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Andy Stumpf

It is safe to say that I have wandered a bit. I served in the military, flew some jets, jumped out of most, climbed mountains (I jumped off of them too), taught fitness, owned a gym, and have spent the last few years speaking to organizations and leaders. It has been a journey, and in all honesty, I have no idea where it is going. I seek the things that make me uncomfortable. I move towards things that scare me. I think you should too

  1. 2 DAYS AGO

    Don't Let Your Past Be Your Prison | Full Auto Friday | 5.15.026

    A soon-to-be 40-year-old wants to face his fear of skydiving and use it to teach his anxious five-year-old that fear is normal but it doesn't get to run your life. I break down the difference between gambling and accepting calculated risk, what to actually look for in a drop zone, and why pushing yourself smartly and incrementally beats trying to be a badass for an audience that isn't watching. A guy who grew up homeless and couch-surfing wrote in about feeling like he came back from a war he never fought. We talk about why trauma isn't owned by anyone, why your past doesn't have to be your identity, and why if the community you need doesn't exist yet, you might be the one who has to build it. Last question is about discipline. A husband, father, and plant manager who used to run ultras can't find the hours anymore and wonders if he's lost it. He hasn't. His life changed. The goalpost has to move with it. Plus the book hit the Times again, and I'm headed to Virginia Beach. Enjoy Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter here: ⁠https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com⁠   Today's Sponsors:  Willies Remedies:  Order now at ⁠https://www.drinkwillies.com⁠ and use code "CLEAREDHOT" for 20% off of your first order + free shipping on orders over $95, and enjoy life in the high country. AG1: For a limited time only, go to ⁠https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot⁠ to get a FREE AG1 Flavor Sampler and AGZ Sampler to try all the flavors, plus FREE Vitamin D3+K2 and AG1 Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order!

    1hr 1min

  2. 6 DAYS AGO

    The Night Stalker They Couldn't Shoot Down | Alan Mack | Ep. 447

    Alan Mack flew Chinooks for the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment for seventeen years. Chief Warrant Officer 5. Senior MH-47 pilot. Flight lead. Instructor. He was the pilot in command of Razor 03 on Takur Ghar — the aircraft shot up trying to insert a SEAL element on top of the mountain that became Roberts Ridge. He has logged over 6,700 flight hours, took rounds through his cockpit on Anaconda, ran fog approaches into walled compounds in Iraq, and helped write the procedures the Night Stalkers still use to land in zero visibility. After retiring, he commanded the flight detachment at West Point and spent a decade running emergency management for a New York county. He is the author of Razor 03 and the upcoming Chinooks in the Dark. We cover the new Medal of Honor awarded to a 160th pilot and what it actually takes to earn one. The Anaconda shoot down — RPG, lost hydraulics, three cans of fluid, and a crew chief pumping a t-handle to keep him in the controls. Why he chose to dive at a Dishka instead of climbing. The myth around Extortion 17 and why the conspiracy doesn't hold up. How the unit trains pilots to fly through real lead. Air refueling at night in the weather. Cutting hoses with rotor blades. And the lessons every pilot — military or civilian — needs to internalize before the aircraft starts shedding systems on them. Enjoy Chinooks in the Dark: https://a.co/d/0cOy6d88 Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com   Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com David: David is offering our listeners a special deal: buy 4 cartons and get the 5th free when you go to https://www.davidprotein.com/CLEAREDHOT

    2h 58m

  3. 8 MAY

    Cruise Ships, Cover-Ups, and Cow Killers | Negligent Discharge Friday | 5.8.2026

    Michael and I get into it on this one. Hantavirus headlines, the Doomsday Clock, wind turbines, the Epstein note, and a guy on YouTube paying his bills by getting stung by bugs. I open by confidently passing along bad medical advice from two articles I read. Michael fact-checks me in real time. We agree it's a good exercise in why you should slow down before you repeat anything. From there we get into what Hantavirus actually is, why this isn't going to be another lockdown, and why I think people would push back hard if it were. The Doomsday Clock is at 89 seconds. Not 90. Not 88. Two old guys in suits decided. We talk about why fear-mongering on a quarter clock face stops working at some point, and what's actually happening with all those wind turbines I just flew past for eleven hours that weren't spinning. Then the heavier stuff. The "rape academy" story. Epstein's suicide note. Andrew Mountbottom. Why I don't believe anyone in his orbit is ever going to face accountability in this country, and what that says about a government willing to look away if the math works out for them. Enjoy Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Pick up a copy of Drownproof: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com/book   Today's Sponsors:  Firecracker Farm: https://www.firecracker.farm use code CLEAREDHOT for 10% off your first order. LMNT: Head to https://www.drinklmnt.com/clearedhot to pick up your free sample pack

    1hr 5min

  4. 4 MAY

    The Cost of Telling the Truth | John Kiriakou | Ep. 446

    John Kiriakou spent 14 years at the CIA. He started as an analyst, went operational, and eventually ran counterterrorism work in Pakistan that led to the capture of Abu Zubaydah. He was the first U.S. government official to publicly confirm that the agency was waterboarding prisoners. For that, the Obama administration prosecuted him under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and sent him to federal prison for 23 months. He lost his pension. He lost his career. Most of his kids stopped speaking to him. Today he writes books, hosts a podcast, and teaches a course on the history of terrorism. We get into how the agency really works. Recruiting spies. Breaking into a house in a foreign country to plant a bug. The mentor who told him to walk up to a target's front door and sell him out to his face. Then we get into the part nobody at Langley wants to talk about. Torture. Rendition. The innocent people who got grabbed off planes and buses and never got their lives back. We also cover Section 702, the Patriot Act, Iran, Iraq, and why no agency ever gives the power back.  Enjoy. Join the Cleared Hot Podcast Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Brunt: Right now, for a limited time, our listeners get $10 off at https://www.BRUNTworkwear.com when you use code "clearedhot" at checkout.

    3h 20m

  5. 1 MAY

    Learning To Suffer Well | Full Auto Friday | 5.01.2026

    Four questions this week. The kind that don't have clean answers. A guy whose father murdered his mother is asking how to get back to who he was before. He's not. A 28-year-old still living at home is watching his mom's cancer come back and trying to figure out how to spend the time he has left. A man in his sixties wants to know how to bring up suicide with three friends he's had for 40 years before it's too late. A 31-year-old in his first long-term relationship doesn't feel anything for the woman he's dating but knows everyone around him likes her. I talk about why the people you see online keeping it together aren't keeping it together. I talk about why the snapshot isn't the whole picture. I talk about why the first therapist who wants to sell you his book isn't the last therapist you'll need to find. I talk about going right at the hard conversation instead of around it. And I talk about why bringing the government into a relationship you're already unsure about is the wrong move. Enjoy Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Today's Sponsors: Ridge: For a limited time, our listeners get 10% off at https://www.Ridge.com by using code "clearedhot" at checkout. Helix: Go to https://www.helixsleep.com/CLEAREDHOT for 27 percent off sitewide!

    57 min

  6. 29 APR

    Bonus Episode - Drownproof Chapter 1 - Be the Author of your Life, not the Victim of it

    Today's "episode" is the audiobook first chapter of my book: Drownproof. Thank you to everyone who helped make the launch such a tremendous success. Hitting all of the "Best Seller" lists, to include the NYT, was quite frankly, incredibly humbling. You all made that happen, not me. For those of you who have read or listened to it already, well, clearly today's episode is not going to be exciting for you! For those that haven't, this chapter is about a very formative experience in my young life that changed how I viewed my self in the world. That change in mindset altered the trajectory of my life. Pickup a copy of Drownproof (Digital or Print) here: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com/book Sign up for the Cleared Hot Newsletter here: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com/

    31 min

  7. 27 APR

    Working for Kanye, Building "Items" for Delta Force | Justin Klahn | Ep. 445

    Justin Klahn is hard to put in a box. Twenty years inside Nike Innovation. Years embedded with JSOC units building gear that had to actually work. Time consulting with three-letter agencies, DARPA, and the Harvard Learning Innovations Laboratory. A run working directly for Kanye West. He calls himself a problem solver, and the resume backs it up. His new book is Innovator's Handbook. We open on the divorce conversation, the kind of failure neither of us wished for, and what it takes to show up for a partner the second time around. From there it gets wide. The competition mindset that separates the top of the JSOC food chain from everyone else. What it's actually like to sit in a room with Kobe, with Tinker, with Kanye. The Nike origin stories most people don't know — the real Jordan re-signing, the Pantry, the relationship between Phil Knight and Steve Jobs. We dig into the supernatural. Faith. Conspiracy and control. How a guy who advises high-stakes operators stays open enough to consider anything but grounded enough to still get the work done.  And we end on the AI workflow he used to write a book in two weeks — and what that says about where the world is going.  The Innovator's Handbook: https://a.co/d/01Zqj9Q7 Sign up for the Cleared Hot Newsletter Here: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com/ Pick up your copy of Drownproof Here: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com/book   Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com LMNT: Head to https://www.drinklmnt.com/clearedhot to pick up your free sample pack

    3h 27m

  8. 24 APR

    Bladder Control and Geopolitics | Negligent Discharge Friday | 4.24.2026

    Michael, my dad, and me. Three generations arguing in one room. That's the format today. My dad watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon live at twenty-two years old. He remembers the Iranian hostage crisis when it was happening, not when it was a movie. That perspective matters when we get into where we are now — the rhetoric coming out of the White House, the ceasefire that may or may not hold, a war nobody has explained the objective of. We talked about the leaders we don't seem to produce anymore. Kennedy to the moon in ten years. Hungary voting out a hard-right prime minister by historic margins. Why most good people won't touch politics now — they'll destroy your entire family before you ever reach the ballot. Then the stuff that piles up every week. California's rail to nowhere. AI versus actual brain tissue running video games. ICE changing tactics. Cancer research funding cut by thirty-one percent. Civil War monuments and what you do with history you don't want to celebrate. And yes, my dad tried to break into the neighbor's house. And pissed himself at the rodeo. We get to that too. Enjoy. Pick up a copy of Drownproof here: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com/book   Today's Sponsors: Firecracker Farms: https://www.firecracker.farm use code CLEAREDHOT for 10% off your first order. AG1: For a limited time only, go to https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot to get a FREE AG1 Flavor Sampler and AGZ Sampler to try all the flavors, plus FREE Vitamin D3+K2 and AG1 Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order!

    1hr 12min
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It is safe to say that I have wandered a bit. I served in the military, flew some jets, jumped out of most, climbed mountains (I jumped off of them too), taught fitness, owned a gym, and have spent the last few years speaking to organizations and leaders. It has been a journey, and in all honesty, I have no idea where it is going. I seek the things that make me uncomfortable. I move towards things that scare me. I think you should too

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