Transcript
Brandon Webb is what I call a slasher. He is an ex Navy SEAL. He ran the SEAL sniper training program, which, if you ever saw the movie American Sniper, that guy graduated from Brandon's school. Set up a very successful website with millions of monthly users that focuses on military news, foreign policy news, and so on. That's at softrep.com, sofrep.com. He's written some great nonfiction books about his seal experience and also a book about how to combat fear. But more recently, he's the author of a series of amazing thriller books. They're like best selling thriller books that are being optioned for movies and video games and so on. The latest one just came out, blind fear, and Brandon comes on, and I basically ask him, a, what's advice he would give me if I wanted to write a thriller or if any of you wanted to write a thriller? B, what's going on in Russia, Ukraine, China? And, c, what's he's got a very interesting next book planned about mental management and describes some techniques there. So without further ado, here's Brandon Webb. This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. Brandon Webb, welcome back to the show. Let's pour right into it. You just came out with a new thriller yesterday. Yeah. Blind fear, which is book 3 in the Finn series, and it's I mean, a blended military and psychological thriller. This blind fear takes place in Vieques in Puerto Rico. So if this our main protagonist, Finn, is kind of hiding out there trying to find out the information about the real killer that that he's he's been framed for this terrible war crime. And it's so he's hiding out in Vieques and then stumbled upon another issue that he got. I don't wanna have too many spoilers. But If you if you go to the Amazon page, up the very first review, it says there's missing children involved. Yeah. Yeah. So That's And that's not much of a spoiler. It happens essentially in chapter 1. It's more of what goes on with the missing kids that he he uncovers that gets interesting. There's submarines involved. It it's really cool. And then to essentially add to the tenseness of the situation, there's this massive super storm bearing down on the on the island, this hurricane, like, one of those one that comes along every 50, 100 years. And so it's it's like the final kind of action sequences. It's it's it's a storm. It's just just bearing down. It's it's all it's landed, and it's just wreaking havoc. So it's it's good. I'm really I'm excited about the series. I've we were talking earlier. We we optioned it to WIP Studios. So, hopefully What does that mean? Who's WIP Studios? They're a, I believe, a subsidiary of Creative Arts Agency. And they Uh-huh. They basically package projects and sell them to whether HBO, Disney, Apple. They sell to all the good streamers. So they you know, we've got a very aggressive option package that my agent at WME put together. To essentially there's a fuse, a lit fuse on the option, a very short one, and they've cut a deal with our production partner, Ben Smith at Captivate Entertainment, and then we have a really good screenwriter, Jim Danger Gray. This is his nickname, Danger. How funny. But, he's a an amazing writer, so we think that it's gonna get made. That's that's the point I'm trying to make. Now what what about your earlier novels? Are they optioned as well? I have The Killing School, which was a which was a nonfiction book about the Navy SEAL sniper program that I that I used to run. That is being made into a video game as we speak with maximum games, and that's been an amazing project to work on. I I have a call with those guys once a week. I actually went to Bucharest, Romania to work with the dev team. I took them to sniper range. So I've got that project. The the game should come out next year, end of next year. Wow. And and and what's the deal? Like, how do you make money off that? I get a revenue share. So it's a it's a Okay. Yeah. It's a big deal. And it's interesting. I've had a little bit of exposure to Hollywood and the and now the video game industry and the the game industry is so much different. Like, they really want to get it right, where Hollywood will go, we know that's technically the way they would do it in the military, but we're gonna do it this way because it it's, you know, a bigger explosion and more glamour. The game guys are like, no. We need to get this right. Like, the players are gonna know this has to be authentic. And and then also an interesting thing, they they had me write an entire plot with this guy Cade Ryland I made up, and this whole plot of this seal sniper in Iraq who you're watching He's watching, as he's between missions, these videos of his wife and daughter, and then halfway through the game, you realize that his wife and daughter have been, killed in a car accident by a drunk driver. And then when you're getting to the final mission, you realize, oh, s**t. This is not the final mission. The guy that's been feeding you the US intel, is actually an an Iranian bad guy who's the real bad guy. So there's, like, these plot twists and then you you have to deal with the bureaucracy of the military not letting you kinda take this guy out. They're saying, no. Don't take the shot because it the CIA is embarrassed. So I wrote all this, like, crazy plot, and they're like, we love it, man. It's like, we we want this, like, realistic storyline. Because you see now the games are getting so good and that they're getting movies like the what was the recent one? I forget. That was on HBO. The Last of Us. Right? So Oh, yeah. That that was a game. Right? Yeah. The storytelling is really getting good, and I'm having more fun working on the game than I ever did on Hollywood production. Wow. So why do you think that is? Why do you think the game industry is basically more real than the movie industry? I think it's culture. It's a culture issue. I think that, you know, when you look at the the kind of culture of people that work in gaming, they're gamers themselves. They're oftentimes coders, and they they're geeks. They wanna get it right. You know? Like, and that I really respect. We're Hollywood. They're just like, yeah, whatever. You know, we're just gonna blow this up. Or it's like I wrote a a soft rep review for Guy Ritchie's new film, the covenant, which is a great he did a great job telling the story of this, like, betrayal of America to the interpreters that we left behind when the US pulled out. But there's just so many cheesy things that they got wrong on the on the military, the technical side, like this huge c 130 gunship, which is a incredibly powerful machine, it it never flies in the daytime. It's just everybody knows it always flies at night. It flies at 20,000 feet. And your guy Ritchie has it screaming, you know, 1500 feet above ground level in the daylight, just freaking mowing down bad guys. I was like, why not just have the sun go down and then the plane comes? Because, you could have accomplished the same thing, but it that's kinda stuff drives me crazy and and all the other veterans out there crazy, you know, where at least enlisted guys are calling each other sir. And it's like you don't do that's like such a break of protocol. You know, you call them by their rank like sergeant or gunny or petty officer. Oh oh, really? So, like Chief. Like, a private doesn't call a lieutenant sir? No. He would. A lieutenant would be an officer, but a private wouldn't call a, like, say, the marine corps wouldn't call a gunny sergeant, sir. He would say, yes, gunner gunnery sergeant, so and so. So just like these little things that you know, they're little, but they make a it's a huge difference. Right? It'd be like like you said, all these AI we're talking about the AI wannabes. You can just tell they don't have the the base of knowledge. But but, anyway, the the point is the the Hollywood doesn't really care. I I've been on a set where I'm like, look. That doesn't happen. Like, yeah. Yeah. We know, but we're just we're we don't care. You guys do. Like, they're very, very, very much paying attention to detail. I described in the intro that you're a slasher, meaning you're a, you know, ex Navy SEAL slash you ran their sniper school slash you have a military news company, which I wanna talk about slash you've written a bunch of nonfiction books about, in in part based on your SEAL experience, and now you're, like, a thriller writer and optioning for movies, games, and so on. I sort of feel like this is the general trend of careers, which is that some things you do because you did them as you're younger and it becomes your career and and so on. So early part of your career, but then you sort of evolve into doing more and more things and creating income streams from the things you love. Yeah. Right now, what do you love the most? I love creating, and I'm being very creative right now with with Softrep, the news company that I run, because we're really integrating AI into our research. All of our images now are generated on MidJourney, so that's always been a huge challenge is how do you find the right image that's copyright free that ties into a headline? Now we can just tell Midjourney I can paste in, you know, a headline and say create an image that's that supports this headline. Boom. And I and I get just insane imagery. So so I'm excited about that, but I, you know, I I like creating stuff. So as long as I'm able to kind of create I mean, I decorated my my apartment by myself. You know? It's like I I like interior design. You know? You you're doing this this thriller series. It's interesting because, I mean, you were a nonfiction writer, but now you're writing these thriller plots. I do find it difficult to go from nonfiction writing to plot driven writing. And here you have this this latest thriller, Blind Fear. You have your Jack Reacher. Is that the character? You're Jack Reacher type character in in Finn. But you're combining all these tropes, like missing children, you're accused of a crime, and there's there's no one around to defend you, and you have to find the killer yourself, and hurricane. It's like you took 3 different top box office movies and combined them, threw in the Navy Seal stuff, and boom, that gets you like a plot. I feel like there's 2 styles of writing a thriller. One where there's a cliffhanger where you don't know who the killer is or the kidnapper or whatever, and every time you think you know, you're surprised and it's someone else, and then you're surprised again and so on. Or you kinda know, but just the character's in so much trouble sorting to save himself throughout the your cliffhanger becomes more about the character saving himself as opposed to figuring out who the killer is. Which style kind of drives your plot? I think we have both actually. Like, we have this really interesting reveal at the end that I think will take people by surprise. The same way our the first the first in the series, Steel Fear, was everyone you could've you could've thought the killer was 3 or 4 different people in Steel Fear, and at the end, you're like, oh my god. I can't believe it was was that person. But we do have that going on in this in this book. You you know kind of who the bad person is, what they're doing, because everybody kind of knows, but no one knows the real identity. And when the identity gets revealed, it is kind of a it's it's definitely a moment. You're like, woah. That's that's crazy because it's a very prominent character on the island. So that and then Finn is in this, like, terrible situation where the government's chasing him. They he's AWOL. He's they think that he's killed innocent people and and part of this war crime, and he's he's been framed. So he's dealing with all this, and then he stumbles into this. You know, he carries a guy that cares, and he he makes friends with this this, this old man in Vieques and his grand and his grandkids as well. And his and then one day, the grandkids go missing, and he kind of gets he's like, okay. Well, I just can't sit back and do nothing. And so he's kind of follows the the, breadcrumbs and then gets involved in a whole whole bunch of other things. And at the same time, he's being hunted by the US government and then this big storm bearing down. And then also it's one of the things I think we did right was it it's hard to hide in in today's modern society. Like, everything's tracked. You get cell phone signal. You have IP addresses. It's very hard to kind of cover your tracks, and so I think we do a pretty good job creating a believable scenario where where he does he does leverage some experts on the dark web to kind of not only figure stuff out but also covers on tracks. But, anyway, the the fiction stuff is fun, but I I also I feel this tug of nonfiction, and I I just wrote a proposal which I had chat gpt write your, your recommendation, and I emailed it to you. Right? I said write in the voice of James Altucher, to support this kind of book that I'm writing, and I'd scale a very good prompt and, boom, it spit out what what I sent you. But it's a book about what something I really I feel strongly about, and I I taught it. I live it. I've used it on my kids. It was mental management. And how do you sustain, you know, a strong mental program throughout your entire life? Like, what are the characteristics and components and and habits? And so I that tentatively is, the book that I sent you on mental management. Give me a technique that isn't an obvious one. I I need better mental management. Just making a habit of of, writing a mantra every day. Like, I do a grateful journal in the morning, and I I have my current mantra that I run, which basically you're you're controlling self talk. Because we all deal we all deal with fear. We have stuff that comes up in our lives. We have self doubt. And so when you hear that voice kind of creeping up in your head, you're like, okay. I need like, this is my current situation, and I need to counter this narrative that in my head by with this powerful affirmation, and you just hammer down on it every day you write it, and it makes a big difference. Right? And Like, what if let's say you're writing your book and halfway through you're like, oh, man. This sucks. Like, I just read some old chapters and what am I doing? How I'm such a loser. How could I be a writer? And, like, so, hey. You noticed you're saying this, but then what do you do? Well, then I would write just a counternarrative to to that. Because, I mean, look. You you you and I have been there. Right? We've we've had those conversations of self doubt with ourselves, and so you just have to go, okay. I know I'm not that way, and I even if I don't believe it, I gotta write it. I gotta start and then make yourself believe it. And that's something that, you know, dealing with yeah. And and this is something that, you know, I learned when I was running the the program. We had all these consultants come in, and one of the the best guys I work with was a gold medalist named Lanny Basham, and and he developed this program before there was a thing called positive psychology. He was using these techniques on himself to win the gold medal. I mean, this is a guy that I mean, he was on the army shooting team. He won silver in Munich because he just crumbled. He he said my mental game fell apart because he was getting heckled by these Russians on the bus, and they got inside his head. He was already a world champion at this point. He was kinda like a shoo in for the gold medal, and he's like, I completely collapsed. I came back, talked to all these sports psychologists that were just you know, this is in the seventies. At the time, they were just trying to make him okay with being number 2 and he's like, no. That's not what I that's not what I'm after here. So he interviewed all the champions on the Olympic team, like, all the gold medalists and created this program for himself, encapsulating, like, all their techniques, and a lot of it was visualization, self affirmation. And, eventually, you believe that you're you're the best. And if your gear breaks, you're still gonna beat everybody. I always feel like this kind of stuff, there's a tinge of bulls**t in it. And I know by the way, I know it works. I've done podcasts where there's, like, scientific research that self talk is really important and and works. I just I have a hard time doing it. Like, let's say I'm in the middle of some competition, and I'm not doing that well. It's hard not to feel like a loser. Yeah. I know. And I think that's where, you know, having some maybe preplanned narratives where you can just kinda pull it out and go, okay. If if I get in this situation, here's my game plan. Like, you just have it in your pocket. It's when you look at, Phelps won I think it was a 100 meter final in China. He jumped in the water and his goggles flooded, but he had already, like, rehearsed for this contingency. He'd visualized and rehearsed for what this what he would do, so he just started counting his strokes, and he just knew when to do flip turns. Now where most people you're swimming in the final of Olympic an Olympic event. Imagine your freaking goggles flood. It's like your worst nightmare. But he's like, yeah. Okay. I I've trained for this, And he ended up setting a world record with flooded goggles, because he had done the visualization and, and train for these contingencies. Right. Because s**t will go wrong and, and you just have to, you have to plan for it and develop these contingencies and and rehearse for it. And I think you could do the same thing in chess, like imagine yourself in those situations and go, okay. What what are some things that I could do to kind of yank myself out? And and one of the things is when you're having like, we all get into these slumps, and the thing is stop playing. Like, when I get it if I lose, it's it's hard to do too. Right? Because you and I both play chess. Yeah. When you're on a losing streak, it's hard to just go, I gotta stop. What about if I'm in a tournament though where you can't really stop? Well, then I think that's where the challenge comes in where you have to you have to figure out, okay, what I'm what can I do to kind of yank myself out of this out of this slump? And maybe it's, you know, watching win a bunch of winning games or or remembering, like, all the games that you've won. Because the thing when you're practicing and you're doing you're you're having a bad day. Right? You just gotta the the right thing to do is to stop because you're reinforcing failure. Right. And when you're on a run, you just wanna keep going because that's that's that kind of positive reinforcement. I mean, also the way that we talk to ourselves matters and the way that we talk we coach and teach matters. That was one of the biggest corrections I installed when I was running the cyber program was negative teaching over positive. I said, guys, don't point out mistakes. These guys are beginner snipers. If you're telling them all these mistakes, you know, guys that are 3 positions down are gonna hear it and then all of a sudden you're programming these bad habits in their brain and they didn't even know they existed. So just give them the corrective procedure. If a guy is flinching on the trigger, which is very common. Right? You pull the trigger and you're just anticipating. And the way to check that is you put a dummy around in the gun. And when they pull, if it's good, it's like click and the guy doesn't move, or it's like and so that's okay. This guy is flinching, but we would never tell that don't flinch. We would say, look. Slow down. Watch your breathing. Go through your mental checklist. Make a nice smooth trigger pull. That would be the corrective procedure, not, hey, man. You're flinching. Because when you say that, all all the guys thinking about now, he's stressed out. He's got an instructor telling him he's flinching, and all he's thinking about is flinching. And now everyone on the firing line is thinking about flinching, and it just creates this freaking COVID virus that spreads on the firing. Right. So it's just those But this is a good idea of of preplanning all the possible things that could go wrong in a live competitive situation. Like, I'm thinking particularly for chess. Like, maybe you got into a losing position. Okay. What do I do? Maybe I lost a bunch of games in a row. Now I'm back in my room. Okay. What do I do? Yeah. Like, preplan and visualize all these things what you would do. Maybe I didn't sleep so much. What do I do? Yep. I think that that's good to kind of then sort of fall back on some memory where you have confidence and kind of just, like, repeat and visualize that to yourself. It's that that's a strong technique. And and my my reason for writing this book is, you know, I've been through hell. Right? I've personally been through a lot of adversity, and I feel like the training I had as a sniper around this mental management has really helped me deal with a lot of things that life has thrown at me. And and I see other people and and look. Phelps is one of the greatest swimmers in the world, but he suffered from massive depression and and kind of what is he next? If if not an Olympic swimmer, which was his whole life, what's his new identity? And a lot of seals go through that. They they're on top, and now they're out in the real world. And the seal stuff, you know, with $5 will get you a a latte at Starbucks. Right? Like, they just they're like, who the hell am I now? And a lot of guys don't they they fall off the cliff. And I see it in finance, these other whether it's sport, professional sporting careers. But what can we do as humans to kind of sustain this high degree of of mental, management that will get us through a lifetime so we don't dip? You know? Or the dips are much smaller, and they're not just, like, catastrophic. Right? Because we've seen these people that are, you know, whether it's Britney Spears, Michael Phelps, these people that are, like, Tiger Woods at the top of their game 1 minute, and and it's just catastrophic the next. And it it's like how do how do you develop these habits for life that kind of that will sustain superior performance no matter what you do, whether you're a parent, a business leader, an executive, whatever. But that's that's the book I'm gonna write next because I think that's a a good one. Yeah. I think I can't wait to to read that one and and talk more about it. I mean, I think a key thing also is, like, people often ask me, like, oh, you went broken and you bounced back. You know, how did you get to the point where, you know, things are are stable again? They're never actually stable. That's the myth. Yeah. Like, things are always going wrong, but, like, your ability to deal with them and bounce back faster gets better. Yeah. And or or the ability to kind of take the good with the bad. Like, some things get bad permanently. You know, maybe you have a health issue that's chronic or whatever. Like, to be able to to understand that this happens in life, and there there's there's positive moments that can happen until you're old and the moment you die. Like, you you could still find the positive in all these things. And and that's the thing. It's not like solving the problem in in, like, in a movie and then life is good forever. Exactly. It's yeah. It has to just continue. Exactly. And that that's why I think developing a habit, which I think I have done a pretty good job of incorporating this stuff into my daily life, it's it just continues to get me through the tough times whether, you know, my family member has ALS or, you know, stuff it's life all business, life, all nobody gets out unscathed. Right? So that's the book tentatively is Invisible Dominance, but that's that's what I'm most excited about writing next, because I think it's a it's an important book. It's unique, and it's a story that I can tell well with experience to back it up. So, yeah, thank you for the GPT blurb. Good. No no problem. Have my virtual James is happy anytime to give GPT blurbs. I did it with Jarek Robins too, Tony Robins' son, who's you know Jarek, I think. Yeah. He's like, dude, that's amazing because I did it for him too. He's like I just, like, picked, like, my friends who are are, successful authors, and I just like, okay. Because the GPT knows your voice. Right? You've published Yeah. And, yeah, Jarek was like, man, I could have read written that any better myself. So it's been fun. You know, I had to write a blurb recently, and I spent, like, weeks, like, avoiding writing this blurb. I should have just used chatty b t to write my blurb. Yeah. Totally forgot. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. So with thrillers, give me advice. If I wanted to write a thriller like, I've written 25 books, and I've even written some fiction, and I've I've written a lot of unpublished fiction. When I first started writing, that was how I kind of paid my dues, because I wrote, you know, 30 years ago a lot of unpublishable fiction. So right now and I've had tons of thriller writers. You, Ken Follett, Brad Meltzer, Brad Thor, ton I had tons of thriller writers on the podcast, so I've kind of, you know, heard and learned a lot. If you were to give me advice, I wanna write a thriller, what advice would you give me? I would say I would say practice, which it sounds like you've already done. And and, look, I've written 2 novels that haven't been published, and I'm redoing one now. And so the Are they thrillers or more literary? Or what kind of novels are they? Thriller. They're novels. I I literally I wrote a book. I'm finishing it now. I I wrote a a novel about 4 women going through SEAL training, and 2 of them make it. I wrote that. I think that's and it's all takes place in this, like, hectic SEAL training. And so that that book is is done, and I just finished rewriting it, but that hasn't been published. I wrote 3 quarters of a book about 3 homeless friends that live inside Penn Station in New York, and one of the guys inherits, he was an ex doorman. He ends up a lady that this guy had a tragic story. He he quit a 20 year doorman job to go to a new building in New York and then got falsely accused of stealing a package and got fired, and then he couldn't get his old job back. And then one of the women in his old building ends up leaving him her fortune, like, couple $1,000,000, her penthouse apartment, but it's a burden to him. He's homeless. He doesn't have responsibility. He hasn't thought about his daughter, and now he's, like, thrust into this this situation where he has to take he has to get his life together. In a similar sense, the other main character, Donnie, was a Wall Street guy. He got framed in the 2008 crisis. Like, they pinned it on him when he was, like, saying, look. We shouldn't we shouldn't invest in these in these, I forget what they call them, these derivatives, right, where they bundle those the bad mortgages. And, he basically gets fired, and then on the way home and he he has a drinking problem. Like, he's but he's he's sober. And on the way home, he gets a call and his son is is, likely it was hit hit by a car likely to die and for sure is is paralyzed. And so he just goes off the wagon. He never he never makes it home. He goes on a drunk and then ends up living in Penn Station for 2 years. So and then one day, he sees his son in Penn Station in a wheelchair. And then his son is, like, a tech kid, but this kid's, like, rolling past him in the wheelchair and doesn't realize his dad is the homeless guy. Like, it's crazy. But that that book is really I'm excited about that, but that's Wow. I I love this book when that should be published. Yeah. Well, I'm gonna finish it, but but this is me practicing it because like you like you said and you and I have talked about fiction or fiction very different from nonfiction. Right? It it's yeah. I I feel like it's you and I could create a cool plot, but to fill it in with interesting characters and then you got it a lot of it's the dialogue. You really gotta nail dialogue, and that's tough. And I I've just personally just from my own experience, had to practice, and that's why I've been writing these novels on the side. And then learning from guys like, Brad Thor and and getting help from them, like, how what their techniques are, and and everybody's different. Like, I'm John and I write together. He's very methodical. Like, I I like for sure to have my plot and my outline and my main characters, like, very put put a lot of effort into that, and then I just write the story, in a free flow form. I I feel like I feel like you're you're good at plotting. Like, he sort of take I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. You kind of because you're the ex Navy Seal, you sort of, like, make the plot Yep. And then he sort of, like, fills in a lot of the sort of words around telling the story. Yeah. I can make the plot. I'm really good at kind of, like, the a lot of the characters, and then what John's brilliant at is bringing them to life and then as you know, he is he's good at naming too. And but, yeah, we work we work well together, but he writes very different than I do. I write more Stephen King style where it's just free flow where he's like, no. He's got it all mapped out. Like, he's got the entire, you know, very detailed architectural plans where I'm like, okay. I got a loose sketch, and I'm going for it. I feel like I would be really good at and and I know this from just my previous attempts. I'm really good at the premise. So I'll come up with a good premise. Like, your premise of 3 guys in Penn Station who are homeless, and 1 guy inherits some money and, boom, the story goes off. But then I have a hard time kind of coming up with twists that the reader can't guess in advance. Like, I think and and, by the way, I I see that in other writers. Like, for instance, I think one of the best writers in history for premises is Neil Gaiman, you know, who's written so many novels, movies, comic books, and so on. But I think sometimes, at least with some of his stories, doesn't always come full circle. The plot doesn't always end well. And not a criticism of him. He's the best premise writer in history almost, but I feel like it's hard for me to to then get into the particulars of plot and and the twist. I'll tell you what. Because you're I think you and I both have good like, we're good at generating ideas. You should go in in the GPT 4 and say, this is my plot. Give me some plot twist. Give me this. It you just develop a really good prompt and be completely blown away by what it gives you. I I asked it, I wanna write science fiction, that has to do with special ops in the future, and it should be like climate change, rising sea levels, and and the now we're we're actually fighting deep under the oceans for control of minerals and resources. And then there should be some crazy portal that aliens left in underwater to kind of check on the planet Earth and give me, like, a bunch of different worlds and describe each world in detail. And it's and so I had a very good prompt and it blew me away. And it described, like, this world was a water world. This world was desert, like, Dune. And, like, it gave me everything. And I was like, oh my god. It's so good. And and I think that, you know, people would go, oh, you're cheating, but, no, these these are the tools that are available. And if you're not using them as an artist and a creator, you're gonna be left in the in the dust. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I don't view AI as a replacement because whenever I see total replacement, it it's it's not that good. Like, if AI were to write that novel, it wouldn't be it wouldn't be that well written. And and by the way, people say, oh, well, that's just gonna improve really fast. It's not really going to improve very fast. It's already, you know, processed every single piece of text ever written. It's it's going to improve, but it's gonna improve much more slowly now than than it has to get here. Right. But if you view it as an assistant, then it's perfect. It's it's a good assistant, and you and I are at an advantage because GPT has access to everything that's been published on the Internet pre 2021. It knows your voice. Like, you saw what I told you. Right? Like that, I gave it a prompt. It knows your voice. It can write in your style and the same with me because my son, Hunter, told me he's like, hey, dad. I just wanna let you know, like, GPT really has you nailed. I I had it write a short story in your voice, and it was like you you speaking to me. And I'm like, holy s**t. So I went and started messing around with it, and I was blown away by how good it gets because I just tell it right in my right in the voice of of Brandon Webb and, you know, create this, and it's it's insanely good. Let's take that concept of the 3 homeless guys. One's the ex Wall Street guy. One's the whose son is in a wheelchair. The other is the doorman, switch buildings, unfairly accused, but the old building inherited the apartment and a couple $1,000,000. Okay. Great premise. I love it. Let's say that's the first third of the book. What's the twist? What's the problem? What's the prem what's the what's the thing that drives the plot next? It's so the story is about redemption, and the the third character is a it's a South Korean immigrant, family. The family there was 2 teenage boys. The the mom and dad got killed in a car wreck, so they got put in this foster home and they got they both got abused. And one of the brothers killed himself and the other guy, Saul, is the Korean guy that he's the 3rd homeless guy and he's very quiet. He's he's a nice guy. And and they don't know his backstory. But what happens is this is like the whole book is about a path to redemption very much in the theme of the humans of New York, the way these stories just kind of grip you. Because I think it's interesting to see, like, these very these tragic stories of of people that were doing very well in life, and then they just fell off the cliff into pretty much substance abuse. And in this case, they're all alcoholics. And so, Jimmy, which is the doorman, he's kind of the the catalyst of the other two guys to get their act together because they're all friends and they wanna help and and they and these series of events come together where I had a New York Times reporter because it's a great story. Right? The homeless guy inherits a couple $1,000,000 in a penthouse apartment. It's a great it's a great story, and they they're trying to find him. They don't even know where to find this this guy, Jimmy, but they find him. And then the reporter comes, and and, Donnie, the guy with the son of the wheelchair, he's like, look. I'll I'll handle and the other thing is too that's f**ked up is Jimmy finds a a Labrador puppy in the in the garbage. Someone threw him out in in Penn Station, and he raises his puppy, and he names this dog Hope. And this this nasty woman from animal control gets a complaint, and she comes at Penn Station and rips the dog out of the sky. Like, this the dog is this is Jimmy's life, and she freaking takes the dog away from him. And he's he goes, like, quiet for for a week, doesn't talk to anybody. But then they he finds out he inherits his money. The New York Times reporter comes, and Jimmy doesn't wanna talk to anybody. Donnie goes, hey. I'll I'll get him to talk, but I I need you to do me a favor. Like, I wanna find out about my son and and and all this, and I wanna find out about my friend, Saul. So can you, like, go in the in the database and, like, tell me, like, give a report on these guys? So then then he finds out about all his friends, and and it's and they go to the to the law office where the lawyer is handling the state, and Jimmy takes Donnie, his buddy, and and then that that's at that point, they decide to go to a Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. And then it's from there, it's they're on this very clear path to to redemption, and it all takes place over Christmas in New York. And so it has a great happy ending. I mean, it is a great movie. Yeah. It is. So but but but wait. How how does like, in the arc of the hero, the problems are supposed to get worse and worse and worse as you meet, you know, more and more allies and so on. Like, how does Jimmy's problems get worse once he inherits Well, his problem you kind of learn in in reverse. You you know, first, it's very funny. One of my favorite books by John Steinbeck is called Tortilla Flats, and it's very it gave me the inspiration behind this book because, you know, it's about a hobo in Monterey that inherits 2 houses from his aunt, and all of a sudden he's got all these problems. Like, his buddies are bumming off of him, and he was a a mooch himself. And now he's like, oh, wait. You know, I have a house. I have responsibility. It just changes things. But it's a very funny book because these guys are drunk and, you know, there's all these scenes where, like, Jimmy's a huge history buff and, like, these Mormon kids come to New York and they're trying to, like, convert him, and he just gives them, like, a just a dressing down of a history lesson on the failings of the Mormon church and how bulls**t it is. Like, but there's all it's it's a funny book because these guys are just getting s**t faced every day, and it's a new comedy of errors. And just like life in Penn Station, all the weird stuff that goes on underground, how the how the police department control the amount of homeless. They don't they have a certain number. They they it's like the magic number. They can't have anymore. It just tips the scales. But then you learn Is that true? I I don't think so, but I made it up. So you kind of go backwards and learn about these eventually, you come to know, like, they're tragic stories, and then it just sucks you in. And then it's the path to redemption. Like, that's kind of the rising action to the to the resolution is where you realize that in Donnie and Jimmy's case, Jimmy has a daughter, Donnie has his son, and and his wife ex wife that divorced him now, but they think that, oh, no one will want me back. My son doesn't want me. I'm ashamed. But then they find out that, no, these people actually do really care. There is that element of human forgiveness, and that's what I think makes the the story beautiful is that's this kind of re this redemption story. But there's no, like, crazy plot twist. There's there's these, like, reveals where you find out, holy s**t. Like, the Saul's character, you just have no idea what what happened to him. And then you've then his two friends find out. Like, holy s**t. This guy was, like, sexually abused, and his brother killed himself. And and he ran away and then became homeless. And I see. So you just you just kinda keep the action happening with like, the cliffhangers are realistic new reveals that could bring them down or could shed new light, and and that keeps propelling the character forward. Yep. It's kinda dealing with each new reveal. Yeah. And then, you know, the ending is you know, they kind of have this happy ending where they get invited to Christmas dinner. But I don't wanna I think I just told the whole book, but but that's That's okay. It's gonna be a while for this to publish. But that's you know, I had fun writing that, and, you know, that's for me. I'm just practicing to be a better novelist because I feel like I've got the nonfiction down. I've had a ton of practice. I I like it. I enjoy it. I I can write a book in 60 days, like, and I could probably write a thriller now in 90 days because it's just Yeah. You gotta just grind it out. I feel like I had a particular approach to nonfiction where I would write in a very storytelling style nonfiction. So I would I would write basically almost like an it was like narrative nonfiction. So I'd write in a literary style my nonfiction experiences Yeah. Because I don't need to plot them. I I am the plot. I know the plot. I had the failing, and I survived and whatever. And, again, like, I practiced in the nineties. I used to write 3,000 words a day, pretty much for the entire nineties, and I wrote 4 novels, all of them completely unpublishable, but rightly so. But you And If you save them, you should load them up into GPT and have them, like I know. I should. I unfortunately, it's so long ago. I certainly did not save them. But, I mean, I would I was thrown out of graduate school because that's all I was doing was writing fiction instead of studying computer science. And then I was printing up. You know, I would send to 20 publishers. So I'd print up, like, 8,000 pages on the school printers, and people are like, who's someone owes us money for all this paper and, like, I there was a huge scandal. That's But I I didn't get good. I mean, I think I got to be a good writer out of that experience, but I wasn't, like, a novelist out of that experience. I was just a good writer. And I'd like to try writing a thriller. And this is the process. Right? So John and I will write it. We'll have we'll read it each other, then we send it to a group of we each have about 4 or 5 novelists that we send it to. They read it, or or they're maybe a novelist or they're just a they're avid fan of of the genre. So we have this group that we each send it to. They give us notes, and then we go, okay. Yeah. We gotta rewrite this. Then our editor, like, a really good, Anne Spire, which is at Random House, she's amazing. She's like, guys, gotta pick up the pace. Like, gotta move it along. Like, chop this, chop that. And we're just like, oh, man. It's, like, so much extra work. But it's a lot more work than a nonfiction book. It's just, like, rewritten probably 3 or 4 times before you have a finished manuscript. And so it it's it is a process, and I'm sure that, you know, maybe I I'm probably sure Brad Thor does something similar. He has he has, people read it. Even he's reached out to me before and asked me, like, military technical stuff, but I'm sure he he's got readers that give him feedback. And that's super valuable because you're having, like, thriller fans or novels, whatever the genre is, that are really into it. They know what they like, and and they're a harsh critic, and it and it makes the book so much better. Do you think, like, with with the rise of, like, TikTok and and, you know, scroll media, you know, with Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, do you think fewer people in the future are gonna be interested in reading thrillers? I think I think the core I mean, look at this look at it this way. I think that the core stories are going to people like good content, and people consume content differently. Right? Like, my youngest son is he doesn't like reading, but he loves audio. Right? And that's like a I think they call that a form of dyslexia, which to me is kinda bulls**t. It's just he learns differently than other people. When you love people can people, like, listen to audiobooks. Some like to read. Some like to watch shows. So I think as long as, you know, the people will always crave content, like, really good stories, and it's just now we're in a we're in a in incredible time and where we can easily, with these tools, especially with artificial intelligence, turn these stories into multiple formats. Written, audio, like, I watched I went to Cannes Lions this year. It's a media advertising conference, and I I just lucked out and got an invite to OpenAI all day event. And they were showing me the OpenAI team was showing these artists and how they were using these tools, and I saw a guy that cloned David Attenberry's I think that's his name, the British guy that narrated planet Earth, cloned his voice Mhmm. With a voice clone, created these kind of furry monsters and made this whole, like, Pixar movie himself. 1 guy. I'll I'll send it to you. It's called Critters. You can find it on YouTube. Critters with a z, but I'll send you the link. I was blown away, all with AI. I'm like, okay. Look. You and I know how difficult and time consuming it is to read a book to audio. Well, now 15 seconds, I can clone James Altucher's voice and have it read the book. And and maybe I clone a few other well known figures and slightly alter the voice, but it's like, you know, all of a sudden you have all these guest appearances in the book, like, in different voices, like, reading the intro. You know, it's it's crazy. And and it just makes it the technology is you could transform your content into so many different mediums, and I think that's the exciting thing. And I don't think that's going away. I think that's here to stay. But, yeah, will paper books, you know, be a thing you know, I think it'll just be a novelty. It's like classic cars. You know, people will always be into it, but it'll it'll just get you know, it'll become this, like, weird niche. There is a kind of written content, though, which never goes away, which is, of course, news content. So you run softrep, sofreep.com, which is a site about military news, military culture, foreign policy news, and so on. And what kind of content does well there? So you have you have millions of of visitors, but, like, what what sort of content always seems to do the best? I was just reviewing our best stuff. So anytime that, like, we do content around, like, ranger training, navy seal training. You know, what's it like? How do you make it through? We those do well. History posts, I I did it. I used Chat GPT to help me write a kind of, like, what if Nazi Germany won World War 2? Like, what would it truly look like? And then I was using AI, like, analysts. Like like, hey. What what would Churchill think it looks like? What would Admiral McCraven think it looks like? So you get these different perspectives, and you kinda stitch it into this really cool storyline. That stuff does well. I wrote also a piece that did really what really well about I know enough about what's happening inside Russia to to give a really good prompt to GPT for and say, okay. What what would civil war in Russia look like? Like, who are the characters? Who are the main protagonists? What would happen? What would how would it affect China? What would be China's concerns? What would be a, you know, the EU and America's concerns? So you get this really in-depth research, and then I can then I can just edit it and package it, and that story held the number one spot for, I think, 2 weeks on Sofrep. And what will you think happened? Like, you know, given the recent events with this, you know, almost coup, which which, by the way, if that coup kept going, if the Wagner Group kept going, they would have taken over Moscow. I think so. Yeah. And I and and that's Putin's that's his big problem right now. I think, you know, it definitely showed, like, weakness, and that's something in Russia that that gets you killed or or out of power very quickly. So that that's Putin's biggest issue right now. I I think his only saving grace is that you have Jenny guy, the Wagner leader. He is loyal and a friend of Putin. His main issues were with the with the minister of defense and some other characters. The point is Putin is in big trouble. Like, there's weakness clear display weakness. This Wagner Group, the leader's still running around, and Wagner's all Yeah. Where is he? Like, he said he didn't go to Belarus? No. They he's in Saint Petersburg, the last last reports. He's in Saint Petersburg. Like, why didn't Putin just, like, pick him up? Because you gotta realize that Wagner is probably more sophisticated and technically capable than the Russian military. All of Russia's influence in Africa is controlled by Wagner. But wasn't the Wagner Group disappointed in this guy that he didn't keep pursuing the coup? They they feel like he was sort of paid off. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. There was a deal cut. Like, there now we know that there was this 3 hour in person negotiation between Wagner. You have you have Jenny, the leader of Wagner, and his his main lieutenants, and Putin and his crew. Like, they made it they cut a deal. I don't know. Nobody knows what that is, but it's, it's clear that Wagner has a lot of power. The Russian military is is is worn out. Their defense tech one thing that was shocking to me is, like, I knew it was bad, but not as bad as I clearly was displayed on the on the battlefield. Like, their Russian defense tech is terrible. The Ukrainians have insane defense technology from the from the Americans and the and the British. They have a better armed force. They're way more motivated. And now that the what was kind of keeping Russia in the fight and Ukraine was Wagner. And now it's Wagner's gone for now. Like, what's happening there? Nobody knows yet. And so I think this could be the end of Putin, and it could be the end of Russia as we know it. I I think it could fragment into different states. So But but, again, though, he was suppressed for the moment. And and, again, the the Wagner group might have also trouble staying together given that a lot of people were disappointed that he didn't follow through. Yeah. But it it's just it's still all playing out behind the scenes, and in a a great movie to watch is the death of Stalin. Right? Like, everyone the way that things happen in Russia, it's very top heavy. Right? There's not a lot of middle management. It's all these big oligarchs and, you know, these power making these power plays and these deals. So I I think it it's still happening. Meanwhile, you know, Putin is Russia's under heavy sanctions. They're losing the war in Ukraine. They're they've already kind of lost the war of public opinion. And and now you saw where Erdogan in Turkey was, like, thumbs up for Sweden joining NATO, and that he was like, I I think he sees weakness, and that's why he's like, okay. I better I better warm up to the Americans because this isn't going Putin's way. And I think we're gonna see similar some something similar with the with the Chinese as well. And they're they've gotta be very concerned because that's, like, who who's next, if it's not Putin. The other issue is look. I'm I'm an independent. I I I I'm shocked that the best America can do is is 2 guys like Biden and Trump. Like, is that the best that we have to offer? But we really don't. You know, Biden is clearly not in a in a very good mental state. Like, it's got clear clear issues, and and we don't have strong leadership in the US to kind of end the war. And it's gonna take a very strong leader to to kind of go to the table with with the Russians, whoever it ends up being, if it's Putin or somebody else. And and we don't have strong leadership in the EU. And so you end up with this, what was our Vietnam, right, is kind of what, what Ukraine has turned into for Russia. It's just like, nobody can make sense of it all. Nobody in Russia wants to fight and it's just like a disaster. So I think it could just drag on and that that's, that's the sad thing. So I I don't think there's a a clear ending in sight. I I do think it will end in favor of Ukraine, but but now I'm you know, I used to call it, okay, well, Russia will take that eastern territory in the Donbas region, and and the war will end, and both sides will be unhappy, which is typically how a good negation ends. Everybody gives something. But in this case, I don't I think this is a Putin is in really big trouble, and and it's like a big there's a lot of unknowns, but I think, you know, Ukraine could get it all back, even Crimea at this point, depending on what happened. So And and let's talk about, China. Do you think, I mean, a few years ago, I was convinced China was gonna invade Taiwan any day, but now it's not so clear to me. You know, I was just having dinner with a a friend from business school from Hong Kong, and we ought to talk about this. I don't I think Taiwan is similar similar to Hong Kong is that the Chinese are they're already in control. Like, it's the native language is Mandarin. They've got so much Chinese culture. Their intelligence, like, their version of the CIA is for sure heavy influence in Taiwan, and I think they've already kind of got the puppet strings. And this whole invasion is just like, yeah, whatever. Like and and they'll just wait it out. Like, they're like, yeah, Taiwan's ours. We're just not we don't need to invade because we kind of already exert all this influence. And, you know, I think a lot of it is just kind of smoke and mirrors. But I I think China is clearly in in control of of Taiwan. Maybe they don't have control of the certain industry is like the big concern is the microchips. Right. But China is clearly in the driver's seat in Taiwan. I mean, most Americans couldn't even point out where Taiwan is on the map. Right. I don't think I can, actually. And so, yeah, I'm not I I don't even think about that anymore. I think it's just more like political grandstanding. I just watched the Schwarzenegger documentary. It's just really good, and there's a scene in there where he's the governor of California, and he's he's made a deal behind the scenes. And then they storm out of the office and the democrats screaming at him, like, I'm never gonna do this for you. Blah blah. They've already made the deal, and Arnold's like, yeah. This is just kind of he had a term for it, but it's all just just kinda bulls**t political grandstanding just just to show the people that they're, like, doing something. But in reality, they already cut the deal behind closed doors. So I think a lot of that happens on this global stage. So again, you know, Brandon, you're involved in so many things, like, ranging from military career, the soft rep, the military news website, thrillers, books, games, movies. What's the next thing you're working on? Blind Fears just been published, came out yesterday. Everybody should go buy it. It's the if you like Jack Reacher, if you like all those types of thrillers, this is that on steroids, literally. So well, he's not on steroids, but this is that plus military. What's the exact next thing you're gonna be working on? Not the nonfiction book. Like, what's the next fiction thing you're gonna be working on? I think I'm gonna finish that Penn Station novel and try and get it published. That is a great idea. I'd love to be a test reader of that. Yeah. No. I would love to have you read it. I and I and I'm sure you'd have a great feedback as as someone that's lived in New York for a long time. Yeah. Like, did you do research and did you spend some time as homeless in Penn Station just to see? Not no. I thought about it, but I've I spent a lot of time in Penn Station observing, like, as a sniper would. I'm just kinda, like, taking notes and watching, you know, how the police work and the and the homeless. And I remember there's even a part in the book where I remember I was I was in Penn Station, and I saw a guy try and set up a a music stand, and the other homeless were like, no. They just they kind of shushed them away because it's like that's their territory. And in and in my novel, they actually they the 3 the 3 characters, they rent out their their space for a cut of this guy as he plays blues guitar, and they they get 30% of his of his profits. So they kinda, like, ran out a little real estate, then it keeps them in in booze. You know? And and they, actually, they can make around 30 k a year, and it's, like, with the with renting their little space to the blues guitarist, and they basically just perpetually drunk. Like, it keeps them they they make enough money to to buy enough food and alcohol. That's funny. Well, first off, good luck on Blind Fear. I I always love your thriller books. I don't have to say that. Like, people know I love them. I wanna see all your books as movies. I wanna I wanna go to the movie for for a lot of these Yep. Because I'm just curious what what a good movie director will make things look like. And, you know, I'm looking forward to this next book, the Penn Station homeless book. What's do you have a title for that one? Just called Penn Station. Ah, I love it. I like the simplicity. Penn Station. The subtitle is just a chronicle of hope and resilience in New York City. Also, I have a signing. Any any of your the Altitude listeners are in New York. On 26th, which is Wednesday, I'm doing a signing at mysterious books in Tribeca. So I would love Really? I would love to see any any of your fans there. Love love to sign books. Any anything I can do for for your audience that's extra Okay. So so July 26th Yep. Which is, like, in a week or so? Go to the mysterious website, mysterious books in Tribeca. They've got the event. Cool. Well, good luck with all this stuff. Once again, thanks for the tips. At some point, I gotta hold myself accountable to it. At some point, I'm gonna write a thriller novel. I have, like, again, a premise, but I've just gotta sit down and and think about it. Yeah. And, I'd love to help you, and and check out the you'd be amazed at what what GPT can generate. Like, I idea 8 Yeah. That was good that was good advice. I am gonna throw in a premise and see what it says. Yeah. Alright, sir. I will talk to you soon. Okay. Thanks, James. I'll I'll be, hounding you for a chess lesson soon. Excellent. Anytime. Okay. See you, brother.
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