Team Never Quit Kaj Larsen: Inside the Life of a Navy SEAL Turned Journalist, Exploring Media, Entrepreneurship, & Veteran Success
Sep 24, 2025
01:31:25
Kaj Larsen: From Navy SEAL to Groundbreaking Journalist
This week on the Team Never Quit Podcast, Marcus and Melanie welcome an extraordinary guest whose life reads like an action thriller—Kaj Larsen. Born in Santa Cruz, California, Kaj earned his Political Science degree from UC Santa Cruz and went on to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government for a master’s in Public Policy, where he was a Shorenstein Center fellow and a joint fellow at Tufts Jebsen Center for Counter-Terrorism Studies.
Kaj’s journey is anything but ordinary. Before breaking stories on global conflict zones, he served five years on active duty as a U.S. Navy SEAL Lieutenant leading special operations overseas. He continues to serve in the SEAL reserves with U.S. Special Operations Command.
As an award-winning filmmaker and journalist, Kaj has reported from some of the most dangerous places on earth—Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and beyond—producing groundbreaking documentaries on terrorism, national security, and humanitarian crises. He’s been a senior correspondent at NowThis News, hosted the Emmy Award-winning VICE on HBO, and developed the Vanguard Journalism series for Current TV. Kaj made headlines for being the first journalist to bring waterboarding to public attention—by undergoing it himself on camera—and for breaking media silence in Mogadishu as the first Western TV journalist there in over a decade.
Outside the newsroom, Kaj is a two-time national open-water swimming champion, an Escape from Alcatraz duathlon competitor, and a dedicated practitioner of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai boxing. His commitment to service extends beyond reporting: he co-founded The Mission Continues and serves on the boards of Team Rubicon Global and other veteran service organizations, deploying for humanitarian missions around the world.
Join us as Kaj shares stories from his remarkable career—what it takes to tell the truth from the frontlines, the lessons learned from military service and global reporting, and why resilience and service are at the heart of his mission.
Tune in for a gripping, behind-the-scenes look at a life dedicated to serving, reporting, and making an impact on a global scale.
In this episode you will hear:
• [COVID} Here’s a crisis that is about health, and you’re shutting down wellness. (7:10)
• Murph was my roommate when I first got to BUD/S. He’s the first person I met. (32:04)
• The thing that got me through was the old “I guess you just have to do it.” (37:12)
• Your inner monologue and how you talk to yourself is the only thing that gets you through. (38:34)
• Everybody wants to be a frog man on a sunny day. (38:52)
• You gotta be careful who you surround yourself with, because cowardice is contagious. (42:37)
• I could cover any story I wanted, anywhere in the world. Anything I thought was important. (60:52)
• I was always working on helping veterans (62:56)
• Purpose maters. (64:09)
• The real truth is the greatest and most consistent ways for Americans to build wealth over the last 50 years has been investing in the stock market. (66:22)
• A lot of people don’t understand the concept of compound interest. (77:40)
• We’re the greatest economy the world has ever seen. (82:26)
Support Kaj:
www.kajlarsen.com
- Tactical Wealth podcast
- IG: Kajlarsen
Support TNQ
- IG: team_neverquit , marcusluttrell , melanieluttrell , huntero13
- https://www.patreon.com/teamneverquit
Sponsors:
- Navyfederal.org
- meetfabiric.com/TNQ
- masterclass.com/TNQ
- Prizepicks (TNQ)
- Dripdrop.com/TNQ
- cargurus.com/TNQ
- armslist.com/TNQ
- PXGapparel.com/TNQ
- bruntworkwear.com/TNQ
- Selectquote.com/TNQ
- Groundnews.com/TNQ
- shipsticks.com/TNQ
- strawberry.me/TNQ
- stopboxusa.com {TNQ}
- ghostbed.com/TNQ [TNQ]
- kalshi.com/TNQ
- joinbilt.com/TNQ
- Tonal.com [TNQ]
- greenlight.com/TNQ
- PDSDebt.com/TNQ
- drinkAG1.com/TNQ
- Shadyrays.com [TNQ]
- qualialife.com/TNQ [TNQ]
- Hims.com/TNQ
- Shopify.com/TNQ
- Aura.com/TNQ
- TAKELEAN.com [TNQ]
- usejoymode.com [TNQ]
This week on the Team Never Quit Podcast, Marcus and Melanie welcome an extraordinary guest whose life reads like an action thriller—Kaj Larsen. Born in Santa Cruz, California, Kaj earned his Political Science degree from UC Santa Cruz and went on to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government for a master’s in Public Policy, where he was a Shorenstein Center fellow and a joint fellow at Tufts Jebsen Center for Counter-Terrorism Studies.
Kaj’s journey is anything but ordinary. Before breaking stories on global conflict zones, he served five years on active duty as a U.S. Navy SEAL Lieutenant leading special operations overseas. He continues to serve in the SEAL reserves with U.S. Special Operations Command.
As an award-winning filmmaker and journalist, Kaj has reported from some of the most dangerous places on earth—Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and beyond—producing groundbreaking documentaries on terrorism, national security, and humanitarian crises. He’s been a senior correspondent at NowThis News, hosted the Emmy Award-winning VICE on HBO, and developed the Vanguard Journalism series for Current TV. Kaj made headlines for being the first journalist to bring waterboarding to public attention—by undergoing it himself on camera—and for breaking media silence in Mogadishu as the first Western TV journalist there in over a decade.
Outside the newsroom, Kaj is a two-time national open-water swimming champion, an Escape from Alcatraz duathlon competitor, and a dedicated practitioner of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai boxing. His commitment to service extends beyond reporting: he co-founded The Mission Continues and serves on the boards of Team Rubicon Global and other veteran service organizations, deploying for humanitarian missions around the world.
Join us as Kaj shares stories from his remarkable career—what it takes to tell the truth from the frontlines, the lessons learned from military service and global reporting, and why resilience and service are at the heart of his mission.
Tune in for a gripping, behind-the-scenes look at a life dedicated to serving, reporting, and making an impact on a global scale.
In this episode you will hear:
• [COVID} Here’s a crisis that is about health, and you’re shutting down wellness. (7:10)
• Murph was my roommate when I first got to BUD/S. He’s the first person I met. (32:04)
• The thing that got me through was the old “I guess you just have to do it.” (37:12)
• Your inner monologue and how you talk to yourself is the only thing that gets you through. (38:34)
• Everybody wants to be a frog man on a sunny day. (38:52)
• You gotta be careful who you surround yourself with, because cowardice is contagious. (42:37)
• I could cover any story I wanted, anywhere in the world. Anything I thought was important. (60:52)
• I was always working on helping veterans (62:56)
• Purpose maters. (64:09)
• The real truth is the greatest and most consistent ways for Americans to build wealth over the last 50 years has been investing in the stock market. (66:22)
• A lot of people don’t understand the concept of compound interest. (77:40)
• We’re the greatest economy the world has ever seen. (82:26)
Support Kaj:
www.kajlarsen.com
- Tactical Wealth podcast
- IG: Kajlarsen
Support TNQ
- IG: team_neverquit , marcusluttrell , melanieluttrell , huntero13
- https://www.patreon.com/teamneverquit
Sponsors:
- Navyfederal.org
- meetfabiric.com/TNQ
- masterclass.com/TNQ
- Prizepicks (TNQ)
- Dripdrop.com/TNQ
- cargurus.com/TNQ
- armslist.com/TNQ
- PXGapparel.com/TNQ
- bruntworkwear.com/TNQ
- Selectquote.com/TNQ
- Groundnews.com/TNQ
- shipsticks.com/TNQ
- strawberry.me/TNQ
- stopboxusa.com {TNQ}
- ghostbed.com/TNQ [TNQ]
- kalshi.com/TNQ
- joinbilt.com/TNQ
- Tonal.com [TNQ]
- greenlight.com/TNQ
- PDSDebt.com/TNQ
- drinkAG1.com/TNQ
- Shadyrays.com [TNQ]
- qualialife.com/TNQ [TNQ]
- Hims.com/TNQ
- Shopify.com/TNQ
- Aura.com/TNQ
- TAKELEAN.com [TNQ]
- usejoymode.com [TNQ]