On this week's episode of Change Agents, Andy Stumpf travels to the headquarters of Born Primitive in Virginia Beach to spend time with founder and CEO Bear Handlon. A former Navy SEAL, Yale football player, and CrossFit Games athlete, Bear built Born Primitive from the ground up into a global fitness apparel brand, one that's now expanding into outdoor, tactical, lifestyle, and footwear lines with a massive new headquarters on the way. Today, Bear's approach to risk, faith, and family shapes how he leads the company through its next chapter. Change Agents is an IRONCLAD Original. Chapters (01:44) – New HQ risk / "moderation is for cowards" (09:34) – HQ walkthrough (20:11) – Plant Medicine Retreat (26:02) – Born Primitive Office Tour (29:16) – Risk Tolerance as Stakes Grow (40:15) – Early Grind Years (42:10) – Market Timing / IP (43:17) – Motivation Board Story (45:03) – False Summits / Celebrating Wins (53:11) – CTA Sponsors: Firecracker Farm Use code IRONCLAD to get 15% off your first order at https://firecracker.farm/ Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/change-agents-with-andy-stumpf/id1677415740 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3SKmtN55V2AGbzHDo34DHI?si=5aefbba9abc844ed

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Today’s guest is Tania Rashid. She is an award-winning correspondent and producer who reports across the globe, with a career spanning CNN International, PBS NewsHour, NBC News, National Geographic Channel, VICE News, and others. 
She was a correspondent on VICE's Criminal Planet series, including the episode "Butchered for Profit: Inside Organ Trafficking," which goes inside the global black market for organs to meet the surgeons and traffickers profiting from it, with reporting spanning Mexico, China, and Pakistan.
You can find more of her work at: https://www.taniarashid.com/

Change Agents is an IRONCLAD Original
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(00:00) "I Think I'm Going to Sell Their Kidneys" (00:29) Meet Tania Rashid (01:00) From Saudi Arabia to Salt Lake City: Tania's Origin Story (09:51) Inside "Butchered for Profit": Pakistan's Organ Trade (20:31) Mexico's Cartel-Run Organ Trafficking Networks (28:34) Why Exposure Doesn't Equal Change (30:40) Earning Trust With Traffickers and Cartel Members 35:24 Trauma, Healing & Advice for Future Journalists

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Annie Jacobsen is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author known for her research and writing on topics related to national security, defense, and intelligence. Her investigative work has focused on some of the most secretive areas of government and includes the titles Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base, The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency, Operation Paperclip, and Nuclear War. Her latest, Biological War: A Scenario is out now. Video Chapters: (00:00) – Intro: Nations With Bioweapons Programs & Meet Annie Jacobsen

(01:15) – Panic vs. Pressure: Writing About Doomsday & Trusting the Algorithm

(04:58) – Covid's Airborne Denial: A Case Study in Institutional Fallibility

(09:58) – Nuclear vs. Biological: Case Fatality Rates & Which Scares Her More

(17:41) – Pentagon War Games: Outbreak to Anarchy in Six Days

(26:06) – Global Threat Landscape & Anatomy of a Lab Accident at Vector

(34:03) – Close Calls, AI-Enabled Bioweapons & Rebuilding Public Trust

(44:00) – Gain-of-Function, "Devolution," Live Outbreaks & Closing Thoughts

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On today's episode of Change Agents, Andy is joined by Brian Streem, the founder and CEO of Vermeer, a defense tech company with forward operations in Ukraine. He went from using drone technology and Hollywood projects ranging from Steven Spielberg movies, The Fast and the Furious films, and Beyonce music videos to the frontlines of war.

This technology lets drones navigate when GPS is jammed, spoofed or gone entirely. Brian pivoted his company into Vermeer in 2018, after the Department of Defense showed strong interest in his team's XR technology, building AR command controlled and visualization tools for unmanned swarms in GPS denied environments.

Video Chapters: (00:39) – Meet Brian Streem: Hollywood to the Frontlines (09:39) – The Pivot: From Film Sets to Defense Tech (10:19) – Landing DoD Funding & Moving Vermeer to Ukraine (21:06) – GPS Jamming & Spoofing Explained (25:33) – Fiber Optic vs FPV vs Starlink Drones (31:41) – The Outsider Advantage: Why Being in Kyiv Matters (35:10) – Drone Swarms, Autonomy & Kill-Authority Ethics (42:50) – Pentagon's $150M Drone Dominance Program (47:13) – Russia's Drone Tech: Speed, ATR & What's Next (50:14) – Pilot Psychology, War Outlook & Final Thoughts Sponsors:

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On this week's episode of Change Agents, Andy Stumpf travels to Virginia Beach to spend time with Dom Raso aboard his boat near Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek–Fort Story. Dom spent 12 years in the SEAL teams before founding Dynamis Alliance, a gear and combatives training company built from everything he learned in the teams. Today, Dom's life largely revolves around his faith, family, and protecting time with them has become his priority.

Change Agents is an IRONCLAD Original.

Chapters

(00:00) Cold Open

(01:11) The Power of "No"

(02:44) Family, Faith & Current Ventures

(05:05) Gladius Christi: Protecting the Church

(10:51) Combatives Philosophy

(19:11) Should Young Men Join the Military?

(28:58) Faith and Military Discipline

(41:44) Extortion 17 and the Path to Catholicism

(49:23) Redefining Success

(54:15) Fatherhood as the Front Line

(57:09) Leaving the SEAL Teams

(1:01:52) Gift Exchange

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On this week's episode of Change Agents, Andy Stumpf welcomes Jonathan Hackett to unpack the escalating conflict between the U.S. and Iran. He is a retired U.S. Marine Corps interrogator, counterintelligence agent, and special operations intelligence officer who ran assignments for the NSA, DIA, and Special Operations Command, and is the author of Iran: Shadow Weapons, Covert Action, Intelligence Operations, and Unconventional Warfare. Co-host the podcast Eyes on Geopolitics:  @EyesOnGeopoliticsPod  Change Agents is an IRONCLAD Original. Chapters (00:01:33) Explaining Iran in one sentence (00:09:04) Mirror imaging the regime (00:14:28) The experience gap at the negotiating table (00:19:02) A broken decision-making process (00:27:29) Losing our intelligence assets in Iran (00:32:12) Where the nuclear program really stands (00:39:41) Why an executive agreement won't hold (00:50:08) The truth about Iranian sleeper cells (00:59:36) What Americans get wrong about Iran Sponsors: Firecracker Farm Use code IRONCLAD to get 15% off your first order at https://firecracker.farm/ Kubota Tractor Corporation: https://www.youtube.com/user/Kubotatractorcorp

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On this week's episode of Change Agents, Andy Stumpf travels to the headquarters of GBRS Group in Virginia Beach to sit down with co-founder DJ Shipley. He spent 17 in years in the SEAL teams where he served at SEAL Team 10 and Naval Special Warfare Development Group before medically retiring in 2019 due to injuries sustained in combat and training.

Change Agents is an IRONCLAD Original.

Chapters
(00:00:41) The Mental Health Void in the SEAL Community
(00:02:25) Feeling Alone on the Island
(00:05:16) Ibogaine Therapy in Mexico
(00:08:15) Missing the Tribe
(00:11:11) The Electrocution
(00:13:04) Building GBRS Group From Nothing
(00:16:11) The Cost of Having No Balance
(00:19:21) Would You Do It All Over Again
(00:24:47) Tour of GBRS Group HQ
(00:30:04) What Would You Have Changed
(00:38:49) Supporting Gold Star Families
(00:42:14) The Physical Toll
(00:54:56) Recovery Room Tour
(01:00:20) What Would You Do If You Lost It All
(01:05:20) The Most Effective Way to Talk About Mental Health
(01:11:40) The Veteran Suicide Epidemic - Is It Fixable?
(01:19:37) Closing Thoughts & Where to Find DJ

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Steve Robinson is an investigative journalist and the editor of The Maine Wire, a news outlet that has grown from 20,000 monthly readers to nearly one million. A Maine native, he spent three years mapping a sprawling network of Chinese organized crime operations embedded across rural Maine documenting over 270 illegal cannabis grows, tracing financial patterns through deed records and electrical inspection data, and connecting the operation to the Chinese Communist Party. Change Agents is an IRONCLAD Original

Chapters

(00:00:00) Intro (00:08:24) Why Maine Won't Act (00:17:53) The Search Warrant Gauntlet (00:27:12) The Governor's Brother (00:30:31) Following the Money (00:37:14) On the Ground (00:48:12) Why This Affects Everyone Sponsors: Firecracker Farm Use code IRONCLAD to get 15% off your first order at https://firecracker.farm/ Norwood Sawmills: Learn more about Norwood Sawmills and how you can start milling your own lumber at https://norwoodsawmills.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=ironclad&utm_campaign=ironclad

Kubota Tractor Corporation: https://www.youtube.com/user/Kubotatractorcorp Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/change-agents-with-andy-stumpf/id1677415740 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3SKmtN55V2AGbzHDo34DHI?si=5aefbba9abc844ed

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This week on Change Agents, we look back on one of the breakout interviews from the first season of the show in 2023.

Andy Stumpf sits down with former Australian special operations sniper Damien Mander. Today, he is the founder of the International Anti-Poaching Foundation: https://www.iapf.org/ Change Agents is an IRONCLAD original.

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On this week's episode of Change Agents, Andy travels to Chase Hughes' new studio to break down how human behavior is manipulated at scale, from bot farms manufacturing fake consensus to the psychological framework Chase calls WOUND that explains why outrage, fear, and loneliness keep us glued to our phones.

They dig into why Chase believes the algorithm is less a sinister mastermind and more an engine optimized purely for ad revenue, how think tanks may shape policy more than most people realize, and why Walter Cronkite and Julia Child both have far stranger backstories than anyone learned in school. Andy also gets a tour of Chase's new independent news studio, Station One, built to show audiences the psyops behind the headlines rather than just the headlines themselves.

Change Agents is an IRONCLAD Original

Chapters:

(00:00:00)  How the Media Actually Works

(00:05:59)  Why Chase Built Station One and How It Works

(00:08:20)  Unrestricted Warfare and the Chinese Playbook for Dividing America

(00:13:34)  The WOUND Framework: How Social Media Gets Weaponized

(00:17:20) Do They Start With the Outcome or the Emotion

(00:19:28) The Deep State and Think Tanks

(00:23:26) Station One's Intelligence Brief Format

(00:27:55 ) The Biggest PSYOP Right Now Is…

(00:29:49) Engineered Loneliness and the Fear of Judgment

(00:38:58) Is the System Correctable From the Top Down?

(00:41:58) True vs Truth: The Coaster and the Elephant

(00:48:47) Why Chase Joined the Navy

(00:50:56) What People Actually Regret on Their Deathbed

(00:56:44) Veterans and a Broken Relationship With Money

(01:00:21)  Can You Truly Bulletproof Yourself Against Manipulation

(01:03:15)  Walter Cronkite Was on CIA Payroll: Operation Mockingbird

(01:05:50)  How to Fight Back Against Division

(01:09:30)  What Social Media Companies Will Do When Usage Drops

(01:11:57)  Outro

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Sarah Adams is a former CIA targeter and the host of The Watch Floor, a show that breaks down global news and emerging threats for everyday people. She previously served as senior advisor to the US House of Representatives Select Committee on Benghazi and was a co-author of the Committee's report on the 2012 terrorist attack.

Change Agents is an IRONCLAD Original

Chapters

(00:00)  Introduction: Sarah Adams

(03:23)  When Are We Taking the Uranium Out

(06:19)  Can Regime Change Happen From the Air Alone

(10:44)  Trump Wants to Take Kirk Island

(14:35)  The Haqqani Network Bombshell

(18:43)  How US Money Actually Reaches the Taliban

(26:55)  Confirmation That Hamza Bin Laden Is Alive

(32:58)  The 2000 Foot Tunnel Discovery

(36:22)  The Cartel and Al Qaeda Connection

(39:19)  The Northern Border Nobody Is Watching

(46:21)  The ISIS Arrests That Weren't Real ISIS

(54:44)  Closing Thoughts

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