About

My name is Chris Irwin. I'm an entrepreneur, musician, and Navy SEAL veteran, among other things. After serving in the military, I co-founded the first CrossFit gym in the Virgin Islands, served as president of Kill Cliff (a start-up beverage company) for five years, and now work as the communications director for the Navy SEAL Foundation. My music includes the soundtrack for the documentary Murph: The Protector, which made the shortlist for the Academy Awards in 2013. I've also been to over forty countries. So I like to think I have a unique perspective on things.

Generally speaking, I tend to be an outlier. I was the only person in a decade from my high school to attend the Naval Academy. I then received a Master's in International Relations from the University of Cambridge in England, a somewhat unusual move for most service academy graduates. And despite making the Navy a career, I've always been a liberal (in the classical sense) amongst a sea of primarily conservatives. However, I don't subscribe to any political party.

I'm also someone who suffered from severe anxiety, OCD, PTSD, as well as a devastating chronic illness for a very long time. I spent years trying to figure out how to heal myself from these conditions. This was, without a doubt, the most challenging thing I've ever done in my life and, in many ways, the most rewarding and impactful.

In my mid-40s, I decided to start publicly sharing my thoughts on a myriad of topics for four specific reasons:

We are plagued by increasing mental health problems and chronic illnesses, especially among veterans like me. Solutions to these epidemics should come from the accredited and the afflicted. We must set an example by shamelessly disclosing our struggles and lessons learned in real-time.
We are trading our commitment to what's right for profit. Rational, honor-bound people have to speak up and inspire others to do the same, or liars and sycophants will dominate public discourse. We must reaffirm the championing of honor, courage, humility, and charity and do so loudly.
We are getting dumber, increasingly prone to believing anything our smartphones and our 24-hour news channel of choice pitch at us. These media mediums understand our proclivities better than we do and are purely interested in appealing to our emotions instead of our intellect. We must be more intelligent than this.
We are being driven farther apart by physical isolation and ideological tribalism. We cannot be historically akin to those that stood at the precipice of the fall of the Roman Empire as Western democracy collapses around us. We must find some semblance of radical common ground to support the common good.

It's been tough for me to come up with a concise way to present my thoughts on these topics. I don't dig personal branding, but This Chris Irwin has mainly been a matter of necessity. I needed a digital signature so you know it's me. However, Chris Irwin alone is too common of a name to use as a social media handle or URL. I share it with a famous racecar driver, a famous horse trainer, and other musicians (like me), to name a few. But I don't want to be someone who uses a pseudonym. Nor will I stoop to the moral cowardice of publishing things anonymously. Adding "This" to the front of my name solves the problem. It also offers me the pleasure of throwing a lexical jab at people who brand themselves as The XYZ or The Real XYZ, which always struck me as such a strangely self-absorbed way of saying, "I'm the most important person that happened to be given this name." So, This Chris Irwin is essentially a personal brand that's making fun of personal branding. Plus, it rhymes…

To be clear, it's the ideas I'm putting forth that matter, not me. We are far too concerned with our own recognition these days instead of advancing what we believe is noble and valuable. While credibility matters, good or bad advice can come from anyone. Which means the person saying the words is largely irrelevant in most cases. Any concept should stand or fall on its inherent merits (or lack thereof), regardless of who expresses it. To that point, the central idea that I'm promoting is something I call RARE SENSE.

During my chronic mental and physical illness journey, I saw dozens of practitioners, ingested hundreds of different supplements, racked up nearly 400 pages of lab results, read countless books, tried all sorts of unorthodox treatments, and spent tens of thousands of dollars out-of-pocket. It was an experience that taught me one critical lesson---the extent to which many of the solutions to my problems were within the power of my mind. RARE SENSE represents the application of that key learning into a comprehensive mind fitness model based upon the best practices I've found.

I'm also available to discuss this concept with companies, teams, and other groups. If that's of interest to you, please contact me. Just note that one of the things I don't discuss is specifics from my time in the military. I'm grateful and honored to have served as a member of the SEAL community, and I have a profound respect for the ethos upon which it stands, which is why I'm not willing to tell war stories. Please go elsewhere if you want to hear tales of spent brass and grenade pins. I find such behavior dishonorable and contrary to the principles I am trying to espouse.

Lastly, feel free to check out my original music. These songs are primarily about veteran themes, including loyalty, losing teammates, mental health struggles, and other topics. They are not as mainstream as others that deal with similar topics, but I think they come from a place of authenticity that isn't always present in popular media.

Ultimately everything I do traces back to the following personal mantra I wrote in 2021. Doing so proved far more complicated than I had anticipated, but also one of the most transformative and clarifying exercises of my entire life. It helped me realize what I truly value and make it actionable.

Do not fear living, nor forget to laugh at such a fate.

Through this content, I hope to provoke some crucial conversations and help people. Thanks for stopping by and listening to what I have to say.