What does it actually cost to take the road less traveled — and what do you get back?

In this episode, I sit down with my Amherst classmate Blake Murphey: liberal arts kid, former finance intern, and US Navy intelligence officer of 13 years. Blake’s career reads like something out of a novel — aircraft carrier Intel cells in the Persian Gulf, supporting a SEAL Team deployment in East Africa, NATO in Sicily (yes, on the slopes of Mount Etna), the Pentagon, and now working alongside the people who literally defuse bombs for a living.

But what strikes me most isn’t the résumé. It’s how Blake thinks about time — not as a backdrop to ambition, but as the whole point.

We wander through the invisible curriculum of elite college culture: why so many brilliant people funnel into finance (spoiler: it’s not just the money), what it actually felt like to leave that path, and what 13 years of high-pressure intelligence work teaches you about staying present when your amygdala is running the show.

We also talk about the song Blake sings in his head when everything goes blank under pressure. It’s Bob Seger. It works. And honestly, it makes complete sense.

This is a conversation about the stories we inherit about success and the courage it takes to write a different one.

In this episode:

The “default path” trap at elite colleges — and why it’s gotten more extreme

Finance to the Navy: what a quarter-life crisis in London actually looks like

Life as a Navy Intel officer: aircraft carriers, SEAL teams, East Africa, NATO, the Pentagon

Working with EOD (the bomb defusal community) — and what extreme stress teaches you about your own mind

Breath work, sports psychologists, and the Bob Seger method for resetting under pressure

Why time — not titles, not money — is the only non-renewable resource

“Do it now. You don’t know what life looks like down the road.”

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