Jack Carr on Doing the Work, Being Prepared & How to Achieve Personal Freedom

Download the Top 10 Advice from tonight’s Home Services update with Jack Carr.

May 19, 2020 update

The Johns Hopkins CSSE dashboard is reporting 4,889,287 globe cases with 322,683 lives lost and 1,679,155 recovered.

In the US we are at 1,525,367 million US cases and 91,730 deaths with 289,392 recovered as of 1:30pm on May 19. I am not looking forward to reporting 1000,000 US deaths.

President Trump taking Hydroxychloroquine

President Donald Trump shared yesterday that he has been taking a daily dose of hydroxychloroquine for the past few weeks.

President Trump’s physician issued a statement that suggests that he prescribed the treatment, citing its “potential benefit,” but it does not explicitly state that the President is taking the drug due to recent news about potential COVID-19 exposures within White House staff. The announcement prompted a response from health experts warning that the drug has not yet demonstrated effectiveness in treating or preventing COVID-19 and that it does have potentially severe adverse effects.

Many US states are beginning to relax social distancing measures in an attempt to return to modified forms of business. California Governor Gavin Newsom announced an update to California’s plan that could potentially allow counties to move more quickly in their efforts to relax social distancing. Perhaps the most substantial change lies in criteria for moving into State 2. The updated requirements shift away from COVID-19 incidence and focus more on the impacts to healthcare systems. The new criteria require counties to have “stable/decreasing” COVID-19 hospitalizations—that is to say, less than a 5% daily increase—or no more than 20 total hospitalized COVID-19 patients over the previous 2 weeks.

In Texas, which has also moved into its second phase of relaxing social distancing, some parts of the state, including El Paso, will reportedly face a delayed timeline. Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that the delay was in response to an elevated burden on local health systems that would not be able to handle a surge in the event of increased transmission. Currently, these counties are scheduled to enter Phase 2 on May 29, a week behind the original timeline. The announcement was reportedly a result of a request by local officials to be temporarily exempted from the statewide changes in Texas. Overall, while businesses in many parts of the country are reopening as social distancing measures are relaxed, some consumers may not be quite ready to return. Perceived risk of COVID-19 is still high in many communities, and consumers—and potentially workers as well—may not yet feel it is safe enough to resume normal activities, even with some social distancing measures remaining in place.

Main Topic: Navy SEAL Jack Carr – doing the work, being prepared and how to achieve personal freedom

Special guest: Jack Carr

There is this hard-fought reputation about Navy SEALs as being tough, disciplined, and team-focused. What do you think makes your fellow SEALS so unique?

SEAL teams draw people from very different experiences and backgrounds prior to joining the military and this makes them strong and able to adapt quickly
Whoever can adapt faster comes out on top

What about you, do you have a superpower?

He wanted to be a SEAL his entire life. His grandfather fought and died in WWII and he grew up with his medals and stories about his service.
His Mom was a librarian and took every opportunity to take her kids to the library and do research and read and so she took him to the library to learn everything he could about SEALs after watching The Frogman.
The big draw was the extreme difficulty of the hardest training program in existence and the high attrition rate, he knew he couldn’t quit.

One thing really stood out from your podcast with Joe Rogan and it was this idea that your whole life, even when you were going downrange, you never wasted time watching a movie or playing video games. We talk about the Learner Mindset, or investing in your skills, your mind every day, And it sounds like you were living that before and during your time in the military – can talk a little bit about your mindset, about studying your craft?

He wasn’t reading and learning for his next career as a writer, it was for his job as a SEAL, but this research is what allowed him to make the transition into writing becuase he had done the background research on terrorism, cultures, coutner terrorism, etc.
This really laid the groundwork for writing fiction that was grounded in fact.
Fiction has always been his escape and always is reading both a fiction and nonfiction book
A few favorite authors:
- Hemingway, Harrison, L’Amour, Philip Meyer, Tim O’Brien, David McCullough, Pete Dexter, Lee Child
It was always his goal to serve his country as a SEAL and then become an author

What have been your biggest challenges about starting your own business, as an author?

Realizing it is more than just writing has been the biggest challenge. It’s more than writing your story and sending it to New York to then be published. There’s marketing and budget, social media, website, and everything else that goes into a business.
As his first book was wrapping up he realized that he needed to take ownership of his business and set a new standard with the goal of doing it better than anyone.
Understanding that Social Media is a good thing that needs to be leveraged to build out his company and relationships with other brands has also been important.
- Took the lessons from Black Rifle Coffee company and their social media strategy and realized this wasn’t being done in publishing and decided to be the first.
- How can he make the experience of getting a new book better than people’s expectations?

You mentioned that you consider yourself a small business owner. Our whole audience is SMB. You recently launched your new book “Savage Son” and all of a sudden b/c of Covid-19 your typical promotional approach, tour, signings etc got pulled out from under you. Your training seems to have taught you to always improve your position in the middle of a firefight, do you liken our approach to your book promotion to that spirit?

It’s time to adapt
- When COVID-19 started, he already started thinking about the possibility of no book tour so that he could be prepared and was looking for opportunities to pivot.
- For his next book he had been doing research on infectious diseases and this was something he was able to leverage amidst trying to launch a new book during the peak of COVID-19 in the US.
Normally during a book tour, the media is centered around the book, but he pivoted this to be topical to the focus on Coronavirus by leveraging his subject matter expertise on infectious disease and preparing for diseases and was then also able to talk about the book by tying it into the infectious disease topic.
Wanted to provide a special experience for his readers still even though he wouldn’t be doing book signings and partnered with companies that produced knives and bows that were used in his book to create contests and giveaways for readers.
You have to be a learning organization, he views himself as this as well as the SEALs.
Key Takeaways
- Do not package yourself and your business as the manilla envelope. You are better than that and should package your company as more special than that
- Keep your mind open and be adaptable and always look for opportunities to pivot your business

Let’s switch gears for a minute and talk about reviews. You have videos and countless posts dedicated to this. As an author and small business owner you are under constant criticism. Its especially tough to read negative reviews when your business and brand are so closely tied to who you are. Its the same for our pros. Can you please share your mindset when it comes to reviews and more specifically dealing with negative reviews?

He has identified two categories of negative reviews that his books receive; people who think he partners with brands and writes about those specific pieces of gear and they complain about too many references or those that think he is a right wing conspiracist
- He does not partner with these brands and if he writes about them it’s because he has actually used that gear and he identifies as a libertarian
On YouTube he will record himself reading and responding to reviews and truthfully feels that negative reviews sell more books than positive one. It’s a cathartic experience and people really enjoy it.
Negative reviews humanize you
We are all going to get knocked down, what’s important is how we get up and get back moving again. This most important for your children to seel how you get back up and how you model this to them.
Reclaim your power over negative reviews is key, that person may have just had a bad day and taken it out on you or your tech

Lighting Round on Preferences

Land Rover Defender or Land Cruiser – is that FJ62 from Icon 4×4 going to be yours when it’s done?
- Land Cruiser. He has an Icon 4×4 in the garage right now. Both are great but he’s a Land Cruiser guy.
Sitka or Kuiu
- Sitka. He went to high school with the founder of Sitka.
- Its a group of great people and they have transformed an industry as the first technical hunting clothing in hunting fabrics with less bulk and designed for movement
  - They overcame the naysayers and it’s important to ignore the naysayers and follow your dream and charge ahead
Compound or Traditional Bow
- Wants to get back into traditional bows, but right now his priority is finishing his next book and building his readership and his brand so right now, just compound bows.
45 or 9mm
- Growing up loved the 45, so much history behind it
- He carries a 9mm everyday
What are you reading right now?
- Rise and Kill First by Ronan Bergman
- Marine Sniper by Charles Henderson

Questions from the audience

What drives your creativity?
- He has always been a daydreamer since a kid and feels that it comes naturally
- He doesn’t do all the things you re supposed to do like journal and meditate, his house is pure chaos between family, kids, and dogs and he has to capitalize on the limited quiet time he has.
- You have to sit down and do the work, no one else will do it for you and things don’t happen by magic.
- Podcasts are a great tool, you essentially are having coffee with these people by listening to them while drinking a cup of coffee and learning about their industry and experience.
What social media source is the most productive to you for your business?
- For him, it’s Instagram. He did his research and realized its an underutilized space for authors
- He has a unique background and the ability to post photos from his military career but he only posts one of those per week, the rest of his content is more related to his books and authorship
- He runs his social media account, he has a designer to create graphics but he posts, writes content, and responds to comments
- He treats people on social media as if they are all customers walking into my small town shop. But he does block people, you have the right to refuse service.
- He has learned that there is little cross pollination between channels, Twitter has a different following than Instagram and you have to treat them uniquely.
- More than 2 platforms is too much for him so he focuses on Instagram and Twitter and occasionally Instagram will auto post to Facebook for him.
- Don’t just post about you and your business, share other companies and look for ways to add value to your customers life through your posts
What is one thing our Pros should do tomorrow that will help better themselves and their business?
- You have to take that first step, you can’t be frozen in place so write down a goal, personal or professional and give yourself a timeline for accomplishing it and then plan out how you will get there step by step
- Unless you write it down, you won’t hold yourself accountable
- Do not wait to get started on it

Download a one-page with Jack Carr’s Top 10 Advice

From “secret sauce” to finding opportunity in chaos, you’ll want to download these 10 pieces of advice from Navy Seal, and best-selling author, Jack Carr.

Legal disclaimer

Housecall Pro is offering the Coronavirus Evening Update for Home Service Businesses for informational purposes only and to foster thoughtful communication and discussion regarding the COVID-19 pandemic; Housecall Pro is not offering advisory services or otherwise advising or representing any members of the group invited to participate. Housecall Pro is not offering legal, medical or other professional advice in the Coronavirus Evening Update and makes no representations or warranties regarding the content of the Coronavirus Evening Update. Participants should obtain independent advice relating to their businesses and their particular circumstances.