to the point my wife’s like, “Hey, stop.” She actually pulled it away from me and like, “No, we’re done. This is what we’re going to swap out. We’re done.” That went up then of course, Grand Central, we’re going to sit down with them. They have an idea what they want to do, but it’s just a privilege and the biggest privilege is being able to give back to our community, give back to fallen operators and families. My eagle picture alone and the BUD/S photos raised over a million dollars for a charity called Folds of Honor, helping military families pay the ultimate sacrifice.

Darren:
But now I’m moving on to more things now. It’s like, hey, I want to branch off of like whatever foundations you guys have, help another team guys that are doing great stuff. How can I amplify what you… how can I help you do stuff? That’s my goal for the end of this year. We’ve got a gallery in New York city next year, it’s like, okay, let’s do a lot more good with this by getting together with other guys doing great stuff.

Jason:
Yeah, no, it’s awesome man. So obviously probably the best way that people can be aware of what’s going on is to follow you on Instagram. That’s probably your biggest platform.

Darren:
Yes, that’s the biggest one.

Jason:
So McTeams3842. McTeams3842 that’s where people can go. So after you watch this episode, definitely go like McBee and then they can also find you at your website. What’s your website address?

Darren:
Website, dmcburnett.com WWF, I say WWF because we talked about that earlier on www.dmcburnett.com D-M-C-B-U-R-N-E-T-T.com. And then we’ll have some stuff in there. We’ve got posters come on. Just all sorts of good stuff that we can do. So yeah man, it’s awesome. It’s great.

Jason:
Boom. Love it, bro. So, alright man, well, listen those of you out there, whether you’re a young man who’s thinking about going to seal training or you were someone who has always been fascinated with special operations or you’re just someone out there who appreciates amazing photography and I just loved what you talked about at the beginning because so many people out there don’t have that, I don’t have that skill, where you can look at the world and see it. It reminded me of the matrix. Like you look at the world in green zeros and ones scrolling across and you’re like, “I can manipulate this into an amazing photo.” so that’s a gift.

Darren:
Yeah. Glad I was gifted with something certainly wasn’t good looks and muscles.

Jason:
You’re a good-looking man. Don’t shortchange yourself.

Darren:
Oh, thank God. I got this-

Jason:
I’m the only one that’s short. All right guys. Well, this has been another episode of the Overcome and Conquer Show. McBee it was an honor to have you on. Mr Care, do you want to shut us down?

Ray:
No. No, I just want to sit here. I just want to listen to you do your-

Jason:
Sit here and look pretty.

Ray:
That’s it. You do your thing boss.

Jason:
Well, hey, it has been another amazing episode. McBee thanks so much for having us on.

Darren:
Thanks for having me. This is fantastic.

Jason:
Can’t wait to watch the journey there in central… Yeah, I’m losing it right there.

Darren:
Yeah, that’s okay.

Jason:
New York’s, where is it?

Darren:
Grand-

Jason:
Grand Central.

Darren:
Yeah. Grand Central Publishing.

Jason:
I was actually… so anyways guys follow this here in November, there’s going to be a thousand books available so you want to get your hot little hands on them, otherwise you’re going to have to wait, but follow a McBee on Instagram. One more time. McTeams3842 and you will be able to stay apprised and see some of these amazing photos. So, all right guys, this has been another episode of the Overcome and Conquer Show. I am Jason Overcome Redmond.

Ray:
I am Ray Cash Care.

Jason:
And we are out. Boom.

Speaker 6:
Thanks for listening to the Overcome and Conquer show. Tune in next time and please remember to subscribe on iTunes. Please visit, overcome and conquer.com.

Jason:
The Overcome and conquer show is presented by the Project. The project is a full immersion, 75 hour experience designed for men who know when their core, they are not living up to their potential. Rather than waking up every morning ready to dominate life, the mediocre man rose out of bed and slides into the same unfulfilling routine they’ve unhappily been in for way too long.

Jason:
The Project is for men that have lost their internal flame and motivation to conquer. It is for men living an unfulfilling life that lacks the excitement and purpose. If this resonates with you and you want to learn more, we encourage you to apply today@www.mdkproject.com/OC show. Boom.