This is the first episode of the newly launched 21 virtues, which existed before as an awareness and action podcast. In this episode, you will get a glimpse into the other side of EJ Snyder.
https://pod.co/21-virtues/ep-1-ej21v
EJ Snyder Episode Transcription
We've got some really good stuff that we're going to be talking about today, EJ welcome to the show, how are you doing, my friend? Hey, Jock, thanks for having me appreciate it. We've been trying to get this done for a little bit and I'm glad we're finally here. Well, exactly, I mean, but you're really busy, you're filming, you've got loads of different projects, we'll get to that in the end. But I think everybody knows you EJ from Naked and Afraid. I mean that's what you're known for, but your ex-military, and you're an expert in survival.
EJ Snyder and Spirituality
Q. But I think a lot of people don't understand, you're quite a spiritual person as well, and you're at one with nature, is that right?
That's exactly right. I mean, I grew up as a Christian, I still have Christian beliefs and I just worship in a different way than uh what you would say is the traditional, normal way most Christians get after God. You know what I found being out in the wild was that's where I heard God's voice loudest. That's when things quieted down. That's where um I could hear what, what the guidance was better because I'm a very, I'm a spirit reader, I'm very much attuned with being an empath with other people's spirit and energies.
And when I'm around a town or a college man, my head would spin half the time and I grew up in Jersey, a lot of people up there in the New York City area, and so I didn't understand it until later on in life what was going on. And then once I got out in the wilderness, uh I could calm myself and I could really do some real good spiritual self-work on myself with prayer and meditation and so you know, the wilderness is my church and that's where I go.
Q It's one thing we talked about here now is this the first episode of 211 Virtues and one of the things that I wanted to change from what we had before was talking about our mindset and our spiritual values or spiritual warriorship, warrior values, do you think that being at one with nature, you know, helped you with your mindset, especially when you were going through the stuff on the television and all the different survivor shows that you did, you must take a formidable amount of mindset to be able to do and a warrior mindset to do what you do.
Yeah, I mean I've always had a positive mindset my whole life, and the military just kind of put that warrior mindset on me through what we do there and then being out in the wilderness, you know, and being very spiritual and understanding that to survive the wild, you know, you have to have a strong mindset and an unbendable will and good spirit because there’ll be down times out there where you want to just throw in the towel. Uh, a lot of people always, they asked me, how do you, you know, 210 days out there now just on that one different one challenge Naked and Afraid and how do you just, you know, how do you basically spare your testicles, stitch them up and say, hey, that's okay, Let's just forget the numbing medication, let's just stitch it up so I can get back to work.
I never lose, I either win or I learn
It's just who I am. It's um, now did you have obviously, you know, even as spiritual warriors or having a warrior mindset there are always times that we, no matter how strong we feel that we waver.
Q. Have you had times like that in your career, even within the military or been out in the wilderness that you've ever wavered and thought, you know, I guess for a game of soldiers?
Yeah. No, no, I mean I can't think of many times in my life where I've ever had that, you know, I've had a lot of stuff come against me, but I just, you know, I look at as, you know, some people, they'd rather be dead than uncomfortable.
I'm like, at least if I'm uncomfortable, I know I'm alive and I can keep swinging and figure something out and I always say there's always one more thing you can do in a survival situation, same thing in life, positive mindset, you just keep after it. Um, because when you give in, you give up, you know it, uh, that alternative, you know, I just can't, I just can't fathom it for me to say I threw in the towel, I quit now, you may beat me. You know, I may, I always say I never lose, I either win or I learn.
So, in every situation, uh there's, yeah, there's a lesson in that and so going through adverse times and tough times only, you know, I tell people all the time, you don't do people favors calling them. You know, hard times are gonna come. You don't do anybody a favor by calling them hard, hard times come, and hard people last. So going through these trials and tribulations in your life, whatever it is, you know, a bad relationship. Um a tough time at school, tough time on the job. All those things build us up for what's next.
So I'm always excited about what's coming through the lessons we learn. And when I learned one of these lessons, it's like, oh, alright, where's my reward? Um And I just, you know, I've had some time, I've just never when you bring in doubt and fear, which is negative, it's a stressor, but it's a negative in life, it's a negative energy uh into any situation, you're putting yourself up against the wall right away. So I try to keep that stuff out of anything I'm dealing with, no matter how bad somebody's irritating me in a situation, whether it's out in the survival things that you've seen or in life, I just try to say a little quiet prayer for him and just keep moving and say that's not my, that's not my drama, that's not my bag.
I'm just gonna figure out how do I keep moving forward and how do I change the way I'm dealing with you now so that it's beneficial for both of us and if we can come to terms great, if not, I mean it's pretty stressful out there. You see a lot of times I'm making afraid on the [xl version] where we have group survival going on and that's just part of survival.
On Leadership
You got to be able to have people skills and some people just don't have people skills at all.
They just don't know how to deal with people in general. And they just, you know, it's my way, oh look at me, I'm doing all this, I'm killing, I'm slaying all these things we're eating, we're doing great stuff and it's like but you're missing the point. It's great that you want to feed everybody. But what about the other parts of survival about keeping people in good morale, keeping them comfortable making sure everybody's taking care of checking in on everybody that's just basic leadership.
Q. You tend to watch and you tend to sit back and analyze the situation because while everybody's going like this, you tend to pull back and just watch and see what's happening. Is that something you do for life?
I've always been a people watcher. Like I remember as a young guy I used to sit in the mall and watch people walk around and I just watch them. It's like human TV. It's like live TV. I find it so interesting because you can learn a lot not just by watching people but even animals and you just watch what they're doing and you can learn a lot from people just watching them and listening and then you say ok I understand what makes you tick now.
This is how I got to just push a few buttons to get you to do what I need you to do as a leader and it’s really that kind of stuff you know in leadership, it's about motivating people to get them to do what you need them to do to complete the mission. And you know a lot of times you know you don't have to be the loud person in charge, you can just quietly you know push that button and you put your assets where you best need them for the group and I do it all the time out there and people are like oh they don't even realize it and a lot of people out there what I've experienced that have never been around the military or whatever.
You know they don't realize they need to be led and they may not want to be led by some militant guy. So you gotta have had to change up the way I lead people because in the end they definitely need to be, they need to be led and they, oh, I don't need any of that. I'm a free spirit and all this. Yeah, okay, that'll get you so far. Why do you think, I mean, I don't mean this in negative anyway, anybody's listening out there, but we're both military guys, so we're going to call you civilians.
EJ Snyder Does not do negative
Q. But why do you think civilians or this or civilian friends and people out there live in a constant state of fear?
Most people live in a constant state of fear and constant negativity in the world because they've either been, um, they've, you know, you don't come into this world as a baby with any of that, that's a learned thing. So you either learned it through your upbringing or through the people that you're surrounded with and I just don't do negative and I won't keep negative people in my life.
I just, you know, I won't, it's just, it's not healthy for one, especially if you're a spirit worker. It's not, it's not healthy, but they've either learned that habit or something happened them in in their life that's um, caused them to have that fear that they've not, you've got to deal with those things, you got to put them to bed so you can move forward in life because what that becomes is a spiritual anchor and it holds you back. And I think in a lot of civilians, you know, they just in the military, they train us and teach us to stay calm in tough situations, uh, to be cool, calm, cool and collective in very stressful and difficult situations because military mindset people think we, we make life and death decisions that I brought out there to survive my survival.
Life or death decisions in milliseconds
Uh, and wilderness adventures. I make decisions in milliseconds, life or death decisions in milliseconds where a normal person, they're gonna, oh, what's going on? They're gonna take regular seconds and even minutes to think about it and figure out this problem. And some people might say it's all just natural instinctive and react and, and reaction. And then some things that's true when it comes to fighting and shooting and that stuff, but when you're, when you're faced with a decision, do I go left or right left, I die right.
I have a better chance of maybe making it. And if you delay too extra milliseconds, they make the decisions made for you, you're dead. So I think that comes into play too because uh, you know, they talk about the [ooda loop]. The loop and shooting is the time it takes from you to see your target or the threat, Draw your pistol and lay rounds down range and you try to, you know, if you can complete that loop within three seconds or less, preferably 1.5, you know, you'll never, you'll never give somebody else, you know, a chance to help you die for your country.
You give them the chance to do that for theirs. But uh, and I take that same concept when you're out in the wild and all of a sudden there's a grizzly bear charging you.
Understanding The EJ Snyder Spirit
Yeah, it would be fair to say a lot, probably a lot of people don't realize about you, but you remember when I first saw you, obviously you're wearing a shamanic type thing that you have in your neck, which I thought that guy has got a real spiritual foundation.
Q. But it's fair to say that a lot of people might not understand this about you, that you're really quite intuitive as well. And so in your military career and as well as in the wilderness do you feel that you're in, I mean obviously, you've explained it, but your intuition played the leading role in not only your development but what you did in the military?
My whole life, I've had uh, you know, been granted gifts from God probably in the bible. You would, there are seven gifts of God. I probably have all of them, but only have been aware or understand how to control about five of them.
The Necklace
Um, and that intuition and intuitiveness just kept me alive, not only in battle but out in the wild. And then this necklace my mother made for me well over three decades ago and I lose everything. But this has an arrowhead in it, which represents my warrior spirit. And a little bit of a throwback to my heritage is I've got some native American blood in me and some Viking blood. Uh and then there's a crystal that reminds me to keep my mind body and spirit clear. And it helps with my prayers.
And then um there on top of it all is a moldavite stone. It’s older, white as a piece of a meteorite landed in Yugoslavia some 14.5 million years ago. They've only been able to mine a ton of it out of the earth in all that time. And it's just broken up, right? So it's little pieces and only points of light on this Earth, guiding lights are supposed to have them and each piece has an owner. And so when you get yours and you have it if you're not supposed to have it, they say, and I've heard this, but it's never happened to me because this is my piece.
Dreams
Negative things will happen to you. You'll have bad dreams. You can't be around it because it is very esoteric and extraterrestrial, it's not of earth. So It has come from the heavens. And uh if you're not supposed to have it, you'll lose it or it'll lose you. I literally left this in Iraq with my interpreter for two years. I was, you know, getting reborn, my re-committed to my faith in Christianity. While I was over there and my interpreter was a Muslim Kurdish guy Ahmed and we were very close and I was leaving him after 15 months.
I was really sad about it, but he wanted to become an American citizen, which he's still working on. He's been here in the US for several years now. Uh but I took this necklace and I handed him his Ahmed this is probably a lot of luck over the years, it's really kept me safe here, hang on to it. And you see if you can get maybe you become a citizen and my, one of my best friends from the army, I have several really good close friends.
And he came back, he like I went I left for about a year and then he went over there and then he did his year tour and when he came back he said he drops it on my desk. He got back, hey lou hey welcome back. He dropped it on my desk. I said oh shit, what the hell? And he's like, oh the man had a dream and Allah said you're supposed to have this, and uh and I've had it, you know, I was like that, just talk about testing something to find his way back to you.
And uh actually very recently, um I had this earlier in the week before I came back here. I had it on, but I misplaced it and couldn't find it and I was freaking out. And then I was like, man, how am I gonna sleep tonight? I don't know where this thing's at, I don't know what happened to it. I don't, I remember touching it the other day, and then I was like, you know what, maybe it's time I'm supposed to not have it. Maybe it's had its time with me and it's gonna either go to somebody else or something else is supposed to come to me.
But it was the first time since I've had it that I stopped panicking and in the morning when I couldn't find it, I made peace with it, I said, you know what if that's the case that I'm supposed to have it, it's okay, I've settled with it. And then lo and behold less than like five minutes, 10 minutes later, I find it, it fell down behind, you know, behind the thing there and uh I oh my God, look here it is. Oh and so I didn't mean it wasn't really panicking, but it was like, this thing has been with me a long time.
So I know that took up a big yeah and they never let me take it out on naked, afraid even though they let people wear earrings and nose rings and braid their hairs and do all kinds of other great stuff and I'm like, well that's there, but they were afraid it would one because it's wrapped in sterling silver then it would mess up the microphone, but two, it's like an hour and it's like, oh it gives you an extra item and you can and then, and they were kind of right because I couldn't take the wire off and made some fishhooks and then I would take the cord and I could, you know, make a bow drill with it.
But you know, because I always think that way everything is a survival use.
Q. And that kind of leads nicely on actually because you're, you have a course that is that I can wholly recommend everybody. It's, it's survival, but it's in the modern day, it's not gonna go into the wilderness and thinking and I took that course obviously good to write about it and support it because I believe in it. Um but you, you can see elements of obviously your spiritual nature within that as well and being at one with nature and so you've taken survival to the extreme and then brought it right into the urban living environment for every man woman, and child.
I teach survival for the everyday Joe or Joan
Absolutely and my philosophy on survival is, you know, I'm not for me personally, I wanted to be when I started this and get passionate about it many years ago, I've always been a woodsman, but I was like, I want to be the most badass capable survival on the planet ever since I watched the movie first one and saw Johnny Rambo jump from a tree with a spear and stab the pig and he was doing all these things surviving even though it was a movie, I'm like, there's definitely some, there are people like that on this planet.
I want to be one of them and that drove me to join the military and then eventually to do survival stuff and then I wanted to be able to go out with just a knife, not saying everybody else can do it, but to get to that capability should be like the ultimate goal for everybody. But maybe physically some people can't do it. So I teach survival for the everyday Joe or Joan and then that's, you know because you're gonna have gear, the world flips, let's face it, they will be rubble around, you'll be able to grab stuff.
Uh, but I just wanted my self-confidence level to go out with just a knife and be able to survive. But then for everybody else, I want to, I don't want to build the next bear Grylls or Cody Lundin, I just want to build the very next best you. And so that's where all my survival classes are set up for that. Um, so that, that's what we're teaching you and then two, I want you to, you know, like for instance, we did the ultimate bug in home defense course, uh that guide, and you took it.
It's a video that you can find at EJSnyder.com. And I think yeah, we might have a little sale going on with it, but it teaches everybody how to prepare for disaster, any type of natural disaster survival situation that may come your way in your own home. And how do you keep it, you know, defended, how do you keep it safe? And then we go through all the, you know, the five deeds of defense. Uh and it's really just a mindset, you go into the that's a formidable aspect of it to have that warrior mindset.
And so yeah, we have that too. And all that is in the guide. I mean folks, we’re trying to turn it into a book, but I mean it's a foundation because there's a lot of [tentacles] with that course that you can get into like, oh, how do I stock my shelves, how do we do this do that? But the big thing is it's about the mindset of preparing and when you give yourself, when you prepare you to give yourself a better fighting chance to make it through that situation right now, we got a blizzard going on.
We've got power going down. You know, we talk about all that stuff had to be prepared for it because you know, let's face it, everyone's trying to go electric, and oh like our power grid can handle it here in North Carolina. Our power grid was attacked and they hit two substations with bullets and took them out. That's how vulnerable our power stations are. So if a country one to come in and take, you know, come after the country that we've got, our borders are open, bad guys are coming in and they could just go to all these power stations and take them down by, started shooting them up it’s crazy.
And so yeah, it was two power stations. I think it took out 40,000 people's worth of power for weeks and it got cold here and now people are like, well what do I do? Oh, we'll get the ultimate, you know, get the bug, the ultimate bug in the home defense guide and you will not have to worry. And then you work up to the ability to go out there with just this thing someday and you're then you're all right. You know, do you suffer from anxiety?
The Knife
You know that reminds me of the old, the old, remember you talked about John Rambo remember that Rambo knife that had all the survival kit and said that. I remember when I was young, I was like, I gotta get myself one of them. Oh, I did too because I became an, I'm a very big knife, enthusiast knife go to over here and I've designed three knives, I've designed the, my first one was this uh skull crusher extreme blade, which was the uh it was maybe it's made by Topps, it's still out there, you go tops.com and that is still my number one choice going out because it's a, it's a big knife as well as a little knife, it does all those tasks, chop wood, all those things, you can fight with it.
Um and I was very proud of that because my first knife broke in Africa and I came back and was determined to design it because I normally carried Bowie knives because I love the old Bowie knife. You know Rambo had a Bowie knife but I love the Bowie knife from the old Pioneer days and I just had switched up because in the military it was like we need a lighter kit, I'm gonna try and make this Friday knife into a survival knife. And uh and then I designed a compatibility play with it, the [SXS]. Because every great action here needs a sidekick, the skull crusher.
Extreme [sidekick] which is a good little beast in itself. But then I collaborated because I wanted to honor the woodsman of old the pioneers and I wanted to do a collab with um a Bowie knife. And this is a different kind of Bowie knife. People might say well you don't have this top guard here, it's got a crooked spine but it fits the classification of a Bowie knife. But this is what I call a mountain predator survival to combat Bowie. So it's there for the woodsman, the survivalist, the hunter, and anyone in the military.
It's a good Friday knife. It's as beastly as the SXB. It's a chopper. It's a big knife. Little knife, it cuts well we put it through the wringer. I collaborated with Stroup knives for this knife. It's also on my website, EJSnyder.com. And uh he's a veteran, he hires mostly veterans and uh first responders, a lot of them are, you know, going through some stuff and they come in there and they work on knives and he's really expanding.
He does good quality work, but it's very unique. You can see that little chanting he does there every night. That's hand, it's hand done. So every night, even though, you know, they cut it, they grind it, and all that is a custom knife because it's individually cared for and the crooked spine just actually gives you when you're buttoning other angles to do stuff and it just looks neat as hell. And it kind of looks like a mountain peak. So that's where the mountain even ladies and gentlemen if you're not a survivalist or you're not you, I mean it looks pretty shit hot on your wall.
Oh yeah, my good friend, [Bigby] leather works, he does all these custom sheets. He's got that with a rattlesnake on it. Uh and I wanted a nice old pioneering uh and when [Stroup] makes him you get what they call a taco folded um, kayak sheet, which is fine but [Bigby] right there, there's his little logo. He does some really beautiful work and I had him do one for my SXB like an old pioneer-type sheet with a side sleeve for my little compatibility blade. And then he's got he put a like a little pouch on there so you can put like an [Altoids tin] in there with whatever you want, sharpening stone whatever.
EJ and Indigenous Knowledge and Skills
Q. So now obviously you know we know you're a spiritual guy and you're you've learned skills in the military and stuff but obviously, you've learned skills from indigenous skills you know from natives and stuff. Where do you, I mean probably a double-loaded question but which native indigenous skill set do you rely on the most or have you learned from the most respect for?
I gotta say I've been to Thailand a few times and I learned from the Thai rangers that had this little survival course that we took from them and those guys are amazing. And then I was with Ed Stafford on first ran out we were developing the new series that he's had like on season three now first ran out with Ed Stafford where two survivals come together. Well, Ed brings us into survival and we race in a survival race challenge. Uh doing survival as you go trying to win the race.
We were up in northern Thailand and we were in this village for you know trying to build this thing you know when you're creating a challenge like this for TV you just don't go out there and let's go wing it we had a lot of planning for at least with the pilot episode and then you shake out the bugs and then you just mirror the for the rest of the episodes. So I was brought in to help consult and help build this thing but we were in this little village up in the mountains of northern Thailand uh for about a week and these guys man they were teaching us all kinds of stuff.
Very good, especially with bamboo. I found them very intriguing. My friends down in Peru in the Amazon, they're great stuff, and then over in Colombia same thing uh anyone that's getting out there in the wilderness. Absolutely amazing. And then over the years when I was younger, I've had some teachings from some native American, different native American friends. I learned how to track from a Cherokee Indian. Um you know just different aspects of because wherever I go in the world when I would get stationed I would in I love history and I love learning about the area and I try to die myself into that culture.
I was stationed in Hawaii for eight years so the South Pacific region. I learned a lot of survival skills from some Samoan friends of mine out there. It's just I get so intrigued by how other people, especially indigenous people, and even more so how people are ancient like years ago, you know maybe thousands, tens of thousands of years ago. How did they live in this area during their time because they had no technologies and the technologies of their days? Exactly. And they don't know what I find fascinating is they don't have the illnesses in the mind crap that we have in the Western world. Some of these indigenous tribes even still live very simply and in some ways, I'm very jealous of them because you know, I'm glad we have this technology.
EJ Says You Have To Unplug
It's a way to get information out and word out, but it can also be a hindrance, and man, there's nothing like when I go out on this, taking [afraid] challenges and now I'm gonna be out there for 60 days, and here's a cell phone, turn it off, drop it in the bag, give it to the to them to secure uh unplugging, just unplug for a weekend.
Just leave your phone in the car, go out camping, and don't touch it. Um, and just try it for three days and see what magic will happen. You know, it's one of the things I I've maintained, you know, when I've given talks and things to say to people that you have got it unplugged because if you're going through bad times, especially with, you know, veterans that are suffering you and I are really passionate about helping veterans and things and veterans that are suffering PTSD, everyone else to go through and even young women who have been abused and things.
Just taking that time away from everything and going to nature brings a whole new spiritual revolution to your mindset.
It brings, it gives you the answers that you're looking for. And it will, when you unplug like that, it's a body cleanse, it's a body clock cleanse. It will just reset your, you reset you completely. Your internal wiring gets reset. You connect to your spirit again, your brain cleanses out. You just, it's amazing what nature can do and nature is an amazing way for people to heal.
That's why we have veterans go out there and they hiked the Appalachian trail and do the whole, yeah, the Katy Trail. I got a friend of mine, an ex-marine from back in the day for the Falklands, and he and his brother did the Katy Trail Steve's a big shout out to Steve my friend down in North Carolina. Great guy. You know, and he just, that's what he did. You know, you just got to get out there and you gotta get, and I always say to people, get nature is where it is.
Yeah, I think there's a book out there. I heard somewhere I can't recall, but it's called walk off the war or something. But there are a lot of veterans that take to the trail to do that. And uh, just make sure you're ready and you're safe and you've got your basics covered and you know the biggest thing I tell people that go out on the 80 it's amazing how many people just get lost just walking 200 meters off the trail and they can't get back and then bad things happen.
Make sure you get a little basic survival and basic first aid training before you get on the trail. Just so in case something happens, I mean the 80 is the one trail that we have in our country that you get off the trail. You can pretty much find civilization and or some help somehow there are a few spots that are a little. Yeah, they'll even tell you, hey there's no water source for 100 miles or whatever. And then you'll know you just gotta dig down a little bit more but like if you go out on the PCGA lot less and then the continental divide even way more or less. So uh you just gotta have a good plan. It's all about planning.
Have you ever done anything, I'm just gonna ask you. Have you ever done any survival challenges in Scotland and in the Scottish highlands?
No, I wish I could have I was in, I was in the U. K. several years ago maybe it's been about four or five years now. And I trained with Stephen Kelly, we ran some classes for kids and we did some other events and got to hang out in [Dark Dartmouth] and some others, yeah and I found it amazing and I was we were trying to get up to Scotland.
It's one of the places I really want to get to see the Scottish wild. Uh matter of fact, even Ireland I want to get out there too. So that's definitely on the planning uh for sometime soon I hope so.
What's for you in the future?
You think I mean obviously, you're finished [The Naked] in the maybe we don't know that. You never say never, never say never. But you've got, I mean you've got plans and ideas for your own show that you're trying to work on survival shows and things like that.
What are you planning to do?
Well right now the big thing is we're working, I'm working on some business ventures that I'm working with investors right now to close out one of them is my own company EJSnyder.com, Skull Crusher LLC. And what I wanna do is this last year we've been revamping the website and doing a lot of legwork to get ready to self sustain and what I mean by self-sustained is being able to fill my own creative stuff.
I'm a very creative person. I have a good eye for the camera. We've got a good video videographer waiting to go and we're gonna do a lot of guerilla-style filming, but we're gonna put it up on my Youtube channel. Got people, messages are coming in here on this phone. I'm on my phone and I'm like, what is that? Get out of here. And like I said, I'm waiting on some big investors to come in. So is that it? Uh yeah, you better jump on the wagon before the percentages start really getting tight.
Uh but we're gonna go on my Youtube channel. It got hacked. I lost a bunch of subscribers at one point as I had, I was up to 100,000 sometime and then it got hacked and they deleted my account and it was a big mess. But I'm rebuilding my Youtube channel. So go to survive with EJ. Subscribe to my channel. I'm putting up content all the time, not just survival lessons, but life lessons, living life, but on there, we're gonna do these. I've got three different series I'm gonna put up there for people to watch.
So you don't want to miss the alerts when we get ready to do those. It's uh it's gonna be called the Edge of Survival. It's gonna be me out there. Just doing stuff sometimes. Sometimes I'll bring some of my survival friends in like [Jeff Outch] maybe [Cat Bigme] and do it together and maybe in a dual survival fashion and then maybe have three of us out there sometimes. And then I'm gonna do, I did a show called Mountain Masters for the inspiring network and it did one series.
It's uh it was a survival challenge with four people competing against each other. Me and my co-host [Cat Bigme]. We would see what they did and then the weakest, the person who didn't do them as well, we get sent down the mountain and the others would keep competing and it got down to the last two, competing up the mountain and winning 10 grand. I want to do something like that and then something in the essence of Mr. Beast and start doing these fun survival gag challenges with fans um to win prizes and money and whatever, but we're gonna do that because I'm actually gonna be doing some stuff with Mr. Beast next year, which is really exciting.
So Youtube ways, that's where we're going. I'm actually gonna be standing up Freedom Pickles next year. I'm a veteran-owned company with veteran partners and uh we're gonna be these pickles is my old one partner's grandma's recipe. The most amazing pickles you ever taste in your life. People don't know this about me, but a bit of a pickle snob Pickle Connoisseur. Love Pickles. They've got a lot of good that we can do for people, but we're not just doing pickles. We're gonna do other pickled vegetables, but relishes, sandwich spreads, we're gonna do pickle bucks.
The Best Pickles
That's a pickle juice where people like to, you know, drink some drink and then they'll do some pickle juice behind it. Actually, pickle juice is very healing, and actually has a lot of good qualities for people. When you drink some pickle juice, it'll make your stomach feel better. It takes care of hangovers. It's got a lot of nutritional value. So that's pretty interesting people when they're out in the Bayou, you know when they're doing in the Bayou and the hunting gators and stuff and there in the sun, they'll drink pickle juice to survive out there in the sun.
It's got a bit of electrolyte as well, so it'll help with that as well. So, if you suffer from heartburn, that's going to give you terrible heartburn. No, I think it takes it down actually. Yeah, maybe some people have a different reaction to it, but um yeah, one of my friends was telling me, yeah, I take that for heartburn. I'm like, oh, interesting. Uh So doing that.
Uh partnering with some guys on an app. Actually uh there's a video game that I'm gonna possibly be part of, which is gonna be a virtual reality experience type thing.
Trying to get more to come on that. I don't know all the details. Working on getting my book published and then doing a few other books still writing for a few different outlets, newsletters, and magazines. Um do appearances on [Dan Bongino] and then I'm actually looking to do, be a survival expert commentator and then be an expert for this series called Into the Wild. It's a series I don't know what challenges on, but it's, they're going into season three where they talk about these old pioneers and survivalists and whatnot and give our opinion about situations they were in.
More TV Appearances
Um and that that should be a, yeah, I mean it's not anything big for TV, but for me it's I'll be on, it'll be on TV or maybe one of these streaming channels. I can't remember what they said. But it will be interesting because it'll give me, you know, I get to share some of my experiences and philosophies on certain situations. And it's again, it's a history thing. So I'm really just doing it because I love history. I love those folks because they paved the way for me and I think that's about it in a nutshell.
So go to EJSnyder.com. Sign up with your email, and don't miss any of my newsletters. In any of the updates, we've got all kinds of gear there for survival wilderness outings. We're gonna expand that into an outfitter store. So we'll have backpacks and hunting gear and fishing gear and that kind of stuff pretty soon. But right now it's mostly outdoor survival gear, some, you know, packs, water purification. You know, if you're, hiking, you're gonna want to get some of this stuff, we have video tutorials there and I offer a bunch of live training services, um, which is getting harder by the day to actually sign up for because my schedule next year is really booking up doing some veteran group survival classes.
I'm doing some stuff with shockwave defense. We've got something cool coming up with those guys. So a busy year already, 2023, and this one hasn't even ended yet. I know how hard it was for us to catch up and actually get in and get this going.
So you're always on the road and always, always doing something if you're not on the road, you're in the wilds essentially. So before we finish off EJ what I want you to, you know, give some tips to people out there on, you know, warrior values, warrior virtues, a couple of warrior virtues that you would say to people are important for them for their life, not just necessarily survival in the wild, but for life …
Tomorrow's not guaranteed; be thankful for what you have.
Every day you wake up and you got air in your lungs is a good day so always thank God for that gift of life and don't take it for granted because you don't know what tomorrow's like, tomorrow's not guaranteed and you never know what's gonna happen.
You know, prayers out to my good friend, uh, doctor John, his house just burned down uh, down to the slab. He was severely injured and uh, his wife got a little bit injured. She's okay. Uh, they lost their daughter and their pets and everything they owned in their life in that home. And uh, you know, so prayers up for them.
I just brought that up because that's part of virtue. You know, be thankful for what you have uh, and cherish it, and while you can tell those that you love and are important to you in life, that they are important that you love them. Another one is to be kind always be kind when you put out positive energy and everybody does positive energy, it'll heal the world. And so always be kind. You never know what somebody's going through.
And always remember the words you speak and the actions you take when you meet somebody every day, it's a chance to do God's work.
You don't know what they're going through. You could have just said, hey, put your hand on someone's shoulder, hey, God bless you man have a great day and that individual probably could have been pulling money out of the ATM to get ready to buy a gun and uh finish themselves off and you might, those words you spoke that you don't even know, might have basically saved their life. So always remember that be kind and be better than you were the day before and always tried to just do, be good to your neighbors, and do to others as you would rather them do to you, and just stay out of the drama and the gossip man, social media, all you faceless avatars with your little pictures and your little fake names and you sit there with your opinions behind your keyboard shield and you're typing with your little finger swords.
Stop being it, don't be a dick stop being an asshole. You know what I mean? I mean, I've been, you know, bullying is something I grew up with as a kid. It's probably helped me with my mindset, my fighting styles, and everything else. Um, but there are other ways of bullying and being on their thinking, yes, I fought and defended the right for you to have freedom of speech, but don't confuse your freedom of speech with your right to be an idiot and say things if you would say it to my face, eyeball to eyeball, nose to nose by all means.
But you know, you wouldn't, so don't say it. Yeah, because they hide behind this stuff and they think, oh, I can just say what I want. Well yeah, but doesn't give you a right to be rude to be bullying, to be insulting. You know, that's one thing people gotta understand. Yes, so alone and naked, afraid and then you know, even first man, we're out there really doing that stuff and we're in the elements and we're doing it and we're actual people we're not cartoon characters, we're not actors, nothing scripted as you hear all these rumors are all scripted to help them out.
None of my experience out there that's none of that goes on. So we are actually real people with emotions and you can say all you want. Well you put yourself on TV you're a public figure, you can't take it. No, I got fucking armor. I got [Cavelier] skin harder than rhino skin but still, words and the tongue can be very sharp like a sword. So keep it cheap, be nice, and be constructive in your criticism. I respect that way more anyway, I hope everyone's doing well. I'm not going to end it on a negative uh everyone goes out there and be the best you can be.
Know that you're important and you matter and get the right positive mindset going in life. Never give up.
Remember there's always one more thing you can do in any situation. You know, just sometimes you might have to sit back and think about it and weigh some of the options. And I then get after it.
Get after life and suck the bone marrow out of life.
There you go, guys, now you're saying you know thank you EJ for being on here today. I'm glad we waited so that I could get 21 Virtues launched. This means a lot to me, especially in supporting veterans people who are struggling with their mindset. You've seen another side of EJ It's not all just about Naked and Afraid. It's you've seen the spiritual side of him, you've seen the spiritual warrior side of him as well, learn from his experience, learn from him, learn the skills, and go and take the online course I did.
It absolutely awesome, with brilliant loads of skills that you can learn and keep in touch with. Make sure that you go to his website EJSnyder.com, and keep in touch with him. And you know, this man will help you through a lot in your life.
And there's a lot of, you know, people say, well I can't go out and do all this. Well you can learn people learn from videos and whatever and books and over there, not just this video, but you go to EJSnyder.com, I've got several other videos.
Some of them aren't even mine, they're friends of mine that did them. And there's good information and you know, people like I can't afford a survival class or whatever and on the time that we get we'll just get the videos I teach in a matter that's very simple for the everyday Joe or Joan, my outdoor survival skills class. They're like, oh my God, it costs that. Yeah, it's actually 11 films I filmed during the summer of Covid and we put them together in one package you can buy them for streaming and in little packages but it's like 14 hours of E. J. Snyder with my personality and humor in the way I teach and you can just watch it, it's in segments and so let me go out and practice what I just saw and then you come back and you watch the other parts of it.
So it's really I made it very user-friendly that one. And then there's a whole bunch of other videos that my friends have done that will teach you anything you want to know.
And I think to be honest ladies and gentlemen to watch this if it helps to change your mindset in any way it's done its job because it saves your life. I mean you can't put a price on that…
Survival starts in the mind and ends in the wilderness and it ends outside, it's always in the mind and spiritual survival is where you start from and where you'll end.
Jock Brocas
So all the skills in between you want to learn from this man and his friends as well and it'll keep you safe. It'll save your life and it might even make your life a little bit easier. So EJ awesome having you brother, I will be speaking to you soon. I know that you're on the road again and I will link up with you later on. God bless my friend.