Stop Trying to Win Every Argument (Former Navy Submarine Officer Explains Why) | Ep 087

⛴️ Matt DiGeronimo spent nearly two decades as a nuclear submarine officer, leading teams in the most high-stakes environments on Earth. In this fascinating conversation, he shares the leadership principles that kept nuclear reactors running safely 300 feet underwater - managed primarily by 24-year-olds who rotate out every three years.

From "hot racking" (sharing beds with strangers) to managing panic attacks in confined spaces, Matt reveals what extreme environments teach us about human psychology, team dynamics, and effective leadership.

Key Topics:

• How submarine culture creates extreme ownership and accountability
• The 20-60-20 rule that transforms how you see every team
• "Mental Judo" techniques for handling difficult conversations without fighting
• Why the smartest people are the least confident (Dunning-Kruger effect)
• Operational excellence principles that translate from military to business
• The psychology behind political discourse and finding common ground

Matt is a 7-time author whose books include "Extreme Operational Excellence," "Mental Judo," and "Dear Hunter: Letters from Father to Son." His insights on leadership, communication, and human nature come from managing life-or-death situations where failure wasn't an option.

Whether you're leading a team, navigating difficult relationships, or trying to understand what makes people tick, Matt's hard-earned wisdom from the depths offers practical strategies for success above water.

Connect with Matt:

• YouTube: The Curious Patriot
• Substack: Beyond Platitudes
• Books available on Amazon

Connect with Matt:
Website: https://mattdigeronimo.com/
YouTube: The Curious Patriot
Substack: Beyond Platitudes
Books available on Amazon

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Transcript

00:02 - Stacey (Host)
I really, really enjoyed that conversation. It was fun With Matti Geronimo. 

00:05 - Mark (Host)
It was like multifaceted you got to look inside a world that nobody really sees. Does anyone. 

00:10 - Stacey (Host)
I mean, is that not fascinating to you, living in a submarine? I feel like, first of all, I'm not claustrophobic, but I have a fear of being underwater, like deep underwater, like I don't think I would. It's different, like you know, it's kind of like a plane under the water. But when I'm on a plane at least you can see out the window. But when you're in a submarine, come on, that doesn't bother me as much as the concept. 

00:32 - Mark (Host)
A bunch of smelly men Like what does it smell like in there? 

00:34 - Stacey (Host)
I was going to ask him. I didn't ask him. 

00:45 - Mark (Host)
The fine to me. Yeah, so he was an officer in the Navy leading the engineering team on a nuclear sub. 

00:49 - Stacey (Host)
Nuclear sub. So he talked about how, if the fans changed on the nuclear reactor, it would wake him up in a heartbeat because he knew that there was something wrong with the reactor. Like can you imagine like you are this close to death? All the time, all the time I know, even though I don't think any events ever happened on the nuclear submarine, he was saying. 

01:10 - Mark (Host)
but yeah, but you still are At the end of the day, you still are. 

01:15 - Stacey (Host)
And then he went to Operation Freedom. Iraqi Freedom, I think, is the one he said. He volunteered Iraqi Freedom, I think is the one he said he volunteered and he went into combat then he got hurt and then he had to get out of the service, but he said he would have stayed. 

01:28 - Mark (Host)
There would have been a life yeah, a life for a 35 year guy. 

01:31 - Stacey (Host)
But he ended up being an author and he wrote 7 books 7 books and he's inspiring and he came up with this cool concept called Mental Judo. 

01:39 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, and yeah, and it's operational excellence. He works with companies to help them lead teams better, because that's what he did as a sub command, not a commander as an officer and a sub. But it's also how to be a better you in communicating with people and expressing your opinion and just connecting and communicating and recognizing that you get more done when you recognize the other side. 

02:04 - Stacey (Host)
Right, it's not like you don't try to win all the time. Yeah, quit trying to win all the time, stop being so certain. Come on, people, stop being so certain. And I think it was interesting. He brought up a topic, a philosophy, which is most people that know the most are the least confident about the subject matter. So if someone's talking to you and they know it all, do they really? 

02:23 - Mark (Host)
They and they know it all, do they? 

02:23 - Stacey (Host)
really they're not as adamant about it, do they really? Yeah, so anyway, if they, truly know it all. 

02:27 - Mark (Host)
They're less in your face. They're less in your face. 

02:30 - Stacey (Host)
They're curious, they're like well, I don't know what. I don't know about this, even though I've studied it for 40 years. So I think he had some really, really good insights and I think this is a really good episode for anyone to learn negotiation tactics. 

02:45 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, it can make you a better employee. It can make you a better leader. 

02:48 - Stacey (Host)
It can make you a better person. Yeah, all of it. Better grandmother, you will enjoy it. Better father it's cool. 

02:54 - Mark (Host)
And he even wrote a book for his son, which is nice. 

02:55 - Stacey (Host)
I know A human element. Dear Hunter, dear Hunter. 

02:57 - Mark (Host)
Stories Advice. 

02:59 - Stacey (Host)
He actually was talking about how his teenage he saw his teenage stepdaughters. They weren't listening at all. He's like I better get some. I better get some advice in here before, uh, before my young son grows up and doesn't listen to me anymore. So he's he's a really, really interesting dude, so I think you guys are really enjoy. 

03:14 - Mark (Host)
Matt DiGiorno. 

03:19 - Stacey (Host)
Hi, I'm Stacy. 

03:27 - Mark (Host)
And I am Mark, and this is the Gurus of Game Changers podcast. Hey, Matt, thanks for joining us. 

03:28 - Stacey (Host)
buddy, Welcome to the show Thank you Thanks for having me so great to have you here. I cannot wait to hear from you. So okay, I don't could. It's amazing what the human can adapt to. 

03:46 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
So, yes, you may not volunteer for it, because it is an all-volunteer service. You cannot be assigned to a submarine, you have to volunteer for one. 

03:53 - Mark (Host)
I never knew that. 

03:54 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
However, once those hatches shut, it's amazing what you can actually do when all other life distractions are eliminated. 

04:06 - Stacey (Host)
How big is it in there? I'm just curious. What is it Pretty? 

04:09 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
tiny. The ship itself is relatively large, so the type of ships that I served on were Los Angeles class fast attack submarines and they are 300 feet long and 33 feet wide in diameter and about 50 feet tall. That may not mean a lot. It sounds big. When you walk into it it is not big. Half of it is the engine room, right so the nuclear power plant. The other half is where people sleep and tactical control and control room, sonar radar, that type of stuff and where we eat and it eat. It redefines small, whatever you thought small was. 

04:51 - Stacey (Host)
You're in a tiny home. You have no idea You're in a tiny home. And then do people sleep right next to each other in little bunks? 

05:00 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
Yeah, and most people don't have their own rack, so it's what's called hot racking, where you essentially have three people assigned to two racks so as they rotate in their shifts, there's always a bed available for them when it's their time to sleep. It's called hot rack because when you get into the rack, it's hot from the body heat of the person before you. 

05:20 - Mark (Host)
It's a whole way of living. 

05:22 - Stacey (Host)
I mean, I have so much respect, I just don't. 

05:25 - Mark (Host)
I mean the hollywood shower hey, there you go. 

05:30 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
How'd you know hollywood show? 

05:31 - Mark (Host)
I did a little research what's a hollywood show? 

05:33 - Stacey (Host)
I bet, because I should have, huh that's right. 

05:35 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
Yeah, no hollywood show. I've taken my share of hollywood showers, but only when I feel like I really earned them. Hollywood showers because a submarine shower goes like this you get in the shower, you take your clothes off, you get in the shower, you turn the water on and you get yourself wet and you turn the water off. Then you get your soap and you scrub up and you turn the water on and you rinse that soap off and then you're done. The whole thing should take three minutes. 

05:59 - Mark (Host)
Three minutes. 

06:00 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
A Hollywood shower is. You don't do any of that, that. You just take a shower like a regular human doing it. The system has a way of enforcing its own rules, if you know what I mean do you ever have any concerns about getting on the submarine, or you? 

06:15 - Stacey (Host)
you know you were all in, you volunteered for it. 

06:18 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
You're like I'm going yeah, I never had any concerns. I say that over the course of close to 20 years probably, I don't know six to ten times I've had this like rush of panic come over me, like what the hell am I doing and how are we? I'm under the ocean and you know like, and then you, just what I learned to do is just sit back and just let the emotion happen and, just like a wave, it'll just go away and it does, but in that 20 to 30 seconds it feels pretty intense. Yeah, never enough for me to say anything or do anything. 

06:54 - Stacey (Host)
I think everyone probably has moments like that from time to time and so how did you get to write operational excellence? 

07:00 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
when I got out of the military, a, a friend of mine named Bob Koontz and I we served together about three years maybe after I retired. We were just reflecting on the things that we learned in the Navy and which of the planet with a very, very dangerous form of energy nuclear power run primarily by 24 year old kids for the most part, and none of them stay on that submarine for more than three years or so. So you have this revolving door of 20 somethings running a nuclear reactor and it's not. It's not even like a nuclear reactor in you know, omaha, nebraska. It's. It's a nuclear reactor that's maneuver's not even like a nuclear reactor in Omaha, nebraska. 

07:50
It's a nuclear reactor that's maneuvering and up and down and going into all these harsh environments. And we haven't had a major safety protocol or we haven't breached any major safety protocols. Not a single citizen has ever been exposed to even an ounce of radiation due to, maybe, nuclear power. And we said you know, there's something there. And we just decided to explore which aspects of that culture we thought were translatable to the civilian world. 

08:16 - Mark (Host)
Which is leadership and how to run an organization and run a team, but how does it apply to the individual who's walking into that situation? Like what is the mindset that you want people to take from reading this. 

08:31 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
I think in the book we talk about five main components of the culture of the submarine community and most of them boil down to brutal honesty. I think it comes down to everyone being responsible for the outcome and also everyone being responsible for continuous improvement. On a submarine, there's no EHS department, there's no safety committee, there's no safety, there's no VP of safety, all these like ancillary groups that you see in the civilian world. We don't have any of that because we don't have the people for it. So it becomes everyone's responsibility. What do I think the, the takeaways are? You know? 

09:07
I think, if I, if I had to boil it down to say two takeaways, it's that the best organizations learn every day, and that doesn't happen by accident. Your actions have to align with those core values. And two, a questioning attitude is absolutely necessary in any high stakes environment, because the, the thing that's gonna puts you to the bottom of the ocean, doesn't come in neon signs and it's not obvious, and it's only going to be recognized when everyone keeps their brain engaged at all times and it's continuing asking themselves hey, was I expecting that? Does that sound right? Does that look right? Do I have a problem with this? Is my spidey sense tingling, and that's really not something that you can just sleep on. 

09:48 - Mark (Host)
Right, I think something you just said as well as part of it. You talked about having ownership. You have to take extreme ownership as a person on the team. 

09:57 - Stacey (Host)
Do the training right, all of those things and buy into that. 

10:00 - Mark (Host)
You are part of that machine. For that machine to operate. And I think that's a very military-type thinking right. 

10:08 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
It is. It is, I think, the submarine community. Obviously it's a branch of the military. I'm not trying to distance myself from that, but it is a very unique culture. 

10:18 - Stacey (Host)
But you've written seven books now. I think Seven books. So there's Extreme Operational Excellence. I have to read this, deer Hunter, mental Judo Axialization Suck. And then you're working on another one called the manual. Right, the manual. 

10:33 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
Wow, you guys are good, I know you tried to do some research. 

10:38 - Stacey (Host)
So how did that go? So you did operational excellence, and then did you go to Deer Hunter next, or what was your next? 

10:45 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
Yeah. So you know I haven't. I know I'm a writer, but I am. I am either blessed or cursed, depending on how you look at it, by having a lot of interests. Dear Hunter was just a book that I felt obligated not obligated, I felt called to write. 

11:01
I did not think I would have a child in my lifetime. My first marriage we didn't have children. I was in the Navy for that time period and and we divorced and I just you mid-40s and I just kind of thought that ship had sailed and when hunter was born I just felt like being an older dad and not that old, but you know, being an older dad, I just wanted to. Oh, and then here's the other thing watching this is interesting. Watching. I have two stepdaughters who are teenagers. Um, and watching them completely ignore everything that every adult tells them had me thinking like, okay, well, hunter's probably going to be the same way. I'm probably not going to be around when he's 40. So how do I transfer the things that are really important to me, that I want to make sure that he gets, and I thought writing them down was the best way to do it and I just decided, hey, write what you're passionate about. Let the chips fall where they may. 

12:01 - Mark (Host)
So it's interesting that you said that you realize that many people around the world live just like us. They want the same things that we want. Because I know you have like a three-step approach to how to transform connecting with people, how you connect, how we connect, because I think at one point I heard you say um online. I know I'm no boy scout. You have to recognize that we're all on the same road together and focus on the journey and stop trying to win. We all know people. 

12:28
All they want to do is win and certainly in the political environment now, with all the discourse online and all you know on on podcasts and everywhere, it's this side or this side. We, we're just going to fight to the death, right, and your whole point is no stop, reflect, we're on the same side. Focus on what you have in common. Where, where did that sort of come from? 

12:49 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
Well, what came from is I? Actually I ran for political office in 2012. I felt like I was speaking English and that nobody else was right. I mean, like just very and I don't want to get too political here, but very basic stuff. Like just like, knock off the BS and let's just talk. We all want the same thing. We all want clean air and clean water and what's best for our kids. Just similar to what I was talking about before. Like no one is suggesting, like it's not. Like the other side is suggesting we need to have poor water and poor air quality and destroy the environment. No one's saying that, right. No one is saying, well, we want our education system to suck. No one's saying any of this stuff, but yet act like that you know, we act like the other side is. 

13:32
What I am worried about is that we have 75 million people in this country who think the other 75 million of people in this country are worthless or deluded or delusional or and that's not I can't stand. I mean, history is full of evidence that when people stop talking and stop respecting, that's when bullets fly. 

13:54 - Stacey (Host)
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14:16 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
I kind of said like, hey, I want to do something about this and just kind of get people to start realizing that there's a conversation beneath the conversation here. Right, like you think you're talking about immigration to your uncle, but you're not. You're talking about self-identity. You're talking about like people aren't. You don't see this type of passion about, like federal government spending, like no one's that passionate about it. 

14:45
What they're passionate about is that they link their own ego and their own identity to their side of the, the, the, the controversy, and so any attack on any policy related to your side is an attack on your identity, right and in reflection, I ask people how many times in your life have you been in a political discussion with someone where the other person stopped, paused and said huh, you know what you're right and I'm wrong, and thank you for that right does that ever happen to you? 

15:23
no, no, but yet we talk as if that's a possible outcome. Yeah, it's like that's how we debate. We debate as if we're expecting that type of outcome, which has never happened. 75 million people are not idiots, they're just not. So bring curiosity with you and start to think like, hey, let me understand before I expect to be understood. Let me understand what this group of people feel and think, and stop trying to win. Just stop it. 

15:57 - Mark (Host)
That number is too small, though the people that are willing to do that right, because we all have our biases confirmation bias, echo chambers you know, and the algorithms support that. They give you more of what you've listened to, looked at. So there is no pause and reflect moment. It may be a good time to talk about your 20, 60, 20 rule. 

16:17 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
If you're working with 10 or more people, 20% of those people will hate you. They'll hate your face, they'll hate the way you talk, they'll hate your dog. They just won't like you. Okay, so just accept it. The other 20% will love you, no matter what you do. You know, they just and both of those, and that leaves 60% in the middle. But both of those 20% outliers are traps. If you do nothing as a leader, you just hands off. The 60% will sway to the negative folks. Wow, it's probably true. I've just seen it too many times to not think there's something there. So it's really that. That's the. You know. My 20, 60, 20 rule is to give people open people's eyes to those traps and then also encourage them to focus on the 60%. 

17:12 - Stacey (Host)
Let's talk about mental judo. Yeah, I was just going to bring that up too. 

17:16 - Mark (Host)
Why don't you describe it, Explain it what it is and how it works? 

17:20 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
I'm not a martial artist, but judo is about using other people's strength and energy and not your own. Right, if they're running full speed, we'll assist them to finding the wall with their face, but you're not really pushing them into the wall, you're just using their own energy. And in conversation I have found I was starting to see that most of the things that I was extracting as recommended ways to talk about difficult things really was like judo it's about. If you've seen the seen the movie inception, it reminds me a lot of this, like when you're having these types of conversations. I don't think it's limited to just political conversations. You will not win we've already established that, right but what you, the best that you can hope to do, is plant a seed that will grow in the future. 

18:10
So everything about mental judo at least the book mental judo is about getting a person, and not a manipulative way, but getting a person to think in the direction that you want them to think, without pushing them there and without coming across as if you're arguing with them, right? So here's some examples that are in the book. So you know, instead of saying, well, that's stupid, because da da are in the book. So you know, instead of saying well, that's stupid, because da-da-da-da-da, you say hey, if that went wrong in six months from now, what would the newspaper say? What the problem was? Hey, if we do that and a newspaper got a hold of it, what would the headline be? And a newspaper got a hold of it, what would the headline be Like? Just getting them to just think about. And it's not. You're not saying hey. I think it's a dumb idea. You know, everything has the possibility of going south and if this didn't work out, what would they, what would historians say? The reason it didn't work? Well, right? 

19:09 - Stacey (Host)
Do you think that that is something that anyone can use at any time? It's a technique, 100%, you know, like, let's say, with your kids 100%. That would be a-. 

19:19 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
It's like anything else, though. It takes practice, which is why that book I tried to lay out like seven basic tactics, if you will. But that's the easy part. You know, doing it is the hard part, and it does, it takes, it takes practice and it takes energy, and you get no feedback because you don't know. 

19:38 - Stacey (Host)
Well, you'll know later on if it does work. What are some of the tactics? 

19:42 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
So pause and reflect. We kind of talked about that Zoom out, so you zoom way the hell out until you can find common ground. Um ask the what if, if? Um, if uh things went wrong, what would uh? Um, what? 

20:01 - Stacey (Host)
would the world say, if you will, right, yeah um, you put me on the spot here, sorry you're good. 

20:08 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
You're good. I should be able to answer this. I'm the one who wrote the book. I'm just just trying to remember what I just list. Three Travel the road together. 

20:29
Is that one about inflation? This might be a stretch, but instead of talking about tariffs, talk about first principles, meaning like, what is it that causes inflation? Like, if you ask for all of the talk that has been on the news in the last year about inflation, we should all be experts on it, Right? But yeah, if you ask the average person like what is inflation? What causes it? Is it good, Is it bad? Nobody knows. And so I guess what I'm saying in this tactic is the just go in with, bring curiosity with you and just get to first principles. And first principles is just a fancy way to say the fundamentals or the basics, right, Because you kind of can take the conversation away from all the emotion and you're almost playing dumb. And I don't mean to sound manipulative here, but it's like, well, I don't really. It's okay. Could you imagine what the average person's response would be if you said you know, I don't really have an opinion on these economic policies, because I don't think I really understand what causes inflation, Do you? 

21:45 - Stacey (Host)
Right, yeah, just that question alone, yeah. 

21:48 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
I mean, what percentage of the population could just boom? Answer that question. Can you do that? 

21:52 - Mark (Host)
Can you answer that Inflation, the causes, the fundamental economic causes of inflation. Yeah, I don't think I could do that. 

21:58 - Stacey (Host)
Nope, but I know it's not good it's the same thing with tariffs. 

22:01 - Mark (Host)
Right, I know it means the prices are rising. A lot of people have opinions on the tariffs. 

22:17 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
And I have said, like I this a lot. Everyone has an opinion on everything. I know, like, how is that possible? Yeah, like I have. No, I mean yeah, at the risk of being controversial here, it's about climate change, right, like, I guess the climate's, but are you really asking me, a citizen? 

22:34 - Stacey (Host)
I'm not a geologist. 

22:36 - Mark (Host)
I mean, you know, you see, on TikTok right, but you don't know if that's true right or it's just one side of the agreement, right or argument. I'm sorry. 

22:44 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
Like in another world. Wouldn't it be more reasonable to just say, well, I don't know. 

22:50 - Stacey (Host)
Right. 

22:50 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
But yet for some reason, I think social media plays a big part of it. We are just, I mean, everyone has, everyone has an opinion on anything, and it's kind of like. I think the way it's phrased in the book is more of like a confusion pause, like hey, I'm not sure I follow you. 

23:09 - Stacey (Host)
I love that. 

23:10 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
Help me understand and just have that person walk you through it. 

23:16 - Stacey (Host)
I love that. 

23:18 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
And you're asking to be the student, not the debater that they're competing against, like, hey, just educate me, because I don't really understand that. 

23:28 - Stacey (Host)
So many people want to be the expert or pretend to be the expert, but in actuality like I don't know. 

23:34 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
I don't know if you be the expert or pretend to be the expert, but in actuality, like I don't know. 

23:36 - Stacey (Host)
I don't know if you're the expert on inflation or not. You could tell me? Yeah, I know everything about it? 

23:39 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
I would have no idea. That's right. What if I say it with confidence? 

23:41 - Stacey (Host)
If you say it with confidence, I'll probably believe you. 

23:43 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
Well, if you're interested, real quick, I'm sorry. No, no, go ahead. You've heard of the dunning-kruger effect. Have you heard of that? No, what's that? The dunning-kruger effect is something that two psychologists, stunning and kruger, came up with in the 90s, where they said that the higher, the more competence a person has on a particular subject, the less confident they will be about it. And that and they. It's really interesting, dunning-kruger. I've written a couple articles it, but I'm sure there's better resources than mine Just about what plays into that and why it works right. So the more you learn about something, the more you realize the nuances, the gray areas, the subtleties. And when you don't have that amount of knowledge, it's easy to just say no, it's easy, we're going this way, I got it. 

24:32 - Stacey (Host)
I'm all over it, I understand. 

24:33 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
Even if you don't. But people love certainty, and if someone's on the television or in my living room and they're giving me certainty, a financial advisor right. So a financial advisor says my clients earn 15% a year, and so will you, my clients earn 15% a year, and so will you. 

24:55
Right, done, done. Yeah, that's pretty huge Versus someone who really, really knows what they're doing and may not be the best marketer in the world saying, well, you know, there's a lot of influences on the market, you know some things, you can predict some things. You can't. Blah, blah, blah. You know it's all true, but yeah, now, if you're asking me, who am I going to listen to? You know, we're drawn to certain people who are certain about themselves. 

25:20 - Mark (Host)
You know what you need to run for office. 

25:22 - Stacey (Host)
That's what you need to do don't, don't make them I'll give you a call someday so wait, I I do want to know before we hop off, your YouTube page is doing really well, like we know, because I'm working my ass off getting our YouTube to really kill it. 

25:37 - Mark (Host)
You are. 

25:38 - Stacey (Host)
Why do you think it resonates? 

25:40 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
I don't know. You know it's funny the first video I did got like 100,000 plus views and I did no marketing. I did no. I mean I shared it with my Facebook group or whatever, but and all I was saying in that first video was like, guys, we got to stop it, like we're going down a road that's not going to be healthy for this country and, quite frankly, this country means too much to me to give up on it. Like we've been through so much together as a country. You know we're, you know we don't say America is the greatest country for no reason. You know it's a, it's a very special place built on a social experiment, and I'm seeing it go down the drain for reasons that are different than what other people are talking about, and I and I want to talk about it and I want, you know, and I and I really didn't know real expectations of who would listen or what would say, but boy was I surprised. 

26:27 - Stacey (Host)
That's fun. That's gotta be super fun. Then I just kept doing it, and then I cut now. 

26:31 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
Now I'm back to writing a little bit more, so I'm a shiny object. I feel you. So much on the same exact way. 

26:39 - Stacey (Host)
I love it. Yeah, well, god, I feel like we could have like a million conversations. Yeah, great conversation. 

26:45 - Mark (Host)
This is great man. Where um? Where can people find you? 

26:49 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
Um well, uh, Stacy mentioned my YouTube youtube channel, which is MJ D Geronimo or the curious patriot, but really the probably the place I spend most of my time right now online is on sub stack. So if you google my name or beyond platitudes, that's my publication on sub stack, beyond platitudes, or on Amazon, if you just. Again I'm blessed with a name where there's not many other people with my name. So if you search for Matt D Geronimo on Amazon, you'll see my books. 

27:18 - Stacey (Host)
Well, this has been a pleasure, and I'm sure there's so many other things that we could talk about with you. 

27:23 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
Yeah, I'd love to come back. I forgot we were doing a podcast, what we were just talking. 

27:27 - Stacey (Host)
That is such a huge compliment. It is that's great. Thank you, yes, high five on that one. 

27:31 - Mark (Host)
We love when our guests feel like they just had a conversation. 

27:33 - Stacey (Host)
We do too. It's wonderful. We love this thing Totally do. 

27:36 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, thank you, my friend. I appreciate it, thank you. 

27:39 - Matt DiGeronimo (Guest)
Thanks, matt. Pleasure to meet you guys. This is wonderful, you're still here. 

27:47 - Stacey (Host)
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