Will Chesney — Reintegrating as a Combat Veteran, Surviving a Traumatic Brain Injury and Transcending an Old Identity

I kind of just woke up and it was me again at one point during the weekend. I know I was a SEAL and everybody always says, oh, we can't relate to what you've gone through, but everybody has trauma. Life's hard sometimes, right? Life's good, but life's hard. Everybody deals with trauma no matter what.

Welcome to The Art of Accomplishment, where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease. I'm Brett Kistler, here today with my co-host Joe Hudson. So Will is a, he's a retired Navy SEAL who I met in a program that was working with, working with SEALs who had suffered traumatic brain injury and other psychological traumas from, from war and from just anything else related to that kind of a lifestyle. And, uh, Will served in the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group. Uh, as an operator and dog handler, he was on the bin Laden raid.

Okay, wait, what is that thing that you just mentioned? The special—

the opera?

Oh, that's me reading off of his author, uh, bio.

What does that mean?

Um, yeah, Will, what is that?

Yeah, basically SEAL Team Six.

Okay, all right, that's like the badasses of the badasses, right? Like, that's like—

takes a lot to be a SEAL alone, and then you have to go through a certain amount of extra training to actually make it to be selected to go there as well. So it's quite, quite the task, yeah, to say the least.

Yeah, yeah. And other, other notable information here, you were on the bin Laden raid with your dog Cairo, who joined you on hundreds of missions.

That is correct. I was the dog handler on the bin Laden raid with Cairo. Yeah, that's what I wrote the book about, An Ordinary Dog.

Yeah, what kind of breed was it?

He was a Belgian Malinois. Oh wow, it's kind of like a German Shepherd.

Yeah, ish.

Yeah, shorter hair, a little more agile, a little, a little smaller. The Shepherds are like 100, 120 pounds, you know, they get pretty big. We skydive with them, we fast rope, we gotta hoist them up walls, we got to carry them, you know. It's so— having a 120-pound Shepherd, or the Mals are 60 to 70, you know, they're a little bit lighter, shorter hair. We work in hot environments, so you don't need your dogs getting heat stroke. Just, it's beneficial.

Wow. Do they have that kind of sloped back, like shorter hind leg thing that the German Shepherds do?

Yeah, I think the Shepherds have problems with their hips. Um, I don't think Mals have that same issue. I could be wrong on that, but Mals are a little different breed. I think they have a little more energy. I mean, there's nothing wrong with Shepherds. Shepherds are really smart dogs and yeah, they're amazing. But those Mals, they're really athletic. There's some, there's some monsters.

All right, cool. Yep.

Okay.

That's, I'm sure, not what we're talking about today.

If you're a bad guy hiding, they're going to find you. They're going to get to you no matter what. Yeah. They'll die trying.

Let's see if we can make it through the bio now.

Right?

Was that it? Was that the whole bio?

I mean, there's more. I mean, he's also got a Silver Star and a Purple Heart, which I think is definitely worth mentioning. The context in which we met is interesting, um, which was in working with veterans who were, who had suffered neurological trauma and psychological trauma. And using various modalities and methods to, to work with them. Like, Will had told me some of his story. He had, after I think, what was it, 13 years in the service, you came out and dropped into a really dark place, which is just very common for people who are reintegrating to civilian life after just a very, very different lifestyle. It's been very hard on their bodies and, you know, their, their spirit. And Your journey back from this was just incredibly profound for me because I remember the first day that I met you was like the first day after like a treatment weekend you had been through. And it was at a social event and you were kind of quiet and sort of hanging in the corner. And the friend who had brought you was like, yeah, this is his first time at a social event since I've ever met him. And then I didn't see you until 4 months later and you were helping run this retreat. And it took me several days hanging out with you to even recognize that you were the same person. And you had like pulled yourself out of this dark place and you had like made a lot of progress. You'd written your book. So, you know, in this time right now, giving some context on the, the time of recording right now, we just had the whole Russia invasion of Ukraine happen a couple of days ago. This is a very different kind of interview than we have done in the past, and maybe this is timely to bring, bring some of this kind of perspective in from somebody who's been through a lot of darkness that isn't just the kind of darkness you might get as a CEO running through, outrunning your runway and trying to please investors, but a very different kind of difficult experience. And you've been through it and you've integrated it. And so that's really what I'm here to— what I'm interested in talking with you about today.

Yeah, no, that's, that's definitely— I was in a very dark place getting out of the Navy. I did 13 years. You're correct on that. I was medically retired after 13 years. I was, um, joined the Navy right after high school, so I didn't have any— I worked with my father building cell phone communication towers for a few months, and I left to join the Navy right after high school just to spend some time with them. And made it through BUD/S, no problem. BUD/S is Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training, so that's the 6-7 month selection process just to become a SEAL. I made it through that. It was, uh, I go— I grew up in Southeast Texas, in a trailer park in Southeast Texas. It was a nicer trailer park, but it was still a trailer park. So I go from that, couldn't wait to get out of there. There's not much around where I grew up unless you like drinking or drugs. So I had to get out of the trailer park. And I show up to a beautiful beach in Coronado, California with a bunch of great guys. And basically you just have to get your nuts kicked in and you get to stick around. And it was all the things that I wanted to do or was aspiring to do. You get to shoot guns and blow things up and dive. You just have to get through this selection process. And don't get me wrong, it was very hard, but it was— I made some of the best friends I've ever made in my life. To this day, I mean, even once I made it through BUD/S and got to my team and going to war with some people, I, I still have those friends, but I made a really tight group of friends in BUD/S. Made it through BUD/S, no issues. I went to SEAL Team 4 where I spent a few years there. I deployed to Iraq and South America. After that, I was selected to go to Development Group. I made it. I squeaked by, made it through Development Group. That's a very hard process. It's like, uh, it's like going through BUD/S all over again for a bunch of Navy SEALs. So they already— they know you're not going to quit. You've already proven that you have what it takes to be a SEAL. So it's more performance-based. It's all performance-based. They still beat you, is what we call it, make you do runs and physical exercise until you're almost dead, but that's just the stressor they put on you because you're not— they're not really going to shoot at you or put you in a near-death situation. So the best they can do is scream at you, push the physical limits to the, to the most that they can, and then put you in these really hard circumstances where if you're in the position to save an American hostage or any hostage, then you can actually perform under pressure. Basically, if you have what it takes to, to think calmly and smoothly under the most extreme circumstances basically. And I made it through that without too many issues.

What was the trick you learned there? What was the way that you learned how to— I mean, you might not even be able to describe it, but like how to think calmly and smoothly, as you put it. Just that word smoothly is just so brilliant as far as I'm concerned. And how did you learn how to think smoothly under intense pressure? What was the trick?

I'm assuming the same thing you do when you're wingsuiting or whatever, uh, you're under a life or death situation, you just breathe and you go into your happy place, you get into the flow, I guess. Yeah, nothing else really matters. Um, I remember even in BUD/S, you're sitting in that ice cold water and they want— I mean, they have tests to make sure nobody's going to die, but they push it to the brink of hypothermia. Some guys do get hypothermia. So you're just sitting locked arms in the surf with the waves crashing over your head and Coronado, so that water is always chilly. And, um, same thing there. It's not physical, but it's just you're not doing anything, you're just laying there being cold. But what did I do? I go in my happy place and I would breathe and then just try to— yeah, and anything else that got all that stress related, I would still just breathe and just try to get in the zone, try to get in the flow and just focus. Nothing else is important. If you stress out about it too much, it's just going to fall apart. Stressing out never helps anybody, right?

Sounds like one of the things you're doing is you're getting out of your head and into your body for that. Is that— that's my interpretation of what you just said. How am I wrong or right about that?

Yeah, you're just not letting the outside factors— she's not letting that stress get to you. You're just staying calm. Like, if you can keep my heart rate— it's actually one of the things, uh, you just keep your heart rate nice and low to where you can think still. If you freak out, you're just going to fail. You're just going to get somebody killed in the long run. So if you can think, yeah, I guess it's paying attention to your body.

Yeah. Cool.

Something I'm really curious about that this might be skipping ahead a little bit, but what you just described is going through, going through BUD/S and then going through like Team Six training. All of these things are something that you had to have this, I'm not going to quit-ness about you. You had this grit, you had this drive, you knew how to get into flow, you knew how to persevere through it. And then you went through this period after the service where just going back to civilian life, all of that seemed to crash. And this seems to be something that's just really interesting for people who are really high performers, is that sometimes, sometimes we go through these periods of that we've really got it, got it together in the sense that we are connected to ourselves and we're in flow. And then sometimes we just feel like we've fallen entirely off the train. And you've gone there and then come back. So I'm curious What was it that if you had this flow that got you through the trainings and got you through 13 years with the service, what was it that switched off or what was it that changed?

There's multiple factors that went into it. I think I got some brain injuries along the way. I poured alcohol on top of the brain injuries, loss of friends. You know about that. It's very— pouring alcohol. I mean, I don't like to use the word PTSD, but I do miss a lot of my friends that we lost. And pouring alcohol on top of that definitely does not help. So brain injury, alcohol, loss of friends, and just stop— I stopped growing as a person. Like, once I got— that's where the ego comes into play. Like, I had made it to the pinnacle. I had thought I had made it to the pinnacle, and I just kind of started partying more and drinking more and stopped caring as much, I guess, about my personal growth. And I'd see all my friends, they were doing multiple college courses, they were going to become team leaders. Basically bosses in our command. They're like raising a family, running trips, getting their black belt in jiu-jitsu or whatever, you know, they're growing. And I was just drinking and living off of my past accomplishments, I guess. I think that's accumulation. I don't think I felt like the same person either, but I think the brain injury definitely had an effect, especially right after I was blown up in 2012 by a hand grenade in Afghanistan. And after that, just things weren't exactly the same. I mean, I was still able to function somewhat, but my— I started getting migraines. The memory loss was really bad. Before, when we were talking about going through BUD/S, I mean, I was 18, I was 17 when I left for the Navy. I didn't know I was getting into flow. I was just doing whatever I thought made sense. And you would have had to kill me to leave. I mean, if my— we had one guy in our class where his hip ball broke in half. And there's nothing he can do. He was done. Like, he will never become a SEAL. And if that was my case, then it is what it is. It's not in my hands. It's, you know, it's in God's hands. But I mean, if I would have died, if I would have fallen off the obstacle course and broken my neck, I would have been completely content with it. I just— there's no other place that I wanted to be. I wanted to be there, and I was going to give it 100%, everything I had. And if I died along the way or something that impeded me from making it, that was fine. But I wasn't going I wasn't going to quit. I just couldn't do it. It's just not me. And there's nothing wrong with the guys that did quit. There's nothing wrong with that. We have guys that quit and come back and complete it later. We have guys that— that job is not for everybody, that's for sure. But it was everything I wanted to do. There's nothing else I want to do with my life. I wasn't going to school. I said I'd go back to the trailer park and do drugs, but that didn't sound very fun to me. I'm good. There's nothing else I want to do. I wasn't going to go to school. There's nothing I want— didn't want to become a doctor, lawyer, or anything, you know. There's nothing that I I would have failed at school. There's just nothing that I— but being a SEAL, that's all I ever wanted, you know. I was going to give it 100%.

So it sounds like when you retired, there was a, like, a major loss of identity there.

Oh dude, that's my family. Like, I have my family back here in Texas, but that was— I care more about the people that I served with than some of my family members. Not all of my family, but I mean, if it— just as much as my family members I do care about. And there's some family members that I I haven't talked to and I don't care to talk to, you know? So that was my family. That was my life. That was me. So yeah, going from that, I mean, I got to be on some of the coolest missions, some of the most well-known missions. I was on the Captain Phillips raid. I got to partake in that. I didn't take any of the shots or anything, but I still got to go on it. And I got to be on the bin Laden mission and I got to the pinnacle of my career. So I was up here and then going from that, suffering the brain injury, and fast forward a couple of years after I got blown up, I was moving back in with my parents and I couldn't hold down a job. I was drinking myself to death. I was 250+ pounds. And I just, I couldn't, I couldn't wrap my brain, my mind around what was going on because it was my mind that was messed up to some extent. I mean, don't get me wrong, there was booze on top of that and me feeling sorry for myself and other factors. The brain injury was definitely a big factor. I remember sitting at my mom's house and just, I was drinking a lot and I remember staring at the wall for like an hour trying to figure out like, what the fuck is going on? Like I went from here and then all of a sudden I'm, I'm at rock bottom. I was just waiting to die. I was slowly drinking myself to death and I had people that I cared about and loved me in my life as just It was quite the fall.

I know the kind of stress that you handled is so different than, say, a CEO, but there's this really interesting study that they did where they took all these CEOs and they put them in a house and they said, "The only thing you can't do is work." And so then they took away the phones and computers, et cetera. And so they just had to hang out with each other. And then at day 3, they brought in a team of psychologists and they said, "Assess these folks and you just can't talk about their work." And the team of psychologists came out and they all said they're depressed. And they're like, "It's a house full of depressed people." And it's something that I see all the time with someone who's been like a high-powered CEO over an extended period of time when that adrenaline fatigue hits, when there's no longer that stimulus, there's like this bottom that they hit. And I've seen some of them like really successful guys who have done crazy stuff in their life sit in their pajamas for a couple years afterwards. Just recovering. Yeah. And they're so hard on themselves because of that, and then that creates a secondary storm of just self-abuse that— or it's feeling sorry for yourself, as you put it.

Definitely went through that. Yeah, it's like— and then finding purpose, like, what do I do now? Now I can't do that job anymore. Yeah, gotta find out— was I— I go from high school with nothing to that, to some of the best guys in the world, best times of my life. I got— I had a pretty cool job at the time, and then all of a sudden I get blown up and My brain doesn't work and I'm fired, basically, you know, like sort of a trifecta there.

You got— you lose your, you lose your job, which is something that your entire being is identified with. And then you, your family, the family that you describe as being linked to that, as well as, you know, your brain injury, just so much of your, your internal resource that got you through to where you were somewhat over the course of 13 years of combat. And then also being blown up by a grenade, like all of this stuff dropping. So now I'm curious, like, what, what was the moment when it started to shift for you? At what point did you start to connect to that resource again? That I'm imagining the same thing that got you through training and through, through all those years, but now like reconnecting to it to pull you out of that dark place that you were in.

I think it was a slow progression out of it. It was a slow progression in and a slow progression out. It was, um, I got out and I started just doing— trying to think of the first medical things I went through. The one that I went to, the Brain Treatment— the Brain Treatment Foundation put me through a program where I did the TMS treatment, which is transcranial magnetic stimulation. It's basically just trying to get your brain to communicate properly. I don't know, I'm going to not do it justice, but it was a very good brain treatment center. That was not the best thing I went through, but I think it was a good start. Went— I was in a really bad place, didn't do anything. Took my best friend reaching out, and I wasn't going to do anything. He reached out to me, he basically wasn't going to go to this place unless I went with him, which convinced me to go with him. And I'm really glad. I feel like that was the first step. And then I started learning about the Wim Hof Method. So I started doing breathing and I started fasting. I think my hormones— so you look at your blood levels and testosterone. I think there's meditating and obviously diet, sleep. I started getting better on my sleep. A couple of entheogenic treatments definitely helped. So I think that was very beneficial for me to go and partake in. I don't think it's a— none of these are one thing that's just going to fix you. I think they all just kind of, looking back at it now, they all just kind of lined up together. I started learning about— I went to that brain treatment center, started learning about breathing and got my diet better. I dropped down from 250 pounds back to basically normal-ish, and then just got my sleep good. And then I started doing all these other treatments and just little by little started to see progression. And, um, definitely nowhere near where I want to be, but I'm still working towards that goal.

Yeah. So something I noticed that is, uh, there's like a couple different levels to track here. One of them is the modalities that you, um, that you went through that you explored to heal yourself. And another level is the mindset shifts that occur. And I noticed one that you just mentioned where it was that your friend was only going to go if you went with him. And that there was, there was something about doing it with your friend that got you across the hump of maybe some kind of learned helplessness of like, nothing's going to work for me, to this can work for me. And I noticed that a lot of times is that the moment we've actually started to believe that we can, that we can go through a process and trust the process and, and transform and grow and heal, that, that actually is like the, a major point in shift. And then the modalities that we do the, the methods that we undertake are less important than that internal shift. Does that resonate with you?

Definitely. I had been through so many treatments getting out of the military, and they'd put me on— nothing against it— I— they did some yoga treatments, and they did a little bit of breathing and a little bit of diet and everything else, but they also did the antidepressants and the migraine medicines and a bunch of the other meds and I'd seen so many doctors and so many therapists and this and that, and a lot of them were just full of shit. I just was over it. So when he reached out to me, I'm like, dude, I'm good, man. I'm just gonna sit in my dark hole at my lake house and I'll be fine. I'm just gonna drink it away. And then obviously that was not the right answer. So I'm really glad he, uh, he told me that because, uh, I remember just thinking like, no, I'm not— I wouldn't even get on a plane. I drove I drove to the treatment center in California because I just wouldn't fly. I didn't want to be around people. I was in a really bad place and nothing— I did not want to leave my house. I just wanted to stay there and drink and seclude. So I was over it. I was over seeing all these doctors. I was over trying all these new things. I'm like, what are you going to do? Give me some more antidepressants? Like, I'm good, man. I had my alcohol.

I have a question for you. There's like a humility that you have in your system right now. And I'm wondering, like, when did that show up? Like, was that something that you learned in SEALs training? Is that something that's happened since the kind of the reconstruction of your life?

I think I've always had that. Always got— you have to be humble to be a SEAL. I let my ego get out of control there for a few years, and I guess I really didn't even really comprehend what my ego was there for a while. I mean, by the time I got out— I'm only 37 now— I was in— I was basically in my 20s, early 30s at the time, and I didn't really understand maybe what the ego was until, until certain treatments really opened that up for me. And looking back on it, man, I'm like, man, I was an asshole. Like, I understand I was a SEAL and I was a— I worked my ass off to get to where I was, and it was a very high position, but I did not let my— I did not need to let my ego get out of control because I stopped growing as a person. I just thought it was, it was all good. I had everything. I knew everything. There's nothing else I need to do. I'm fine. I'm here. I've made it. Yeah. And man, that was a, that was a hard fall. That was a really— it almost took my life.

Two parts of that that I want to follow up on. The first one is just double-click on that sentence. You have to be humble to be a SEAL. What can you explain that? What does that mean?

You won't make it very far. It's not a— it's not Delta Force where it's like Chuck Norris, where you're a one-man show. I'm kidding. All the Delta guys love that. It's teamwork. You can't get caught. It's not— I'm not Chuck Norris. We're not going to do everything by myself, right? It's It's teamwork from day one. That's when you show up to BUD/S, you always have a swim buddy, you have a teammate. And if you are caught without that teammate, you get a safety violation. Enough safety violations, you go away. So from day one, you always have a teammate. So that's just your one teammate. So when you get to the team, you have all of your teammates. It's about the team. It's not about you. When you get done with missions, you, you You take care of the team gear, you take care of your gear, and then you take care of yourself, right? It's always about the team because you're not going to accomplish the mission without the team. And, if you're not humble, you're just going to go away.

So then, you have this idea of the ego that comes in later. And, on some level, it seems like that humility to make it through SEALs is a partial deterioration of the ego, but then somehow or another in your definition of the ego, it's like it remanifested as like I'm finished.

Yeah, once I got to a certain level in my career, it's like, I made it through BUD/S, I made it through this training, I made it through here, I've been through all these schools, I've been on these missions, I've been— yeah, yeah.

I see this all the time, not just in like career moves, but you see that with CEOs and they feel like they're finished, they're done. Like, you, you see their progress slump, if not deteriorate. And you see it with people who are like looking after awakening as well, like who are searching for like spiritual awakening. When they think they're done, you can see like the corrosion that occurs. And the best story I have on this, which I thought was really cool, was I was listening to like one of the world's best cricket players. And I shake my head 'cause I'm like, people watch cricket? I don't know what that's like. But I like this guy. And he was talking, and he was talking, and he was basically saying his career went like straight up skyrocketed and then went straight down and then straight up again. And somebody asked him, what was the difference between the ups and the downs? He goes, when I was up, I was thinking about how do I improve myself? And when I'm down, I was thinking about how do I maintain.

I can totally relate to that for sure. And I look back at all that, I think about it all the time. I'm like, man, I remember on deployment sitting in my room and going out and looking, and this guy's doing college and this guy's reading books and this guy's doing that. And I was not growing as a person, and it makes me not the happiest looking back on it. But it is, that was, that was what I needed to go through at the time in my life. I just I don't know why, but I needed to go through that, and now I'm feeling much better. So, yeah, so that's good.

Yeah, yeah, got that going for you.

Could be worse. Could have just drank myself to death. I almost died a few times, so I'm glad I'm still here.

You know, you did the brain treatment stuff, your electromagnetic stimulation, um, breath stuff. You clicked over into thinking, okay, this is possible. Something got you so that you were like, okay, this is possible again. I'm not stuck and I, and I don't have to believe these doctors who don't know what they're talking about. So something happened there. But how do you see that your mental— and you talk a little bit about ego and, and starting to recognize ego and the part that it played. How did the transformation happen on a mental, internal, psychological, spiritual level for you?

And on one of the treatment weekends I went through, it wasn't up to me. I had to let go of everything and It really opened my eyes to some of my shortcomings and put me on the right path to stop feeling sorry for myself and to realize who I was again. Also helped me with my brain function because I guess I just kind of— not that I was giving up, I was drinking myself to death for sure, but I wasn't sticking a gun in my mouth, which I— yeah, I was basically killing myself slowly.

What's an example of a reflection that you had that shifted things for you? That in this treatment weekend, for example, something that came up to you from your subconscious, something that you recognized, and just the recognition of which put you on the right path?

I kind of just woke up and it was me again. At one point during the weekend, I woke up and it was me. It wasn't— life's hard. I mean, I know I was a SEAL and everybody always says, oh, we can't relate to what you've gone through, but everybody has trauma. Life's hard sometimes, right? Life's good, but life's hard. Everybody deals with trauma no matter what. You're not going to get out of this without dealing with death and hard times. I think so people can know what I'm talking about. I had the deaths of my friends and brain injuries and blah, blah, blah. But everybody has their stuff. Life's hard. All that stuff on top of me. And all of a sudden I woke up during the weekend and I had none of that. I had no ego. I had no, none of that burden on my shoulders, I guess. I kind of came to and it was me, like legit me, like who I was before I went through BUD/S. I felt like the 18-year-old me again, like the the person that was going to go through SEAL training and nothing was going to happen to me. I was going to fucking crush it. And I'd stopped being that person. And when I woke up and I was that, I had that fire inside of me again, like the old me. It's like nothing— I was unstoppable. Like the devil himself could have walked into that room right there and I would have been like, we're good, fuck you, bro. Like, we're good. Uh, I just— it was good to see that person again. To nothing was going to stop me.

This is a story that I've heard a lot in different contexts, which is basically there's a moment of re-remembering, but somehow or another the journey was important and that the integration of the old person that's remembered is different than it was before. Generally, it's like I, I hear a lot of times from people talking, it's like, oh, it was like I had this big epiphany, this big awakening, and it was It was like I was remembering who I was, but at the same time, there's a difference that the journey had integrated something or shifted something at the same time as remembering what I was. How does that resonate with you, if at all? In the remembering and recognition of who you were, was there also an integration of something that the journey was important?

Yeah, me waking up to realize who I was again and who I could be again, just then realize I don't need to drink anymore. I don't need to feel sorry for myself in certain aspects of my life. Dealing with certain issues, the deaths of my friends. I kind of— not that I don't miss them and I don't mourn for them and feel bad, you know, their families, I know they miss them. I'm not trying to downgrade their loss at all, but I know they're in a better place. And I got to feel, at least what I think, where they are. And I believe in God again. It was very eye-opening. It was— so I grew, I quit drinking. My spiritual beliefs are back. I believe in God and I pray every day now and I read the Bible and just put me on the right path. It gave me the opportunity to get back on the right path and see things that I just didn't— I was wasting my time and I was killing myself with and seeing who I was again, just remembering. So yeah, integrating that new path into the old me, trying to get back there.

How has this integration affected the way that you now look back on your on your career and see and experience those, or just the way that you relate to those experiences of losing friends and of taking lives and having to make really hard decisions that are— that involve lives?

Yeah, it's, uh, it's kind of weird. I think, uh, I wish I would have found that treatment before leaving the military. I think, uh, I don't think I would have had to quit my job possibly. I mean, I had some memory issues, and I still do, but I definitely don't have the migraines and the stress. I think it was— I think the migraines were a lot of stress-related. So I definitely wish I would have found that treatment a little sooner. And now that I look back at it, I just, um, it's not at the same level it was. It definitely wears off a little bit after a while, you know, no treatment's going to last forever. There's no fix-all, but I just try to remember that, you know, my friends are in a better place. And then just to live my life to the fullest because I know them very well. If they were to look at me now or look at me where I was drinking myself to death, they would call me a fucking idiot. Like, 100%. I know my friends are like, hey dude, what are you doing? Like, live your life. Like, stop doing this. So I try to remember that.

Something that we talk about a lot in the, in the podcast and the work that we do is how our social reality is a projection of ourselves. And if you've gone through an integration and a journey where you found more empathy for yourself, I'm curious how that impacts your empathy for others and also going back to my previous question, how does that empathy affect the way that you relate to the enemy, for example, or, you know, fighters on the other side?

I think it would have taken away a little bit of hate. Just looking back, I was— not that I've done anything that I shouldn't have done overseas, but once I lose so many friends, there's a lot of hate, a lot of hate in my heart for sure. And I think it would have helped me deal with that much better than I I'm really glad I wasn't put in certain positions where I could have done things, if that makes any sense. I, uh, I had a lot of hate. I didn't care anymore after I lost so many friends. I just didn't give a fuck. I just, yeah, never was put in a position to where I look back now where I shouldn't have done anything, but there was a lot of hate in my heart, and I know that that would have helped me deal with that for sure.

How would that have affected you in combat or on missions?

That would have been fine. You're not— we're not over there to kill people who need to be killed. And when I started, I didn't care who died. Like, if you— if I even think, because my— we lost a helicopter, Extortion 17. Um, it was a helicopter that was shot down by a guy that we had captured and let go. So I just stopped caring. Nobody— it wasn't worth losing any more of my friends over. I didn't even care if I got in trouble. So I'm really glad I wasn't put in certain positions because it's not the right call sometimes. You definitely need to have that empathy and still be a human being.

In a way, what you're saying here is that, like, even in being a soldier, having empathy makes you a better soldier than not having empathy. And I think that's actually something that non-soldiers don't get.

Yeah, we used to hand out chemlights to the kids. Even if they threw them, you know, they don't care. They mostly hate us, and that didn't bother me. But towards the end, I don't give a fuck. I don't care. I'm not giving anything to any of you. And if you die, I don't care. It is just, my heart got really hardened. And, uh, now you're there. I mean, I'm just good to be, I'm happy to be kind of the old person I am now. Like, yeah, who cares? Give the kids chemlights and flags, even if they'd hate you, who cares? Like you still need to be a person. Like we're not them. We're there to make the world a better place. Not just kill a bunch of bad guys, which, I mean, there's nothing wrong with killing a bunch of bad people for some reason that just needs to be done sometimes. Yeah, but that doesn't mean you still can't care about other people that are there as well.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I didn't care at all.

It seems like being in this career and being in this position, which is just a really difficult position, it's a sticky moral position for almost anybody. And also, what I'm hearing from you is that having more empathy, having less hate in your heart impacted not only the way that you could stay in flow in what you were doing, and also the ways that you might be able to make a quick second, you know, split-second decision when you might spot somebody at the end of a rifle and have to quickly decide whether or not to pull the trigger. And then also in, you know, handing chemlights out to kids and how are you going to, how are you going to, uh, interact with, you know, civilians where you are and how is that going to impact the, the relations in general? How is that going to either feed or ease some of the tension that is inherent to the situation?

Which is a big deal. You build those relationships and they'll tell you where the bad guys are. But if you don't build those relationships, then they won't. Obviously, there's no— what's the difference between you and the Taliban? Like, so yes, and getting into flow. If I'm just stuck in a thing of rage and hate and anger, it's— I'm not going to function nearly as well as not having to deal with any of that. You know, you only have so much mental bandwidth, and if 50% of that is taken up by rage, it's like, yeah, you're not going to function nearly as well. Just push all that stuff to the side and just get into the flow.

Yeah, especially when that rage is the source. Some of that unowned rage, unprocessed rage, is the source of so much of the, the tension and the reason you're there.

Yeah, my hair was falling out twice. I mean, it was, there was a lot of hate and a lot of loss and sadness and I had started losing big chunks in my, my hair just fell out and it was alopecia. They said it was hereditary or stress reduced or stress related, and it was right after Extortion went down. So I lost some friends there, and then that was the first time it happened. And then I lost one of my best friends. His name was Nick Czech. He died on a hostage rescue mission saving a doctor, American doctor. And after that, my hair fell out again in different places. So it was not very not a doctor, but it was kind of easy to figure out, like, yeah, I think that's from stress. And then after that, man, once I start losing so many people, just hardened my heart.

In your process of integration, how, how did grief and moving grief play a part, if at all?

I just drank, drank it away and stuffed it down.

No, I mean when you started the healing process after the drinking after the brain treatment that started you on the path, was there any movement of grief that had to happen for you to, to open your heart again? Or was it, was it some other way that your heart opened again?

I think it was a different way. I think it was just kind of realizing that there is a God and there's a better place, and just kind of feeling that. And not that I don't miss them, but I know that they're in a good place, right? I think that kind of helped me helped me a lot, but they lived a full life. They died doing what they wanted to do. So it does suck that they left behind families and that they died young, but they died doing what they love.

So I'm curious, if, if you had never been exposed to the SEALs or there wasn't, there wasn't a military to go into, and with that same drive and that same spirit, what would you have wanted to do with it?

That's a good question. I don't know. I have no idea where I would be today if I didn't join the military. I really had nothing else I wanted to do. I mean, I'm sure I guess would have found something, but I don't know if I would have had the same drive. I really don't know.

Yeah, what are you doing now? What's— now that the military is no longer an option for you, what's, what's the way you want to leave this world a better place?

Nowadays I just wrote a book on my dog, an ordinary dog, so Cairo, who on the bin Laden mission, some things came out that weren't exactly accurate. So now he has a book that everything is accurate. It's a big piece of history. So I go out and promote that, and I do— I teach, I teach law enforcement when I can. I have a lot of things that I could pass along that might help those guys out. So if I can, I'd love to do that. I'm getting into real estate, so I do that. I try to do some public speaking here and there, and I just, I want to raise a family and just work on me. I do a lot of working on me. Yeah, honestly, like, yeah, I just want to invest into real estate so I have mailbox money to do what I want to do. I want to go hunt and fish and dive and raise a family, but Yeah, I'm all over the place these days.

Sounds good to me.

I like to give back with foundations too. The, uh, it's obviously a big part of it. I work with different foundations that, uh, I mean, there's, there's SEALs that are killing themselves, which doesn't really make sense to me. SEALs don't quit. And, uh, they just— I knew, I know where I was. Not that I stuck a gun in my mouth, but I was, I was killing myself with alcohol. I was just, I was going to die eventually. And I was in my early 30s. I didn't have much longer. I'm sure. So I try to work with foundations.

Yeah, I'm curious about that piece right there about SEALs don't quit. And, you know, you were saying that, you know, ego is something that was getting in the way at a time. And a phrase or a belief like SEALs don't quit sounds to me like an easy way to abuse oneself. If you feel like quitting, but SEALs don't quit, and you're a SEAL and your identity is built upon being a SEAL, how does that impact you when you feel like quitting and you're drinking yourself to death? And that also conflicts with your identity.

There are certain times you do have to let go. You know that for sure. But yeah, yeah, but not quitting the drinking is definitely not beneficial. Not quitting certain aspects of the lifestyle. Sometimes you just have to let go.

This might be a weird question, but it dawns on me that there's a way in which like that humility you said about to the team that you had to like, you weren't going to work if it wasn't the team. There was no Chuck Norris's. And there's a certain kind of letting go into the team in that, right? Where it's like you give up certain autonomy, certain kind of a belief in self, and you give to the belief in the team. And then there's a secondary one where in this treatment where you kind of like let go, you described as letting go, it's almost like a surrender to God or something to that effect. I wonder, how are those two things in your body and the way you think about them the same or different?

Letting go and being part of a team.

Letting go into the team or letting go into God, surrender, into being yourself again? Like, in both cases, you describe them as letting go or, yeah, surrender.

Letting go into the team, it was for something bigger than myself. And then letting go, and then it was letting go in the second part of is obviously something bigger than myself as well. So letting go into the team to work together to accomplish a mission that's going to save somebody's life or get rid of bad people that are going to hurt innocent people. That's letting go into a team to accomplish a bigger picture, a bigger purpose. And I was all about it. Like, what am I going to do, go back to the trailer park and do drugs, or be part of this team where I can actually benefit humanity? Hopefully. Same thing, letting go into a higher power, higher purpose. And so sometimes you just have to.

What would you have to say to somebody who, whether they believe their brain is broken from birth or that they've got you know, they've got ADD or they've got, you know, they're on the spectrum or they had a car accident, somebody who feels like they are physically incapable in ways that they didn't feel like they used to be. What would you have to say to them about joining you in the journey through to recovery?

First thing is just don't quit. Obviously, that's very important. I know it can be frustrating, but And some of the— one of the things I tell myself these days is, "It'll pass." Like, that's a hard thing to see on my bad days. Like, I do not think that. I'm like, "Yes, it will pass. Like, this won't last forever." And to be open-minded, right? Don't let your ego get in the way of you trying something that you think is stupid. Like, you hear of essential oils or something, you're like, "Yeah, I'm not trying that hippie stuff." Or something like breathing, like, "Yeah, sure, I breathe every day." Maybe have an open mind. Don't give up. And even though you're going through a hard time, like, you can get through it. It will pass eventually. But you do need to put in the work to get past it. You can't just sit there and— you're going to have to suffer through it. But you definitely need to get the work, put in the work to get yourself out of the hole for sure. And it's not going to be easy. But nothing in life worth doing is usually easy. So just don't give up. And it sucks. I say that not not lightly, not lightly at all. Because I can say it, even though I'm in a good place right now, I think about it all the time. Like, if it comes, you're going to have your bad days and they're going to come. To be as prepared as possible now for those bad days that are going to come. Because death is a thing. You know, your family is going to pass away. There are going to be bad days. You're going to lose the things that you love or something's going to happen to you. You get in a car wreck today, tomorrow, it can happen in a heartbeat. To get through those times, to put in the work now to when those hard times come, it won't be so hard to get through those hard times.

I notice that when you say that, you know, sometimes it sucks, I see an authentic smile on your face and acceptance. Yeah, I feel like an absence of resistance to the suck in you the way that you say it. And that seems important here.

Bring it on. It sucks when my brain's not working to get to think my way through certain shitty situations. But still, it's like a— I don't want anything bad to happen, but if it does happen, just get through it the best I can. Like Jordan Peterson says, you want to be the strongest person at your father's funeral, right? So put in the work now. And I know what's going to come. So it's just a problem that I'm going to have to figure out because life's not over.

It seems like you have learned some tools that can support a whole bunch of other people in the military. I mean, to try to change the VA hospital, I mean, that's I know people who've been involved and I know people who worked for it. I know, but there is like, the SEALs do a lot of stuff too. There's a lot of stuff that they do that is unique in their support of their people. Is there any inclination in you to figure out how to bring some of this stuff to the SEALs organization so that they can support their people so that the next guy who's highly trained, who loves his work, doesn't have to have a doesn't have to have hate in his heart, you know, so the next guy can learn some empathy and, and get over that stress and not have the hair fall out so they can continue to do what they love.

It's definitely very important to me. I think doing things like this, the podcast, and talking about it, and not only in the military community, law enforcement, first responder, I mean, anybody can use it. Life's hard, man. Yeah, life's great, but life can be hard. So I mean, I do this and I help with a lot of charity foundations when I can, just to bring attention to them. I'll go to the events and speak and meet with veterans. But I think doing things like this to where anybody can listen is also very beneficial.

Yeah. Awesome.

Thank you, Will.

Thanks, Will.

Thanks for coming on.

Of course. Thanks for having me.

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