Sam interviews Jack Carr, former Navy SEAL and author of the Terminal List thriller series (now an Amazon Prime show starring Chris Pratt). They cover Jack’s entrepreneurial approach to publishing — custom gift boxes, gear guides, podcast, team building — alongside deeper conversations about masculinity, rites of passage, the hero’s journey, and how Jack manifested his vision for the show years before it happened.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host), Jack Carr (guest, author and former Navy SEAL)
Introduction: Why Sam Did This Episode [00:00:00]
Sam: All right, everyone. I did this podcast for me, and I’m going to explain why. Today’s guest is a guy named Jack Carr. If you don’t know who Jack Carr is, you should look him up. He has this series of books called the Terminal List. The Terminal List is definitely a bestselling book — they’ve sold millions and millions of copies. It’s a novel about a Navy SEAL who’s wronged, and then there are eight books of him getting revenge. It’s an Amazon Prime show with Chris Pratt. It’s awesome.
I had Jack Carr on the podcast because I read his book when I was going through a little bit of a period. I had just had a daughter and I wanted to do something where I would become a little more of a man than before. I wanted to learn something about high integrity, about things I should be doing as a man. It honestly changed my life. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman — I think you’re going to enjoy this episode. We talk a lot about his writing process, but we mostly talk about masculinity and what it means to be a stand-up person. We also talk about the business of writing books and how he makes money. It’s a little bit out of left field, but try it out. I love this guy.
Jack’s Entrepreneurial Approach to Publishing [00:01:30]
Sam: So I’m happy you’re here, man. This is a business show, and we don’t do authors all the time. But I published a podcast where I was talking about how much I loved your books — I’m halfway through the third one. The reason I found you is because I tweeted out that I wanted to read a book that’s the ultimate man novel: action adventure, page-turning, high integrity, teaches you values. I had just had a kid and I wanted to be inspired a little bit. All these people were tagging you. I started reading the Terminal List, read the first book, got hooked. I’m halfway through number three and I’m going to make it through all seven.
And I think you’re actually a lot more business-savvy than most authors. More entrepreneurial.
Jack: I think there’s a difference between being entrepreneurial and being business-minded, which is why startups eventually sell or bring in a business person to run it, professionalize it, and scale it. I didn’t really think of myself that way. About a month before the first book came out — so I was all into the novel, leaving the SEAL Teams, just writing because I love it — my mom is a librarian, so I grew up surrounded by books and a love of reading. It’s the foundation from which everything else has grown. It’s all about the book.
Then about a month, maybe two, before publication in March of 2018, I was like, okay, I’m going to look at this the way I looked at the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan. You’re looking for gaps in the enemy’s defenses, looking how to adapt, how to capitalize on momentum. I looked at the publishing space in general and was like, publishing really hasn’t kept up. It’s a very legacy type of business. They do well because they’ve been around so long — very entrenched in what they do, very slow to adapt to things like audiobooks or e-books.
I looked at it and thought: when I get my iPhone, it doesn’t just come in a manila envelope. It comes in packaging, and as much thought went into that packaging as went into the actual product itself. When I was getting books from other authors for blurbs, they were just coming in manila envelopes.
Sam: You send these amazing gift boxes. One of my really close friends is Richard Ryan, and I went to his house and saw the boxes you send to people. I told Richard, “After this pod, I’m going to try to make Jack like me so much that he sends me one of these boxes.”
Jack: Your name’s on one for the next one. So it’s a gun case — you open it up and it’s a way to make it easy for people who want to help you. Chris Pratt maybe has time to open it, maybe he doesn’t, but if he does, this makes it easy for him to do a 15-second something to help. There’s a leather bookmark, all super high quality, because everything has to be at a commensurate level with the novel itself.
So everything I do has to be right here. The merch on the site — it’s not just going to some company and picking a keychain, a hat, a mug. These are handpicked by me, all the best I can possibly find. I try to do made in America, try to veer towards veteran-owned businesses. The book is inside, personalized to the person, and then they have stickers.
Sam: You personalized all of them?
Jack: All of them. I send out about 350, and most of them go to people as just thank-yous. People with no social media presence at all — just a thank-you for whatever X, Y, or Z. Someone who helped me with research on a novel. This one, someone helped me with some aircraft stuff because I’m not a pilot, so he’ll get one. Some fans that were with me from the very beginning. And then people like Chris Pratt. He gets the same one as everybody else. A coin goes in there — a different coin with every single one. You can’t buy these.
Sam: You should sell them.
Jack: I should, and people ask me to sell them all the time. But for me, I have to give you one. At a book signing — law enforcement, military, firefighter — they coin you, and they have this in their hand. They shake your hand, and then I have these in my back pocket and I coin them back.
The Business Side: Copies Sold and Scale [00:06:30]
Sam: I want to talk about the economics and all this stuff. How do I introduce you to people? The one-line summary is: a Navy SEAL who’s wronged, goes and gets revenge involving family, country, and a bunch of adventure. It’s a seven or eight book series now. It’s an Amazon Prime show starring Chris Pratt. But the cool thing about the book — it’s a massive hit. On Amazon it has like 100,000 plus reviews across all the books. Can you say how many copies you’ve sold so far?
Jack: I don’t know, because I don’t keep track of those things. This is where the entrepreneurial side versus the business side comes in that we talked about — I spend zero bandwidth worried about that. My metric is: is Simon & Schuster happy and how happy are they? And they’re ecstatic. So that’s my metric.
Sam: Millions, I would assume?
Jack: Yeah, it’s up there.
Sam: Is it north of 10 million?
Jack: No, so that’s just a guess. I don’t know. I think they’d tell me if it was north of 10 million. It’s up there. I’m friendly with James Clear and Mark Manson, and I think they have some of the bestselling books of the last decade. But I would imagine after a few more years you’re going to be up there, because the books are relatively new, right? 2018 for the first one.
Jack: Yeah. I started writing the first one when I was still in the military, getting out. December 2014 I wrote my first words to the first book. They came out 2018, and then there’s been one a year ever since. This is the first year with two books — the seventh book in the series, Red Sky Morning, comes out in June, and I have my first non-fiction that comes out in September. That’s on the 1983 Beirut Barracks bombing. And you probably noticed I weave a lot of history into the novels as well.
Sam: That’s why I liked it so much. I’m reading Looming Tower right now, and I typically read American history. What’s weird is, a lot of your books — there’s talk of a virus, there’s talk of Ukraine — before any of this stuff was even a thing.
Jack: The book with Ukraine came out in 2019, so I was writing it before I even sent the first novel to Simon & Schuster. I didn’t have a publishing deal yet, but I always knew I was going to write two books because of the John Grisham story. He wrote A Time to Kill first and he could not give that book away. Then he writes The Firm, that takes off — it’s the movie with Tom Cruise — and we’ve had a John Grisham legal thriller every year since.
Sam: You’ve got a good track record for predicting a handful of things.
Jack: I hope this next one doesn’t count. This next one’s pretty brutal, so I hope it does not predict the future.
Defining Success: From SEAL Teams to Bestsellers [00:10:00]
Sam: What would you have defined as success when you were first starting? Because I imagine now you’ve made millions of dollars, you’re famous, your books are loved, it’s a movie. And I know that originally, before Chris Pratt was even a movie star — just Parks and Rec — you said Chris Pratt’s the guy. You’ve kind of manifested all this. But what would you have defined as success ten years ago?
Jack: For me growing up, I’m reading all these books — Tom Clancy, Nelson DeMille, AJ Kyle, JC Pollock, Mark Olden, Louis L’Amour — all these guys who are like my professors in the art of storytelling. At the top of each one of those paperbacks it says “Number One New York Times Bestselling Author.” So in my head from age eleven — sixth grade, when I started reading the same types of books my parents were reading, transitioning from young adult fiction — they all said that. So in my head at that age, knowing I wanted to write in the future, just like I knew I wanted to be a Navy SEAL from age seven onward, I didn’t think of it as “this is success once I do this,” but it was like a benchmark.
Sam: That’s funny, because I think on the same podcast, we talked about this guy who self-published a book and got really popular on Goodreads, with hundreds of thousands of reviews collectively. From reading your books, I wouldn’t call you anti-establishment, but there’s some subcontext of “don’t trust too many people.” I would have not thought you’d give a damn about the New York Times and would just care more about: do lots of people love this, does it create financial freedom and spiritual wholeness for you?
Jack: Well, the New York Times — when you see a book that says “Number One USA Today Bestseller,” what that tells me is that they didn’t make the New York Times list. The New York Times list is a benchmark, because you can be a number one something on Amazon in pretty much anything. So I knew that’s not my metric. I’m never going to say that. I think the publisher for the first or second book put something like that somewhere and I was like, take that down. That’s not me.
For me, leaving the military, the things that were important — and I think it’s important to articulate this: no matter what it is, we’re all going to go through transitions in life, whether it’s a professional transition, death of a loved one, divorce, whatever. For me it was financial freedom and being able to control my schedule. I knew I wanted to write. I’ve known from a very early age that after my time in the military I would write thrillers just like I’m writing today.
Sam: Were you writing books from an early age?
Jack: Always a writer. In English class in high school, that’s what I gravitated towards. I read “The Most Dangerous Game” — a short story from 1924 — and it heavily inspired book three, actually. That’s Savage Son. So in sixth grade I said, “One day I’m going to write a novel as a tribute to that short story.” And that’s exactly what that book is.
I was writing, but I wasn’t writing throughout my time in the military — I was reading. Always reading, both non-fiction and fiction. There’s never been a time when I haven’t had a book in my hand or didn’t know what I was going to read next.
Mr. Ballen and Creativity in Special Operations [00:14:30]
Sam: There are some actually interesting people doing stuff in the creative space from that world — obviously you, and then Jocko, and people like that. But then there’s Mr. Ballen. Do you follow Mr. Ballen?
Jack: I know who he is, but I’ve never met him and I haven’t watched any of his stuff yet.
Sam: Mr. Ballen started as a YouTube page, basically telling scary 10 and 20-minute stories of true crime. He delivers his stories wonderfully. Now it’s this massive thing — millions and millions of subscribers. He’s got a deal with Audible. And he’s got a billboard in Austin near where I live. It’s pretty amazing that this guy pulled it off. He doesn’t pull too many details from his military days, but it is interesting to see some of these ex-SEAL guys be creative. When I think of you guys I think of a tough guy. I don’t think of an artistic guy. You know what I mean?
Jack: Well, on the battlefield you have to be creative. And I think that’s something that really made us successful in Iraq and Afghanistan — being able to be creative very quickly and be aggressive problem-solvers. Now I can be an aggressive problem-solver, but if I make a mistake, no one’s coming home in a body bag. I can sleep on it, come back to something in a month.
Which is why when I do the outlines for these books and I get to a place where I’m like, “How’s James Reece going to get out of this one?” — I don’t let it stall me. I know I have a year to figure it out. On the battlefield you’re making split-second decisions that are going to impact people’s lives forever if you make the wrong one.
Product Naming as Storytelling Strategy [00:16:30]
Sam: There’s this amazing book called Made to Stick. I read it in 2008 or 2010. It’s by the Heath Brothers out of Stanford. It’s a whole book about how to make ideas stick. One example they give: if I told you a movie theater popcorn had 100 grams of fat, that doesn’t really mean anything. But if I got 100 grams of fat and showed you the butter — or showed you a black smoker’s lung — it’s an easier way to understand and remember an idea.
One thing the book talks about is the demise of local newspapers. They tell a story about this guy in North Carolina who has a thriving local newspaper, and they ask him, “Will, what’s your secret?” And he goes, “Names, names, and names. It’s simple. If I could print the Yellow Pages, I would. All I want to do is name as many local people and their friends as possible in my newspaper, because people will buy it to see their friends and family and themselves.”
Something you do in your books — and this is what I talked about in the last podcast — you name so many products. It’s to the point now where I have a notification on my Bring a Trailer profile for Land Cruisers because you mentioned one. I know all about Land Cruisers now. Someone just sent me a hatchet because you name Hill People Gear fanny packs. You name all this stuff where I’m like, I didn’t even know I needed this pair of sunglasses, but because James Reece is using them, I want them. You talk about Black Rifle Coffee all the time. I think there’s a guy — Reef? — he has this leather type boot that’s a little more sophisticated because James Reece is a more suave type of guy. And I find myself Googling this stuff. I noticed on your website you list a lot of it. Do you monetize that?
Jack: Well, no. I’ve been a gear guy my entire life, and I should monetize it — people assume you do from the get-go. At the beginning I knew some of those brands because I’m just friends with them from getting gear to go down range with in the SEAL Teams. But not all of them. It’s just stuff that I use. But it added an authentic element.
If you’re somebody in law enforcement, a firefighter, intelligence, military, and you’re reading this thing — a book can just say “he picked up the shotgun, he picked up the pistol” and that doesn’t tell me anything about the character. But when I see somebody walk onto a range, I can see the pistol they have, the holster they’re using, the belt, their shoes, their hat, their watch. That tells me a story about them. The car they pull up in — all of that is giving me information. Same thing in the books.
And if you spend 20 years in the SEAL Teams and you’re reading a book where the main protagonist has a similar background — and it says what he’s carrying, and you’re like, “We would never carry something like that” — that impacts the credibility of the whole story. So it’s a way to add authenticity and tell a story about that person. Sometimes I’ll use brands that say “this person doesn’t know what they’re doing,” and that tells the reader something about the character before he even opens his mouth.
So I haven’t monetized it the way people probably think I have by looking at the website. I put together gear guides for each book — a Father’s Day gear guide, a holiday gear guide — and link out. A few have Amazon affiliate links. I don’t really think it makes much money, but it’s more for the fun of it and to help some of those smaller brands. A lot of them are veteran-owned businesses.
Sam: I get that for a small business, but there are many brands you mention that aren’t small, and your website gets traffic. There’s Gear Junkie, Gear Patrol, Steven Rinella’s MeatEater — they’ve turned these things into big businesses through merchandise and affiliates. What’s stopping you from turning this into a legitimate media company?
Jack: The first hesitation was that I wanted it to remain authentic. I didn’t want anyone to ever be able to say — and people are going to say it anyway — but I don’t want it to be true that all of a sudden he had this one placement in there and all of a sudden he switched after someone paid him. The answer is always zero. People have reached out and said, “How much do you need to put my product in your gear guide?” The answer is nothing.
My podcast gets sponsored and has ads on it, but those are obvious. And there’s never anything attached to that which says you’re going to do posts on social media, put it in the gear guide, put it in the book, put it in the show. None of that exists. I want to keep it pure like that. But I saw the podcast as a way to semi-monetize some of those relationships, because they want to help anyway — they want to be associated with the brand.
Building an Audience as a New Author [00:22:00]
Jack: Once again, looking at that battle space — James Patterson has been around since the 70s, Stephen King since the 70s. There’s a reason that the names on the New York Times list at the top are the same names our parents would have seen back in the 80s and 90s. They have a reader base built over 30 to 40 years. I have not done that. And there are more distractions today.
Back in the 70s and 80s, a book was competing with maybe television and film. Now I’m competing with every streaming service, every app, every social media platform, all internet — plus movies and TV shows. So I realized that if you want to build an audience today with new readers, it’s podcasts, it’s social presence, it’s a blog, it’s adding something of value to people’s lives throughout the year that they’re not paying for, but that helps create that connection.
Sam: Another guy who does that well is Ryan Holiday. I don’t know how his output is so high. He always has a book. He has daily emails. He has a business selling merch and coins. He has a bookstore. How big is your team?
Jack: It was me until this last fall, and then I got a chief of staff with no staff. She’s amazing. Then starting in February we started adding to the team. This is my first year putting a team together.
I was writing this last book and thought it would be finished December 1st, then January 1st, then February 1st. It ended up being the longest book to date — I thought it would be about 115 to 120,000 words, it ended up being like 150,000 words. That adds months to the writing process. So I started hiring some people, but I didn’t really get to interact with them at all until about two weeks ago when I finally sent my final edits in for the good one. As of yesterday, the team is six. But it’s very new.
Sam: How are you balancing being a creator and also a manager? Is that a pain?
Jack: I think it sucks, yeah. To this point it’s been just me — my wife was doing all the fulfillment. Our boxes were all over our bedroom, all over the living room. Just chaos. I realized early on that I needed help, but you’re not yet at a place financially where it makes sense. So it’s been me essentially — startup in the garage in 1977, building all the parts, also letting people know it exists, why they need it. Being the CEO, CFO, CMO, and the creator all at once.
Now, as of yesterday, I hired a sixth person to handle the Hollywood side of the house, because there are multiple projects in Hollywood now and I was doing all the calls, all the writing, all the creative — everything.
Sam: No way. You were doing that by yourself?
Jack: Each project has a team — you’re putting together a showrunner, director, lead production team. You’re putting together this package to take to Netflix usually through another production company. There are multiple of those going on right now. So I’m jumping between writing a script, writing an executive summary, writing an outline, doing a creative back-and-forth to see if someone is the right person to be a showrunner for a new idea — and then jumping back because I have a deadline on my novel. And then jumping over to the podcast.
Sam: How are you dealing with that context switching? That’s really hard.
Jack: Yesterday I had a call with the person I brought on to run the Hollywood side, and I told them: I need to prioritize and execute. I need to be focused on one thing at a time, then switch to the next. There’ll be a little bit of overlap as you’re editing or generating new ideas, but for the most part I need to switch gears fully.
The One-Pager Process and Writing Backwards from the Ending [00:27:00]
Jack: I know you do something cool — you write a one-pager. I think I heard on your podcast that you write a one-pager because you know this project is going to take 18 months of your life and you want to make sure you’re willing to do that.
Sam: Yeah, I try to do that with a bunch of projects. Whether it’s a fitness challenge, a business, or a new life event — what’s the outcome going to look like in 12 or 18 months, and do I really want to go all in on that? Amazon does this thing where they say, “We’re going to create this product — go ahead and write the press release now.” So you know what you want it to say in 12 or 24 months when it’s live, what you want to tell people it does, and then you work backwards to creating that. You do that, yeah?
Jack: I didn’t know that about Amazon, but it makes total sense. I write something that’s like what you’d find on the back of a paperback or in the front flap of a book — about a one-pager, kind of an executive summary. Then I read it to myself and ask: is this worth the next year, year and a half of my life? If the answer is yes, if I’m that excited about it, then I read it again and ask myself another question: if someone’s walking by Hudson News in the airport and they’re pulling this off the shelf to read — does this idea get them excited enough to want to spend time they’re never going to get back in these pages?
As I’m writing, I’m thinking about the story. It’s not about what’s selling, not about short chapters or longer chapters, what’s popular. None of those things. It is all about the story. Because you’re never going to please everyone. If you honor the story and put all your heart and soul into every single word, then you’re respecting that reader or listener today who is spending time with you that they’re never going to get back. That’s how I approach it.
Why Not Self-Publish? The Simon & Schuster Partnership [00:30:00]
Sam: Why not just be your own publisher at this point? You have a pretty nice direct audience. You’ve been on Joe Rogan a bunch of times. Those get millions of views. Why not just do your own thing?
Jack: I like being where I am. I like the team they have at Simon & Schuster. I like the production value of audiobooks. I like Ray Porter, who narrates — he’s absolutely amazing. I like that they have regional representatives all across the country. You get these books into Target and Walmart. I like that machine, because that allows me to focus solely on writing. I don’t have to worry about that other side.
I can see why someone would want to first build up a social media presence and an audience, then have the book, knowing a certain percentage will take the action. But that’s not my way. That’s not how I grew up and not how I wanted to adapt to the new space.
I still have a publisher. There’s still an art department for the cover. All of that machine is working there, and I can solely focus on writing — and then figure out the things that a large publishing company isn’t so great at. The social side of the house, the digital marketing side, the podcasts. I think it’s a very good partnership for me.
Masculinity, Mentorship, and Scott Galloway on Young Men [00:32:00]
Sam: We’ve had this guy on the pod a few times — his name is Scott Galloway. He’s a successful entrepreneur but also an author and a thought leader. His new crusade right now is on young men and how young men are getting forgotten a bit. If you look at suicide rates, depression rates, education — young men are getting left behind.
I felt that. I remember going through a period in my late 20s where I had a little bit of success, but I now had a young family and I was like, I need to learn more about what it means to be a man. I went through this whole reading phase — man books. And I noticed that reading your books, I felt like I was being inspired to be a more high-integrity man. Which James Reece obviously is.
What books have you read that kind of got you on that path of being this teacher of young men, because that’s kind of what you’ve become?
Jack: It’s interesting now when I go to book signings. The first book came out in 2018, so somebody who read it at 15 or 16 — now they’re a few years into their time in uniform, in the military or law enforcement or whatever. Now I have people coming up to me and saying, “I was inspired to join the military because of your books. I was inspired to get into law enforcement.” I knew that was a possibility, but I didn’t really dwell on it.
One book that stands out as my most-gifted book — it’s called Once an Eagle by Anton Myrer, written in 1968. It’s historical fiction. It follows two people from right before World War I up through Vietnam. One of them is a politician in uniform — he’s the officer. And then you have Sam Damon, who gets a battlefield commission in World War I. Sam Damon is the leader of men that you would want to be as you read this book.
I would gift this book to people starting their career in the profession of arms — and there’s a reason it’s called the profession of arms, not the career of arms. I would write a letter and put it in the front cover. Then I would say in that letter, “But there’s another letter at the back, and that is sealed. You have to work your way through this book.” It’s pretty thick — you can use it as a blunt impact weapon or as a door stop if you need to, dual-use technology. At the end, that’s my take on what you just read. I don’t want them to read it beforehand, because I don’t want to pollute their reading experience with my interpretation. So it gives them incentive to get to the end to read that last letter. It’s really a book about leadership, in the context of historical fiction. Reads like a thriller, but you’re learning about history at the same time.
Rites of Passage and What Young Men Are Missing [00:37:30]
Sam: You had a career where you had a write of passage — you went to the military, experienced some crazy stuff. I imagine there are times where you’re like, I just grew up really fast and now I officially feel like a man.
Women have a physical thing where it’s like “you’re now a woman.” Men don’t typically have that, at least not now. In some cultures they do — the Spartans, the Jewish bar mitzvah. There’s a little bit of “you’re a man now.” But we don’t really have that in America for most men. I always felt that was lacking. I didn’t have this beginning, middle, and end of a journey where it’s like “I’ve come out and I’m now an adult.”
I think that’s why I like reading your stuff — I’m living vicariously through James Reece, I experience this heartache and this evolution, and I now feel weirdly more manly. They say you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. I think I’m the average of the last year’s worth of reading I’ve done. So I’m getting a little bit of a rite of passage through your work.
Jack: Yes. And that’s why it’s so important who kids follow now in this world, because those five people you’re spending the most time with — it can be virtual. It’s not necessarily that person on the playground or the mentor you’re with in an internship. A lot of these people are who they’re following online. That’s why it’s so important who you follow.
For most of human history, there was exactly that — a rite of passage, and it was there for a reason. The reason was that you could prove to the tribe to the community that you could add value, because if you didn’t, the tribe wasn’t going to last very much longer. There were trials, teachings, mentorships, and then a trial that you would go through to prove you were a valued member of the tribe. Then that slowly started to go away — mostly in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Today it is almost entirely lacking, which is why I think so many people feel lost. It’s not institutionalized into our society, but it’s in our DNA, because there’s a reason it was around from the beginning of time up until we got so comfortable that we didn’t have to have it. It was there so we could survive as a species, so your tribe could survive.
That’s why I think young men — whether they know it or not — are drawn to things like Marine boot camp. That’s the one most people think of. Or you see these things where it’s like rich guys spending 15 grand for a weekend. Part of me is like, that’s lame. But on the other side I understand why you want that. You got to get it how you can get it, I guess.
Sam: Yeah. They missed it when they should have done it. And then they start reading these books and they’re like, “That’s what I was missing. That’s why I felt this draw at a certain age that I didn’t listen to.” Like heeding the call in the hero’s journey.
Jack: Exactly. Marine Boot Camp, Army Special Forces Q Course, Navy SEAL BUD/S — something that allows you to go through trial and tribulation, test yourself, and prove to the group that you’re worthy of joining the ranks. If you don’t do that in one way shape or form — it doesn’t have to be military — I think that’s why people feel so lost.
Sam: Look, I get those things. Maybe I’ll do them. Just don’t post any pictures of me online doing it, because I would need another rite of passage to get through the ridicule I would receive.
The Misogi and Michael Easter’s Comfort Crisis [00:43:00]
Sam: There’s this idea from The Comfort Crisis — it was called the misogi. Have you heard of it?
Jack: I should have, because I read The Comfort Crisis. I had Michael Easter on the podcast. But I read it a couple years ago when it first came out. I don’t feel that need anymore — I feel like I’ve done that already. This looks exhausting. I feel like I’ve done that most of my life. Now it’s really all about writing, having each book better than the last. That’s always my goal.
Sam: The misogi is basically this idea — it stems from a Japanese myth about a guy who goes on this massive journey, gets dirty and grimy, finally saves his wife, washes himself off in a waterfall, and he’s now a new man because of the hardship. A lot of people now are doing these really hard physical things. The two rules are: one, you have to have only a 50% chance of succeeding, and two, don’t die. I’m training for my misogi right now, which is a 50-mile race.
Jack: I understand that draw to do something difficult, to test yourself. I certainly understand it.
Spiritual Manifestation vs. Doing the Work [00:45:00]
Sam: You have this — I don’t know how to describe it — almost spiritual way about you. I remember you told a story about how before you published the first book, you were like, “Chris Pratt is the guy. I need him to do this.” And lo and behold, after a handful of years, he calls you. Do you believe in these weird types of spiritual manifestation — if you want it bad enough, things come true?
Jack: It seems like that, but it’s more than just calling it or manifesting it. Visualizing it — that’s very tactical. You can watch videos and think about how you’re going to serve in tennis or kick a field goal in soccer. That requires work. But the strategic level one also requires work — it’s not just that one thing, that one foot placement.
If there’s a spiritual side to it — and I think there’s a spiritual side to everything that connects us — it’s more the work. It might not happen even if you put in the work. That’s possible too. But it’s certainly not going to happen if you don’t.
As a child of the 80s, it’s very natural for me to think about who’s going to star in the TV show. At the time I saw Chris Pratt transform from this overweight guy who played Andy Dwyer on Parks and Rec — and then I saw this transformation in Zero Dark Thirty as a SEAL. I said, “This is a guy who needs a role like this. He needs it for his career.” This is December 2014. And I’m like, Chris Pratt will play the main character — he’ll play James Reece. He needs it for his career. And who do I want to direct? Antoine Fuqua. I love Fuqua — Training Day, The Equalizer. He’s the guy. And then I just go about writing. I have no connection to Hollywood, no connection to publishing.
Sam: You haven’t even published the first book at this point?
Jack: No. No idea how I’m going to get it into a publisher. But I’m not thinking about any of those things.
Sam: Did you tell your friends this was going to happen?
Jack: In the SEAL Teams, you wanted to keep anything about writing close to the vest. But I told my wife. We’ve known each other since we were 18, so she’s been on this journey the entire time.
The Call That Made the Terminal List a Reality [00:48:30]
Jack: How it manifested was a way I never would have expected. I got a call from a friend I served with in the SEAL Teams who calls me in November 2017 — about six or seven months before the book even comes out. He calls me and says, “Hey, do you remember me?” I hadn’t talked to him in about five years. “Yes, of course I remember you.” He said, “You remember what you did for me in the SEAL Teams?” I said no. He said, “Well, you’re the only person — when I said I was getting out and leaving the Teams — who sat me down in your office, talked about transitioning out of the military, introduced me to people in the private sector, followed up with me, asked if you could do anything else. I’ve never forgotten it, and I always wanted to thank you.”
I said, “No problem.” And he said, “It’s going great. But I heard through the grapevine you have a book coming out.” “Yeah, it’s coming out in a few months — it’s called the Terminal List. I can send you a copy.” He said, “I’d like that, but I’d like to give it to a friend of mine also.” I said sure, who? “Well, my best friend is Chris Pratt.”
I was like: well, that’s very convenient, because I pictured him playing this role all these years ago. So he gave it to Chris, Chris read it in December of 2017, and then called me the first week of 2018 and wanted to option it. At the same time, another friend — unbeknownst to me — had given a copy to Antoine Fuqua. They’d met at a speaking event. Antoine read it, he wanted to option it. And Chris and Antoine knew each other from Magnificent Seven. They called each other, worked it out. Now we have the Terminal List on Amazon Prime.
Sam: How does that feel? To not be a nobody — but just a guy — making these ridiculous predictions, and they come true?
Jack: It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t cared about people in the Teams. My focus was always on the guys and helping them, whether they were staying in or getting out. I noticed that a lot of other people, especially officers, didn’t do that. If you said you were getting out, they only cared about you if you were still in the SEAL Teams. That just wasn’t me.
So if I hadn’t helped Jared out — and at the time I didn’t think anything would ever come back around, that wasn’t the reason I did it — but it did come back around. Now I’m flying out to Budapest in about a week to film out there. Jared’s a writer, a producer, and a technical adviser on set. And this is the second season. We have another one coming up with the second book, with Chris in it, that should start filming in 2025.
Strategic Vision and the Road Ahead [00:53:00]
Jack: You never know until it’s actually all completed and up there on the screens, so I try to manage those expectations. But yeah, now we’re off to the races. There are other Hollywood projects, multiple books, the non-fiction. I have a strategic plan that I’ve written out — just by being a student of all this my whole life, not with the intent of being a student, more from the fan perspective.
Those goals I wanted: serve my country in uniform as a SEAL, do the best job I could, be the best leader and operator I could. Then write a novel, have it be Number One New York Times bestseller, and get it up on the screen. Those things are done. Now it’s just doing all those things better and continuing to grow in a way that’s real and authentic and adds value to people’s lives — and allows me to do what I love and hit my mission.
My mission is taking care of my family. My passion is writing. I wanted to combine those things for purpose going forward as I left the Teams, because I saw so many people not know what they wanted to do — or think they knew and then step into it and realize this wasn’t really what they wanted after all.
Sam: Have you hit the financial threshold? I sold my company when I was 31, and that’s where I hit the point where on paper I never need to work again. Have you been able to cross that?
Jack: Not yet. Not quite there yet. Getting closer. But a lot of this has been invested back in. I think a lot of people probably would have held on and not done boxes when you can’t afford it and put it all on your credit card early on.
Sam: Those boxes were credit card?
Jack: Everything’s going back in. How do I get a podcast going? How do I do a video for this book that looks like a movie, better than any author has ever made before? Okay — I invest. Because it costs money to do that. I can’t get the publisher to pay for that.
I think people assume the publisher pays for these things. But it’s really just me, out of pocket, as a business. I now see other authors doing something similar — I got something from MeatEater the other day for their new cookbook that certainly came from the publisher. So maybe other publishers think that too. But for me it’s out of pocket.
Sam: My hope for you — and this probably doesn’t align with your wants — but what I want as a fan is to see Jack Carr become the new MeatEater. A lifestyle media company all around your niche. Churning — a company that invests in MeatEater-type brands with strong affinity around a lifestyle — they create really big businesses, awesome for you as an owner and awesome for me as a consumer because now I have more Jack Carr / Terminal List content in my life. That’s my hope for you.
Jack: Thank you. As long as there’s a way to do it where it remains authentic and real to that person who’s trusting me with their time and their money — then yeah. Things are going in that direction. That’s certainly a possibility.
Books on the Craft of Writing [00:57:00]
Sam: Last question: which books or resources, a little less known, helped you most — that taught you about the storytelling or creative process?
Jack: So there’s Stephen King’s On Writing — fantastic. There’s a series of books by Steven Pressfield that all really talk about the same thing but go into different nuances: overcoming resistance, doing the work, putting in the time, becoming a professional. So those.
Another one is The Successful Novelist by David Morrell, who created Rambo with First Blood back in 1972.
And then The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell — the hero’s journey. That one right there influenced Star Wars. Once you read that book — or watch a series of interviews Campbell did on PBS in 1988 with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth — you realize how similar stories are across cultures and why they resonated from the beginning of time. Because some of these myths were created to pass on lessons — lessons of the hunt, lessons of warfare — so the next generation doesn’t have to learn those same lessons in blood. And that tribe, that community, can grow and not just survive, but hopefully thrive.
Sam: You’re the man. I appreciate you doing this. Your books have not only been fun, they’ve changed me a little bit — as a man, as a husband, as a father, as a citizen of America. You’ve done amazing stuff and I wish nothing but success for you and your family. Thank you.
Jack: I appreciate that. Thank you for the podcast. I’m so glad I discovered it, because I’m going to be taking notes going forward on how to scale things and do things a little better. No matter what I’m doing in life, I always want to do it a little better the next time. I always want to adapt and be more effective and efficient. So thank you for what you do as well.