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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
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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.
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John Shipley spent fourteen years carrying an FBI badge. Army aviator first — commissioned by his own father, a retired Vietnam-era lieutenant colonel — until a spinal cord injury at Walter Reed ended his flying career. He walked into Quantico in 1996, drew El Paso, and spent the next decade working narcotics and surveillance on the Mexican border. SWAT. Sniper. Bodyguard details for the FBI Director and the Attorney General. A father of two adopted kids. The kind of agent who refused a $27 million bribe because he didn't want the money — he wanted to keep his oath.
And then the government came for him.
One Barrett .50 caliber he sold legally to a county deputy years earlier ended up in a Mexican shootout. ATF traced it back. Prosecutors charged him with six felonies. What John didn't know at trial was that the gun store that brokered the final sale was an ATF informant — part of what would later be exposed as Operation Fast and Furious. They let the rifle walk. They knew. And when Mexico asked questions, they handed John up instead. He did two years in federal prison. An entire day of his trial transcript vanished from the record. Presidential executive privilege slammed down on every document that could prove it. John tells the whole story on his own terms — and he's still fighting for the pardon that would give him his rights back.
 
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Week one of the book being out in the world, and I still don't have the vocabulary for the support. Thank you. Genuinely. If you read it, an honest Amazon review costs nothing and helps more than you'd think.
Then we get into the questions. A 25-year-old lawyer writes in about imposter syndrome and getting put on a pedestal for a job he doesn't feel qualified for yet. My take: keep the imposter syndrome. Just find a response that doesn't escalate or deescalate, and move the conversation to them.
Next one hits harder. A Marine turned med student on the "vet bro" archetype, the guy in head-to-toe fatigues at the airport, and the social sandpaper that follows. Why one bad interaction outweighs a hundred good ones. Why comparative service and competitive suffering benefit nobody. And why the best counter is just being a good expression of what you used to be.
Also covered: what recovery looked like overseas vs. now, why special operations runs like a professional sports team, and my honest take on TRT, dosage, and chasing health span over lifespan.
Enjoy
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John Dudley is a decorated professional archer, two-time IBO National Champion, World Field Championship medalist, and the founder of Nock On Archery. He's spent close to 30 years inside the archery industry — competing at the highest levels across multiple continents, working with elite manufacturers, coaching everyone from beginners to national team athletes, and building one of the most comprehensive free archery education platforms on the internet through his School of Nock. He's also the host of the Nock On Podcast and turns 50 this June.
This conversation covers a lot of ground. We get into the physics and engineering limits of compound bows, why the industry is essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul at this point, and what it would take for someone with an outsider's mind to actually push the technology forward. Dudley talks about the trifecta of archery — mechanical, physical, and mental — and why the kids who aren't standout athletes are often the ones who thrive. We talk about the value of saying no, the cost of too much travel on your family, what Frank Zane taught him about longevity in fitness, and why his long-term goal is to pour every piece of knowledge he has back into the archery community before he steps away. We also get into reaching out to friends when you're struggling, the gap between knowing help exists and actually using it, and the transparency it takes to put your faults on paper. And haircuts. A lot about haircuts. 
NockOnArchery: https://nockonarchery.com/
Pick up your copy of Drownproof here:  https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com/book