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What if the human brain isn’t a calculator but a story engine built for action under uncertainty? That single shift reframes strategy, leadership, and the OODA loop. Angus Fletcher—neuroscientist, author of Primal Intelligence, and advisor to special operations—joins us to explore how narrative becomes the decisive edge: not as marketing flair, but as the way we chain actions, break an adversary’s plot, and write a better future faster than our rivals.

We unpack why planning trains the planner, how Commander’s Intent gives the ending and protects agency, and where intuition really comes from. Hint: it’s not pattern-matching; it’s detecting exceptional information, the mismatch that signals new opportunity. From future-backward exercises and counterfactuals to Red Teaming and honest debriefs, we map concrete methods to keep Orientation supple, shift risk to the opponent, and avoid the brittleness of optimization. Fletcher shows how culture and literature (yes, Shakespeare) expand cognitive range, building the empathy and range leaders need to operate in complex, fast-changing environments.

We also examine the cognitive war—how associational feeds erode narrative capacity—and why truth is the most effective long-term PSYOP. In markets, boardrooms, and battlefields, the winners hold multiple viable plots, switch quickly as reality shifts, and align teams with ambitious, possi

John R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: 

“There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…”

A promotional message for Ember Health.  Safe and effective IV ketamine care for individuals seeking relief from depression. Ember Health's evidence-based, partner-oriented, and patient-centered care model, boasting an 84% treatment success rate with 44% of patients reaching depression remission. It also mentions their extensive experience with over 40,000 infusions and treatment of more than 2,500 patients, including veterans, first responders, and individuals with anxiety and PTSD

John Boyd’s Conceptual Spiral was originally titled “No Way Out.” In his words:

Download a complete transcript of Conceptual Spiral for free by clicking here.

Stay connected with No Way Out and The Whirl Of ReOrientation

• Follow Us onX:
  • @NoWayOutcast
  • @PonchAGLX
  • @NoWayOutMoose
• Subscribe to our Substack – The Whirl Of ReOrientation
  • Long-form work on John Boyd, Orientation, and how to think and act inside the Guerrilla Information War.

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Imagine stepping off the freezing Manhattan street and finding a steady warmth at the bottom of your breath. That’s the thread running through our conversation with Jody Weiss—meditator, community builder, and co-host of Exploring Reality Maybe—as we explore how presence and modern therapies change lives. From VA-approved iREST Yoga Nidra to evidence-based ketamine infusions, we look at what actually helps veterans with PTSD, executives in crisis, and healers carrying the weight of others’ pain.

We dig into a practical definition of “home base” and why training attention throughout the day matters more than a single morning routine. Jody shares non-dual practices that quiet the intellect, interrupt rigid patterns, and open a wider field of perception. We connect stories of rapid transformation—like first responders stepping back from the brink—with neuroscientific advances in brain mapping that reveal how new circuits can unlock relief in days. The goal isn’t to numb or escape; it’s to become more present and more free.

This episode also celebrates the power of community and conscious capital. Jody describes Women Funding the World and Consciousness Drinks, spaces where clinicians, shamans, researchers, and investors meet to nurture the nurturers and fund work that sustains life. We talk about equine therapy, the stigma and renaissance of psychedelics, and the simple city practices—yes, even in Times Square—that “melt identit

John R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: 

“There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…”

A promotional message for Ember Health.  Safe and effective IV ketamine care for individuals seeking relief from depression. Ember Health's evidence-based, partner-oriented, and patient-centered care model, boasting an 84% treatment success rate with 44% of patients reaching depression remission. It also mentions their extensive experience with over 40,000 infusions and treatment of more than 2,500 patients, including veterans, first responders, and individuals with anxiety and PTSD

John Boyd’s Conceptual Spiral was originally titled “No Way Out.” In his words:

Download a complete transcript of Conceptual Spiral for free by clicking here.

Stay connected with No Way Out and The Whirl Of ReOrientation

• Follow Us onX:
  • @NoWayOutcast
  • @PonchAGLX
  • @NoWayOutMoose
• Subscribe to our Substack – The Whirl Of ReOrientation
  • Long-form work on John Boyd, Orientation, and how to think and act inside the Guerrilla Information War.

Want to build your organization’s capacity for free and independent action?See how we help teams become more competitive, collaborative, and coordinated under pressure:

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• AGLX Yo...

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What if the secret to winning—on the battlefield and in business—isn’t more technology, but smarter trust? We sit down with Col (Ret.) Frederick P. Stein, coauthor of Network Centric Warfare, to unpack how Admiral Cebrowski’s vision was never just about sensors—it was about reorganizing around shared awareness, clearer intent, and the courage to push decisions to the edge.

We connect fighter aviation’s shift from ground-controlled F‑4s to information-rich F‑14s with Walmart’s rise under Sam Walton, where data and decentralized authority beat legacy giants. Col. Stein breaks down the triad of sensor, engagement, and command networks and why technology without doctrinal and organizational change falls flat. Through vivid analogies—soccer’s flow versus football’s huddles—we explore self-synchronization, the power of mission command, and how speed of command depends more on orientation than sheer tempo.

The conversation ranges from Apache cultural resilience to IDF case studies, from Blue Force Tracking at Peach Bridge to the pitfalls of stale “red” intelligence without timestamps. We examine why incentives matter more than dashboards, how Enron’s reward structure crushed sharing, and why “walls of knowledge” and flattened inputs outlearn hierarchy. Then we look forward: AI and machine learning can spot targ

John R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: 

“There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…”

A promotional message for Ember Health.  Safe and effective IV ketamine care for individuals seeking relief from depression. Ember Health's evidence-based, partner-oriented, and patient-centered care model, boasting an 84% treatment success rate with 44% of patients reaching depression remission. It also mentions their extensive experience with over 40,000 infusions and treatment of more than 2,500 patients, including veterans, first responders, and individuals with anxiety and PTSD

John Boyd’s Conceptual Spiral was originally titled “No Way Out.” In his words:

Download a complete transcript of Conceptual Spiral for free by clicking here.

Stay connected with No Way Out and The Whirl Of ReOrientation

• Follow Us onX:
  • @NoWayOutcast
  • @PonchAGLX
  • @NoWayOutMoose
• Subscribe to our Substack – The Whirl Of ReOrientation
  • Long-form work on John Boyd, Orientation, and how to think and act inside the Guerrilla Information War.

Want to build your organization’s capacity for free and independent action?See how we help teams become more competitive, collaborative, and coordinated under pressure:

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• AGLX Yo...

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A decorated tank commander and recipient of Israel's Medal of Valor sits down with us to rethink how trauma is understood and treated. Dr. Yuval Neria recounts twelve brutal days during the 1973 Yom Kippur War—where he was severely injured and awarded the Medal of Valor (equivalent to the U.S. Medal of Honor)—that taught him to filter bad orders, protect his crews, and update reality on the fly, a mindset that later shaped his groundbreaking research on PTSD.

He explains a pivotal distinction: trauma is the event; the disorder is the emotional charge welded to memory. The job of recovery is to separate the two, restore meaning, and rebuild trust. We explore why three people can share a firefight and come away with different scars. Capacity varies—genetics, sleep, prior wounds, and the deeply interpersonal nature of harm all matter. Prisoners of war often face heavier burdens because cruelty was targeted and identity-stripping. Early support after homecoming is decisive; without it, sleep fails, depression blooms, and people chase relief through alcohol, marijuana, or compulsions. One-size-fits-all treatment misses the mark, especially when anxiety-heavy cases diverge from depression-dominant, morally injured profiles.

From leading a battalion in the 1982 Lebanon War to founding the Columbia-NYP Military Family Wellness Center and pioneering equine-assisted the

John R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: 

“There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…”

A promotional message for Ember Health.  Safe and effective IV ketamine care for individuals seeking relief from depression. Ember Health's evidence-based, partner-oriented, and patient-centered care model, boasting an 84% treatment success rate with 44% of patients reaching depression remission. It also mentions their extensive experience with over 40,000 infusions and treatment of more than 2,500 patients, including veterans, first responders, and individuals with anxiety and PTSD

John Boyd’s Conceptual Spiral was originally titled “No Way Out.” In his words:

Download a complete transcript of Conceptual Spiral for free by clicking here.

Stay connected with No Way Out and The Whirl Of ReOrientation

• Follow Us onX:
  • @NoWayOutcast
  • @PonchAGLX
  • @NoWayOutMoose
• Subscribe to our Substack – The Whirl Of ReOrientation
  • Long-form work on John Boyd, Orientation, and how to think and act inside the Guerrilla Information War.

Want to build your organization’s capacity for free and independent action?See how we help teams become more competitive, collaborative, and coordinated under pressure:

• AGLX
• AGLX Yo...

Send us a text

Certainty feels safe, but it slows you down—and in chaos, slow is dead. On No Way Out Podcast, we sit with leadership expert Ed Brenegar to unpack what separates rigid managers chasing control from true leaders who build adaptive teams that move faster than the problem. Using John Boyd’s OODA loop and Boyd's Conceptual Spiral as our compass, we explore how your orientation—shaped by genetics, culture, experiences, and biases—filters what you see, how you decide, and why you act. Widen that aperture through relentless curiosity, humility, and unlearning, and you create conditions where people don’t wait for permission: they execute with clarity and psychological safety.

We also explore decentralized decision-making, commander’s intent, and mission command—showing why pushing authority to the edge delivers speed and resilience in volatile environments, from manufacturing floors to flight decks, family dynamics to boardrooms. The traps are real: media distortions that flip figure and ground, the seductive lie of “the video clearly shows,” and merchants of certainty peddling easy answers instead of better questions. True leadership replaces control with trust, compliance with alignment, and certainty with rigorous reorientation.

Ed Brenegar: Circle of Impact:
Ed Brenegar on LinkedIn

John R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: 

“There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…”

A promotional message for Ember Health.  Safe and effective IV ketamine care for individuals seeking relief from depression. Ember Health's evidence-based, partner-oriented, and patient-centered care model, boasting an 84% treatment success rate with 44% of patients reaching depression remission. It also mentions their extensive experience with over 40,000 infusions and treatment of more than 2,500 patients, including veterans, first responders, and individuals with anxiety and PTSD

John Boyd’s Conceptual Spiral was originally titled “No Way Out.” In his words:

Download a complete transcript of Conceptual Spiral for free by clicking here.

Stay connected with No Way Out and The Whirl Of ReOrientation

• Follow Us onX:
  • @NoWayOutcast
  • @PonchAGLX
  • @NoWayOutMoose
• Subscribe to our Substack – The Whirl Of ReOrientation
  • Long-form work on John Boyd, Orientation, and how to think and act inside the Guerrilla Information War.

Want to build your organization’s capacity for free and independent action?See how we help teams become more competitive, collaborative, and coordinated under pressure:

• AGLX
• AGLX Yo...

Send us a text

Dive deep into the intersections of John Boyd's OODA loop, emergence, and the nature of reality in this mind-expanding episode of No Way Out. Hosts Ponch and Moose (Mark) welcome patent attorney and author Luiz von Paumgartten, whose book The Abstractionist's Papers (freely available at WelcomeToTheBlueSpace.com) reveals profound connections between Boyd's work and concepts like meaning vs. happening, red space (the mind's interpretive world) and blue space (raw reality), orthogonality, paradoxes, and flow states.

Your mind’s map isn’t the world—it’s a living system that generates meaning from signals crossing a boundary we often miss: light, where inputs transform along neural pathways into interpretations. Luiz shares his journey from personal disruption to creating practical maps for navigating uncertainty, drawing parallels to OODA's Orientation—not a step, but the engine shaping perception, prediction, and action. We explore orthogonality (inside and outside on different planes), how paradoxes are gaps between interpretations and expectations (closed by reinterpreting, updating, or revising rules), and why novelty emerges when the cost of carrying mismatches exceeds reconfiguring orientation. Ties to Boyd’s Destruction and Creation, the free energy principle’s drive to minimize surprise, Eastern philosophy (li

John R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: 

“There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…”

A promotional message for Ember Health.  Safe and effective IV ketamine care for individuals seeking relief from depression. Ember Health's evidence-based, partner-oriented, and patient-centered care model, boasting an 84% treatment success rate with 44% of patients reaching depression remission. It also mentions their extensive experience with over 40,000 infusions and treatment of more than 2,500 patients, including veterans, first responders, and individuals with anxiety and PTSD

John Boyd’s Conceptual Spiral was originally titled “No Way Out.” In his words:

Download a complete transcript of Conceptual Spiral for free by clicking here.

Stay connected with No Way Out and The Whirl Of ReOrientation

• Follow Us onX:
  • @NoWayOutcast
  • @PonchAGLX
  • @NoWayOutMoose
• Subscribe to our Substack – The Whirl Of ReOrientation
  • Long-form work on John Boyd, Orientation, and how to think and act inside the Guerrilla Information War.

Want to build your organization’s capacity for free and independent action?See how we help teams become more competitive, collaborative, and coordinated under pressure:

• AGLX
• AGLX Yo...

Send us a text

Most investors want comfort. We make the case for discomfort. This conversation dives into trend following as a rule-based way to survive chaotic markets, mapped directly to John Boyd’s OODA Loop and the culture that made the Turtle Traders relentless. Instead of worshiping smooth curves and tidy narratives, we focus on process: cut losses fast, let winners run, and treat volatility as information rather than injury.

With Jerry Parker and Mike Melissinos, we unpack what makes trend following so hard and so effective. Jerry traces the original Turtle training, where doing the right thing while losing in the short term was rewarded—a culture almost no client environment tolerates. Mike explains why “volatility management” often disguises feelings management, and how redefining risk as the chance of permanent loss changes everything from position sizing to patience. Together, we explore orientation—how beliefs shape what you see—and why a 40 percent win rate can still compound if your payoff distribution catches outliers.

Jerry Parker on X: @rjpjr12
Jerry Parker on Linkedin

Mike Melissinos on LinkedIn:
Melissinos Trading

John R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: 

“There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…”

A promotional message for Ember Health.  Safe and effective IV ketamine care for individuals seeking relief from depression. Ember Health's evidence-based, partner-oriented, and patient-centered care model, boasting an 84% treatment success rate with 44% of patients reaching depression remission. It also mentions their extensive experience with over 40,000 infusions and treatment of more than 2,500 patients, including veterans, first responders, and individuals with anxiety and PTSD

John Boyd’s Conceptual Spiral was originally titled “No Way Out.” In his words:

Download a complete transcript of Conceptual Spiral for free by clicking here.

Stay connected with No Way Out and The Whirl Of ReOrientation

• Follow Us onX:
  • @NoWayOutcast
  • @PonchAGLX
  • @NoWayOutMoose
• Subscribe to our Substack – The Whirl Of ReOrientation
  • Long-form work on John Boyd, Orientation, and how to think and act inside the Guerrilla Information War.

Want to build your organization’s capacity for free and independent action?See how we help teams become more competitive, collaborative, and coordinated under pressure:

• AGLX
• AGLX Yo...

Send us a text

In this profound episode of No Way Out, hosts Moose and Ponch sit down with Dr. Mihaela Ulieru – robotics pioneer, AI ethics advisor, and governance expert – for a mind-expanding conversation that bridges military strategy, morality, technology, and consciousness.

Drawing from her Romanian roots and personal experiences during the 1989 Revolution, Dr. Mihaela explores how the OODA loop can either trap us in dependency or propel us toward true human flourishing. The discussion dives deep into the moral stack (morality, ethics, justice) needed to prevent system capture by "takers," the isolating effects of modern media and AI on human connectivity, and why society often rewards extractive behaviors over creative "makers."

They unpack historical lessons from Vietnam and Romania, the cypherpunk dream of digital freedom, epigenetics, plant-based medicine for expanding consciousness, and the potential of collective intent, telepathy, and universal patterns in shaping reality.

Mindplex Podcast
SingularityNET

John R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: 

“There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…”

A promotional message for Ember Health.  Safe and effective IV ketamine care for individuals seeking relief from depression. Ember Health's evidence-based, partner-oriented, and patient-centered care model, boasting an 84% treatment success rate with 44% of patients reaching depression remission. It also mentions their extensive experience with over 40,000 infusions and treatment of more than 2,500 patients, including veterans, first responders, and individuals with anxiety and PTSD

John Boyd’s Conceptual Spiral was originally titled “No Way Out.” In his words:

Download a complete transcript of Conceptual Spiral for free by clicking here.

Stay connected with No Way Out and The Whirl Of ReOrientation

• Follow Us onX:
  • @NoWayOutcast
  • @PonchAGLX
  • @NoWayOutMoose
• Subscribe to our Substack – The Whirl Of ReOrientation
  • Long-form work on John Boyd, Orientation, and how to think and act inside the Guerrilla Information War.

Want to build your organization’s capacity for free and independent action?See how we help teams become more competitive, collaborative, and coordinated under pressure:

• AGLX
• AGLX Yo...

Send us a text

Explore the authentic OODA loop with Jon Becker on No Way Out Podcast – John Boyd's strategies for tactical leadership and decision making

Fresh off Mark “Moose” McGrath’s viral appearance on The Debrief (where the internet lost its mind over authentic OODA), we flip the script: Jon Becker — CEO of Aardvark Tactical and host of the top-rated tactical podcast The Debrief — comes to No Way Out for the highly requested return match.

Together with co-hosts Mark McGrath and Brian “Ponch” Rivera, Jon pulls back the curtain on what really happened when Moose flew to California and spent two days dismantling the “linear OODA loop” myth in front of Jon and a room full of California’s top tactical leaders.

In this episode you’ll discover:

• Why orientation — not speed — is what actually wins (and kills)
• How Jon’s entire worldview on Boyd shifted overnight
• The moment a room of alpha SWAT commanders realized they’d been teaching OODA wrong for decades
• Destruction & Creation explained simply (and why almost nobody talking about OODA has actually read it)
• Real-world examples: Blockbuster vs Netflix, Toyota Kaizen, AI thought bubbles, and why your team’s implicit biases are quietly sabotaging every decision
• The Socratic “no-slide-deck” method that turned skeptics into believers in under five h

John R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: 

“There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…”

A promotional message for Ember Health.  Safe and effective IV ketamine care for individuals seeking relief from depression. Ember Health's evidence-based, partner-oriented, and patient-centered care model, boasting an 84% treatment success rate with 44% of patients reaching depression remission. It also mentions their extensive experience with over 40,000 infusions and treatment of more than 2,500 patients, including veterans, first responders, and individuals with anxiety and PTSD

John Boyd’s Conceptual Spiral was originally titled “No Way Out.” In his words:

Download a complete transcript of Conceptual Spiral for free by clicking here.

Stay connected with No Way Out and The Whirl Of ReOrientation

• Follow Us onX:
  • @NoWayOutcast
  • @PonchAGLX
  • @NoWayOutMoose
• Subscribe to our Substack – The Whirl Of ReOrientation
  • Long-form work on John Boyd, Orientation, and how to think and act inside the Guerrilla Information War.

Want to build your organization’s capacity for free and independent action?See how we help teams become more competitive, collaborative, and coordinated under pressure:

• AGLX
• AGLX Yo...

Send us a text

What if the maps we’re all using are lying to us?

In this episode we yank the curtain back and connect the dots most shows leave scattered: 

• The “devouring mother” vs. “tyrannical father” archetypes now fighting for control of America’s soul 
• How printed money and $38 trillion in debt quietly tax you every single day 
• Why a household “poverty line” just hit $140k in parts of the country — and why almost nobody wants to admit it 
• Healthcare’s textbook death spiral: community rating, third-party payer distortion, Medicare price floors, and the cartel that profits from it 
• China’s century-of-humiliation memory, Belt & Road resource grabs, fentanyl pipelines, and why their planners think in 50-year chunks while we argue in 24-hour cycles 
• The OODA loop as the antidote to mass psychology, narrative warfare, and orientation collapse

Three Gen Xers — Mark, Ponch, and Max Borders (Underthrow) — refuse to treat these as separate stories. Instead we stitch them into one coherent picture of unrestricted decline and show you exactly where the leverage points still exist.

If you’ve ever felt the system is rigged but couldn’t quite name how, this conversation hands you the mental models to see it clearly — and the agency to do something about it.

Watch or listen now. Then send it to the one friend who still thinks inflation is “transitory.”

John R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: 

“There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…”

A promotional message for Ember Health.  Safe and effective IV ketamine care for individuals seeking relief from depression. Ember Health's evidence-based, partner-oriented, and patient-centered care model, boasting an 84% treatment success rate with 44% of patients reaching depression remission. It also mentions their extensive experience with over 40,000 infusions and treatment of more than 2,500 patients, including veterans, first responders, and individuals with anxiety and PTSD

John Boyd’s Conceptual Spiral was originally titled “No Way Out.” In his words:

Download a complete transcript of Conceptual Spiral for free by clicking here.

Stay connected with No Way Out and The Whirl Of ReOrientation

• Follow Us onX:
  • @NoWayOutcast
  • @PonchAGLX
  • @NoWayOutMoose
• Subscribe to our Substack – The Whirl Of ReOrientation
  • Long-form work on John Boyd, Orientation, and how to think and act inside the Guerrilla Information War.

Want to build your organization’s capacity for free and independent action?See how we help teams become more competitive, collaborative, and coordinated under pressure:

• AGLX
• AGLX Yo...