Defy The Norm with Cody Alford (Part 1) - 093

In this episode, I'm joined by Cody Alford. Cody is a father, entrepreneur, motivational speaker, author, and retired MARSOC Raider who served 15 years in the military with a handful of tours overseas. He holds the title of the youngest leader to ever reach the enlisted rank, E8, in the Marines.

Since retirement he has expanded his endeavors including becoming a self-help coach, leading his mindset mastery community called Defy Tribe, motivational speaking, and growing his apparel brand called, We Defy The Norm. 

Defy Conformity is the tagline behind his clothing brand, but serves as the ethos for his coaching group, Defy Tribe.

By challenging people to refuse mediocrity and refuse to settle for normal or a simple life, he empowers others to push through their limiting beliefs.

Inside Part 1:

• How to get promoted as quickly as possible
• Why leadership can't be taught but it can be learned
• How to reconstruct your mindset from the ground up
• Why most people don't achieve what they want in life
• How to ask for and get help even when people see you as bulletproof

Connect with Cody

• Instagram
• Defy Tribe

Connect With Bradley

• Bradley's Instagram

Transcript

Bradley Roth: 0:32

Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Not Most People podcast. This is your host, Bradley, and this is the show for those allergic to mediocrity group think and following the status quo. And before we get into today's episode, I would just like to share with you guys my one ask that I always mention at the beginning of each episode, and that is, if you get value out of this show, whether it's this episode, whether it's other episodes, if you learn something, if you have a takeaway that helps you think differently, if you're entertained, just that you help me out and return that value by sharing it with a friend or leaving a rating or review on whatever platform you're listening on. This show is here purely to help you guys become not most people. And that means being what? People are not, which is happy, healthy, wealthy, growing, and free. That's the mission. I don't do any ads as long as you guys continue to help me grow. And I appreciate you right now listening. You know, this show started from scratch. I didn't have a big following or anything like that, so I truly appreciate every one of you listening today. And then for everything else, not most people, we got going on beyond the podcast, make sure you check out all the links in the show notes where you can find all that good stuff. But that's it. We're gonna get right into today's episode. I have a special guest, Cody Alford. Joining me today. Cody, welcome to the show. What's up man? Yeah, I'm excited. So, and you guys will see why. So I'm gonna give you a little bit of background on Cody. He is a father entrepreneur, motivational speaker, author, and retired Marsoc Raider, who served 15 years in the military with a handful of tours overseas. He also holds the title of the youngest Leader to ever reach the enlisted rank of E eight in the Marines. And then since retirement, he's expanded into becoming a self-help coach, leading his mindset mastery community called Defy Tribe, which we're gonna get into, as well as motivational speaking and growing his apparel brand called We Defy the Norm. And Defy conformity is the tagline behind his clothing brand and also serves as the ethos for his coaching tribe defied tribe. So when you hear that, those of you listening sounds a lot like not most people, and I remember. I don't remember how or when exactly, but came across, Cody came across you on Instagram a while back and I said, oh man, I gotta get this guy on someday. And then I, I might have reached out or something and, and got lost in the dms. I can't remember. But then we ended up having a mutual friend who connected us, and now you're here. And I would say of any brand or movement out there that I've seen, like we're familiar with lines, not sheep, kind of a similar idea, but defy tribe and defy conformity defy the norm. I was like, man, that's not, most people just said in a different way. So I want to ask you though, before that people hear what you did in the, in the military. For those of you who don't know, MARSOC is like Marine Special Operations, right? So you guys are the Marine branch that works with, you know, kind of these higher level special operations from other branches of the military. And so people are probably listening like, oh, okay. He was this badass. He rose through the ranks fast in the Marines and then came out and just started defy the norm and things took off from there. But I'm guessing it wasn't quite that simple or in that straight of a line

Cody Alford: 3:58

that that's, that's an accurate statement. It was definitely not as sexy as a transition as you made that sound. Yeah. So, MARSOC basically was created back in 2006 and we became the special operations branch of the Marine Corps working alongside Navy Sills, army Green Berets, and other other unit special operations units across the platforms. What a great experience and opportunity to do all that stuff. It was definitely challenging and very fulfilling. A lot of high caliber men and women, you know, working alongside and really checking that box of like all the things you wanted to do in the Marine Corps or the military, and. You know, some people think they were always a tribute war and combat. And that's, that's, none of those reasons are why I joined in the first place. I wanted to shoot the cool guns, do the cool training, get the cool gear, be around the, these badass people that I was, you know, always watching on tv. And to be part of that one day was just super epic. And like you mentioned, I, I promoted very quickly through the ranks. There's actually two E eight ranks. There's a rank called a First Sergeant and a master's sergeant. Mm-hmm I would say master's sergeant. There was a lot of first sergeants that kind of promote fast too, depending on kind of what their background is. But for the career field that I was in, it was extremely fast. And not only did I promote fast, I was able to obtain these leadership positions. Marlo is full of a lot of senior guys and and gals, so just because you have the ring doesn't necessarily mean you'll be in the position. So it's, it's very thick competition cuz there's just a bunch of high caliber people there. And, I had a bunch of great mentors and leaders that looked out for me along the way that educated me, taught me, held me accountable, looked out for me, most importantly, cuz you know, yours truly was not this like water walker. A lot of people think I was, but you know, I made a lot of mistakes. Um mm-hmm I'm a very verbal person and that has definitely caused some ripples along my path in life. But that's just who I am. And very fortunate enough to have mentors and leaders who can see bigger than a face value resistance that they might be observing and really took me underneath their wing and, and helped guide me and helped me accountable through these years. And, you know, I really attribute a lot of that to my success because, you know, if they weren't looking out for me, I could have easily got squashed. That's one really negative slab of the military is like, there are rules and regulations and mm-hmm. it's very easy to it's very easy to have someone else literally wreck your career. Right? So it's, it's, it's not like you can just put your little complaint ticket in the box and your problems would be solved. But, you know, I also, a lot of politics. A lot of politics, but I also tell people too, like the rules and regulations exist for both sides and both parties. So, I mean, there was plenty of times that I, I thought and stood up for myself where, you know, I get, I get calls or messages from people that are in the service today. Like, well, how did you do that? Or You, you would've got in trouble. I'm like, no, I wouldn't have, I wasn't breaking any rules, bro. Like, Hey, this, I can, you know, go up the chain of command if I want to. And I did that multiple times, whether it's pay conflict with, you know, or allegations. I mean, the military is a very interesting system. Indeed. You know, it's a lot of. It's a lot of opportunity, but not a lot of freedom. It's a lot of restriction, a lot of constraints lot of conforming to the masses. And at a young age in the military, I just never, that wasn't really my thing. I, I didn't really enjoy it. Luckily for me, throughout my military career, I was in these small units that were like, go-getter guys that are like finding a way and, you know, pushing the envelope, pushing the boundaries. So I was very fortunate within those regards, and a lot of people did not have that same opportunity for whatever reasons. But I definitely did not allow anything else, kind of keep me from the path that I wanted to take. And then, you know, you talked about transitioning from the military to like creating my, my business and my, my apparel brand. Really the, it's really a, in a reflection of my own mindset of the things that I, I believe in and I stand for more than a peril brand. My coaching group didn't come up until years later, but that time at, I retired at 15 years. I had all sorts of cognitive function issues. I, I was basically being treated for all my traumatic brain injuries. I had all these sleeping issues. I was having uncontrollable adrenaline spikes ba drooling on myself, passing out all the time. I'd get lo I couldn't even navigate with my iPhone. Wow. Yeah, I, I would be late to work all the time cause I would be in, up down the street from my house crying, not knowing how I got there. Falling off my motorcycles in a, in a gas station parking lot. Like my, my life was kind of going downhill. Well that's cause I was avoiding the telltale signs that were leading up to it cuz I had goals and I had dreams. And there's always that fear if, if I stop to get these things checked, I'm going to miss out on these opportunities. Well, lo and behold, looking back at my life all the times that I pushed aside my wellness to go pursue something, those pursuings never really worked out for me. Whether I never got an opportunity or it just, it wasn't the right timing, you know, external for myself and my desires. And then when those flood gates opened up for the opportune time, I was just garbage. I had a very negative attitude. I was just, I was feeling broken. Had this victim mindset, basically went from like a, he a hundred miles an hour to like zero from here to zero. And I really lost a lot about myself. And when I was faced with the the reality of like, Hey dude, you can no longer be in, in the military or this job, it hit me because my vision as a young kid to, to want to be a Marine, you know, it ended, you know, the military career, was it? Mm-hmm. And from that military career, I had other, other visions to like, I wanted to go contract with the government agency and I wanted to kind of pursue this, this career field and this path. but everything stopped once I realized that, dude, I, I can no longer do this job, period. And so that's when my life really took a change and a turn, turn of events. And it was about, so 2018 I retired. So earlier that year, my wife, I was in Florida doing some my brain treatment before I get out, making sure I'm like, it can be the best conditions possible before I get out and kind of kicked out into the real world. My wife asked me if I had like six, you know, 4, 4, 6 weeks left to live. Like what would I want to do? And I could not come up with an answer. And the only thing that was kinda like on my, on the tip of my tongue was, I don't know, travel around and take pictures cuz I had no idea what I wanted to do. I had no idea who I wanted to be. I had no idea who I was. Mm-hmm. like, I was scared of my own shadow at this point. My, my level of confidence just in overall life was extremely diminished. I mean, when you, when you couldn't even boil water successfully, that really took a big chunk out of my ego and chunk outta me and my, my individuality and my power. And so we really started on that process. So our main thing was getting outta the military was like, okay, I'm not gonna have the pension that I thought I was. Luckily through the timeframe that I was in, I was able to retire early with my, with some of my pension coming from the background that I had. And so we're like, okay, this is not a lot of money by any means. So people who think that military pension is a lot, you are absolutely delusional, yeah. It's not a lot of money, but it was enough for us to sell all of our stuff, live well below our means, and we invested that money into a conversion van. So we bought this 20 20 18, 20 17 Dodge ProMaster van and it was decked out. It wasn't like the final product, but it was already kinda like, had the, the batteries and the solar and the kitchenette and the, and the makeshift bed. And we're like, we're gonna, and so we decided to continue to get rid of all of our stuff, pay off our debt, and be able to live within this like, very small paycheck. And that gave me the space and my wife, the space to really, for her to support me, but really for me to have no stress, no responsibility, because I, I realized that in the military, I. part of my cognitive issues was from the constant amounts of stress. Mm-hmm. I realized I could, I could operate at a high level of stress, but low levels of stress or, or no traces of stress, I just could not function. And then having those ups and downs and these cortisol issues with these hormone imbalances, man, I was just a shipwreck man. It was just episode sinking ship. So I need a zero responsibility. I need to no timelines. I need to know anything to be responsible of other than just surviving every day. And that van gave us this opportunity to do that. And we did that for about three and a half years. Well, along this process, you know, I, I went to this device that people hide from, you know, because it looks scary to talk to yourself. And I was just like, man, I'm really going through a lot of shit right now. And then I went like this and I created YouTube videos, And then I posted those and I went like this and went on Instagram and just told people how I was feeling. And, you know, along the way in doing that, people will start to resonate with like what I was saying, they're like, oh shit, this guy with this crazy, gnarly background, he's suffering right now. And you know, I was able to articulate it in a way where I was connecting with people and, and then I just kinda like kept this momentum up and did exactly what I said I was gonna do in the van taking pictures. We're driving, we're traveling around, checking out all these places in the US and I, I have had this like idea, I'm like, you know, I'm gonna start this, this company brand. And at the time I really didn't know the vision, right? So my vision back in 2018 definitely is not the vision I have for myself, my brand, or anything I associate with today. But it was a starting point and it wasn't perfect and I didn't have it all figured out. I just like, you know what, this scares me. I feel called to do this, so I'm going to just take a stab at it. And. Being a veteran and doing anything with a t-shirt is like, oh my God. It's like doing something with coffee. It's like, you know, at the time it's like every veteran has this, this, this shirt company, but I wanted more than a shirt company. I, I wanted to like a way to express myself, you know, it was my own form of art and it was my, it was my ability to, to share what I was feeling and what I stand for and believe in, and people were. And so I, I started my company Edify the norm where I had no money. I had just an idea and I was going to Instagram and basically anyone who was doing what I wanted to do, I was messing to them. And I get some responses here. I get some guidance here. I get some pricing here and I'm like, oh my God, I'm trying to process all this stuff. And so I started doing a drop shipping, which really cost me no money other than to my host, host my website. Yeah. And I started slinging these designs from my van, you know, online traveling realm. You know, Hey guys, this is what I'm doing. Hey, check out my new shirt. You know, this is kinda like the phase of my life cuz they've all been a, a visual representation of like what I was going through in my transition because man, it was, it was lonely. A lot of times. I lost a lot of friends that I thought I had, you know, and when I started to share my emotions and feelings, God, I might as, I mean, I might as well like spit on like a, on, on like a statue of like Jesus or something. Dude. It was like horrible. People were like losing their minds that I had these things called feelings and emotions, and most importantly an opinion, you know? And, and I'm like, I can never, I, I cannot be doing something more aligned to what I'm supposed to be doing than what I'm doing now. Because I realized that when you try to stand out of the crowd, not even try to, when you just do your own thing, it triggers so many people. Oh, yeah. And because they, they, they're like, you, you shouldn't feel that way in, in the military world. There's a lot of these hard chargers, right? That they're like suffer in silence. You know? It's the pain you're going through is your weakness leaving your body like all these, like mental. mind work being things that to a a, a program, program, mine, which I was there before too. Mm-hmm. it makes sense. But to someone who's, who's breaking away from that system and finding this autonomy of self, right. This own self-power and empowerment. You have to rewrite the playbook or you're just bringing that world into your new world and calling it your norm. And that was the last thing I wanted to do. Mm-hmm. And the more people pushed back on me and like, hated on me and like talked shit about me on U YouTube, dude, I got called Laura Sots of random stuff, you know, I got called stolen Valor once on my YouTube channel. And dude, I literally cried for probably like a week straight. like I was just busted and broken. I'm like, I'm just being honest and truthful and these people are just so, internet people are so mean. And at the time I, I was not in control of my emotions. I wasn't in control of myself. I had no, no defense system that guarded me through the level of confidence I had. None of that stuff. And they were like soft people, special operations people talk like this. You're a liar. You're so, I'm like, oh my God. You can't have feelings, you know? And people are say, be genuine and you, and you become genuine and you just get docked for it. But that's the price that you bear and that's the price to pay. Mm-hmm. you break free to defy the norm. And I just continued on with that. And. Our van life was honestly the best thing we ever did for ourselves. Man, it, I rejected nature. Cuz I, I, I was a reconnaissance and as a sniper the majority of my career. So I was always out in the field in the bush and the elements getting rained on in the cold, being miserable, watching shit through glass for days. And last thing I wanted to do when I got out was to be miserable. I wanted no discomfort in my life. Mm-hmm. So that wasn't really paying off, you know, that wasn't advancing my life. Even at the time, I really didn't even know what to advance. So I really felt called to do this self-work, you know, work in my mind, my body and my spirit. All these things which I had no connection to anymore. And being out and exposed to nature that, that freedom to, I mean, we could just park our. You know, in the middle of nowhere we would drive our van into like b l m land and you know, we would stay out there for as many days as we had, you know, water and most times we'd bring extra water so we could stay extra days. And that's where I would go find myself. I would just sit out there in this complete silence and allow nature to just kinda like take me in and like open me back up and help expose what I was fighting so much. I was rejecting what was actually my salvation and nature was a huge part of that. And it makes sense because my body was fine being toxic and negative and sad because it was controlling me. Yeah. But for me to want to change my life, my body was putting up such resistance. Like no, we don't go to nature. We hate that shit. You know, like, let's just be little, let's just get high all day in the van and make music. Which I did a Cuz that was my coping mechanism. And so, you know, nature and that I, that being exposed there and not being in one place, you know, more than, you know, x amount of days or weeks at a time, it's just constantly changing things up. So there was no comfort allowed in my life and I really needed all that. And got to the point where we really doubled down on everything with the, with the brand. We, we realized that hey, we love vanlife. It's really freeing. But I remember I was doing my tattoo apprenticeship in Tennessee and we're looking around, our friends are about to buy us a new property. They lived in like about a five, a cabin home. And we're like, we want some land. I'm like, I'm not gonna get this money for this land tattoo apprenticing for the rest of my life. Or being even a tattoo artist like in the timeframe that I wanted. Right? There's plenty of tattoo artists that make a lot of stuff, but I wasn't looking to have another career starting from ground zero. I was looking to take what I know already and just double down on it and, and create something big from it. Because I already had experience, and at the time I was really having a hard time comparing, you know, what military experience can really help me push forward in my life. No one gives a shit about the war, the combat, the accolade, accolades, the, the medals. No one cares about that shit, but what rule of value did I have that people did care about? and being able to relate to people and to articulate feelings that brought them together and to boost them up and help them change their lives. I'm like, well, shit, that's it. And so we doubled down on, on the weedy the norm, cuz we're like, do we want to go? We want to homestead. And so that's when I reached out to my business mentor Tim. And I'm like, Hey dude, I, I'm ready to buy some inventory. I'm ready to like, take this thing to the next level. And we just kind of kept on going with it. And over the years, you know, we just kept on pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone even more and more and more to kind of get to where we're at now. And where we're at now, it's literally just a beginning because we're in a whole new phase of life. Because once we got here, we had to become something different. To even stay here, to to, to a afford where we live, to, to afford the lifestyle we have to make the impact we have, we had to become different people. And, you know, through that journey, I mean, I've done years of plant medicine and, and self-work and self, you know, all types of different personal development along the way. Things I never did before. But I was also in the military doing things a certain way. Now I have this opportunity to figure out who is Cody Alfred, what do I wanna do with my life? You know, what makes me happy? What don't I like? And nothing can stop me but me. You know, I don't have to submit, Hey, I'm thinking about going to do this plant medicine healing journey here at Higher Command. Will you sign my approval paperwork? No denied. I don't, I don't have to worry about that. Hey, I think I'm gonna start this business. Will, will you prove off? Will you bless off on it? I didn't have to do that anymore. I just simply had to ask myself, is this worth it to you? If it's a yes, then I'm going. If it's no, then I'm not. And that was a new experience for me. You know, even being this like super resilient you know, outside the box tanker and, and actioner in the military. Being free now to do literally anything and everything I wanted to do, it was a whole new world. And you know, along this way. So we got the par, we got the mindset brand reify the norm. And then, you know, about a year and a half ago, I started my co online coaching group to Five Tribe where I've been taking these lessons and principles and these mindset shifts to go from the top to, to hit rock bottom and to pull myself back up and to keep on creating things I'm not stopping, right? Unlocking and unleashing my power within. And I, and I share that with people who are serious about investing in themselves because that's it. You have to invest in yourself. And you know, part of our tagline is the fight conformity, invest in yourself because people think it's like some hokey pokey stuff, but you have to ask yourself. What's hokey Pokey doing? Nothing with your life. Not living the life you want to. That sounds pretty hokey to me, especially when you know you can, but who do you have to be calm to go do those things? And over the past four years of being outta military, I've been coming this, like this superhero, my own personal superhero, my own personal legend, building myself back up, doing the work that I know I need to do in all aspects of my life so I can get to warm out today. So I can speak with confidence and I can truly impact people with my gift that I have and stop comparing my shit to anyone else's out there and, and just do what I know I'm called to do. And that alone is like this sense of empowerment that I haven't had in a very long time. And so, but I never would've got there if I didn't do the shit that scared me. You know? I had a, I went right, I went against the grain. I remember getting a call. My friend worked at a, an old workmate of mine. He worked for this agency, this government agency that I wanted to go work for. I remember him. He called me, he's like, Hey dude, I hear you're getting ready to retire. I would love to fast track your packet, you know, to get you in selection, blah, blah, blah. This type of stuff. I'm like, wipe and draw off my face. I just woke up in my, my 98 Ford Ranger outside, cuz I sold my dream truck to pay off bills before I got in the military. I'm like, Hey dude, this is a dream come true, but I have to say no. Mm-hmm. you know, so like, so it's not like it was just an easy decision like, Hey, I, I'm gonna put the gun down for the rest of my life. It was hard every day, every day I felt like inadequate of a man. Every day I felt like I was a pussy because I wasn't going to do these hard things and suiting up effort battle again with my friends that were doing this job. You know, I, I felt like, how are they there and why am I not there? You know, what all these other things to feel fulfilled in life. And so it was a big challenge along the way, but man, everything I've done was for a reason. I'm extremely grateful for it. Wow.

Bradley Roth: 23:28

what a story. There's, there's like a dozen things that I could kind of go into from that. But you mentioned you're outside the box thinking. Do you think that is a big factor in why you promoted so quickly?

Cody Alford: 23:39

We'll see in the military, at least in the Marine Corps. Go ahead.

Bradley Roth: 23:43

Because I was gonna say, like you said, you had this outside the box thinking and you promote it fast, but obviously the military, like, you know, you step too far outta line, they're gonna put you right back in it, right? Yeah.

Cody Alford: 23:53

So the military, at least the Marine Corps, it's not like, I'm a great Cody. Alfred's a great guy. Let's, let's bump him ahead of the crowd. How it works is at younger ranks, up until I think the rank of like E five, which is a sergeant, you basically are waiting for a score. So if you get enough awards or you do enough of these like online tests, you can build up the score and then you're just ready for, excuse me, you're number to hit. And if you have enough points, you can get that ranked the next time promotion's available. Well, at a young rank in the military, while people are outside, you know, on the weekend, Getting shit faced. I was doing these online tests. One of my instructors like, Hey dude, if you wanna get

24:32

promoted,

Cody Alford: 24:32

if you wanna, if you don't want to like have a, like a shitty career, like do the stuff that no one's doing and you always win. I'm like, sick, I'm gonna do that. And so, you know, I was taking these online tests, I was setting myself up for success before I even got to my very first unit. I was doing it when I was in school, the infantry school on the weekends. Mm-hmm. you know, I was never a brown nose. That's like, not who I am, but I'm also not a follower. I'm also not a peasant mind. You know, like I didn't join the military just to get told what to fucking do 24 7, right? That's just not who I am. And people who didn't promote fast, I'm not saying they're, they joined to get told what to do, but I just know that there's leaders and followers and there's a time and place for me to follow, you know, these great mentors and leaders. But I didn't come here to be in the shadows. I came here to mm-hmm to achieve things in, in my life. These were a goal of mine. This wasn't a, a by chance, I'm gonna join the military. And so those promoted me. I wouldn't say faster than normal. I just had scores at the time that people didn't have. And what also helped me out too is I, I graduated bootcamp as an E three, which is a lance corporal because I graduated number one from bootcamp. So you automatically get this rank if you graduate number one. And I did. Number one through scores and you have to do like a series of like educational and discipline boards. And I, I, I smoked those and, you know, proved that I was number one and it worked out for me. So that set me up. But really how it happens once you hit that rank of E five, you have to be in that rank until like maybe a minimum of two years. You know, you might have to be in this rank a minimum of a certain amount of time before you're eligible to even get looked at. Well, and then how the rank goes, let's just say I have to wait two years and now that two years is here, they might only be promoting people and that two year period that came in on this date forward, well I'm most of the time to so young. I never met that date cuz they're promoting fucking guys from like the eighties, you know, I'm like, damn dog. This is crazy. Yeah. But what happened was the outside the box thinking was, I was you. success leaves clues, and I know everyone hears that, but everyone just, mm-hmm. just literally denies themselves of any truth of that comment. And I was told by these senior guys that I looked up to, if I looked up to them, I'm gonna take what they say as gold. And they're like, dude, you have to have diversity. Have diversity. I'm like, what is diversity? You know, it's not the Michael Scott training from the office. right? Yeah. Diversity is diversifying your portfolio of experience and education. So many guys, especially in the special operations community, at least that I grew up in, they're like, I just wanna stay in a team and be a shooter. I'm like, that's great dude. But then you're gonna have some douche bag and charge you one day and you're gonna be taking orders from them. Mm-hmm. and not everyone is a leader. No matter if you got the rank or, or the experience or not. That's just simply not true. Not everyone is a leader. I was taking billets that were pushing me outta my comfort zone. And in the special operations world, working joint billets really sets you apart cuz it diversified your experience in your portfolio. So I'm working on, in a operations center at a younger age, I'm working at a joint operations center over here in this country. At a younger age, I'm taking these opportunities that guys didn't wanna do. They'd rather go to these other cool guys schools, but I'm like, man, I'm gonna be in charge of my unit one day. Like I ain't trying to be in the Marine Corps 30 years before I pick up that rank. A lot of, a lot of these older guys and I'm like, I have a chance to actually become that. So what do I need to do to go do that? And so with, you know, obviously awards that I received or my performance evaluations cause I'm matched up against my peers, all those things help me get promoted. And when you look at stats, right, when you look at the black and white stats, I had more shit. And so when it comes down unemotional opinions, you know, did I measure up more or less in a peer group? And, and 10 outta 10 I measured up more. I, I was never passed over on a promotion and that pissed off a lot of people. But then I looked around, I'm like, you won't even get your fucking haircut for a promotion photo because marine, weird dude, they make you like cut your hair in like these stupid haircuts. And even in special operations, like we don't get a pass maybe in our units a little bit lighter, a little laxer. Mm-hmm. But the Marine Corps promotes us not special operations, not marsoc. And a lot of guys were such one trick ponies, they couldn't see the bigger picture. I'm like, but they, and, and it showed, you know, it showed their performance, it showed in their, in their ability to get promoted. And a lot of guys did not want to get promoted because they would lose their opportunity to be on a team. But I didn't wanna just be in charge of a. I wanted to be in charge of a company. I didn't wanna just be in charge of a company. I wanted to be in charge of a battalion, which is all these teams. And I wanted to be in charge of my unit. Like I have these goals and dreams. So I, I aligned myself to that path and you know, being that level of outside the box thinker, you know, treating people with respect. You know, reputation goes a long way in any organization, but the military's massive. Cause there's a lot of false prophets. False deities. False idols that people look up to. And there's also a lot of people that have street cred because they're just genuinely good people and they give a fuck about each other and they're looking out for people. Cuz it's super easy to smash people in the military. Yeah, it's super easy to like, like they just call it, drop the book on'em. Like, Hey, according to this rule of regulation, you're fucked up and you're done. Like that isn't, what a dick that was. Never me. There's a time and place for all this shit, but. most of the times there's a guy or a gal in that situation that needs to get fucked up. There's probably a communication gap where someone's not telling them they're fucked up before they're super fucked up. And I noticed that a lot, even in my old organization. I'm, I just made sure I treated people the way that I wanted to be treated, you know? Mm-hmm. because why, why wouldn't I why wouldn't I train these men and women with respect? You know, was I a dick at times? Absolutely, bro. I'm in an organization that literally his whole sole purpose is war fighting. You know, we don't have time to, to, to be soft and to, to nurture everyone and bitch, there's a time and place and to execute something and I need you to go execute. If you can't do that, I will find someone who can't, you know, that's expected in that type of environment, right? But was also expected in that type of environment, which isn't generally spoken about, is like, Hey man, how are you doing? I remember having this one leader who had just, he was a great guy, great guy, but he was a, a huge product of a very toxic environment in the military. And the military especially the Marine Corps is real, especially special operations in the Marine Corps. It's kind of stupid in regards to hey, you're this rank, so therefore you must be in a leadership position, which that's the worst thing ever. There's younger guys that, or, and gals that are more equipped to literally lead than these people that have been in maybe 10 years longer than you. And, and it's, and it's, it is a really sad system. A lot of the other special missions units that you hear out there that the guys that don't exist, they operate on a completely different system for a reason because they're not, they're not stuck in this like, chop, chop, chop, like

Bradley Roth: 31:28

corporate

Cody Alford: 31:28

structure. Yeah. Yeah, man. And, and that part was always toxic. And, and that brought people into positions that they had no responsibility to be in. And you know, I remember having a lot of opportunity to like, just really mentor and lead these people and help them get up to par and actually give them a chance to fail. A lot of people just let them fail vice, giving them a chance to fail, setting them up, arming them with the tools they need to be successful vice. Just trying to find the ways to get them out of there. And that shit never flew with me. And so I made sure I always pay that aspect forward and, and give everyone the best shot they could do. And I think those things really helped me get promoted. Just in general. Just good energy, good energy out, good energy in. Man. I wasn't a two piece of shit, so like I wasn't screwing people over. And so I was putting out good things into the universe, into the environment, and those good things were coming back to me tenfold and I just kept on compounding those good things. Not to receive anything in return, but just to, just to do, because. One thing you'll learn about the military, you'll notice about the military, at least I do. There's a lot of hurt people there. Mm-hmm. you know, in all sorts of aspects of life. Whether it was prior to the military or younger in the military or in their process of ranking in the military. And people just wanna be fucking respected. People just really wanna be challenged and give an opportunity to go fail. And if you give someone an opportunity to go fail, dude, they'll fucking crush it. They'll either crush it and be successful, they'll crush it and they'll fucking suck and fail. But either way, now the onus is on them. And there's a lot of time in the military where people don't even give others an opportunity to lead to, mm-hmm. to rise to their fullest potential. And it never made sense to me. once you give people a chance to fail, right. You give them a chance to succeed. But most of the times I, what I saw in the military was people only set up others to fail. They're not giving them the tools, the opportunities, the positions to rise, the the level of responsibility they need as young leaders or whatever leader they are to, to,

33:17

to,

Cody Alford: 33:18

to do something positive and make a name for themselves. And anyways, so I just made sure that when I had those opportunities, that I paid that forward. And, and I did that because it made sense to me and didn't make sense to a lot of other people, but I'm not like other people. So there

Bradley Roth: 33:31

you go. Not most people. And it's interesting what you said too, cuz I mean, I was, I was actually very close to joining the Marines and trying to go officer post-college. Turns out things would work out otherwise, but you know, It's funny, you hear all kinds of stuff about promotions. Like I never, and I've talked to a lot of ex-military and stuff like that, and you never hear about like, oh, you can go take classes to like help your promotion. Right. It always, they make it sound like it's, you know, who's just in the best shape or who is the smartest and like these kinds of things. But the opportunities are there. And like you said, not everyone's a leader and, but that doesn't mean everyone can't become a leader. It just means not everyone wants to be a leader. Like Right. Big difference there. Like, most people want to be led. They don't want the responsibility, they don't want put in that extra work, but it's there if you want to become one. Right? Like we're not just, some people are kind of born as, you know, have the characteristics of natural leaders, but for I think most of the, the best ones it's, it's learned. Agree with that. Yeah,

Cody Alford: 34:37

yeah, for sure. Cuz my leadership traits as a young man in the Marine Corps was definitely not my leadership traits. Towards the end of my career. It was almost like a day. And I thought I was good back then. But you don't know what you don't know, and you'll never know what you don't know. And so through the process of trial and error, you know, getting your, getting your hands slapped or you know, or, or making some type of advancement, you start to figure out, okay, what does right look like? And not necessarily to a book a textbook, but what does right look like inside here? What does right look like inside here? Right? Because it's all common sense, it's all human interaction. So if you can, if you can remove this like structure, this is how you be a leader. These are principles and guidelines. They're not the finale, they're not it, they're not everything. That's what I never said about like military, they call it pme, professional military education. You know, they all these leadership courses and they suck. If they were, if they were really good, if they were really good, they'd be better leaders in the military. But that's simply not true. I get, I get messages all the time on Instagram from like young, young enlisted marines, even young officers that have horrible, toxic leadership, and they're asking me for guidance and input. And it's just so sad. And this just tells me, you, you can't teach leadership. You can only lead leadership, you know, and that's big difference. Like you, there's 10 principles and and characteristics to, to plant seeds inside of people. But you have to go a step further. You have to execute and you have to show, you have to lead by example. And there's not a lot of people that lead by example. And there's a lot of ego trips in these leadership positions, and I'm sure that's anywhere in the, in the world, but especially in the military, there's a lot of these, I'm better than you peasant because I'm this rank or I'm in this position and you know, that's a real big tragedy. But what do you do? Yeah. You know exactly what you do. You make sure you're not that person if you don't wanna be that person. Mm-hmm. yeah.

Bradley Roth: 36:32

You or you find a way to work within the system and put yourself in that position, you know, like you did. So, yeah. Yeah. And I wanna talk about something else that I found really interesting when you were going over your story about how when you were getting out, you ha you were having all, like, some of the symptoms you described, people listening are probably like, that's bizarre. You know, like drooling or, you know, freaking out from nothing and ending up, you know, like all these things that you said. And it's interesting because it sounds like to me that like when people are addicted to like a drug, they're addicted to that chemical, right? And that chemical response, it's the same thing. Like when you experience stress, that's a chemical reaction that's happening that's linked to that, right? And so when you experience that over and over and over, you become dependent on it. And then you essentially sounds like you were just, you were withdrawing from. that chemical stress that you had experienced for so many years, do you feel like that's kind of what was going on and then to kind of work through that? You mentioned a little bit about that, but was it more of like medical kind of solutions to that or like a mental spiritual solution?

Cody Alford: 37:52

So the first part is before my body completely started to shut down, there was a lot of telltale signs. I was taking all these like power, we call'em ranger naps for like I just need 20 seconds and I just like go pass out for like body convulsing 20 seconds. And I felt like I got enough sleep to, to operate in like another seven hours and I was taking all these naps so my body was shutting down along the way. I just didn't put it all together until it just crumbled. Was I addicted to stress? I definitely didn't seek it out. But when shit hit the fan, for lack of a better term, I was laser focused and knew exactly what to do and if I didn't know what to do, right? I'm not saying I have to solve all the problems, but I knew exactly what needed to happen. And great thing about military is we have standard operating procedures. So when this happens, I knew exactly what to do and so does my people. That's what we train and that's what makes it such a powerful force. But I was, my body was shutting down with all this stress. Like I was constantly tired. I was constantly in like a fight or flight type of mentality. I actually remember my last deployment to Iraq. I'm in our operations center and like watching, like all the war happening on these like massive wall of TVs and my stress food at the time, you know, was Oreos and frosting, bro. I was like scooping, frosting these Oreos just shoving them in my mouth and wondering why I am like shutting down, you know, like It was like, it was like the one thing that I was doing to kind of keep my sanity. And it was like almost a funny thing because military is even more funny cuz you we're like, oh, okay, okay friend, here's a beer, have a dip. You know, let's eat this shitty food. Like we, we think we're comforting people. We think we're doing the right thing, but we're just poisoning ourselves even more and more and more. Right? It's, it's comical. And I say that in a very weird ass way cuz it's exactly that. It's weird, man. Like, what we think we're doing to help ourselves, we're just destroying ourselves. But when the populist is educated that way, well what do you expect? Right? That's just how we deal with this part of the job. It's how it is. And that became the norm, right? And it's not how it is, but that's how what we accepted mm-hmm. And so when I went from a completely stressless to, to a Stressless environment, Managing, you know, I went from like, I needed like focus, laser focus to like my A D H D kicked in massively. You know, I would say there's a large majority of, of special operations veterans that are active duty, special operations members that are diagnosed with A D H D. You know, they expect us to be constantly in a state of fight or flight for six plus months. Then we come home and we're dealing with stupidity like formations or I'm getting in trouble that I, I don't have a fucking haircut properly. Like, bitch, you just sent me off the war. Fuck six months, have me do all sorts of crazy shit, which I didn't really complain about, but you're, you're bitching at me cuz my, my hair is not retardedly haircut cutted. Like the, I'm getting in trouble for this. You're asking me why did so-and-so get a D U I on the weekend? I don't know. Did you call him? Like, what stupidity world do I live in? And that's really the frustrating thing about that. That's like, you take this warrior. you know, and you don't shov them in the garden. You show'em in a fucking loony bin and you're like, Hey, paint. And you're like, what? What about all the other very important things I need to do? And it was just crazy. But once again, that could just be my perception. You know? I, I get it. I have my own viewpoints and I verbalize them. But I definitely did not seek the stress. I didn't want to, but I did seek the feeling of being alive. Mm-hmm. And so at a time when I started to crash, I thought I needed to go do like, I, like, like I needed to steal a car, you know, rob a bank. Just something crazy. Something outland. Yeah. Something intense. Something intense because I didn't, I felt dead inside. I felt so numb, mainly cuz I, I hated myself and low on my own self. And I was hooked up in all these uppers. I remember going to my doctor once, I'm like, bro, gimme something. I'm gonna go do fucking meth. You know? I was like, so serious. And some people might laugh. He'd be like, Hey, that's a little intense. I was desperate. I was desperate to survive and I could not even function on my day-to-day basis, and it was affecting the people that I was responsible for. I couldn't even do my job, nor was I even interested in my job anymore. I went from a, this tactical leadership position to this like made up desk job. That was a promotion, but it was just like this completely different environment and I wasn't above that. Clearly. I've had multiple of these jobs throughout my career, but I went from a hundred mile an hour to literally zero. I mean, I'm working 18 plus hours a day. I barely saw sunlight on deployment. I'm watching my guys get in harm's way. I'm dealing with, you know, next level bureaucracy on the phone, trying to get support for reward that they sent us to that I can't get you. Trying to get assets, trying to get equipment, trying to get supplies. And all I'm getting is resistance because it's fucking ice cream time at their child facility. You know, all these stupid shit that we do, right? They want to make these policies and these procedures, but they put the men and women on the objective to go accomplish the mission, but then they don't fucking support them. And that alone is frustrating. Cause why am I there? Why did you gimme live ammo? Why did you gimme access to all this training to do this if you're not gonna support me? And that level of psychological stress also kind of big, played a big role in this because I just kept like peeking behind the curtain and realized how stupid all this shit is in the first place. And getting back, getting on all these uppers I was on. Adderall, like large doses of adderalls and large doses of provigil, which provigil they give you for like high. Basically you're doing like a three day patrol so you don't sleep and get killed. They give you that shit. It's like a molecule away from meth. And Dextrin, which is the way I was explained, dexo. Dextrin is 30% of Adderall goes to your brain, where Dexedrine 70% goes to your brain. Dexo was really huge with pilots back in the eighties, eighties, early nineties with, with, and they like banded because like, it was like the cocaine of the world. They were just like losing their minds, all this shit and mm-hmm. I'm on all this stuff and I'm still passing out. I'm still slurring my words. You know, I was so understimulated with life, my eye. I had to go to eye therapy cuz my eyes, if you were talking to me, my eyes would just cross. You know, everything about my body was just shutting down and I was beyond desperate for any form of help, assistance. And, you know, coming from that place, being a super senior guy, I've been there from day one, you know, I got pictures on the wall. Like I'm a plank owner for every aspect of that organization. And I'm asking for help and people are looking at me like I have a unicorn spike. Spike outta my head. Mm-hmm. Tell me it's not that bad. You know? And I'm like, you think I would be crying to you any this setting if it wasn't desperate? And I think all that played in it too, cuz I just felt like I, I wasn't. and throughout the whole process, you know, I, I felt alone for the most part. Granted, I had a really good command climate towards the end when I was able to like, communicate and articulate the stuff. I had some senior leaders that looked out for me and made sure that I got what I needed, maybe with some resistance, but they, to me, they did the right thing. I was extremely grateful for it. Very supportive. But in the beginning it was not that case, and that just added to that level of stress, which is what I did not need in my life. So it's kinda this like a big spitball steam ball thing. So, you know, a lot of it was just from like system overload. So much stress in my life causing all these other issues. And once you start working on one, you realize there's 20 other things. And I remember going to our traumatic brain injury clinic after that deployment, specifically for Adderall, and to get my sleep fixed. That was it. I just wanted Adderall and I wanted my sleep fix. Then I found out that, oh, hey, I had X, Y, and Z, all these other issues. Then as I started to address those issues, My body just began to shut down more and more and more as I started to actually be aware that, oh shit, I can't continue to act like a robot. I'm a human and I'm just like destroying my mind, my body, and whatever left is of my spirit.

Bradley Roth: 45:56

Wow. Yeah, I feel like a lot of people can relate to that, but on like a much lower level, you know, like burnout and stress and coping mechanisms and not feeling like you have anyone there to kind of help you through it and that sort of thing. Especially high achievers, people who are put a lot of pressure on their themselves, quote unquote hard chargers and people building businesses and stuff. And so I think it's, you know, obviously you got to a point that was kind of, I think, way beyond, but a lot of people experience, but I think a lot of people experience burnout. On some level and it's like the further you deplete that tank, the harder it's gonna be to get back to normal. Right. To get back to baseline if, if you even can. Right. And so you kind of switched gears hardcore. You went to this van life out in the wilderness and started spending a lot of time with yourself.

46:50

And that concludes part one of the special two part episode with Cody offered. If you guys enjoyed this one, you are really going to like part two. For Cody talks about how things really turned around. Plant medicine. Uh, all kinds of stuff. And he goes on one of the most epic, inspiring monologues that I have ever had on the, not most people podcasts. So make sure you tune in for the next one. You're not going to want to miss it. As always, if you got value out of this, please share it with someone who you think will really get something out of it as well. And always remember, don't be most people.