From Navy SEAL to Mindfulness Mentor: Jon Macaskill’s Untold Story 🇺🇸🧠 | Leadership, Grit & Growth

📢I talk🎙️with Jon Macaskill about his Navy and SEAL service and his transition to Mindfulness Coach, Dad, and Podcast Host! 👏🍷 🎇 🎉 ✨ 👏 🥂  😁 You can have him as a personal coach or team leadership coach as well as learn Mindfulness on his Podcast ​ ⁨@mentalkingmindfulness⁩  

Text Mindful to 33777 to reach Jon!

Or via his Website:  https://frogmanmindfulness.com/

Join Navy SEAL-turned-leadership coach Jon Macaskill 🇺🇸 as we dive into emotional fitness, grit, and elite training 💪. Veteran stories, mindfulness & more! 🎙️  @ThirstyThursdaysat3PMEST  

In this powerful episode of Thirsty Thursdays, I sit down with former Navy SEAL Jon Macaskill 🎖️, now a leadership coach, mindfulness advocate, and podcast host. From underwater demolition to inner healing, Jon shares his inspiring path from elite operator to emotional educator.

🎯 Top Takeaways:
🎖️ What it really takes to become a Navy SEAL — from Hell Week to BUD/S
🧘 The role of mindfulness and emotional intelligence in high-stress careers
🧠 How to pivot from military life to entrepreneurship
🌍 Life lessons from Bahrain, deployments, and leadership
🎙️ Launching a successful podcast: Men Talking Mindfulness

Watch ON YOUTUBE!!!  Thank you for Listening! Join us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter!

Host Jessie Ott's Profile on LinkedIn

Transcript

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Jessie Ott (00:28)
Hello everybody. And welcome to Thursday Thursdays. My name is Jessie Ott and I have Jon Macaskill here, former Navy SEAL and currently a podcaster, speaker and mentor. Welcome Jon. I'm super excited to have you here today.

Jon Macaskill (00:41)
Thanks, Jesse. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited for the conversation. I'm sure it's going to be a good time.

Jessie Ott (00:46)
Yeah, we're going to rock it. So where are you calling from?

Jon Macaskill (00:50)
I'm in Colorado Springs. Technically I'm in a little town called Monument, which is just north of Colorado Springs, but nobody knows where Monument is. So I just say Colorado Springs.

Jessie Ott (00:52)
okay.

Well, Colorado Springs is probably one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been in with all the views and we went we drove from Albuquerque up to the mountains in Albuquerque or in Santa Fe in New Mexico where we have my wife's family has a cabin and then we drove our niece up through Colorado and toured a bunch of colleges so.

Jon Macaskill (01:02)
Ugh.

Nice. It's gorgeous. Yeah. Yeah, there's, there's very few places that you can go that don't have some type of beautiful view here. And I can look out my window and see Pike's peak and the air force Academy has beautiful views. So love it here.

Jessie Ott (01:17)
That, that city really stood out. mean, I loved Boulder and I love the university Colorado. Like I would go there. That place is awesome.

Wow,

that is really pretty. I mean, I just can't take the cold, but the beauty would make it a lot easier, I think.

Jon Macaskill (01:41)
Hahaha

Yeah, yeah,

it's been, it's been surprisingly warm the past few days and it's even warm right now. you know, it's 1 0 6 PM here on, on a Monday, but we've got a blizzard warning for tonight. So that gives you a kind of an indication of what Colorado weather is like. We actually say that we have 12 seasons and you know, some of them are like second winter and full Spring and false Spring. Yeah. Yeah. So I think second Winter is about to hit us tonight.

Jessie Ott (02:06)
Second Winter.

Oh no, that's a bummer. Well, I guess if you're a skier, it's good.

Jon Macaskill (02:13)
Ha

Yeah, yeah, and I'm actually trying to set up another ski trip in a couple of weeks. So hopefully we'll have some good powder on the mountain.

Jessie Ott (02:19)
Yeah. Good.

Yeah. My nephew, loves to, to ski. He's he'll be 13 this summer, but he's double blacks. Yeah. And he only skis once a year, maybe twice. Yeah. He's really good. I was shocked when my best friend told me that because, you know, they live in Texas and there's not much skiing there and his dad and brother now they like to

Jon Macaskill (02:30)
wow, nice. That's impressive. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah.

Jessie Ott (02:45)
scuba dive and so, you know, he kind of loses out on that trip because he's really just wants to ski. Anyway, yeah, I digress. Yeah, I love Colorado though. It's a beautiful state. I've been there a couple of times.

Jon Macaskill (02:46)
Yeah.

Right.

Yeah,

know, like I said, I don't know that there's not too many spots that aren't beautiful in some form or fashion for one reason or another, for sure.

Jessie Ott (03:04)
Yeah. I remember

crossing the border into Southern Colorado and it didn't look real. It was so beautiful that I couldn't believe that that was real. It's like, you just wanted to reach out and touch it. It was just, it's just remarkable.

Jon Macaskill (03:13)
Hahaha

Yeah, yeah, it's,

it's, is. And, know, my kids, one of whom was born here, she's three or almost four. She kind of takes it for granted. you know, I grew up in Louisiana and there's some beautiful parts in Louisiana, but you can't see very far just cause it's so flat and the pine trees are everywhere. So here you can see for, you know, miles and miles and miles. mean, again, I can see Pike's Peak outside my window and it must be 20 miles at least for my, house.

So it's pretty great. It's pretty great

Jessie Ott (03:47)
Yeah, that's cool.

Where in Louisiana are you from?

Jon Macaskill (03:53)
town of Ruston, it's in the North central part of the state.

Jessie Ott (03:56)
Okay. Yeah, I don't know much past Shreveport unless it's off an interstate.

Jon Macaskill (04:00)
Yeah, well, yeah, Shreveport. If

you know where Shreveport is, we're about an hour east of Shreveport, right on I-20 corridor. yeah, if you blink, you'll miss it. Yeah. Yeah. I bet. I bet. It's growing. It's a lot bigger than it was when I left. I left in 1996 and it's, I don't know what the population growth is, but just number of buildings, number of homes. It's actually pretty nice place to grow up.

Jessie Ott (04:07)
okay. Yeah, we probably got gas there at one of our trips to Florida or back.

Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (04:25)
I wanted to get out and see the world, so I did as soon as I could.

Jessie Ott (04:26)
Yeah.

And what was that next step?

Jon Macaskill (04:32)
Yeah. So I graduated high school in 1996 and I joined the Navy in, in September, you know, I graduated in May of 96 and then joined the Navy in September of 96 and never looked back. You know, I guess that's not quite true. man. Let's see. So I went to boot camp in great lakes. then from there I went down to, Panama or no, sorry, not Panama city, Pensacola, Florida. And then from Pensacola went up to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Jessie Ott (04:46)
Where were you stationed?

Jon Macaskill (05:00)
From Annapolis, went out to Coronado, California, and then bounced around a whole lot of times. spent, spent time in Panama city, Florida. I've lived in Tampa, Florida, lived in, uh, Monterey, California, San Diego, uh, Virginia beach. Yeah. A whole lot of different places. Uh, lived in Bahrain for a year. So yeah. Yeah. I love Bahrain.

Jessie Ott (05:16)
wow.

So... I went to Bahrain.

We did a wine tasting there about, yeah, in 20, I don't know when it was before COVID. It was 2019. Yeah. Before the world shut down. Yeah. It was very interesting culture. and then there was an American that just absolutely loved it there. He worked on bass and he took me around and, and it was really cool. just a different, different world, different lifestyle.

Jon Macaskill (05:27)
Did you? Did you?

2019 yeah before the world shut down

Yeah, yeah, is.

Yeah.

It is.

Jessie Ott (05:54)
But I had a

blast with the wine tasting. Did you ever go to any of those wine tastings or see them set up?

Jon Macaskill (05:58)
I didn't go to wine tastings,

what was it? Friday was the big, buffet or brunch buffet day there. like every Friday we would get together as a whole bunch of us and test, test out the different brunches that are at the different hotels. But yeah, the middle East is kind of famous for, or at least I don't know if it's famous for it, but well known for their brunches on, Thursdays.

Jessie Ott (06:12)
you

Yeah. Cause that's when their weekend starts. Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (06:23)
Yeah, exactly. I'm sorry. I said Thursday. meant Friday. Yeah.

And, I, again, I guess I said the Middle East, not all of the Middle East, more of the, I guess, the affluent countries in the Middle East, like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Jordan. So yeah, I've become a big fan of the brunches

Jessie Ott (06:34)
Yeah.

Yeah. That's

awesome. I didn't know that. didn't, I didn't ever experience it, but, the, there's what I I didn't necessarily do a wine tasting, but I was outside the main, store and we would set up a table and I had 200 and 200 skews or something is ridiculous, but we had, it was a lot to put together and take down every day.

Jon Macaskill (06:45)
Yeah.

Wow.

I bet.

Jessie Ott (07:02)
But it was

a real fun experience. And one of the guys used to call the weekend, Saudi Gras

Did you, did you, yeah? Yeah, it checks because you know when the big SUVs where they're, they're pulling out in front of you and they have no etiquette. And I remember, cause they have to come to Bahrain to drink cause you can't, drink in Saudi Arabia. And so they come in loads of cars across the bridge.

Jon Macaskill (07:08)
Yep, that checks.

Yep. Yeah. Yep.

That's Yeah.

Yep, I guess

Allah can't see over the bridge or something.

Jessie Ott (07:32)
And so, it's interesting to going out there because, know, the, the, the guy that I was with, who was with my company, he's been, he'd been going there for decades and he's, like, well, what do do when you're here? You know, do you go out to eat? And he's like, not really, because it's just all dudes. Cause women can't go out. So it's just, he's like, it's just duty. You know, it's like too many dudes. It's funny.

Jon Macaskill (07:48)
No, right, right.

Ahahaha!

Jessie Ott (07:56)
He's really funny. Doody. Too much, much dude-ism. But yeah, but cool like to experience those different, like the malls were the cleanest, most beautiful places on earth. And expensive. Very expensive. Anyway, we did go, we did go on a boat and go out to an island and just experience like.

Jon Macaskill (07:56)
Yeah, I like that word, duty.

That's rich.

Yeah, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jessie Ott (08:22)
You know, the water on the island, it was interesting because there's lots of plastic floating in it from the oil, I guess. I don't know. I don't know.

Jon Macaskill (08:24)
Mm-hmm.

yeah, yep.

Yeah, I, you know, I don't

know what that's from, but, yeah, I lived, at the Northern end of Bahrain, which was basically a reclaimed land. shoot them forgetting. Amwash, Amwash was the name of this reclaimed land kind of community. Really, really nice clean, but the water itself wasn't always great. So yeah.

Jessie Ott (08:52)
Yeah,

yeah, I wanted to dive, but then I was told it's not so great there.

Jon Macaskill (08:56)
Yeah,

I've done, I've done some diving out there. Not, not great.

Jessie Ott (09:00)
Not great. Yeah. So I didn't miss anything. That's good. So let's go back to you. let's go back back. So you joined the Navy. What other branches were you looking at and why did you choose the Navy?

Jon Macaskill (09:12)
I didn't look at any of the branches. Yeah, I wanted to be in the Navy. You know, I either wanted to be a jet jockey specifically for the Navy flying off carriers or a Marine, which, you know, the Marines are part of the Navy. Yes, I could have gone to the recruiting station for the Marine Corps, but I knew that I wanted to be an officer and I knew that I wanted to go to the Naval Academy specifically.

Jessie Ott (09:14)
You just knew?

Jon Macaskill (09:35)
And then I, and then the Navy SEAL teams was, was a really top of my list of what I wanted to do. So I honestly didn't look at any of the other services, enlisted in the Navy, to work on F-18s. I worked on ejection seats for F-18s. then from there got picked up to go to the Naval Academy. And then from there it got picked up, picked up to go into the SEAL teams.

Jessie Ott (09:58)
Okay. And so did you ever fly? You didn't. Okay.

Jon Macaskill (10:01)
I didn't know. yeah.

There's always a part of me that kind of regretted that, but, ultimately, you know, looking back and assessing my skillset, I think, being a leader in, the SEAL teams, I was better suited for than, controlling, an aircraft. don't know. I have the utmost respect for all pilots, helicopter pilots, heavy aircraft pilots, jet pilots.

Jessie Ott (10:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (10:26)
Looking back on it, I'm not sure whether I would have been suited for it.

Jessie Ott (10:30)
Yeah, it's a lot of responsibility and a lot going on to look out for. I remember being in high school, I was an athlete, know, small town athlete, and I wanted to be in the Air Force and I just, wanted to be a pilot. And halfway through my senior year, I got glasses and I was like, this stinks. I guess I'm not going. Cause you can't, back then anyway, I think, I don't know if corrective surgery.

Jon Macaskill (10:32)
Yeah. Right, right.

Now.

Yeah. Yeah. was going to say this since then. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (10:56)
You can.

Jon Macaskill (10:57)
I know a lot of, a lot of folks, who at the Naval Academy with me, who got some type of corrective surgery, whether it was, what was it PRK or, I forget the other one, but yeah, I think some of them ended up going, into the aviation community. I, and I know for a fact, several of them went into the special operations community.

good friends of mine in training with me who had had some type of eye surgery to fix that.

Jessie Ott (11:21)
Correct

it. And so are the Blue Angels, is that like a whole second segment, like a Navy SEAL? You know, to within the organization, because that's tough.

Jon Macaskill (11:28)
my goodness.

I would say the Blue Angels are probably, well, I wouldn't say I know for a fact they're more selective. mean, there, there's just so few of them. and I have some friends who've been pilots for, for the Blue Angels you know, one of my classmates was, and then one of my, upper classmen from the, from the Academy was, and, is in this most recent documentary.

Jessie Ott (11:40)
Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (11:54)
of the Blue Angels, but man, I remember that, back in 1996, when I was enlisted and I was a parachute rigor down in Pensacola, there's a parachute rigor. Yeah. So the, the, you know, the folks who work on the ejection seats, I did end up in the SEAL teams jumping, quite a lot. but, but the, when I was down in Pensacola, they have a Naval Aviation Museum there and they used to show this.

Jessie Ott (12:03)
You were a parachuter?

That's crazy.

Jon Macaskill (12:20)
I mean, again, this was late nineties. So since then this movie is no longer available, but it was called like the birds of flight or wings of flight or something like that. And it was all about the Blue Angels. And at that point I was like, yeah, I want to, I want to be a jet jockey. want to, I want to fly. And then I, and then I figured out while I was at the academy that that's not in fact what I wanted to do. wanted to, I wanted to be a SEAL. So I did, I did, I selected SEALs, but then I put Marine Corps.

Jessie Ott (12:35)
Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (12:48)
ground as my second choice and ended up getting into the SEAL community.

Jessie Ott (12:52)
So what is that process like? It sounded like you had to qualify for it throughout your different jobs that you were doing after camp, after boot camp.

Jon Macaskill (13:03)
So yeah. for the enlisted side, after bootcamp, you go to an a school, which is basically a trade school. learn, you know, the particular job that you're going to be doing. I forget how long it was. I want to say it was like three months learning how to rig parachutes and. Rig ejection seats and specifically work on the, the technical name of a parachute rigger in the Navy is And that is.

Literally like it sounds working on all the equipment for the aircrew should they eject. Yeah. So like we had, you know, the water bottles and the little, water purification tablets, was bandages, flare guns, all this stuff in an injection seat. And we had to put that in there and maintain it, check it regularly. And then,

Jessie Ott (13:33)
Survival, yeah.

Jon Macaskill (13:49)
from your A school, some people will go out to the fleet and actually do that job. Some people will go to a more advanced school. You know, the A school is like the basics and then they'll go to another school. I went through A school, then work, started working on injection seats. And while I was there in Pensacola got picked up for the Naval Academy. It's not, not a track that a lot of people go down, but that's, from the enlisted ranks to, the Naval Academy, but

Jessie Ott (14:10)
Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (14:13)
Um, back then, I don't know what the numbers are now. This is again in 1996, 97, uh, there were, think it was 75 spots from the enlisted ranks directly into the Naval Academy. And I don't even think they filled them all that year just cause so few people at the time were aware that that was a way to get there. So yeah, so from the, from the fleet as an enlisted sailor, got picked up.

Uh, went to the Naval Academy, go through basically bootcamp again, which is plebe summer for the freshmen. Uh, basically two months of training, military training, getting the, lot of the kids who are coming from high school, um, indoctrinated, if you will, into the military way of life. And then you go through a whole, this is just for the, you know, this is just for Navy C or sorry, this is just for Navy in general as the, as an officer going through the Academy.

Jessie Ott (14:56)
Yeah.

Was this a Navy SEAL training or just getting ready? Okay.

Okay.

Jon Macaskill (15:09)
then,

then you go from Plebe Summer and what's called Plebe Year, which is your freshman year. But even during that freshman year, you're getting more indoctrinated, further indoctrinated, you know, learning, learning the ranks, learning the different ships, different aircrafts, you're going through regular school. So you're getting calculus and chemistry and, all the standard college classes. And then, and yeah, well, I don't know if you couldn't, I'm just, yeah, it's, it's, it's tough. and.

Jessie Ott (15:27)
wow. I never make it. That's not my jams. Yeah, that would

be really hard.

Jon Macaskill (15:37)
Yeah.

And then the whole time you have, you know, military requirements too. You have the upperclassmen yelling at you. You have to learn how to, learn how to shoot, learn how to, you know, do different military things. And then there's physical requirements as well. You have to run a mile and a half in a certain speed, do a certain number of pushups, setups, everything else. So there's a, it's pretty rigorous, but then, you know, four years later, like I said, it's, it's, it's a college. So four years later, you graduate with a degree.

Jessie Ott (15:59)
Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (16:05)
and then from there you get a commission as an officer into either the Marine Corps or the Navy. And I got my commission, into the Navy. then from there went out to what's called Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) BUDS for short. and, that, that, was out in Coronado, California and went through, went through BUDS six months of training and then, went through some more advanced trainings. What's that?

Jessie Ott (16:26)
Is that like for ships?

Is that like underwater ships?

Jon Macaskill (16:31)
Oh, no, no. So it's, called underwater demolition. So basic underwater demolition, because the seals come from the kind of our lineage, if you will, come from what were the underwater demolition teams and the underwater demolition teams were the guys who in World War II and prior would swim in before an amphibious assault and basically rig any underwater obstacles that might be there with explosives demolition.

Jessie Ott (16:59)
Okay. Before the Marine Corps comes in with their amphibian. Yep.

Jon Macaskill (17:00)
And blow these things up. Yeah. Before the Navy and the Marine Corps

come in for their beach landing or the, you know, uh, in World War II, there was a lot of the Army soldiers on amphibious Naval Amphibious, Craft that would land and, uh, and let the soldiers out. But, prior to that, there were the underwater demolition teams blowing up these obstacles so that we could have these lanes that we could in fact, bring these amphibious craft up to the beach. So that,

was kind of our ancestors, if you will, within the Navy. So all SEALs go through that training. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (17:31)
So everybody goes through that training. That's cool.

Yeah, that's really cool. Well, my wife's grandfather was in the Navy for a very long time. He was a mechanic on planes and was pretty much stationed in Galveston for a long time. And then my... Yeah, good weather.

Jon Macaskill (17:50)
yeah. It was a good time, good place to be.

Yeah.

Jessie Ott (17:57)
And we kind of cover the branches. My dad was in the Army. He was in Vietnam and got Agent Orange and was in the 9th Infantry Yeah, it's he's past, but and then my brother-in-law was a Marine. So we covered quite a few branches at least for service in the.

Jon Macaskill (18:03)
wow.

Yeah, that's how,

my, myself and my wife's family. So my, I'm the only military member from my side of the family, then my wife also served in the Navy and she served in the Coast Guard. Her sister was in the Coast Guard. she has one brother who was in the Army.

Jessie Ott (18:24)
Nice.

Jon Macaskill (18:28)
And then the rest of them were in the Air Force. She has a bunch of brothers So the only only service that we don't have across all of us is the Marine Corps and then her father is a West Point grad. So there's a big Army Navy rivalry between the two academies So, you know, he's 91 or 92 years old now and we still have a rivalry during the Army Navy football game every year Yeah It is it is a lot of fun

Jessie Ott (18:41)
that's great.

That's awesome. Isn't it fun? Yeah. It is

so fun. Yeah. My father-in-law was also Vietnam and he was in the Air Force, but we were just talking about his service last night and I talked about how growing up, the emotional intelligence just isn't there. And I wish that I had that gap year of a military service type something.

Jon Macaskill (19:07)
Mm-hmm.

Jessie Ott (19:13)
to kind of help you grow up, you know? And, and he said, I was the same way in that year. I became a man because you change, you change pretty quickly.

Jon Macaskill (19:15)
Ha ha ha.

Right. Yeah.

I would, I would agree. You know, I didn't necessarily have what the gap year, but, in between, high school and my time at the Naval Academy, I had that enlisted year and that was my first time away from home. You know, uh, I learned a lot about myself in that first year and just that one year. So now I'm going to the Naval Academy, which again is, you know, a military college.

A lot of the men and women who were there straight out of high school didn't have that. I don't want to say that I was so mature because I wasn't, but there was a difference in the, people who had come from the fleet or from what's called the Naval Academy preparatory school, even at one year gave us kind of a leg up. as far as the maturity level is pretty interesting.

Jessie Ott (20:06)
Yeah.

Yeah, I would definitely say so. A year's a long time to get conditioned and to be yelled at. Yeah, to be yelled at every day, get up at 4 a.m. like whatever the rules are. I just did the, that would have been hard for me, but I think, you know, if you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, you figure it out. Right.

Jon Macaskill (20:13)
Yeah. Especially at that time, that time of your life, you know, yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

mean, you figure it out or you deal with it. One or the other.

Jessie Ott (20:31)
Yeah.

So how many years in total did you serve?

Jon Macaskill (20:37)
Uh, so if you, if you count the four years that I was at the Naval Academy, then it's 24 years. Um, but as far as the Navy is concerned, they do not count that four years while you're there as far as to your, to your retirement. I did 20 years.

Jessie Ott (20:49)
They don't?

Well, I guess it's because they're putting time in investing in you as college.

Jon Macaskill (20:55)
Yeah,

yeah, there's, you know, I go back and forth where, whether or not they should have included that. I mean, I ran around in a uniform. I was playing exactly. was playing by the military rules, but they don't count it. So it's okay though. I can't complain. have a retirement paycheck that comes in every month. I, and I'm, very happy to have served,

Jessie Ott (21:02)
by their rules.

Jon Macaskill (21:15)
you know, this great country and more importantly, serving aside some incredible men and women that this country has.

Jessie Ott (21:22)
100%. so what happened after the underwater demolition training?

Jon Macaskill (21:28)
Yeah. So,

after buds, again, that's the kind of the short name for it. you go out to what's called SEAL qualification training, which is a little bit more advanced training. And then you go out to the SEAL Teams and, you know, depending on what team you go to, you, do different jobs. then actually from myself, you get to put in like a dream sheet of which team you want to go to.

Jessie Ott (21:46)
Do you get to pick that or are you assigned? You're okay. And what

are your options? Can you talk about it?

Jon Macaskill (21:54)
so on the,

on the West coast, have what are the odd number teams. you have SEAL Team One SEAL Team Three, Five and Seven. And then the East coast, have SEAL Team Two, Four, Eight and Ten. and then there's also the, what's called the SEAL Delivery Vehicle Teams and the SEAL Delivery Vehicle Teams are the basically the underwater little miniature submarines. and I signed up for.

what's called Seal Delivery Vehicle Team Two, which is on the East Coast in Little Creek, Virginia. And yeah, had a blast there.

Jessie Ott (22:24)
Oh yeah. Well,

we, can't always get on that base. just depends on what's going on. It's hard to get on. Yeah. It's they locked that thing down because you guys are there. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that's super cool. So you kind of get your wish list and then you, I did notice you miss, you missed SEAL Team Six. Do you want to talk about that?

Jon Macaskill (22:30)
Yeah, yeah, yep. They do, they do depend on...

Yeah. So, SEAL Team Six is, somewhat the, the infamous tier one level, you know, hostage rescue team. they, do a lot of the national missions. I, I can't talk about them too much. but yeah, there, there is a, there's a reason that they went from Two, Four, Eight and Ten was that that's still Team Six is in the middle there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Sure enough.

Jessie Ott (23:06)
Eight secret missions like Osama Bin Laden. mean?

I have a, I have a vodka that I represent. and he's a former CIA agent that worked with the military on finding him. Yeah, it's pretty cool. He doesn't qualify as a Veteran owned brand, which stinks, but you know, he obviously was very much a part of our government and, and served and, know, did some great things.

Jon Macaskill (23:21)
yeah? Nice.

Right. Yeah.

Well, I'm definitely appreciative of those guys, guys and gals who do that because they, they enable us to do what we need, what we need to do.

Jessie Ott (23:35)
Yeah.

Yeah, and gather all the intelligence and whatnot. Yeah. So.

Jon Macaskill (23:44)
That's right.

Jessie Ott (23:47)
I don't want to say this the wrong way or, or, you know, I don't feel negative about it, but I know there's some concern with the Navy SEAL training. And what was it like when you went through the training and is it different now? And is it, is it harder? Cause I believe somebody just died recently in the last few months. That's

Jon Macaskill (24:03)
Yeah. yeah, it was,

was, it was a little, was, think close to two years ago. and, but it's, it's been highlighted in the media recently, because there have been some changes. So, about a year and a half before I went to training, there was a, there was somebody who died as well. and deaths in training, the training is hard and it's hard for a reason.

Jessie Ott (24:10)
Okay.

Jon Macaskill (24:27)
It's, it's there to, yeah, it's there to, yeah, for those who survived the training. And I don't want to mean, I don't mean like life or death surviving. What's that? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. There you go. So it's, it's to weed out those who don't really want to be there or those who might not have the physical or mental attributes. Now there are, there are some phenomenal people who go to SEAL training and don't, don't make it.

Jessie Ott (24:28)
Yep. Survival.

I just mean you in the field. Yeah. It's for you guys to survive in the field.

yeah, still the best of the best.

Jon Macaskill (24:57)
Um, yeah, well,

that, you know, the, people, I always think about, the, the Man In The Arena, that famous poem or famous speech. Oh my gosh, spacing on who said it wasn't Truman. Um, you know, anyway, your, listeners will know what I'm talking about. The it's the, Man In The Arena, it's basically saying, Hey, if you don't try something, how are you, how are you ever going to know whether you.

could have done it or not. And, and the, the people who wash out or quit at SEAL training, they still, many of them go on to do incredible things. you know, I have a friend who is a very high ranking FBI agent now and, and has done incredible things in the FBI. have guys who've gone on and worked in the agency at the CIA or gone to work in government. you know, also.

do incredible work in the corporate and nonprofit spaces, but they just decide that that's not what they want to do and that I don't have anything against them. I don't think they're necessarily weaker or, I don't think I'm better, but it's just, chose different paths, but the, but the training is very hard for a reason. And that's to make you really question whether you want to be there, whether you want to be a SEAL. And like I said, a lot of people decide that they don't want to be a SEAL, that the training is not something that they want to go through. And,

Jessie Ott (25:50)
Want to do?

Jon Macaskill (26:11)
It was hard back in, know, when they first created the training. and then it has stayed hard. It was hard when I went through, you know, in the, in the early two thousands. And, it, it's stayed hard since then. and there have been deaths that have been deaths in the training. Unfortunately, with the level of difficulty, the level of physical challenges that are involved, there are going to be deaths. and that's, that's unfortunate. And that's truly.

feel a lot of pain for those who have died in training and for the families of those who have died in training. I can't imagine my son going into training and then, and dying in training, you know, if, if my children were to go into the military, I certainly want, wouldn't want them to die in any shape, form or fashion, but if they were to die, I wouldn't want them to die in training. I wouldn't want them to die anyway, but specifically in training. So for the, you know, the families.

Jessie Ott (26:58)
Right. Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (27:02)
There's a lot of grief there. And this one particular incident that you're speaking of, there's a young man. he had been the quarterback for the Yale football team and, and he went out to become a SEAL and he went through hell week, hell week is five days of incredibly intense physical training, mental training. And, he died very soon afterwards and there was a lot of.

criticism on the leadership. one of my old friends, was, was the Commanding Officer of SEAL training at the time. ended up, being, being really highly scrutinized, went through a lot of different legal battles and finally ended up going on this podcast called the Sean Ryan show. It's become very popular and he basically just told his story and

Luckily enough, Sean Ryan show is so popular. Sean was actually a, a SEAL before and a CIA agent. And, you know, he's got an incredible listenership. Well, he basically allowed Brad the platform to tell the truth of what had happened. And, that ended up getting Brad, the, investigation was dropped, but coming back to your question is as far as has the training changed the.

The training may have changed. don't know. I haven't been through it clearly, but yeah, but, but I do know that it's still incredibly difficult. mean, clearly we have people dying in it, but there were. Yeah. Top athletes, right? Yale quarterback. yeah. So, there were, there were some complications in that, you know, I don't want to get into what, what is true or not, but there were apparently some complications in that. but.

Jessie Ott (28:14)
Yeah. How would you know? Yeah.

Well, top, top athletes, you know? Yeah.

Yeah, that's fine. just.

Jon Macaskill (28:39)
As far as the training itself, I know with the scrutiny after this young man's death, I'm forgetting his name, which is sad because I know he did sacrifice himself for his country in a different way. He wanted to serve and I'm definitely sorry for his loss, but the training has come under a lot of scrutiny since then. know they've put

A lot of consultants out there to ensure that the training cadre are not going overboard with their training. And, I still believe it's hard. I just think it may have, it may be different.

Jessie Ott (29:08)
Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Well, it's unfortunate, you know, but at the same time, like I said, you, has to be tough enough where you get the elite and that you're protected the most. You're in a team at that point, right? And so you got to protect each other and you got to be able to last and get through it.

Jon Macaskill (29:24)
Right. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. You

have to be able to look to the left and right of you when you're on a very difficult mission and know that that person next to you has gone through some incredibly difficult things. So this isn't the first time they're, they're grit and their resilience has been tested. they have proven that they have that grit and that they have that resilience and this mission that we're on, this is not going to cause them to quit.

and they're gonna continue to push forward.

Jessie Ott (29:53)
Yeah.

Well, how many people do you think get into the SEAL program every year? Sounds like it kind of fluctuates. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (30:00)
Oh shoot. Yeah, I don't have those numbers. Um, really it depends on how many people make it through training. Um, I could tell

you for my, my SEAL class, my buds training class, um, we, we started with 181 men. Um, and then we started hell week with 108 and we finished buds with 24. Um, so, you know, not, not a lot of folks make it. Um, and, and then it's really based.

Jessie Ott (30:23)
wow, okay.

12%.

Jon Macaskill (30:29)
Yeah,

something like that. Depending on the time of year and what kind of class it is, how many people they start with. But yeah, I couldn't tell you how many people will actually become SEALs every year just off the top of my head.

Jessie Ott (30:40)
Yeah. So if they don't make it through training, does the Navy help them go in different directions within the Navy? Since, I mean, they're not quitters or anything. They just know they need to pivot.

Jon Macaskill (30:49)
Yeah.

Right. Exactly. That's a great way of putting it. yeah, for a lot of the enlisted guys, they go out, to. Billets and positions that are not normally filled very easily, like unfortunately they kind of get handed the, the short end of a stick that like, okay, well you didn't make it through SEAL training. So now you're going to go and be, you know, security, like a lot of the folks who stand security on, our bases have been.

people who decided that SEAL training wasn't for them. And, you know, they, they, they're staying gate security, for the officers, they get to choose which community is available from the communities that are available, which route they want to go. But yes, they all stay in the Navy. They don't just by quitting at BUDS or deciding that BUDS isn't for them. That doesn't mean they get out of the Navy. They still have to serve in the Navy.

Jessie Ott (31:33)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (31:38)
and, and the Navy offers them what's available and quite often what's available isn't necessarily the best things. but again, some people have been very fortunate and, or they've worked really hard in those positions and still had incredibly successful Naval careers or careers outside of the Navy afterwards.

Jessie Ott (31:55)
Yeah.

So it doesn't really, like if you, you know, if you're gonna, if you wanna be a SEAL and you think you really wanna be a SEAL, the backup plan is kind of a bummer.

Jon Macaskill (32:09)
It is, it is, and you know,

that's a, I don't know whether that's necessarily by design, but it is a motivating factor when you're like, well, I, I want to be a SEAL and I don't want to do X, Y, or Z in the Navy. Um, you know, one of the, one of the things, and you know, for me, I never wanted to be on a Navy ship. Um, at least not, not as a, not as a sailor on the Navy ship. Like if I was going to be on a Navy ship, I wanted to be a pilot flying Navy jets.

Jessie Ott (32:23)
Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (32:38)
But, and again, nothing against that role, but that's just not what I wanted to do. And I remember, yeah. Yeah. Well, exactly. So like during, during hell week, we're out there in San Diego and there's big naval bases out there and there would be Navy ships floating by. And I would look at those ships and be like, well, I want nothing to do with those jobs. So I will, I will stay here in the cold water and continue to get punished because I want nothing to do with that.

Jessie Ott (32:42)
Yeah, I couldn't be on one of those ships either underwater. No way. I'm good.

Yeah, I don't blame you. There's a big event in Hawaii where a bunch of countries come together and do some practice stuff. Pack,

Jon Macaskill (33:14)
Yeah, I'm forgetting the...

It's... Shoot, I'm forgetting the name. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (33:18)
I come from a alcohol sales position on that one and it's a distributor

led thing anyway, but if there's anything special that our buyer could have bought, she would have. But that seemed like a pretty big, did you ever participate in that?

Jon Macaskill (33:28)
Yeah.

I didn't,

I went out to Hawaii a few times for other things, but not for that particular exercise. I'm trying to remember the name of it. It's escaping me right now. You know, I've been retired for almost five years and haven't really thought about that exercise, but, we have, yeah, we have exercises kind of all over the world. That is a big one. We've got some out in the, you know, in the Atlantic as well. Some, yeah, yeah, in the med.

Jessie Ott (33:40)
Yeah, you're good. It'll I haven't participated in a while either.

Yeah.

Yeah. In Italy, right? Like where the,

with, NATO.

Jon Macaskill (34:00)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So we do some in NATO. do some, you know, with the special operations, we did some in Jordan. We did some with the United Arab Emirates. So we ended up doing exercises all over the world just to make sure that we stay, you know, we stay sharp, but so do our counterpart from our allies.

Jessie Ott (34:21)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, that is so cool. So what happens next? What were you kind of getting ready to transition out of the Navy?

Jon Macaskill (34:31)
Yeah. So, you know, I spent the next, once I pinned on, as a officially as a Navy SEAL, I did another 17 years, in the various SEAL teams, mostly on the East Coast. So the, the even number teams and then from there.

Jessie Ott (34:46)
Can you

move around to the different teams then as jobs come up or openings come up, I guess, like a regular job?

Jon Macaskill (34:49)
Yeah, you can. You sure can. Yeah. Yeah. Jobs come up, you

know, the different needs at the different teams. and you know, you do somewhere between two and maybe five years at a particular team, depending on what, the team needs are and what your needs are. And then you can even move between coasts, East coast to West coast, East coast being little Creek West coast being San Diego. and then, and then there are other teams as well. one went out in Hawaii.

which is the SEAL delivery vehicle team one, which is the counterpart to the team two that I was part of. but yeah, you can, you can move between those teams and then there's other jobs outside of the SEAL teams, but still within the special operations community that needs you. Like that's why I did a couple of years down in Tampa. I went out and got my, my master's degree in Monterey. you know, there's, there's other things, but then yeah, in August of 2020.

I transitioned out and now I'm a leadership consultant and executive coach. and I also teach, you know, health and wellness pieces, specifically focusing on the mental and emotional wellness aspects for, for an individual, and, a team, you know, that, that includes emotional intelligence, compassion, empathy, mindfulness, meditation. and those are all things that I'm very passionate about.

is helping people be better versions of themselves and helping teams be better versions of themselves all through these same tools.

Jessie Ott (36:11)
And so you were, you had teams, you led teams as a Navy SEAL then within your groups.

Jon Macaskill (36:16)
I did. Well, yeah. So the,

the name or rather the term team is a little confusing when you come to, when you come to the SEAL teams. So the SEAL teams are again, the, you know, the numbered elements. Uh, and then within the SEAL teams, have platoons and troops. So those are the smaller elements in the platoon, you know, per doctrine is supposed to be 16 men or so.

Ideally 16 men. So I led a platoon and then, you know, a troop is two platoons plus, leadership. So got to lead there as well. Then I led as an Operations Officer in a SEAL Team. And then I led as an Executive Officer and, the, the SEAL Team is, is led by a Navy SEAL Commander. SEAL Team is essentially the same as the Army Battalions.

I never led a SEAL team. I actually, I'll keep a very long story, very short, but I ended up getting in trouble, as a commander. my sister was, battered by her now ex-husband and I threatened him that if he laid another hand on her, I was, I was going to hurt him. And, I got in trouble for that. So the Navy felt that I would.

Jessie Ott (37:18)
Okay.

Jon Macaskill (37:35)
should never lead a SEAL team. I ended up never actually leading the Battalion size SEAL team. but, I did, I did very badly, it's okay. You know, it was a, it was a pivot of my own. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I learned a lot from that. I've grown from it. and I think I'm better for it. And my sister's also in a better place now. So yeah.

Jessie Ott (37:41)
Did you want to? sorry.

Yep, it was a pivot. You learned.

Good, I'm glad.

That's never a good place to be, it's scary. So what, when you pivoted out of the Navy, what were you thinking at the time? Like, what do I do now? Are there resources available? And like, does that look like?

Jon Macaskill (38:03)
Yeah, no it's not.

Well, yeah, yeah. tons.

Yeah, there, there are a million resources available. You just have to look for them. you know, there, there's all sorts of transition programs, military transition programs. you know, fellowships, internships, foundations that are there to support. And then there's a lot of people on the outside already that want to offer advice on.

Jessie Ott (38:23)
Okay.

Jon Macaskill (38:39)
their transition, like how it looked for them to go through that military to civilian life transition. yeah, there's, there are tons, they actually call it the Sea of Goodwill because there's just so many resources out there. That's actually the difficult part is sorting through that Sea of Goodwill and figuring out, okay, which resource is best for me. so yeah, what, what was, what was I thinking? you know,

Jessie Ott (38:53)
He threw it. Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (39:00)
I am blessed in that I was a military retiree or I am a military retiree. So I get a pension. so I had a safety net to fall back on, but I started out working in the nonprofit space right out of, right out of, out of the Navy. I worked for a Veteran nonprofit called Veterans Path, which was teaching mindfulness and meditation to Veterans. they have since gone under, but the, was assisting as their deputy executive director for a while.

And the nonprofit space is a, a very difficult space specifically for the, the Veteran nonprofits there. When I got out in 2020, there were 80,000 Veteran nonprofits and they're all fighting for the same dollar. Yeah, exactly. What? There's tons of them and yeah, yeah, there needs to be more focus and yeah, it was difficult to distinguish ourselves from other nonprofits.

Jessie Ott (39:40)
What?

man, it needs to be more focused.

Jon Macaskill (39:55)
And we're all again fighting for the same dollar begging and pleading for donations and grants. And so the, that same pool of money gets diluted further and further as there's more nonprofits. And that was, you know, coming up on five years ago. So there's probably more than that now. so I worked in that nonprofit space ended up, leaving Veterans Path and, started my own business. Actually I'd started years before, but just kind of as a placeholder in case I needed it. Well,

When I left Veterans Path and decided, okay, this is what I want to do. And I started public speaking as a keynote speaker, speaking on mindfulness, meditation, resilience, grit, preparedness, emotional intelligence. Yeah, this is, this is for everyone. You know, I, I leverage my SEAL background to, speak to corporate teams, to speak to nonprofits, to, just really help them out. And then, you know, since then I've, I've parlayed that.

Jessie Ott (40:32)
And this isn't just for Veterans, this is for all people, leaders. Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (40:48)
speaking career into a speaking and leadership consultant and executive coach kind of career, which is what I do now. And then I also run a podcast like you are called Men Talking Mindfulness and Men Talking Mindfulness is myself and a good buddy of mine who lives in New York city. And we talk about all things, mental and emotional health and leadership. it's, a lot of fun.

Jessie Ott (40:59)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's, that's big. I mean, people are so busy, you know, like as a, as an entrepreneur getting started, you, you just work all the time and you don't have, you don't, you don't, well, I make time for my mindfulness when I work out. That's, that's, or, or I do have a meditation. need to get back on it. It's really good. And it, kind of,

Jon Macaskill (41:21)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good one.

Jessie Ott (41:33)
It's controlling your mind because you can tell your mind to fix things and to do things that we don't really learn, you know, on a regular basis. I discovered it on a podcast. you feel amazing afterwards because she goes through from head to toe and activates all the things and your organs just, they feel alive and you feel the blood flowing and it's just really nice.

Jon Macaskill (41:45)
Yeah.

sure.

Hahaha.

Yeah, yeah, there's, there's great meditations like that, you know, that the body scan, the progressive relaxation, one that's called yoga, needra or I rest. there's a, there's a lot of great ones out there that are not just good for the mind, but are also, like you said, great for the body.

Jessie Ott (42:01)
It's really helpful.

Well, how can people get in touch with you?

Jon Macaskill (42:19)
Yeah, probably the easiest one is just texting the letters mindful to 33777. And that will automatically send you a link on your phone to go to, you know, all the things that I'm involved in. takes you to one website that has a whole list of different things that I've got going on. And yeah, that's definitely the easiest one.

Jessie Ott (42:41)
that's cool. Do you have a website?

Jon Macaskill (42:43)
I do as just Jon Macaskill.com. and, and then also for the podcast, it's men talking mindfulness.com and Jon is J O N not, I have no H. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (42:50)
Okay, awesome. J-O-N, yes.

so did you meet your wife while you were serving in the Navy and then you guys kind of roll out together?

Jon Macaskill (42:57)
I did.

Yeah. Well, she rolled out two years before I did. And she was actually at SEAL Team Ten when I got there in 2013. and then, yeah, we, we deployed together, had, had a forbidden Afghanistan romance and then came back. Yeah. We came back from that deployment and, I did not get in trouble. No, thankfully.

Jessie Ott (43:15)
no.

You didn't get

caught.

Jon Macaskill (43:21)
We like to say that we

hit it pretty well, but a lot of people knew that it was obvious. So we came back in December of 2013 for her, January of 2014 for me, and then we got married in May of 2014 and we eloped. So was a fast and furious romance and we're still together. We've got three wonderful young kids and yeah, sure enough, met in the Navy and now we're both Veterans.

Jessie Ott (43:50)
No, that's awesome. do you, when did you, how did you get to Colorado Springs?

Jon Macaskill (43:55)
Yeah. So, uh, I retired when COVID was at its height in August of 2020. And, uh, my wife and I with our then two kids, now three, uh, lived in an RV and the plan at the time was to kind of bebop around the country and that RV, but COVID kind of put a kibosh on that plan. And, uh, Becca, Becca's my wife, she and I sat down and we wrote down, okay, you know, what are we looking for in a, in a

Jessie Ott (44:14)
Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (44:24)
city in a new hometown because prior to that, the Navy had always determined where we were going to live. And now we got a choice. Yeah, exactly. We were like, oh, we're not grownups. We're real grownups. Now we got to choose. you know, we wrote down, uh, you know, we wanted to have outdoor activities. wanted to have seasons and like, like Virginia Beach basically has two seasons. like summer and winter, and we were finished with that. so, uh, you know,

Jessie Ott (44:30)
You got your power back.

you

Yeah. You can never really

swim there either.

Jon Macaskill (44:53)
Yeah. Virginia Beach is, it's okay. you know, I got tired of it after living there. Most of my adult life, I wanted to live somewhere else. There's, there's definitely perks to it. And, I don't hate it, but it was just not my, my jam. So anyway, we, made a whole list of different things and, and Colorado Springs, bubbled to the top of that list. And we made it work. So here we are. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (44:55)
It's expensive.

That's awesome.

That's really cool. I love this story. Well, congratulations and certainly thank you and your wife for your service. It means a lot to all of us that you keep us safe and you work hard and put your bodies through what you do and minds.

Jon Macaskill (45:19)
Thanks.

Thank you, Jesse.

Well, it was a pleasure.

It was a pleasure to serve and honor and privilege to serve. And if I had it to do all over again, I absolutely would. So, yeah, it was fun.

Jessie Ott (45:41)
Are you involved in any military communities, like Veteran communities?

Jon Macaskill (45:45)
you know,

not, directly or, or I am, but they're not formal. you know, I'm in a group of Veteran guys who we all were all on, on a big text thread. you know, one of my first platoons, we're all still on a text thread and all sharing things, but, I am, a big advocate for one that's called the Commit Foundation.

Jessie Ott (45:56)
Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (46:06)
And I am supposed to become an ambassador for them, but not sure exactly what that entails, but the Commit Foundation is a fantastic foundation for transitioning service members and Veterans. the Honor Foundation is another one kind of, specific for the Special Operations community, good friends with the CEO for them. there's, there's,

a lot, like I said, that's CEO Goodwill. There's a lot of them out there, but I'm involved loosely with several of them, but not so much formally.

Jessie Ott (46:33)
Okay.

Okay. Well, that's good to know that if someone listens, have a, they can go to four or five before they search the 80,000.

Jon Macaskill (46:42)
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's,

there's tons of them, but yeah, a huge fan of the Commit Foundation and the Honor Foundation. And then for those who may be transitioning, there's, another one called the American Corporate Partners, which basically teams you up, as an individual with another individual in the corporate space and they, they kind of mentor you. and so I had a, had a great opportunity. Yeah, absolutely. is.

Jessie Ott (46:50)
Yeah.

That's great. Yeah. It's a different world. There's office

etiquette.

Jon Macaskill (47:09)
Yeah. Yeah. Office etiquette culture,

you know, leadership is different. People are different. the drive there is different. You know, the drive in the, the military, know, you get a standard paycheck, you're not getting a bonus, if you do more work or less. So we have to figure out the different carrots and sticks, that work and, and the leadership in the outside world and leadership and management in the outside world is, is very different.

There's a lot of overlap, but there's enough difference to where it takes some getting used to.

Jessie Ott (47:39)
Okay. Do you have any, you know, mentors that have kind of helped you throughout your career that you want to mention?

Jon Macaskill (47:48)
Yeah. Yeah. I'll, I'll say, one of my, one of my CO's actually two of them, now one of them is, is an Admiral. when he, when I knew him early on in the, in the SEAL Teams, he was, you know, just a SEAL Lieutenant. And then when I worked for him, he's a SEAL Commander, Josh Lasky, huge mentor of mine. And then another one, Matt Stevens, he, I worked for him twice in the, in the SEAL Teams.

And, absolutely loved guy. Good. Stayed good friends with him. and he's actually the CEO of that Honor Foundation that I, mentioned, doing great things for transitioning Special Operators. so yeah, those are, those are two of my military mentors. I've had, also, I'll also call one out who was basically just slightly senior to me. JD Donaldson. he was a great mentor of mine.

But those, those are three that bubbled to the top right off the bat, but, there were many other ones along the way. those who mentor me directly and intentionally, and then there's others who just set a great example for me to follow. And then, and then some that were inadvertently mentors of mine in a, in a kind of different way, show me what not to do. And I consider that just as important. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Jessie Ott (48:56)
Yes, 100%. Especially when you're young, know, trying

to mature. Yeah. You kind of mentioned a few resources, but I don't know if you want to talk about, you know, the mindfulness. Is there any resources that you'd recommend for people that want to kind of get into it to check out?

Jon Macaskill (49:03)
Indeed, indeed.

Yeah,

yeah, for sure. Well, first I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my own podcast, Men Talking Mindfulness. We have a lot of resources on there. We have our website, mentalkingmindfulness.com that have resources on there. I've got some content on two different meditation apps that are out there. One's called Insight Timer. So Insight, not inside, Insight Timer. And then the other one is Calm. Those are two apps that I have out there and then I've got Content.

Jessie Ott (49:32)
great.

Jon Macaskill (49:41)
on our podcast as well. I do.

Jessie Ott (49:41)
Yeah, so you have a program that you

have on there because you have a great voice. Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (49:47)
Thank you. Thank you. I've

got, guess the, voice for radio or the face for radio. so, so yeah, the, I've got a program on Calm is specifically about resilience and grit and how that ties into mindfulness. there's some meditations built into those. and then on Insight Timer, I've got, I don't know, eight or nine meditations that are on there. I will say Insight Timer is, is great in that.

Jessie Ott (49:53)
Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (50:13)
There is tons of content. there's just so much, Calm, I would say is better content. It's the quality assurance there, the recording, like they paid for me to go and stand in a professional recording studio twice to record my content. Whereas the Inside Timer I've recorded right here in my own room. so the, the quantity is there on Inside Timer. The quality is there on Calm. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (50:27)
cool.

Interesting. Okay. Good to know.

Yeah. Calm's pretty big. I haven't heard of the, the Insight Timer podcast, but I have heard of Calm. Yeah.

Jon Macaskill (50:46)
Yeah. Calm's great. I

mean, they're both great in their own right.

Jessie Ott (50:49)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, as Howard would say, Jon, you said it all.

Jon Macaskill (50:57)
Thanks, Jessie. Great

being here with you. I appreciate you.

Jessie Ott (51:00)
Yeah, I just, I'm so curious and you know, for me it's, I've been calling on the military channel, so it's a big, and obviously with my dad having Agent Orange and being sick, it's been a major impact in, in my life. And I just want to do what, what, what can I do to help? And so I sell, spirits and some other things to the, to the military channel, but I also am building out the, I hope to build out the biggest spirits and.

Jon Macaskill (51:13)
sure.

Yeah.

Jessie Ott (51:28)
you know, Veteran owned, portfolio so that when Cruise Lines or whoever wants to take a look at Veteran owned brands, can check us out. Cause I feel like it's really important to support them. And so I just, I love, I love talking to you guys and learning from you and your journeys. And it really is inspirational. And I just really appreciate you coming on. I thank you so much.

Jon Macaskill (51:44)
Well, thank you.

I appreciate

you. You give me a platform to share my story and, and thank you for what you're doing for, for Veterans and this space. It's great.

Jessie Ott (51:58)
Yeah, it's fun. I love it. It's just, it's... Yeah, I don't know. It's just, it's part of who I am, I guess.

Jon Macaskill (52:00)
I bet.

Yep, yep, I can see that. I love that.

Jessie Ott (52:11)
Yeah, well, I'm gonna let you get back to it, but it's been an absolute pleasure. there anything else that you want to mention that we haven't talked about yet?

Jon Macaskill (52:17)
Same here.

Not off the top of my head. No, I think we've covered a pretty wide swath there. It was great. It was great. Thank you, Jessie. All right. Take care. Bye-bye.

Jessie Ott (52:25)
Okay. Covered quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Jon. Okay. Bye.