Flintlocks, Forging, and First Blood with Kyle Lamb of Viking Tactics

Kyle Lamb of Viking Tactics shares his thoughts on being a maker, being an author, and why you should NOT have a bucket list. If you have ever wondered what it is like to hunt with a flintlock rifle, this episode is for you.  

Transcript

Aaron Silvestain  00:00

Ron have you ever made your own flintlock rifle, a tomahawk or hunting knife?

Ron Dan  00:04

No, but there was one time in shop class I made a really sweet birdhouse.  Does that count?

Aaron Silvestain  00:08

I don't know if that counts, but our guest, Kyle Lamb once killed a deer with a flintlock rifle, then he skinned and gutted it with a homemade knife, and then he used a tomahawk to split the pelvis of the deer. So birdhouse, killing a deer splitting it open, pretty much on the same level. So he shares that full story with us, as well as his thoughts on what business leaders can learn from military leadership. We cover a lot in this episode. So shall we head into the briefing room? 

Ron Dan  00:35

Let's go.

Music  00:36

Ron Dan  00:49

Welcome to the Vertx Briefing room this week, we have one of my favorite guests that we will have on the show, Mr. Kyle Lamb. Kyle, how are you doing today? 

Kyle Lamb 01:00 

Great man, I am doing awesome. How you been?

Ron Dan  01:01

I’ve been fantastic. I told you this a little bit earlier, but when we first started talking about doing the briefing room, and they mentioned you being one of our guests, you know, just given our longtime friendship and our personal relationship, this was the one that I've been looking forward to probably the most.  Not to take away from any of the other guests that we’ve had but this is the one that I've definitely been looking forward to the most.

Kyle Lamb 1:21

I was excited too when I heard you guys were doing this. It's always better, I think, when you know who you're talking to, and I’ve got plenty of dirt on you. So, I know that you won't bring up too much dirt on me because man, payback is a son of a gun.

Ron Dan  01:35

I'm gonna keep the gloves on for this one for sure. For our guests that are listening, do you mind giving us a little bit about your background and for those who don't know who the famous Kyle Lamb is, let them know where you are.

Kyle Lamb 1:47

I'm a retired military guy retired as a SAR major from the army quite a few years ago now, but I spent most of my time in the military at the pointy end of the spoon there with an elite counterterrorist commando unit. And before that I was an SF guy, before that I was a paratrooper, before that I was a farm kid in South Dakota. So I guess that kind of pares that down pretty quickly. But I spent time at the unit as a as an operator, then as an assault team leader, sniper team leader, primary shooting instructor, and then as a troop Sergeant Major. And then my final job, I was our Combat Development Directorate, SAR major before I retired, so I did a little bit of everything. But most of my time was run around with guns and doing gun stuff. I guess that's my area of expertise. Then once I retired, my wife and I run a business called Viking Tactics. We make tactical products for the industry, whether it's for law enforcement, military, or the armed civilian, that wants our product. That's what we focus on. We also do traveling classes where I've traveled around the country and train folks.  We also have our own product line, obviously, which if people haven't seen that, they can check that out at VikingTactics.com. And then I speak quite a bit. I've written several books, and my last book, Leadership in the Shadows has caused me to get on the speaking circuit, so to speak. And that's been a lot of fun. I've met people through that book that I wouldn't have met in the shooting and outdoor world because leadership is leadership. So there's been several large businesses that have hired us to come in. And even some small businesses that have hired us, it's a lot of fun when I get to go meet people that are not quite like me, and open up that dialogue.

Ron Dan  03:23

So talking about leadership, a lot of people might think of your leadership style and think, hey, this only really applies in a military or tactical aspect. But like you're saying, there's a lot of businesses where it can apply to you. Would you mind describing a little bit more about your leadership philosophy and how you approach leadership for those who haven't read Leadership in the Shadows?

Kyle Lamb 03:43

I think that folks that say that military leadership doesn't apply to business are 100% of the time, they're non military people. What I would say is that leadership is leadership is leadership. So if you have leadership techniques that work in your business, they may not work in the military, but leadership techniques in the military are going to work in business. And I say that because if you're a leader in the military, what can go right and what can go wrong? What can go right is you can be successful, going into a foreign country conducting a mission.  You can also not be successful and people can die on the battlefield.  Where businesses are lucky, normally in business, if you make a bad decision, people don't die. You might have, I guess, stockholders that wish they were dead if you crater a business that bad, but ultimately, in the military, that leadership is more serious to me than business leadership, although like I said, they both go hand in hand. When you make decisions as a business leader, one of the things you're probably not thinking of is how do we do you know, contingency operations? If we get somebody wounded or we have to do a call for fire or we can't exfil, how are we going to survive on the battlefield if we have to be, or what's the duration that we can stay there? Well, they don't have to think of any of that. They're worried about supply chain. And that's all great stuff to worry about too. And as you can see right now in our country that's been devastated by the current issues that we're having. So maybe it's time for a little bit more strong military leadership. And I think kind of going hand in hand with that is the selection of people. If you are going to select people at your business and your life depended on it, would you select the same people that you select? That's a tough question right there.

Ron Dan  05:23

That's a good question.

Kyle Lamb 05:24

Yeah. So can you trust that person with your life? If the answer is no, well, in the military, we wouldn't select that person to be in a leadership position. But as a business person, you might say, “Well, I'm not really worried about that, because my life is not in their hands.” Okay. Well, there you go. Once again, military leadership is much more serious than business leadership. One of the issues that we run into in our country currently is the issue of race, and also in the military. What do you call a person that's black, or yellow, or white, or red when they're on your team? You call them teammate. That's it. There's never another thought about that. Raise up everybody as though you're on the same team and have the same mission. And once again, that's what I really I like, and that's one of the things if you said, “What do you miss about the military?” One, I do miss the people. But what I really miss is the mission. Because we all had the same mission, everybody had the same mission focus. And you know, how great is that you can turn anywhere in your society of being in the military, we all have the same focus,

Ron Dan  06:30

What's something you learned in that community, that has been the most valuable lesson, going into your civilian life, whether it's land nav, or maybe it is leadership, or any of those skills that you would have learned? What's the most valuable one you've carried over into your current career?

Kyle Lamb 06:47

This might surprise you, but probably the most valuable would be work ethic. So what do you do when nobody's watching you? Ultimately, I learned most of my shooting skills from the military. I knew how to shoot when I joined the army, but I've taken that to another level with what I'm doing now. So that's important to me, in my business, but having that work ethic, I think, is even more important, because no matter what the task is, if you have a good work ethic, and when I say good work ethic, that doesn't mean you got to be the neatest person, that doesn't mean you got to be the most organized, you don't have to be the smartest person, you don't have to be the dumbest person. I mean, you just have to have good work ethic.  You’ve met my wife, she has the best work ethic of any human being I've ever met. So if I want to be successful, I just got to try to keep up with her. That’s probably the hardest thing that I have to do on a daily basis from getting up in the morning to getting out and working out every day to you know, keeping the business going. She's a super motivated and hardworking person. You've heard that term Puritan work ethic. That really has nothing to do with being a Puritan. It has nothing to do with where you grew up, it has to do with what's inside of you. And if you're truly a hard worker, you're going to work that way, no matter if I'm watching you or not. And in business that goes hand in hand with being successful. If you want to have a successful business, you need people that are self starters that are going to work when you're not over their shoulder. Because if all I got to do is babysit you to get you through the day, I'm going to fire you and find somebody that's going to work hard when I'm not there.

Ron Dan  08:17

I like what you said about what are you doing when no one else is watching.  A mentor of mine, one of the smartest people I know in our industry, is a guy named Jeff Edwards, and he has a saying he uses. The way you do one thing is the way you do everything. And are you going to cut corners, you know, if you're going to cut corners, in practice, you're definitely going to cut corners in the game. And I like that idea of, when nobody else is watching, are you still having the same work ethic?

Kyle Lamb 08:39

It's hard. It's I mean, it's a difficult thing to do. But you just got to do it every day. I love what I do. And I would challenge everybody out there. If you don't love what you do, then find something that you love and do it. If you can't, if you got to feed your family, then that might be a different story. Maybe you do have to work that nine to five job to feed your family. But you can still have those aspirations to do what you love. You know, maybe what you love is spending time with your family. So then go have that nine to five job and then go spend that quality time with your family. My wife and I are lucky because we love what we do with our business. She loves organization, all this stuff that it just drives me insane. She loves it. And then the stuff that she doesn't like, like doing a podcast, or writing a book, or getting up and talking smack in front of 5 or 6,000 people at one time. She doesn't love that. But I do, so it makes our business, our partnership in business, very strong. It also makes our partnership and marriage strong too.

Ron Dan  09:37

That's been one of my favorite things to see in your relationship with Melinda is how you each play to each other's strengths and weaknesses and build each other up where you need it and then help each other out in every aspect. It's been great to see that over the years.

Kyle Lamb 09:50

Yeah, and that's not a trait that just happens. You got to work on that. I was just talking to a friend of mine that's having some difficulties and I said, “Is it worth fighting for? If it's not worth fighting for, then move on. But if it is worth fighting for the key word in that sentence is fight.” There's nothing wrong with a good fight. But when it's over, it's over. And then you got to move on.

Ron Dan  10:09

I had heard a story, and I actually haven't heard this story from you, that when you first left the military and started Viking Tactics, I believe you had a little bit of a time where you didn't feel like you had a sense of a mission in your life. Is that the case? And if so, how did you work through that?

Kyle Lamb 10:26

I don't know if that was really the case, I did feel like you didn't have a mission. And I think what I did was I quickly focused on training people.  That became my mission.  Focus on the mission, but do it correctly. Don't overdo it. Because in the military time off is kind of built into your schedule. For example, you're going to go down range, you're going to do a mission, and then you come back to base you hot wash it, and then you go chill out for a while. And some days you get strung out because you do mission after mission after mission. I think as a civilian now I've had to learn how to handle having time off. And for me, I still have to remain busy. That's why I've started doing some other hobbies other than just shooting. I do a lot of hunting, I've been doing some forging, I've been doing some other stuff. My writing always has helped to keep me focused as well. Writing to me is a great tool to just kind of calm you down and put you in a little different space.  I think a lot of times, that's what we need is just to kind of get out of that space that we're always hanging out with you know?

Ron Dan  11:25

Well, you've authored several books now. Green Eyes, Black Rifles, Leadership in the Shadows, amongst others. What's the next book on the horizon?

Kyle Lamb 11:33

I've got a fiction book. It's done, I just have to kind of get it put in order. And that's a little bit more difficult than I thought it was gonna be. My hat's off to guys like Jason Casper, Jack Carr, Harrison Cone, Brad Thor, guys like that. Fiction is difficult. It's totally made up. So it's not like you can follow the truth and just tell the truth. My books I tried to just follow, this is how you shoot a pistol. This how you shoot a rifle. This is leadership.  It was very, very simple compared to writing fiction. That's been the most difficult book I've ever written. I also have another book, and I've been working on these for such a long time now. It just seems like I'm never going to get them done. But trust me, I'm still doing it. Just it's a labor of love to get these things done. I've got another one that's war stories from the Bible that I've been working on.

Ron Dan  12:16

I did not know that you are going to be writing fiction book. That is fantastic. You know, that's something I didn't know about you. And I feel like I know you pretty well. What's something about you that people would not know that are listening that would surprise them about you?

Kyle Lamb 12:30

I think maybe the biggest surprise I get from people when they get to know me, and I don't particularly like this term, but I'm just gonna say what they've said. They go, wow, you're very well read. And that's a little offensive to be honest with you. Because it's like, oh, so I'm an Army guy so I'm just a thug? You know what I mean? Why can't an Army guy be well read? And what does that really mean? What does well read really mean? Does it mean you've read all the classics, because I'm gonna tell you some of the classics suck. Some of the classics, like the Count of Monte Cristo, and books like that from Dumas, the Three Musketeers, those are stellar books. But you know, for me, well read means that I read a lot of history. I believe that's where people see that because we'll start having history discussions, and you'll jump in and talk about history. That's probably what surprises most people is that I do read a lot. I started a new book this morning.  I started reading Rambo, actually First Blood.  I never read that book. It's a classic, and I've never read it. And it’s nothing like the movie. It's more violent than the movie and has a different ending than the movie. And I've never read it. And it's kind of interesting. I picked up a book last night, and I read it, The Most Dangerous Game.  I did that because my buddy Jack Carr, he had said something about those books. And I thought I'd never read either one of those I'm going to read them. It gives you more insight to some of your friends, too. If you have a friend that likes Ernest Hemingway, you probably ought to find new friends, but if you have a friend that likes First Blood, and those are cool books.

Ron Dan  14:01

What are some common misconceptions or myths in our industry, that most people that are outside of the industry would not know about?

Kyle Lamb 14:10

I think that a lot of people that are not in our industry might think that everybody that's a military, law enforcement or in the shooting and hunting industry, are a bunch of rednecks. And what I would say is that's true. We are rednecks, and we're very proud of that. You're a redneck, I'm a redneck. What does that mean to be a redneck? Well, it means that you probably have beliefs that are bigger than yourself. So you probably are a religious person, or at least have a religion that you believe in. You probably love your family. Probably love your kids or grandkids, your wife and husband whatever. You probably like to hang out with your family and do things with them like shoot guns and go hunting and camping and fishing. You're probably very patriotic, love America, love everything that it stands for. You probably look at our Founding Fathers and you raise them up as heroes. You probably think that we're not educated and I would say that most of us are educated, at least educated, where we need to be educated, which is, I wouldn't say academia. I would say real world education. Those would be the misconceptions that I would say, you can't find a friendlier group of people than the industry that we're in.

Ron Dan  15:21

I agree. And a lot of people talk about how, once you're in this industry, and I've seen several people leave, and almost every single time they come back. In fact, I was talking to somebody today who left to go work in also a very cool industry on the construction side of things, on the equipment side of things. They're already saying, “Hey, I'm gonna make it back into the gun industry at some point, it is the nicest group of people and everybody is out there to look out for one another.” It's a great little brotherhood.

Kyle Lamb 15:47

And I think there's a bunch of closet gun industry people too that are gun industry people and they don't even know it.  I'll give you an example. Royce Gracie.  Royce Gracie is like the one of the most well known fighters on the planet. And he's one of us. He's a gun guy. He's a hunter, all his kids shoot, they're awesome. They're just great people. And he's not known for that. He's known for going in the ring and punching people's lights out and training people to fight, which that's not our industry. That is a different industry. I think that guys like Joe Rogan, who were not part of our industry have tried to become part of our industry because they have seen how the people are. And we're not the same. Joe Rogan and Royce Gracie couldn't be more different. But they're both good people. So that puts them in that, you know, they can be in that industry. And then a guy like me walks up, neither one of those guys has a military background, I get along with him perfect because of them being, I don't know, Joe Rogan. but I know Royce very well.  He and I get along, not because of his fighting and not because that I was in the Army,  We get along because we both like to shoot, we both like guns, we both like to hunt, both love our families. That's what we talk about when we get together. I don't go, oh, boy, Royce tell me about when you beat this guy up. He doesn't go whoa, hey, Kyle, tell me about when you got in this gunfight. We never talked about that. We talked about family, we talked about hunting, we talked about shooting. That is it.

Ron Dan  17:05

Yeah, he's a great guy. And you know I didn't realize how much he was into it until I saw him at Shot Show carrying a Vertx bag and knew how to use it.  He knew how it was all laid out. I know he's given the Vertx team some input on how to improve the bags and change the bags. And he is a true gun guy and also one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. I mean, you know Royce real well, and he's just one of the kindest people you'll ever meet on the planet.

Kyle Lamb 17:28

The toughest people that you ever meet are usually the nicest. If somebody is like a dirtbag and mean and you know, acts tough, they’re probably not real tough. But the guys that are, are just as nice, they're like, 0h, I could pop your head off like a zit, so why would I be mean to you.

Ron Dan  17:46

Talking about Vertx bags, and you don't have to mention any of the Vertx equipment here, but what are some cool pieces of kit or gear with Christmas coming up that you would recommend? What are some cool pieces of gear that you've been using lately, that you might recommend for somebody out there to try, or for somebody out there to go buy as a gift?

Kyle Lamb 18:06

I'm just I'm gonna hit the things that I really like. One is the zip up jacket, I think, is that the one you're wearing? Or have you got the pull over?

Ron Dan  18:13

Yep, this is the Manitou hybrid.

Kyle Lamb 18:16

That is an awesome piece of kit. One of the things you got to realize when you get that though, is it's not a sweatshirt. It's way warmer than a sweatshirt. So what I like about that is it doesn't have any hood strings. But the hood fits like your a knight getting ready for battle. So when you put that hood up, and you zip it all the way up, it fits tightly around your face. So I can wear that when I'm out hunting, I can wear that when I'm riding side by side, I can wear that when I'm on the range and I've got your pro on because you're pro go right over it. So I really like that. That'd probably be my number one item that I would say. The packs are cool. You need to get educated on the packs, because there's a lot of hidden compartments and there's a lot of things that that you guys have thought about that if you don't get a class, you may not figure out all these portions or some of them. I've had friends, I tell them it's in my pack and they go tear my pack apart and they go no, it's not in there I go wait a minute, and then I show them the secret compartment they go oh, okay, cool. Now what kind of pack is that? And then the last thing I would say would be your blue jeans. I really like the blue jeans because they got a little stretch and I wear the blue jeans every day. But yeah, that hooded sweatshirt that you're wearing or not sweatshirt but hooded jacket. That's absolutely my favorite product that y'all make.

Ron Dan  19:27

So I know you read books to learn more. Where else do you learn? Do you listen to podcasts? Do you go to events to see other people speak the way you go on a speaking circuit? What are the best ways that you expand your horizon?

Kyle Lamb 19:41

I would say that I do listen to podcasts.  What I've tried to do with my podcast though, if I'm listening to a podcast and I finished listening and I can't tell you what I learned from that podcast, I don't listen that podcast anymore. So I like to listen to podcasts where I learned something.  So when I do my podcast, I guess that's one of the things I tried to do is give people something that they can learn from it. I also do listen to some videos. So, online classes, whether it's a knife making class, I've been taking a class from Kyle Royer, how to learn how to make mosaic Damascus. One, the guy is an excellent instructor and he's a great craftsmen. I also have taken some college classes that way. I'm not taking them so I get a certificate, I'm taking them to become more knowledgeable, whether it's about the Constitution, about history, whatever it might be. Probably the most important learning tool I've used in the last three years has been in person learning. A friend of yours and mine, Allen Elishewitz. I have learned more from him and the guys that I've met since I started forging than anybody I've learned from in the last 10 years, especially Allen and you know, nothing against the instructors I went into a class from. They were great instructors too. But Allen has come to my house and to my shop several times and showed me how to do things on my own tools. He's very diligent when it comes to learning new things with shooting and tactics and fighting and knife fighting and fighting with the club and all this stuff. So I've learned a lot from him on being a maker making knives. And then I've learned from him on the fighting side doing some knife fighting, which I've never been a knife fight guy, but the way that he teaches really hit me. He does it very, very well. Better than any other person I've ever seen teach knife fighting, because it also works with my shooting, with hand to hand, and then all of a sudden you have a knife in your hand. It's the same thing. Somebody asked me the other day, they saw that I did some wire inlay on a knife and they said, “Man, who taught you to do that?” and I said, “I went online and I kept looking till I found this guy.” And it wasn't really the greatest video, but I saw the tools he had and I went made the tools, took an exacto knife and ground the blade a little differently and I made the tools and I've started destroying stuff. And I learned how to do that brass inlay by watching Joe Kessler on a video.

Ron Dan  22:00

I know the forging, that's been in the past couple years that you really started getting deeper into that. What's the next thing that you have that you're most excited about?

Kyle Lamb 22:10

It's not coming up. It's already happened but I'll tell you about it because I still am having the after effects of it here. If you did a search online for Kyle Lamb, you're gonna see me, this ugly mug, doing a bunch of shooting with ARs and SIG pistols and getting out of cars fast and shooting targets and whatever. My wife and I built a flintlock rifle together.  I got a Kibler kit, and it's a very nice kit.  I got a 45 caliber mountain southern mountain rifle kit. And we did that together. She did the wood. I did all the metal stuff. And then she did this beautiful curly maple with Aqua Fortis done the way that they did it in the old days, which is iron nitride like nitric acid with iron shavings in it. She put that on there and she heated it up which turns it from a green to like a dark red and then she put walnut oil and then she made the shellac. She took shellaced flakes, stir them up put like orange shellac on there, which made the red really pop. I patinaed the parts with this patina for this rifle was pretty simple because it's just kind of a wipe on type stuff. This rifle looks like it's 200 years old. And when I got done with it, took it out and shot it. That's pretty cool. And then I went deer hunting with it and about a week ago, I killed my first deer with a flintlock. Now I've killed them with black powder before but never with a flintlock. It's harder than hunting with a bow.

Ron Dan  22:28

Oh man.

Kyle Lamb 23:30

I love to hunt. But sometimes you get a little bored and when you get bored, you need to stop that kind of hunting and do something different. I did not get bored when I had that Flintlock and I'll tell you why. Because I shot at three deer till I finally got one.  The first deer 15 yards away, that pan went off and I pulled my head back like a flashbang had just went off next to my head and I missed that deer by two foot. Then I took a shot at another deer. Missed him by probably a good foot as well because that stupid, I call it the flinch lock, you know that flash is going off right in your face. So finally I had a little buck come in, and I put my rifle over the front of my stand and I said if he walks into my sights, I'm going to shoot him. He walked right into my sights, then I went nah I was just enjoying hunting, just the whole being out there. And this gun even smells different than an AR. I no more than let him walk and I heard something behind me and it had to be pretty loud because I'm pretty deaf and I heard a crunch behind me. This little buck lifted his head and he didn't go running over there. So I knew it's probably a buck and I've slowly turned my head and I had a good seven point behind me. It’s a Tennessee deer so he's not a monster deer, but it took about half an hour for him to work his way around to the front of me and I pulled the gun to full cock and set the set trigger and shot and there's a big cloud of smoke and by the time that finished this deer is long gone. I see which way it went. So I get out of the stand and I walk over there and I found the blood and I said oh yeah, I'm on him now. So I pulled out my powder horn Guess what? I ran out of powder. Oh, so no more powder. So what did every frontiersman do when they run out of powder?  They jump in their side by side and they drive back to camp. So I drove back to Crusader Acres and I picked up some more powder and loaded my rifle, grabbed Trigger and took her with me and took her out there and I got on the blood trail. She was on it, obviously too, but we went and found the deer and then I went and got Melinda and she came out and partook of the festivities because it was really cool. I used a knife that I made to gut the deer and skin the deer, I used a tomahawk that I made to split the pelvis. Normally I wouldn't even split the pelvis like that, but I did just because I wanted to use that tomahawk that I made. And then the other thing we did was when I skinned it, we took the hide and sent that off to get made into buckskin. So that Melinda can make something with the hide from the first deer I killed with a flintlock. So when people think you know what gets you excited?  It’s not a big souped up car. It's not a fancy house. It's a flintlock rifle. And it doesn't get much more simple than that. The world that I've infiltrated by becoming a maker, when you start getting into that circle and meeting these people, unlike in our industry, some people kind of try to keep things a secret, but in the forging and the flintlock world, they will tell you everything, and then they will show you. And then they will let you borrow whatever they've had. I mean, what an incredible group of people. I've got a couple guys that especially have helped me.  A guy named John Labelle and a guy named Mike Hawkins and then the other two that really pushed me off the deep end, do you know Jason Gatliff? He owns Muzzleloader Magazine. And then his buddy Ehrin Ehlert. They're the ones that took me to the range with these doggone flintlocks and after I shot their guns, I was ruined. I mean, it's just this group of people. They're just amazing, man. This Flintlock world, you want to talk about good people and being ruined? I thought when I got done with that gun, I'd be like, yeah, I shot a deer. I'm done with it. Now I'm looking for other guns I can build and I'm taking a flintlock building class, and we'll build them, we'll actually do all the stock inletting ourselves. So I'm excited about that.

Ron Dan  26:58

That is really exciting. Well, I know, to see how you've come along in the forging journey has been really exciting. So I'm excited to see what happens with this Flintlock journey that you're about to embark on. Well, Kyle, at the end of all of our podcasts, we do what's called the Lightning Round of questions. So I have four questions for you and I'm going to throw them out there. I need your fast answer from the hip. Don't think about it too much. I want to know just exactly what comes to your heart more than anything. What are three pieces of gear that you always want with you

Kyle Lamb 27:32

Three pieces of gear would be a med kit, an AR 15, and your brain.

Ron Dan  27:37

If you were on a desert island, what book, CD, or movie would you absolutely have to have with you?

Kyle Lamb 27:44

It would be a  book, man. I don't know what book, let's just say something about George Washington.

Ron Dan  27:49

Okay. What's the best concert you've ever been to?

Kyle Lamb 27:52

The best concert I've ever been to was an Alabama concert. That was a good one because my wife and I went. We weren't married yet. It was a long time ago. And they were just awesome.

Ron Dan  28:02

The final one is, and this is an open ended one. So what's the craziest thing that has ever happened to you?

Kyle Lamb 28:08

This may not be what you're looking for but I'll tell you a story that happened to me that is kind of crazy. We went to New York City. I'd never been there. I want to go take my wife to a show in New York. And then we're gonna go to the 911 Memorial in the museum there. So we've done all that. And we were down at Time Square. We went and ate some pizza because you got to eat pizza when you're in New York City. So we go and we get this pizza and we get done. We my wife says, “Oh, can we get some to go boxes?” and I thought go boxes? I'm not coming all the way to New York City to sit in my room and eat cold pizza. She goes no, just let me get some boxes. So she gets like three boxes. She grabs them and we head out the door and we go down by the train station. And she walks up to these homeless guys. And she goes to the first guy and she gives him a piece of pizza and the guy's like, you know, God bless you, ma'am. And takes the pizza. Next guy he like tips his hat to her. You know, thank you, ma'am. Takes pizza. I had slid off to the side just watching her do this. And I thought man, my wife is pretty awesome. You know, she's helping these guys out and everything. And I'm just standing over there looking like I look beside the homeless guys. And somebody came up and gave me five bucks. I realized at that point, I'd made it. I could be a tactical guy, hunter, or I was very well versed in looking homeless.

Ron Dan  29:19

It may come to that.

Kyle Lamb 29:22

So I hear a lot of people lately that talk about and Aaron and I talked about this the other day, Aaron Silvestain and I. A lot of people talk about having a bucket list. I don't have a bucket list. I've never had a bucket list. Whatever I want to do I go out and do it. And maybe I'm just lucky enough that the things that I want to do are attainable. What I would challenge everybody with is, don't have a bucket list. Get off your butt and go do it. I hear guys, you know people will post a picture of somebody skydiving. Oh, that's on my bucket list. Hey, bro, if you want to go skydiving, I can fix that in one afternoon. You'll at least jump out of an airplane. You may not live, but we'll at least throw you out of an airplane. You're gonna dive in the sky. Yeah, you're going to skydive, and it's going to be awesome. So you know, people get out there and do it. Don't sit at home and don't sit there on your stupid social media, get out and make it happen. Do something with your family, whatever it is, you know, just get out and do it.

Ron Dan  30:14

Kyle, I can't thank you enough for the time today. I look forward to the next time you and I get to see each other, which I'm sure will be Shot Show or sometime around then.

Kyle Lamb 30:21

Alright, bro, you take care. Thank you

Music 30:23

Ron Dan  30:33

What was the coolest thing you learned in that episode?

Aaron Silvestain  30:35

Well, there was a lot to digest in there. But I think the coolest thing I learned is that well read doesn't necessarily mean that you read a lot. And I love to hear that from Kyle. I think as you get to know him, and as you learn more, and as you can tell in these conversations, he's not just well read, but he's super well rounded. He does everything from making his own weapon system to listening to his wife, which I think is definitely probably the best thing you can learn out of that episode, but also just going into everything from military leadership, how that revolves in your business. I think there was just so much great stuff to digest in there. So honestly, I think we should all go listen to it again.

Ron Dan  31:10

He's a great guy to learn from and I always learned something when I get a chance to hang out with him. Well, thank you all for joining the Vertx Briefing Room. Make sure you check out the show notes at Vertx.com/podcasts. Be sure to like, subscribe and give us a review. Feel free to drop us a line and let us know what topics and experts you would like to hear about on future episodes.

Music 31:32