The Untold Truth About SEAL Team 6 | Curt Cronin

**Curt Cronin** (0:00)
This is that fun moment where something that is not visible becomes visible, and once you see it, you can't unsee it.

**Shekhar Natarajan** (0:09)
I did not have the physique to, I never had the mental capacity and three, I don't think I could have done it.

**Curt Cronin** (0:19)
In overwhelm, you'll do things that feel natural, but emotion often gets you killed, right?

**Shekhar Natarajan** (0:29)
But instead of addressing the problem of why that person is doing that, you just simply put a label and want to take them out, right?

**Curt Cronin** (0:42)
There were 12 people that the moment they hit the finish line, they quit because they had set in their mind that this was the stop line.

**Shekhar Natarajan** (1:14)
Welcome to another episode of Tomorrow Today with Shekhar Natarajan. I'm really, really excited.
I've always dreamt of being part of the armed services, being part of serving the nation. One, I did not have the physique, two, I never had the mental capacity, and three, I don't think I could have done it. But it's my incredible honor to actually welcome today to the show, Curt Cronin, who was an ex SEAL Team 6 guy, and now he's doing something phenomenally great. I want to unpack the journey of Curt, ask him a lot of thought-provoking questions as it relates to basically country, nations. What does it actually take to be a SEAL Team 6 person? What does it mean to basically be in the war front, trying to protect the country, the psyche of the people, and technology, where it is headed, the impact in the society, how is it used in the warfare, many questions to go through. So I'm excited, Curt, to have you here.
So I'm excited to have you. You're my new-found friend. I've been so fascinated just meeting you, talking to you, getting to know you as a person. I think this is going to be a phenomenal episode. I'm so looking forward to it.

**Curt Cronin** (2:37)
I can't wait. Your presentation yesterday was extraordinary, an eye-opening and really, to me, genius is that fun moment where something that is not visible becomes visible. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. And I thought, as you described, hey, how do we now ensure that the future of technology serves the humans and is in service of virtues and values and is not a bolt on to follow? I thought was was extraordinary. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

**Shekhar Natarajan** (3:02)
Absolutely, Curt.
I love it. So I think we are kindred spirits in that regard. So, Curt, I would love for the audience. And just as of today morning, we clocked 500,000 subscribers. We just launched this all.

**Curt Cronin** (3:22)
Congratulations.

**Shekhar Natarajan** (3:23)
Yeah, just three months ago.
And it's been a phenomenal journey, bringing a lot of great people, unpacking a lot of interesting stories. But I think your story is extraordinary, very extraordinary because it takes a lot to become a SEAL Team 6 squad. Right. And so I want my audience to know all about you, who you are as a person, where did you grow up, what made you who you are, the journey and just unpack it for us.

**Curt Cronin** (4:01)
Sure.
I think for your audience, the most important thing to know is it's all just been following the path. And none of it was planned. And it's literally been, you know, as we were discussing ahead of time, it's following the path through a series of portals that the time all feel like death and some more real physical danger than others. But each one is a requirement to shift identity to be able to serve at the next level. And I was a tiny farm town kid in rural Illinois.

**Shekhar Natarajan** (4:38)
So where in Illinois?

**Curt Cronin** (4:39)
Dwight, Illinois, about 90 miles southwest Chicago.
And I thought it about the rate that crops grew, because it was a very rural community and it was very, I felt very privileged to be able to raise almost in a different time relative to the world that I entered later. But we, my family and my father and mom always took us, they were passionate about nature. And so we had a van, we didn't have much money, so we had two car top carriers. So we drove to all the national parks and we had one car top carrier full of luggage and one full of tents. And so we would camp all over the national parks. And getting into that sense of awe is always a sense of grounding and getting to be a part of something larger than ourselves. And we drove through a national monument one time, the gates of the Naval Academy. The Marine Gate Guard made a mistake that changed my life. He mistook my dad for the superintendent of the Naval Academy and saluted him. And my dad's like, this is amazing, you're going.