Navy Seals REVEAL How To Make Yourself Immune To Pain & DESTROY LAZINESS | Lewis Howes
In this segment of the interview, the guests discuss practical mental techniques for handling physical discomfort and mental resistance during challenging activities such as long runs, ice baths, and ultra‑endurance races. They emphasize the power of spoken mantras—out‑loud positive statements—as a primary tool to counteract pain and prevent negative self‑talk from spiraling into defeat. A personal mantra, "I will not die in the chair," is explained in detail, illustrating how it motivated the speaker through a 116‑mile race and how it can be applied to everyday life. The conversation then shifts to the brain’s dual alert system—fear (anticipating danger) and pain (signaling damage)—and how recognizing these signals allows one to choose when to push beyond comfort zones. The guest, a Navy SEAL who lost a leg, shares how amputation reshaped his physical challenges, revealed new strengths (e.g., leveraging upper‑body power in jiu‑jitsu), and deepened his confidence through relentless training and preparedness. He also describes overcoming fear of embarrassment and social judgment by realizing that peers care more about health and effort than perceived weakness. Throughout, the dialogue blends personal anecdotes, actionable advice, and philosophical reflections on resilience, culminating in a brief mention of a three‑step blueprint to eliminate laziness.
Chapters
I used to tell the young SEAL officers that you have to be aggressive. You got to be default aggressive. That's how you got to be. Can you be too passive? Okay, so that's bad. So where do you want to be?
You want to be, you can't be.
Extreme in one direction or the other, right? You can't be, if you're, if you're in a leadership position, you can't talk all the time, right? Obviously, as a boss, you need to communicate, you need to talk to your people. But if you talk too much, guess what happens? People start, stop listening to you. You're putting out too much information. They don't know what's important and what's not. So that's bad. You can't go too far in that direction. The other The direction is you can't not talk enough and now no one knows what's going on, no one knows what's happening. So you have to be balanced and that's the whole idea of the dichotomy of leadership. But probably the first dichotomy in leadership that I had to say to myself, you know what, there's another side to this is I used to tell the young SEAL officers that you have to be aggressive. You got to be default aggressive, that's how you got to be. Because when something's going on, you got to be aggressive to make that, get that problem solved. And if you're not being aggressive, then you're hesitating, well then you can get killed. Okay, so there you go. And that's what I used to tell guys.
And as a- that's extreme.
That's an extreme. Yes, that's the problem with it. And so the question is, can you be too aggressive? Yes, absolutely. You can, hey, there's a machine gun nest over there. Let's attack it. So you charge up the hill and everyone dies. You've been too aggressive. So what you have to do is you have to be balanced. And that's probably, so even as I had these kind of mantras, like default aggressive, can you do too much of that? Yes, you can. So you end up with this, what do you end up with? Can you be too passive?
Absolutely.
Oh yeah, absolutely. Well now we're not making any progress, now we're getting crushed by the enemy because we didn't maneuver. Okay, so that's bad. So where do you want to be? You want to be balanced. Even the idea of extreme ownership.
Can you take too much ownership? Yes.
Yes, you can. Really? Yes, you can. But I thought you said you need to take ownership of everything. Two different things.
Listen to this.
If you're working for me, and I say, okay, here's the mission that I want you to accomplish tonight. Here's the people I want you to take, here's the weapons I want you to bring, here's the vehicles I want you to bring, here's the route I want you to use to get to the target, here's the method I want you to use to secure the target, here's the route I want you to do to get back. So, that's the plan. Now, you take ownership and go execute.
Now, can you really take ownership of that plan?
If someone else gave you the whole thing? I mean, I gave you the whole thing, right? Is that your plan?
No.
No, it's your plan. It's my plan. So when you go in the field and now you come up against an obstacle and you're executing my plan, what's your attitude?
Well, it's not my plan, it's his plan.
And you're at an obstacle now and you're like, Hey, Jocko didn't think of this. Right, right. So now you just back away and you come back and you say, Hey, we failed the mission because you didn't think of this. You didn't think of this option.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
So that's me taking too much ownership. So what I need to do is I say, Hey, Here's the plan or here's the mission. How do you want to do it? And now if you're a good leader, you'll go get with your people and you'll say, oh, hey guys, here's the plan or here's the mission that we have to accomplish. How do you guys want to do it? Now you all come up with a good plan. You come back to me and you say, here's the plan. And I say, that looks pretty good.
Go execute.
And now when you hit an obstacle in the field, what's your attitude?
I need to adapt and adjust. What's your plan? You'll make it work. You came up with this.
Yeah.
Yes.
So can you take too much ownership? The answer is yes you can. So with just about every, you can name a trait, right? You can name a trait from a leadership perspective that you think is a positive trait and you'll immediately see that if you go too far with it, it'll become bad. It'll become bad. So you have to be balanced. So even as I came up with the dichotomy of leadership, I had to be humble enough to say to myself, you know what? Being aggressive is really, really good most of the time, but if you're too aggressive, that's not good.
Yeah.
So like you said earlier, you're constantly questioning everything. And to me, what that is, that's humility. That's you being humble enough to say, you know what? I really don't understand this that well. And there's some things in my life that I don't get. Whereas opposed to you walking around saying, I already got this figured out. I already know what I'm doing. I already know where I'm going. I already know what God is specifically. I already know what's gonna happen to me when I die.
All those things.
But instead you're questioning everything which in my mind is a positive thing.
-Yeah, that's good to know. Is there anything that is missing in your life? Do you feel like something's missing?
I know I feel like I'm living a pretty good life right now. I mean, I'm totally blessed. I mean, I got a great family. I got great kids. I got a great company. I got working with great people.
-Yeah.
-No.
Healthy.
Healthy, you know, I get to work out, train, I'm feeling good. Living the dream, man.
Yeah, living the dream. So you never feel like there's something missing for you right now. If there is, you're working towards it, you're working on the next book, you're building the business.
Yeah, well there's a difference between something missing and am I satisfied?
Yeah.
Right?
'Cause I'm not satisfied. I mean, I always want to go.
Like I never get done with the.
End of the day and go, cool, mission accomplished.
Like it's the job to be close. Yeah. Yeah, so you're not satisfied but you feel like nothing's missing.
Yeah, yeah, I'd say that's a fair statement.
What brings you the most joy in your life and makes you smile the most?
Oh, I mean, my kids.
My kids are cool.
They're funny.
You know, my wife and kids. Yeah, my wife and kids are cool and funny and we have a good time and lots of inside jokes and all that.
Yeah.
You know, and I train jiu-jitsu and that's very fun. and surf, that's fun.
Yeah.
Play guitar, that's fun.
How old are your kids again?
20, 18, 16 and 10.
And what's the biggest lesson you learned about being about yourself being a father to them?
Your kids are not going to be who you want them to be.
You can't train them to be.
They're gonna be who they are. And you can give them some course corrections a little bit but they're going to be who they are. And the more you try and force them into what you want them to be, the harder they're going to push back and rebel.
Wow.
Yep.
Did you learn that the hard way.
Or did you get... Yep.
So you tried to train them in.
A certain way or... Yeah, somewhat. And it's pretty obvious, like from my perspective, I was having a similar conversation with a bunch of executives and we were talking, we went down the road because we're having dinner now. So we're done talking about work, but now everyone wants to ask me about parenting and everything else. And I said at the table, I'm like, hey, who here ended up doing exactly what their parents wanted them to do? And there's like one guy out of 10, right? Because most people, your parents are wanting you to do this thing and you do something else. I mean, I joined the Navy when I was 18 years old. That probably wasn't even on the checklist of top 20 things that my parents wanted me to do. Not even in the same ballpark, right?
They didn't want you to go to war.
Yeah, they didn't want that. So here you go. Yeah, see ya. That's so the more you try and kind of pigeonhole your kids into being something that you want them to be, the worse off it's going to be. It's the same thing with leadership. It's the same thing with leadership. If I'm trying to force my plan down my team's throat, the more resistance I'm going to get from it. Whereas if I plant the seed and I allow that plan to grow with them, the better it's going to be received. Like when people ask me, How do you get people to buy in? Well, you allow them to come up.
With a plan yourself.
What if in your mind you're like, you really know that plan is not that good.
It depends on how bad it is. How bad is it? Or what's at stake? If you're working for me and you're going to meet with a client and you have a bad pitch that you're.
Going to give them.
And the client is some tiny client that I think is a low probability of us working with and the contract doesn't really matter. I'd be like, hey, hey, give it a shot. Here's a couple, I might give you a couple adjustments and give you some coaching on it. And then you go and you do your thing and you come back and you're like, oh, no, we didn't land it. And I say, well, what do you think? Let's debrief. And now we talk about it. I said, you know, you said this and you said that. Here's some other ways to go about it. I might even actually have you do it to me. So then I could sit there and take some notes and say, Hey, here's some other things that might have worked. Now, if you were going to meet with a big client that really was going to add value to our company, I'm going to either- Yeah, I'm going to step in and be like, okay, let's think about that. What's the reaction going to be? And by the way, that's what I'm not going to say, no, don't do it that way. I'm going to say, Tell me that again. And let me give you some objections that you might hear from them. And all of a sudden, I'll let you come up with the solutions. Even though I'm sitting there going, yeah, what he needs to say is this. No, I'll let you come up with a solution. So then you're kind of going in there like you got this dialed and.
Then you're going to feel like you won, which you did.
That's great.
Which is great. It gives you more ownership, more respect in yourself, competence, belief. How important is feedback for leaders? Getting feedback from peers, coaches, or employees, team members.
Feedback is how you get better. No feedback, no improvement. So if, and if you're not humble, you're not looking for feedback and you're not listening to it. So if you think you know everything, you're not listening, you're definitely not asking for it, and even when it gets told to you, you don't listen to it. So feedback is built upon being humble.
What would you say is in your way to getting to the next level? What feedback do you think you need to hear or receive from your team or people in order to reach the next goals that you have?
I mean, the weird thing about me is, even though you might think, look at me and think, oh, who's gonna tell this guy? anything, right? The reality is if anyone of my friends, my team, anyone that works for me up and down the chain of command, if they think I'm wrong, everyone will say, Hey, I don't know if that's a good plan. So even, you know, when I was a task unit commander in, so I'm in charge and I'm the head seal for this 40 seals. I'm the main guy. Yeah, anyone in that chain of command, those guys would all come to me and say, Hey, I don't know if this is a good way to do it. And you know what I'd say, why not? What do you think? What are you thinking? How do you think we should do it? My mind is open. If my plan is bad, please tell me. They would know that.
So.
My friends, my family, they'll tell me when I'm doing something wrong all day long.
They're not intimidated or scared of you?
No.
That's good.
No.
So how does a leader cultivate that with his family, friends, team in order to welcome the feedback of the information?
Yeah, what you do is when somebody gives you feedback, you listen to it. This is like, you know, just the other day we have a leadership event that we do two or three times a year, but the thing that I was telling this group of people was, as a leader, you should be listening 98% of the time and talking 2% of the time. So every time you come to me and you say, Hey Jocko, I don't like this plan. I don't say shut up and do it my way.
No.
I say, how would you want to do it? Tell me what you don't like about it and then tell me how you want to do it. So therefore, the next time you have an objection, you're like, you know the door is open, you know that I'm going to be open-minded and listen to you and that's how you build it. Every time you shut someone down from speaking their mind, you actually are creating a negative environment where you're not going to get the feedback and if there's no feedback, as we just said, you're not going to improve.
What are two things that any leader could do to improve their leadership skills? Right off the bat, two things you can think of. And what are two things that wannabe leaders do that hold them back from being great leaders? So what are the two things they could add to their leadership? Yeah, to a leadership.
Number one is listen, which we just talked about. So that's fresh on my mind. And you'd be surprised about how many leaders are thinking that because they're in a leadership position, they should be talking all the time. Wrong answer. Wrong answer. I'll sit through a meeting with a client or with one of my companies, and I'll listen for 38 minutes. And at the end of those 38 minutes, I'll have already thought through every.
Discussion that's been had.
You know, you want to argue with him and he's arguing with her. And guess what? I get to sit there and assess those arguments and see which one is the most important. Meanwhile, you're expending all your ammunition, she's expending all her ammunition, he's giving up everything he's got. I'm learning all their thought patterns, I'm learning the pros and cons of each one of their arguments, and I do that for 38 minutes. And in the 39th minute, I say, Hey, here's what I think we should do. And guess what? Because I've done an accurate assessment and listened, I'm actually gonna be able to make the best decision. It wasn't because I was smarter. It wasn't because I had better tactical understanding. It's because I actually shut my mouth, listened to everyone spill their guts, learned everything that they knew, and did a good detached assessment of what the right thing to do was. So listen and the other one is the word that I just used which is detach which is not getting emotional, not getting into the weeds about stuff that doesn't matter. If you can take a step back and look around, you're gonna see infinitely more than you can when you're in the weeds staring the firefight in the face, looking down the sights of your weapon shooting. If you're doing that, you can't see anything up. Just think about that metaphor right there. If I'm looking down the sights of my weapon and I'm shooting, my world is this big. The minute that I stop shooting, point my weapon at high port, take a step back and actually look around, I can see infinitely more. So apply that to a meet. This is the meeting that we just talked about. A 38 minute meeting. All this chaos is happening. Sure, I'm a boss. I could jump in there and start arguing and giving my opinion. But what am I really doing then? What I'm really doing then is in the weeds and I'm not able to assess what is actually happening. So there you apply it there to your personal life. If you and I are arguing, you're my friend and you did something and now we're starting to escalate an argument and I'm starting to get emotional, am I able to listen to you anymore? Am I able to logically figure out what's going on? If I'm talking to my wife and she did something that made me mad and now I'm starting to raise my voice, Is that whole situation going in the right direction?
No.
No, it's not. It's not. So what I need to do is take a step back, detach, calm down, listen to what she's saying, and then try and assemble a logical thing to say back without saying youg need to calm down or you're too emotional. No, no, no, no, no. Because if you come to me and you're mad about something, You come to me, whether it's my wife or whether you're a business partner, you come to me and you say, the dang supply department didn't give me the stuff I needed. If I say, hey, calm down, right? If that's my reaction, then you realize that I'm against you, right?
I don't get it.
And so now it's me and the supply department against you.
No one understands.
No one understands. So, I do a little technique.
What is that?
I call it reflect and diminish. So, I'm gonna reflect your emotions back to you, but I'm gonna diminish them a little bit so that we're not escalating the situation.
How would you do this with your wife?
So, if you come to me and you go, the supply department's been late for two weeks on this stuff. I don't say, Calm down. I say, oh, you gotta be kidding me.
Two weeks?
And you go, yeah, can you believe it?
Ah, that's horrible.
We gotta put a solution. We gotta get that figured out. In the meantime, what do we need to do right now to get the problem solved? Right? So we already, now we're on the.
Same team so we can work together.
To find a solution.
We bonded on the pain.
Yes.
Yes.
We felt the pain. Yes.
We're on the same team. Okay, my wife, what's gonna make my wife mad? The ice machine's not working.
Right?
The ice machine's not working. It's your fault. Whether it's my fault, but we don't know. The ice machine's not working. By the way, this is a real story. This is happening today. The ice machine's not working. She didn't get mad about it, but the ice machine's not working. If I go, hey, chill out. You have a refrigerator and a house and you know, you just calm down, right? How's that gonna go? It's not gonna go good. Now she's gonna get mad, now it's me against her. So instead, the ice machine's not working. Ah, man, that thing is junk. Have you called the The repair guy? You know what I mean? And then all of a sudden we're on the same team and she's like, well, no, I haven't, but I'm about to. Okay, cool. As opposed to the ice machine's not working. Well, okay, do you want me to.
Have ice shipped in from Alaska there, princess?
Right?
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The most important conversation you'll ever have with your life, you know, in your life is when you have yourself. And my conversation was absolutely horrifying.
What were you saying to yourself?
I'm dumb, I'm nobody. My dad, I mean, my dad was great in mental warfare. A drunk, insecure man will make everybody around him feel like hell.
Yeah.
Because he wants to give you no power. And that's why he was so mean to my mom and myself and my brother. 'Cause he didn't want anybody to get above him. He wanted to keep you down low. So when you're growing up with all this stuff, all this hate, and it wasn't the beatings. I could hit the beatings all day. It was a mental torture. So when at a young age, your parents put a dialogue in you of confidence or you're nobody. So that voice in my head was, I'm a loser. And then it was confirmed When I got in school and in third grade, I was falling behind. They wanted to put me in a special school.
Yeah.
You know, with kids who can't learn. Then it was confirmed what my dad was saying. So that confirmed it. Then I started cheating. So I started realizing, you know what? I'm taking the easy way out again. And it starts snowballing from there. Now the kids are calling me. But it wasn't all the kids. So what happens is, you start to get this picture that everybody hates you because your reality becomes so, so big that you don't, I mean, you can't see the clear picture.
It might have been three or four.
That's it.
Doing it over and over.
Right.
But it was the whole town.
Yeah.
Everybody hated me.
So the world hates me.
That's right.
Yeah.
And that's when it, that's when it became toxic. And that is where I became my worst enemy.
Wow.
So those are the conversations.
Those are the conversations.
When did you start to realize that those conversations weren't supporting your life?
I was a, so my mom was getting ready to get married and this guy came into our lives, his name was Wilmoth. He came into our lives and like I always say, whenever my life's getting better, God will put another challenge in front of me. He gets murdered. This is when the racism started.
Really?
Because now I'm 16. Kids don't care. Yeah, you're the kid. I look different, but kids don't care. Yeah, kids don't know. But when I moved and I came back, I'm no longer a kid. So all the kids I grew up with, I'm now different.
I'm different.
So there's about five black kids in my school. And the reality came when I came out one day and all my car was spray painted, we were gonna kill you.
Oh my god.
Gosh.
And about 10 minutes from Brazilians is a small town called Center Point Indiana.
Uh-huh.
And Center Point Indiana is was at that time a huge hub of the KKK.
Wow.
In 1995, the Klan marched in the Fourth of July parade. There's a picture in the book in 1995, 10 minutes from my house of crosses being burned.
10 minutes from your house.
10 minutes from my house.
Wow.
So when you have all this negativity, growing up and now you're cheating and you're doing this and your dad beats you and your mom's fiance gets murdered and tragedy after tragedy after tragedy and then you come to this and your mom's working three jobs. She's not home at all. She never saw one report card of mine. She didn't know how bad off I was in school. She was hustling trying to make money and I was the man of the house. lying, sneaking around, not going to school, cheating, right, everything I could. And so I walked out of school one day and saw this little kitty on my car. And I went in to get the principal. There are several incidents like this that happened. I went to get the principal and the principal, he didn't have anything, he couldn't give me any advice. And I went to my mom about it because my mom was already bothered by my dad beating her her down, and now her fiance got murdered.
So I didn't want to bother.
The last thing on her mind. Yeah.
She's like, I've dealt with this my whole life.
Right.
I didn't want to bother with anything, man. So I kept everything away from her. So I'm in the crowd, watching, trying to scrub this stuff off. And I got home, and so happens two weeks later, she gets a note from school, and the note says, your son is going to fail. He's not going to graduate. And she's like, what is this? And I had to come. clean with my mom of all the years of me cheating, of all the bullying, of all this and all that. And she was such in a bad spot in her life that the best thing she could do was like, hey, you know, you're gonna fail. You're gonna fail school.
Wow.
And I I was like, my God, man. Like, you know, she. She was in a dark place, and I was in a dark place. and we were kind of on our own in the same house, but living different lives. And I realized at this time in my life, she was a great mom, but I was on my own. And that's when a real big change happened for me. So I said, I'm gonna join the military.
6'17.
17, you know, I wanted to go into the delayed entry program. And I went to take the ASVAB test, and I cheated.
So that's what you knew.
That's what I did. So I got my friend. because I walked into recruiter's office and recruiter says, hey, you gotta take this ASVAB test. Second I heard test, I was like, man, oh, hang on a second. I can't test in my life, man. I'm gonna go. Can I come back tomorrow?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I come back in the. The. The recruiter starts handing these tests out. I'm like, great. I'm gonna sit by my boy.
I'm gonna copy off my boy.
He had a different test than I did. Oh, so I couldn't copy off him.
Yeah.
And that's when the light bulb hit on. So I failed this test several times.
You failed twice or three times?
I actually failed it twice. And the third time I said, Mom, I need help.
Wow.
And she said, we don't have much money, but we can afford a tutor for one hour a week for six months, because this is my last time taking the test. And so I had to learn. So at a third grade reading level, I'm a junior in high school. So I had six months to learn all this stuff. and only had a tutor for one hour a week. So basically what happened was she would come in for an hour and I wasn't picking it up any of it. I couldn't retain anything. And it was so much to learn that overwhelmed me. So basically what happened was I realized I had to go by the store and buy spiral notebooks and I had to literally Write down every single thing repeatedly. Like so what may take you an hour to learn? It took me hours, 6-8-9-10 hours. I'd write the same thing down.
Simple stuff.
Simple stuff.
I hear you man.
So I started memorizing.
Yeah, that's my life.
So I had to memorize.
Yeah.
So I didn't really learn it. I could just recall it from writing it down so many times on page 71. I remember seeing that.
Yeah.
And that's how I did it. and I ended up passing that test.
Crazy.
And I got in the military, so.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
What was the greatest lesson your mom taught you growing up?
Honestly, the greatest lesson she ever taught me is a lesson that she doesn't know how much she taught me because she wasn't much in the teaching mode. My dad took her soul. But what I did as a young kid is I observed everybody. I wasn't really smart in the books. I was real smart when it came to life. And I was able to sit back and watch her mistakes. I was able to see how she struggled through life and how I don't want to struggle through life. And I was able to see she never picked me up. The biggest thing she did for me, and this is honest to God truth, and she doesn't even know she did it, when I would bust my ass, when I would fail, when I was at the bottom of the sewer, She never picked me up. She never gave me that cookie and said, Hey son, you know, it's gonna be okay. She didn't have time for that. And sometimes she gets upset when I talk about my past because it paints her out to be not the best mom. If I had any kind of mom in that kind of environment, I would have never made it. Because she forced me for every reason. She forced me. So you better figure this out or you're gonna be a statistic.
Wow.
And this is something that she didn't sit down to tell me. I realized this, this is the world that is in front of me. And what most people do is they see this world and they look at it as an excuse to get out of it.
Yeah.
I started looking at it as this is the ultimate training ground for the rest of my life. I have all these valuable lessons because if you look out in the world right now today, it's not a nice place. But I'm very prepared for it.
Yeah, you are.
I'm prepared for it. I'm prepared for all the failure coming my way. I'm prepared for everything my way. And that's the biggest lesson that she taught me by not teaching me, by never saying it's gonna be okay. Matter of fact, she told me the exact opposite. Life sucks. that's what she knew. It was the truth.
That was her reality.
That was her reality.
Yeah.
And so I saw that. And so I started at that point in my life, I have a lot more failures, as you see in that book. But I started down the road of instead of the path of, you know, least resistance, I started choosing the path of most resistance to prepare myself for the Journey that was coming my way.
Wow.
And most kids don't prepare themselves for the most resistance. They want to get out of things.
They want to get out of things.
Get off the hook.
Right.
Put in the extra reps. Right. They went the easiest path to get to the top.
Right.
Exactly.
Huh. You know, I look at my life as like, and here you talk about like really diving into pain and like embracing pain and finding, looking for the pain.
Right.
I think there's like a, there's a, there's a safe pain and then there's probably an unsafe pain of just like jumping off a building and you know whatever.
Right.
Trying to land on 20 floors or something is probably not the safe way to do things. But doing 200 miles of endurance running is like a different way of pain and looking at pain. And that's what I've been looking for my whole life is like finding the pain and I talk about like do something every day that's painful.
Right.
In that good structured environment. You've been doing that for the last couple years now. It's like you work out every day, you haven't missed a day.
I did it for the last 20.
20 years of my life.
20 years?
I'm gonna say two years. No, 20 some years of my life.
Every day you work out.
So I used to take one day off a week. I used to take one day off a week.
So the body recover, right? Makes sense.
But that one day off was an active recovery day where I would get on a trainer and ride for like two hours.
Wow.
But at a zone one heart rate, very low heart rate, and I replaced the carbohydrates in my body while I roll. Because the best way to recover for me is to do something at a very low heart rate, because therefore your blood's flowing through your body.
Yeah.
As your blood's flowing through your body, refuel it with the nutrients. Because then your blood's flowing. The nutrients is going through all your cells in your body. All that glycogen is now flowing at a low heart rate. So it's not burning it, it's refueling.
Yeah.
So every My son used to be that. And it kind of snowballed into, as human beings, we believe, like so many people, before I give them a workout plan, we're talking about recovery. Everybody that hears me speak, they want to go straight to recovery. Work out first. Work out first. Before you talk to me about recovery?
How to recover, yeah.
Work out first. we are always looking for, like whenever I talk to people, people take my words and they put it in a way to where they want to feel comfortable. This guy, you know, they want to put you in a box. They want to put a title on you. No, you're putting a title on me to make yourself feel better about yourself. If you read this book of mine, you see where I came from. I made this person. I made this person by diving into the insecurities that life gave me. Because now they're yours. They're yours to own. If you're not smart, call yourself dumb. It's okay, because you are. But take that knowledge and put yourself down. If you're fat, call yourself fat. I used to be 300 pounds. We want to talk so soft to ourselves. We're looking for that recovery day. And that recovery day is everything in your life. Everything in your life is a recovery day. We're looking for it. It's not coming. It's not coming. Get over that recovery day. And that's the mentality I took with me. And what happened through that process was all the frivolous things of life started to float away. I used to tell people lies so they would like me. Because I was so insecure. When you start to build yourself up and start to have the one thing that we don't have is confidence.
Yeah.
Real authentic confidence from hard work. Everything else goes away. You no longer look to other people for your self-esteem. That's right. You now know I walk in a room now and I know the hours and years and decades I put into David Goggins. That's something. It's not on the wall. It's not a trophy on the wall. It's not a medal around your neck. It is actually a feeling in your heart and people. why don't you ever smile? I don't have to.
Yeah, yeah.
I do have a stoic look on my face. I'm a very focused person. But the feeling I have in my soul and in my heart, that's why I need to smile. I don't need to smile. I don't need you to look at me and say, oh, my God, you look happy. Because half of us aren't happy. We're giving you something that we think you want to see. I don't do that anymore. I don't care how you to receive David Goggins because through my journey I figured out the one piece I was missing. I thought it was cars, I thought it was women, I thought it was money, I thought it was everything. The one piece I was missing was me having the courage to face myself. And once you do that on a daily basis, it's not about the running, people's gonna be like, you gotta start working out. Where I got my work ethic from was hours I had to spend learning this. When you sit down and you're not smart and you have a disability and you still want to be in the top of your class, I didn't want to get by. When I realized that I can learn through hard work and I can beat the valedictorian in school, but I got put in 10 hours more a day than he does. You know what kind of strength comes from that? When you're sitting down, that guy that that valedictorian study for an hour. And, you know, I caught you. I caught you. And I am dumb. But I have the work ethic to catch you. That's where David Gagas got really invented.
Yeah.
Was at a kitchen table with 20 spiral notebooks that were empty. And then three months later, yeah, they were full. And when you can go through that, I still have them in my storage unit. You go through. through these spiral notebooks of your life, and you realize, this is how I learned. This is unbelievable. There's no miles. It's not about the miles. It's that having a discipline every day to say, for me to learn this one math problem, it's gonna take me 10 hours. And that's where it. And you realize through hard work, you can do. You can outwork anybody. Remember how badass they are? But that's the part people don't want to dive into.
Yeah. When someone's lacking confidence in themselves, what's the answer you would give them if they're like, how do I gain more confidence?
It starts with yourself, man. You gotta start diving into those things that you are afraid of. You don't gain confidence by going to the spot that makes you feel good. It could be a false reality. And the second life gives you that challenge, all you want to do is go back to what gave you confidence. is that happy spot?
No.
What gives you confidence? What gave me confidence was spending years at a kitchen table trying to learn how to read and write on my own. Realizing I can't learn the way you learn. I can't, but I can learn. What gives you confidence not being afraid is overcoming the fear. I used to stutter severely bad. right now, I don't know how many people are gonna watch this. You know what gives me confidence? It's knowing I no longer care if I sit here and start stuttering to you.
Yeah.
That's what gives me confidence. It's facing these things, overcoming them. And maybe not overcoming them every day, but facing them and facing the face and pretty soon like this, you know what, man? This is where it's at. It's not in that comfort zone. It's in the discomfort zone where my confidence is getting Mm-. That's where it's getting built. But people want to, they want an easier answer.
Yeah.
There has to be an easier way. It's not. I'm sorry. I searched for it my entire life.
You cheated.
I did.
I lied.
I did everything. And I still felt empty. I coach a lot of people nowadays, billionaires, who call me on the phone and say, man, I'm still missing something. It's because because they did what they were good at. And they had this beautiful family, two, three houses, cars, everything. Has everything the world on the outside looking in, like, my God, man, how can you be unhappy? I walk around with the backpack with.
All my stuff in it, no car.
And I walk around, happiest person in the world. Have nothing, happy as hell. It's because I found out the whole key to life. It's not in all that. You have to face yourself. So many people live to be a hundred years old and they die miserable, having everything because they never examined. I call it my live autopsy. You never examine this. Happiness, peace, Enlightenment. It's all up here, man. It's all up here. If I start talking like this, people are like, man, you know, I don't know. It's the truth, man.
Yeah, it is true.
It's all up here. You've got to be willing to go and face it.
Why do you think so many people suffer in their stuckness of job, career, life, purpose, and how can they start taking full ownership as opposed to making excuses or blaming everything around them as opposed to being responsible for their life? How can someone learn this? When I hear this story of you, I'm just like, what's anyone's excuse?
Sure.
On how to overcome adversity.
Yeah.
I'll start off because you mentioned this perspective is a powerful tool. You mentioned comparison and whatnot. Powerful tool when it's wielded or when it's weaponized appropriately. And I was in the hospital at Walter Reed for a year, lost my leg. could have easily felt really sorry for myself when I was alongside people that had, you know, they were missing all their limbs, or even worse, service members that had such severe traumatic brain injury that they did not recognize their wife and kids.
Oh, man.
When I'm next to that individual, this is a paper cut to me. So, like, that power of perspective, because I was able to weaponize the gratitude in that scenario. That's the key. Because a lot of times I think when it comes to comparison or perspective, it can drive people even deeper into a hole because they're saying, hey, man, like this person did this thing under these extreme circumstances and I'm having difficulty getting up in the morning. Like, what's wrong with me? And it ends up being a driving factor that makes it worse where no, no, stop for a second. Be grateful for what you have, see it that way, open up your heart and your soul a little bit, say, wow, I'm really fortunate. I got a lot of great things going right now and use that as a tool. Those that are stuck, you know, if there is not a mission that's been identified, in my opinion, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to get past the adversity, but even and oftentimes just to get moving. Like, what is it that you want to do? It sounds like a very simple question, but there's layers of difficulty built within this. Like, have you begun an internal dialogue with yourself yet at all? Have you looked in the mirror at any point in your life and said, what do you want to do? Who do you want to become? and I think oftentimes, and that's how it started for me, just very simple, and letting the universe or God or your soul or call it whatever you want, communicate back to you on what do you want to do, who do you want to become? In order to make that exercise of any kind of value, one is expectation, knowing that it's likely not gonna, the answer is not gonna come blasting through the glass and punch you in the face. more often than not. It takes repetition. You have to actually work at it. Two is if there's not a degree of self honesty, then it's really not going to matter. And in today's world, you can make the argument that that has never been more difficult ever in the world of immediate satisfaction and social media and where people are projecting an image because that's become the norm. It's all it's easy for us to begin to believe our own and our own our own facade. And so that internal dialogue, that level of self awareness is important. But if you're lying to yourself, then it's not going to matter.
Right.
So there's a lot there to begin playing around with. But I do think that once that mission has been identified, and oftentimes I'm asked like, well, I'm having that conversation. I'm right. I really am. I'm journaling. I'm being honest. I'm doing all these things, but I still don't know what my purpose is. I'm still, my soul is not being lit towards something. Before the interview continues, if you feel.
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A technique that is often used is to hone in on your talents and kind of leverage the likelihood of success. Because if you hone in on our talents, which are the things we do best with the least amount of effort. And then you lay a skill on top of that. Odds are you're gonna be in a really great place to do some really great things. I just prefer to use the course of action prior to that as COO-1 because it doesn't place any limitations on ourselves.
Right. I think it's beautiful. This is everything that I've been I don't know, preaching, but communicating to my audience about from my lessons in sports, you know, if I didn't have a goal, I wasn't willing to, I would quit, I would have quit football if I didn't have like some type of mission or goal that I was excited about. It was meaningful to me that had like a reason why I wanted to do it. Because, you know, three days were so painful and it was hot and there's, you know, I could go chase girls instead or do something easier. So I needed something bigger than myself, a mission bigger than me that I was excited about. to go through all the pain of all the different sports injuries and just like sacrificing and whatever, early mornings, all these different things, cutting out bad food, whatever it was, that was the easy way out. And same thing when I transitioned to business and just life and relationships, it was like things would, I would suffer and struggle more when I didn't have a meaningful mission. You can take on different things in life, but if it doesn't bring some type of fulfillment or meaning, It's gonna feel harder and you're gonna suffer more. It's gonna be hard no matter what. You have to do things every single day to be successful. You have to show up, you have to experience some type of pain and overcome it in order to build your emotional, mental or physical strength. Consistently. So you might as well enjoy it or find fun in that process with a meaningful mission that you're tied to or seeing in the distance and trying to draw in closer. So I love that you talk about mission because I think a lot of people don't have that. And I love that you talk about talent and skills. One of the things I did when I got out of sports and was trying to figure out who I was and my identity in life now that sports was over, was I started to address a lot of my insecurities and fears. And I said, how can I maximize my talents, but also my fears and insecurities make me feel really I lack confidence because I know these are in the background. It was hard for me to do public speaking. I knew this was just a challenge for me. So I went all in on public speaking every single week for a year. I knew I had this desire to learn salsa dancing, but I was terrified to get on the dance floor because I didn't want to be made fun of. So I went all in and practiced every week for a couple of years as well. I just said, what are the things that I can build as talents and skills that I'm not good at as well that will make me more bulletproof emotionally and mentally.
Yes.
You know, like I can whip out these tools at any moment and feel more confident and see where it leads me towards my mission. So these are some of the things that I'm so glad you're talking about this because I've been preaching this stuff. And what would you say are the main talents or skills then that you've developed since that time, since losing your leg? And you speak another language too, or did you have to learn another language or?
Yeah, I speak a few languages now.
Yeah. Pretty fluent.
No, we'll say we have a working knowledge.
Right, right, right, right.
Yeah, if I know I'm going someplace where I may have to use that, I gotta pull out the materials and dust off the cobwebs. It's an awesome question, you know, kind of looking at the positive sides of any scenario because they're there. I don't care how horrible it was, I believe that it's only a matter of time and with enough reflection that there's positivity to extract from that. This being one of those, certainly not towards the top, but one of them, one I would say is my level and commitment to efficiency. And the example I'll use or really the way in which this has been reinforced is, When you have an amputee or when you use a prosthetic with a traditional socket system, so imagine this is my actual leg, my leg fits inside this bucket, and that's how it stays attached to my body. That's how most of those of us that have prosthetics, that's how it stays attached to us. Sweat becomes the ultimate enemy because it gets slippery, it slips around, it's not working, it decides to chafe. the leg isn't functioning normal. So I eventually began to visualize the second I put my prosthetic on my body, a clock began to tick. And it was only a matter of time before I had to take it off, wipe it down, depending on what I was doing, maybe let it breathe for 10 minutes or 20 or an hour. Because you sweat a lot.
Because I sweat a lot.
Me too.
And a good guy, you're sweating all the time.
Walk out in the snow and you sweat probably, right? All the time. Me too, yeah.
Right?
Especially fun fact, when you lose this many sweat pores, your other ones work in overdrive.
Oh my gosh.
To cool you off.
Yeah.
Learned that in the hospital. I was going through like multiple t-shirts a day. So, you know, I am more capable when I'm on two feet. Certainly I can be mobile, I can be in a wheelchair, I can be on crutches, but I'm not as capable.
As I am when I'm on two legs.
Yeah, you're more efficient when you're on two legs. Absolutely. I'm more productive when I'm on two legs. So that clock begins to tick. So I knew I needed to maximize every single moment that I was on two legs. And it got a little OCD, which my wife eventually kind of got cool with because it got to the point where if I, for example, were leaving my house for the day and I grabbed my stuff and I took, you know, eight steps and I realized I had forgotten something. Well, that's 16 steps that I'm not getting back. eight to go back to my thing, eight to get back to where I was. And it started to drive me more and more crazy.
So I began, every step needs to matter.
Every step, every minute, every second needs to matter. And this is, I get, I understand this is the extreme, and some of your viewers may be like, this is insanity. But, you know, again, I had set my sights on something so ambitious that I need to maximize every single moment, and therefore, I began just modifying, creating or modifying these different systems to minimize the likelihood of me missing those 16 steps again. So it's like, okay, I forgot my, you know, wallet. So now it's wallet, phone, like at the end of every day, like this is where everything goes. So that everything you need to leave.
The next day is in one place.
Everything is streamlined.
Yes.
So just day to day, I began just kind of instinctually creating these different systems throughout my day. to maximize my level of efficiency just so I could do more things better on two feet and for longer. So that's just kind of a process in which I likely would not have learned if I had not gone through this. And it's one that I've maintained really to this day.
For the last nine years now, right? Or however long it's been, yeah.
Right.
So it's almost instinctual where I'm constantly looking at ways to improve to make up a second or two or not.
But with extreme circumstances, you need to take extreme changes to maximize your life or to master your life. Otherwise, you could fall two hours behind every day because, oh, I forgot this and not upgrading your systems with a level and the degree of your new reality. So you need to upgrade your level of thinking, your skill sets, the systems inside of you, your processes, to be even more efficient than before, even with the changing of the prosthetic or whatever you might have to do, right?
And this is more tactical on the ground stuff, physically moving things around through my day. This is tactical, tangible tools. I'll use a second point. It's more conceptual, but I really want to emphasize this when you talk about what were the upsides? What were the positive aspects that you've learned or been able to leverage from losing your leg? And it's knowing, realizing and knowing that although I was a hard worker and I was productive on two legs and I've got plenty of accomplishments and stuff that I'm certainly proud of, that took a lot of really hard work. There was an entire another level of work ethic and productivity that was sitting inside me the entire time that I did not know existed until this happened. And I set my sights on something extraordinarily unlikely, but I committed myself to because I knew I needed to be able to work at an extraordinarily higher level, like the highest possible level. And it's not as if when I was in the hospital, you know, some scientist walked into my room and rammed a metal spike in the back of my head and uploaded work ethic, like Neo in the Matrix. Like it was literally there the whole time. I think that oftentimes it takes a traumatic event or hitting rock bottom for people to realize that there's so much more inside them that is literally sitting there waiting to be leveraged. And that becomes the kind of the catalyst for them to start to see that. And then it becomes contagious. It's like, oh my gosh, look what I just did. What else can I do? What else can I do? And that snowball effect happens. But having retrospectively kind of analyzed that, yeah, sure, this was the catalyst and I've seen what I was able to do. How did I really do that? And it was through the modification primarily anyway of two relationships, my relationship with fear and my relationship with pain. and those are relationships like any other relationships we have, right? It's a two-way street. You talk to that entity and it talks back. You can only influence so much, but by modifying my relationship with those two things really is what facilitated my ability to do more, push harder, create more, and accomplish more.
How do you modify your relationship with fear and pain?
I think, at least for me, man, it began with a recognition of what they're there to do. And, you know, the human brain does a lot of amazing things for us, but its primary responsibility is our survival.
Yes.
It's to keep us alive. And the brain has a security system within it, and within that are two different alerts, one of which we know is fear, one we know is pain. Fear is the alert of, pain pending danger or a potential threat, like something bad could happen, you're now scared. I need you to be scared of that to stay away from it. Pain being the alert of damage or impairment, right? Because the brain wants us to survive. Knowing that our brain is there because it wants the comfort zone, like homeostasis, like the medical term, it wants things nice and predictable and sustainable and forecastable and let's just keep things all nice and calm here when it comes to even a heartbeat, our red blood cell count, like it doesn't want change. Recognizing that and then knowing that if we set our sights on something righteous, something of ambition, something that is unlikely, unprecedented, there are going to be times when we have to ignore our brain and listen to our heart. in our soul. And one of the greater challenges of life really is knowing when to take that risk and asking yourself in that moment, in real time, like right now, are you willing to take the risk of doing this particular thing? Knowing the potential hazards, but then also knowing the potential effects? Are you willing to do it?
I'm curious about in your mind, I don't want to assume anything, but has anything become harder since you've lost your leg? And has anything become easier or better since then as well? I don't want to make assumptions either way that things have gotten harder or easier and better, but if there is, is there something on both sides that's been harder and easier and better?
Yeah, certainly. I mean, there were countless specific tasks were really hard to relearn and are still harder today, even after having learned them and doing them now for almost a decade. I mean, walking is harder now than it was prior. I think, generally speaking, the, the hard comes from a willingness to accept that you don't know how to do something right now, and that's okay. And not letting my pride and ego get in the way of that.
Yeah.
Slicing off a massive serving of humility. Be willing to take that risk of embarrassment. And when it comes to fear, sure, we're fear of physical damage, but I would argue fear mostly comes through the lens of emotional damage. Fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, self-judged by other people. Judgment, I think most of that. So again, a modification of that relationship. Am I willing to do this? But most, I think it's probably accurate to say, most tasks, certainly anything that involves me being on two legs, are more difficult today than before.
What's easier or better?
If that's... Man, I'll start off in the clouds, man. Because if I could go back in time, right? Like Doc Brown shows up in the DeLorean and he's like, let's go back and we'll save your leg. You know, the butterfly effect is a concept.
You weren't there and you were in another room or something during that time.
But I look at the life I have now, man, and particularly my family and my boys and my wife and And it's just amazing. I would not undo a single thing. Really? Because there's just a chance that I don't end up where I am here right now, like talking to you with my family at home. I live such a fulfilling and loved life that I wouldn't change a thing about this. That's like up in the clouds. But it's important, you know, note, I think. I'll go into the tactical realm. So I'm big into jiu-jitsu and I started as a two-legged guy and competed and jiu-jitsu was a huge part of my recovery which began in the hospital. Certainly physically range of motion, flexibility, humility.
Also your spirit too. Just absolutely. Comradery, competition, all that stuff.
Yeah, huge aspect of my recovery and just really overall life. But you know jiu-jitsu is a weight class Sport and although you know, I walk around now today at around 220 pounds Big strong guy man, I'm missing about 45 pounds of leg right right.
So you wouldn't be a 265 weight class, but you're right against guys, you know my size absolutely and you're freaking just bear hug them.
Yeah, so you know, I learned that there's like a huge advantage in that realm, which is you know I wouldn't say it's silly because you can conceptualize that to say, like, no, there's, there's always upsides to it. So I was able to leverage, you know, my upper body strength and whatnot when I would compete as an amputee. And if you looked at me versus some of my competitors from the waist up, you'd be like, there's no way.
These guys are in the same weight class.
Right.
It's impossible. Well, you look like a beast next to them.
Yeah.
Right.
So certainly, just an example, man, of things that I would say are are easier, but certainly things that I can leverage to my advantage.
Yeah, yeah. That's cool, man. Anything else that's easier or better now with this is do you have a different, you know, mental capacity, emotional capacity? Do you appreciate things more?
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
Is your heart open now because you have different type of humility? I mean, I'm just, I have no idea when I'm throwing it out there.
Yeah.
My degree of confidence is actually probably higher now than it was as a two-legged guy.
Wow.
Wow.
Why, how?
Yeah, great question. You know, I think you could summarize confidence into two words, like training and preparedness. And when you put in the reps and you've got the resources in place to deal with the what ifs, I think drastically increased the level of confidence. And my training was, you know, I attacked that on a whole another scale. And as I was working my way back to the team and then continuing to deploy into combat and doing all these different things, my level of training was quite, was quite insane at times. And I needed to physical training or.
Like, oh, yeah, workout training to get back.
Yeah. I mean, it was It was belligerent. You know, my lifestyle and structure was nuts. And then my level of preparedness also had to increase as well. I would break these things. I would need tools. I would need stuff to have available. I learned all these through really difficult lessons. So training and readiness or training and preparedness were essential for me to do what I needed to do. But most significantly is as I began to fail repeatedly in front of those in which I wanted to impress, like my teammates and my commanders, I eventually got to a place where I was okay with failing in front of people. Like when I first got back to my unit, I was only in the hospital for a year. I got back to my unit. I was still really raw. I would not be seen without my prosthetic on my body. No one would see me without a leg.
Why?
Because in my mind, that would be seen as a, I would as weakness. I would be seen as a liability. I would be seen as. And there's no way this guy can stay in this community. So I struggled with that for a while, and there was a time eventually when my teammates came over and I was hobbling around. I clearly needed to take my leg off and, like, let it chill for a minute. And he came over, and he's like, dude, why don't you just take your leg off and, like, like, sit down for a second? And he knew why without me having to say it. He's like, Listen, dude, everyone here knows you only have one leg. If you take your prosthetic off, it's not gonna change anything. I'm like, okay. And that was like step one. And I just did that and I looked around and-- no one cared. No one cared.
Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable.
Absolutely.
The fear of embarrassment or the worry, what are people gonna think? No one cared.
No kid.
They just want you healthy, happy, they want you to feel ready to go.
That's it. And then from there, it just kind of began to snowball where I would, you know, I'd push myself harder and I would trip and fall or my leg would come detached or I would fail on this deadlift or I'd be out trying to learn how to run and I'd fall down and I began to just care less about the opinions of others.
Yeah, if you fell down, it didn't matter anymore.
Didn't matter. My teammates, my family, my loved ones, they love me regardless. So I just began to build up a greater sense of confidence because I was callousing my mind to a degree where, like, no, I can do this. I can be vulnerable. I can mess things up. And it's not only is it okay, but it actually inspires people around me and makes them want to dig a little bit deeper.
How do we train our minds and our body to be motivated towards a goal? and not stay lazy.
Yeah.
Well, at first it's know thyself because we're all different. So, one of the attributes I talk about in the book is discipline. And what I had to do with discipline was actively separate discipline from self-discipline. What's the difference? Okay, well the difference is that self-discipline is internally focused. Self-discipline is about managing oneself and it has very little to do with external requirements, right? So, you or I can decide to get in shape, for example, and we can change our diet, we can work out every day. The external environment doesn't have a lot of say in that, in us achieving that accomplishment. So self-discipline is about managing the internal. Discipline, the way I talk about in the book, is about achieving that long-term goal. These are those long-term goals that are going to take a while to achieve and the external world has a say. So getting that promotion, writing that book, becoming the famous singer, becoming a Navy SEAL, right? The external world has, starting a podcast, right? The external world has a say in whether or not you do that, and that's, and the discipline that is required to move through those wickets takes adaptability, it takes flexibility, it takes the ability to not get seduced by the highs, the successes, and not get crushed by the failures, and continue to move towards that goal. And what I found was, because I'm a very unself-disciplined person, I don't really have a lot.
Right?
And so what I, so I had to separate this because I've been able to achieve a lot of goals in my life. I say, what's the difference? Well, the difference is if you are overly, so those with very high self-discipline sometimes, this is not exclusive, but sometimes have trouble achieving long-term goals because the achievement of long-term goals often takes an ability and by necessity to march into the unknown, into uncertainty. certainty, which is going to throw you off routine and throw you out of certainty. The self-disciplined person, the very self-disciplined likes routine, likes certainty. That's how it's structure. I mean, that's what it is. And so moving towards a goal like that takes oftentimes being able to adapt out of structure and say, well, I can't do that. I'd have to just go in, I have to go in unknowing. Now, the best, the most successful people are those who have both self-discipline and discipline, right? In terms of staying motivated for a goal, the way I would do it by knowing myself is I would, understanding I'm not a very self-disciplined person, I would simply try to chunk a goal into smaller pieces, right? So if I want to lose weight, you know, then I can say, well, that's why cheat days are actually good for me, right? Because I can say, I'm going to take this piece of it and move. So I chunk my reward system in a different way, but I think I think the way one stays motivated towards a goal is highly subjective, but it would, in my kind of, through my thought process and my experience, involve one to actively map out a reward system that helps someone move through that.
So, creating a reward system first.
For.
The goal in order to help you stay motivated.
Not depending on how you show up.
Not just say like, okay, my goal is to achieve this thing, it's going to take me three years to accomplish it. And that's the only reward I'm going to get in those three years. But how can I reward myself every day for an action I take every month, for a milestone every year, for getting closer? So focusing on the reward system.
And this is neurobiological because dopamine, the neurotransmitter, you get hits of dopamine as a reward when you achieve things. There's many ways you get dopamine, but one of the ways is when you achieve things. So if you're able to effectively create a reward system that means something to you, it can't be kind of inert. So if I want to run a marathon and I can barely run to my mailbox, then maybe buying some running shoes and putting them on one morning is enough of a reward system to get a dopamine hit. As someone who runs, you know, somewhat frequently, and you probably identify with this, just putting on our shoes one morning is probably not going to give us that dopamine hit. We've got to extend that task a.
Little bit so that you've already accomplished.
A lot of something.
You have to push beyond that. You have to push beyond it to.
Get that reward system so it becomes subjective. What would you say, 20 years as a Navy SEAL at different levels, and you were deployed how many different times?
Are you allowed to talk about that? Well, I mean, 13 and some change.
Deployments between, what, six months and over a year?
Yeah, I never did a year long, but anywhere between three months to six months usually.
This is Iraq and Afghanistan?
For the most part.
And other places, maybe not a lot of talk about. What would you say of that 20-year experience was the most challenging experience for you? Was it something within, mission? Was it learning how to develop as a leader? Was it having a relationship with your wife during that time? What was the most challenging point for you?
Yeah, the most challenging thing ironically wasn't the job because we were all so prepared for the job and we were around just the best people in the world. So the trust and the camaraderie was to this day, I look back on it very fondly, right?
So not the day-to-day job. No, I mean, even just like the the missions you went out on?
Yeah, that wasn't challenging. I think if I were to say, the first and foremost was probably having to leave the family. When you have to say goodbye to your family for a stint, whether it's three months or six months or some folks are deploying for a year, that is a rough deal that not many people can capture. Not many people with families can capture that. When you have to say goodbye to your kids, and your wife for that, you know, okay, well see you in however. And then to add on to that, understanding their stress, or at least my kids were a little bit smaller, but understanding my wife's stress, knowing that I was going someplace and she was in contact with me. It was dangerous. Luckily with today's technology, contact was fairly easy, but we found, again, ironically, we found that daily contact was never a good idea, because what happens is you establish a routine. You get comfortable, you're comfortable. So something happens, I'm working, I'm overseas in something, I have a mission that goes long or whatever and I don't get to call her that day, well suddenly she's worried, you know. And it also makes time actually seem slower.
Interesting.
Yeah, so we decided we were only gonna talk usually once a week. My son who had real trouble, he was young, I mean he was, you know, he was born in '05 so he was, by the time he was two he was having trouble with me deploying. And every time I went it was rough on him and we actually, for him, we actually almost had to, Well, we literally had to just decide not to, I was not going to talk to him on the phone. It was too hard for him. He had to basically kind of forget me.
Oh my gosh. So he had to compartmentalize as a.
Child in order to- We had to help him compartmentalize.
Survive.
And not go depressed or be stressed. Because that's one of the attributes you talk about is compartmentalization. How do you do that if you're an emotional human being that's, you have these deep connections to your family and friends, how do you just detach in a sense and become more machine-like for a period of time and then allow yourself to feel deeply in other moments?
Well, it never goes away. I think the attributes, the way I talk about compartmentalization and the attribute is more surrounded by the way our brain functions and processes information versus I'm going to block something out so I don't have to think about it. However, I think most team guys, SEALs, Spec Ops guys, have a very high ability to compartmentalize away from things, you know, block out things that are painful. I know that about me, and I know that about my buddies, because you have to, because war sucks, you know? And at the end of the day, the mission has to be accomplished, you know? So if something gnarly happens on a mission, you can't sit there. These movies that show these extended scenes of people mourning when their body goes down or whatever, like, oh my God, it doesn't happen. No, you don't have that time. You have to win the gunfight, right? Because if you don't, then all of you won't make it home, right? So you have to, and I think the training allows you to do that. The training is so intense and.
So.
Effective that it requires you to compartmentalize. Training teaches you to compartmentalize. You become very, very good at it. Now, that could be a detriment in a relationship. So, I think those of us who were able to recognize that actively try not to do that with our families. And so, it becomes much more of a precision tool versus a frenetic thing. It just happens without us having control over it.
What was the moment that was the scariest for you? when you're deployed, where you thought like, I may not make it. Or our team may not make it, or this is a really bad, I guess you're training for bad situations all the time. But was there ever a moment you were like, I don't know if we're gonna get out of this?
No, I was fortunate not to have that moment. I say that with immense gratitude, because I know there's a lot of friends of mine who didn't have that, that can't say that. They had those moments where they said that. But no, I was fortunate enough to be always in a position, and my team was always in a position, that we had prepared, planned, and executed in a way that was highly effective so that when things went wrong, because things always go sideways, we had complete, you know, or near complete control, or we understood the pathways we needed to go throughout it. But I say that also, you know, this comes back to compartmentalization. You know, one of the things that you have to be able to do when sh*t goes sideways is to not focus on that thought you just brought up, right? The focus is not, oh my God, I don't think I'm gonna get out of this. Focus is how do I get out of this? So the mental hygiene attributes, which are situation awareness, compartmentalization, task switching, and then learnability, right? So that's how information is coming in, how we're processing it and prioritizing, how we're switching between the necessary tasks and then how we're learning from our from our decisions, right? So I talk about the parachute malfunction in the context of that. But ultimately comes to even be able to do that in the first place, it requires a forebrain dominance in the sense that you're not letting your autonomic system take over into a fight-flight response and you're able to think through stress, challenge, and uncertainty in the sense that say, okay, what can I control right now? And this is where trust in your teammates comes in because now I have a team. I mean, I can say this.
With.
Great pride and gratitude. I can remember literally walking in areas, you know, when we were overseas and thinking, man, this is a bad area.
Sketchy.
This is sketchy and having complete and utter faith, right? Because I was around, because I was with my teammates, right? I was around people who just, I trusted. I knew that if something went wrong, we'd be able to handle it, you know? And so I think that's, that's a necessity when you do this type of stuff.
When you're going out on a mission, what's the process like of preparing for that mission? Are you planning more for all the things that could go wrong on how to get out of that situation, or is it planning for here's exactly how we would like it to go right?
Yeah.
But let's also have a exit plan or a plan for when things go wrong. What do you, it's the ladder.
It's you plan the mission as you'd like it to go. And then inside of that planning, you put together, you build contingencies within each factor.
So when this doesn't go as planned, what are the three ways to go?
Yeah, so you know, just like any athlete would understand, so a quarterback coming out of a snap would say, well, I have two or three or four plays I can fall back on depending on how this line shapes up. You have the same thing, you know. this is where experience matters. You do it over and over again. It's okay. Well, as we're coming in on insertion, there's a few things that could go wrong. So if this, then that, if this, then that. And you kind of do that throughout a phase, throughout the phase planning. But then there's what we call the 80/20 rule. And that is you get to 80% of certainty, and then you recognize that 20% is just out of your control. And that's where confidence comes. You say, if something happens outside that 20%, we will We will figure it out.
Figure it out.
Because we're not gonna figure out everything and it's, you know, Murphy's law will dictate that something happens that we haven't thought of. So you prepare yourself to deal with uncertainty.
How do you train your mind to deal with chaos in the moment so that you don't freak out and freeze up, but you actually turn on a level of focus and attention towards achieving that goal.
Yeah, so I think we're predisposed each one of us to what I call Huberman and I both have called this, is the autonomic set point. You know, at what point do we start flipping into an autonomic response, into fight flight, where our system starts, you know, taking over and our forebrain starts coming offline? If you and I use boiling point as the average, most of us might be average. There are those who start really freaking out at like 190. so 212 is the average at 190 degrees, they're starting to freak out. There are people who take it till like 230.
To boil.
To boil, right? I think that the guys who make it through that training are predisposed to have a higher set point, first of all. In other words, we tend to, when bad things start to happen, we tend to slow down and start thinking through it versus get all hyped up. It's funny, you know, I live in a neighborhood and in my neighborhood there's four other navy seals in the neighborhood. There's one across the street, one down the road. Must be nice. Well, it is nice, A, because they're great dudes and they're great neighbors. But I remember my wife once saying, she said, hey, I'm so glad these guys are here in the neighborhood. I was like, why? She said, because if something went wrong, I know I could go to them and they'd act like you act. And I said, well, tell me. I said, because if something happens, they would immediately calm down and they'd start working the problem. And so I think we show up predisposed. training to it is difficult, you know, and I think so, so here we are actually working on some stuff to help train, have to help teach people to do that. But it comes down to understanding your own neurology and it comes down to understanding that, you know, here's how you have to think through situations under stress and then it's going to be about putting yourself into deliberate stress to practice that. You can't practice this type of thinking if you're not in stress. You need to put yourself in that.
What are some things civilians to practice stressful moments on a daily basis where it doesn't hurt them, but it's actually preparing them. I talk about every day I think you should be experiencing some type of pain, something that's uncomfortable, seeking discomfort, whether it be through a 10-minute workout, whether it be through a longer run, it doesn't matter what it is, an uncomfortable conversation. We should be doing this every day in a structured environment that allows us to grow. What do you think are some ways we could do this that's not putting.
Us in harm's way or physically hurting ourselves? I can't answer that because it's so subjective. I can give some ideas and you just gave some. I mean, some people are very social people. So starting a conversation with a stranger is a piece of cake, right? For me, that would be hard, right? Starting a conversation with a stranger would be hard. So that might be something I do. Giving a presentation, public speaking for people is tough. So volunteering to give that presentation is a great way for a lot of people.
Because.
That makes them anxious. So working out for some is like, for some people they've developed a system where that pain point of working out is something they highly enjoy. So they're not practicing it.
So.
Someone should look at their own makeup and ask themselves what fright, well in fear, again it doesn't have to go all the way to fear. Fear is interesting. because it's actually a combination of two things. It's a combination of uncertainty and anxiety. You can have each one of those and not have fear, right? So if you are anxious but not uncertain, that would be, I have to give this presentation on Monday. I hope it's going, I'm nervous about it, right? That's, you know, but there's nothing uncertain about it. It's Monday, it's a two o'clock, I know what I'm going to do. I'm just, I'm nervous about it, okay? Uncertainty without anxiety, well that's every kid on Christmas Eve, okay? I mean, so, but it's when you that you start to generate fear. Well, the idea is if you have fear, if you have uncertainty plus anxiety and it starts to manifest into fear, the key is to understanding which of those two factors can you buy down? Anxiety buy down? Buy down, which means decrease. Anxiety can be decreased internally. It's an internal response. So things like some of the tools Huberman talks about, visual tools, breathing tools, you can begin to shift your physiology out of your sympathetic into your parasympathetic. come off of the autonomic response system, right? So that's how you could start, you know, kind of buying down anxiety. Uncertainty is largely external, okay? That means something around you outside of you, you don't understand. There's unknown. The way, the best way to do that and the way we do it in Spec Ops is we control what we can control. So some people have referred to it kind of control your three-foot world, right? But it doesn't have to extend. It's not a three-foot thing. what in this moment can I control? And then take control of that, right? Because then you are grabbing onto certainty. You're taking what is uncertain, you're grabbing onto something certain. As soon as you've controlled that, as soon as you move through that, then you have to make another decision. What's the next thing? This is basically kind of stepping through, right? Stepping through this challenge, right? So you can start to practice coming off of fear or moving through fear by kind of understanding both of those those pieces.
What do you think is the greatest lesson you learned throughout the 20 years for yourself that has helped you not only during that but also after being with the SEALs?
I think it's not fearing the unknown. It's the idea that when you go through something like that you understand that hey, I could pretty much do whatever I'd like to do. And I know that Even though I don't know how I'm gonna do it, I know I can figure it out. If there's enough interest, if there's enough passion, right? You know, I'm not gonna, I'm not interested in becoming a pro football player, you know?
Right.
So that's, you know, that's off my list, right? But I was interested in writing a book and that was a whole new process for me, you know? When I started, when I left the Navy, I started public speaking. I did not like public speaking at all, right? I did not like it. But I knew it was an edge that I wanted to conquer, you know, and say, okay, well, let me work through the things to to conquer this edge, kind of like your philosophy. I think it's not only a deep one, but it's profound because if we are consistently moving, deciding what our edges are, moving towards our edge, and then getting there, then we are growing. Because guess what we're doing at that point? We're looking at the next edge. And that's the growth process, is continuing to move to our edges and then finding the next edge.
I mean, you say you don't like public speaking, but don't you have to.
Speak to your teams and guys? Yeah, but that's not public. That's like, you know, that's the guys. So it's not the same. It's different, yeah. It's different. There's a lot more, you know, when you're, you know, because you're, and when you're in the military, there's no expectation of, you know, kind of great articulation or humor or, you know, what's effective.
Here's the word.
And that's what you appreciate too. There's no one wants you to sit there and Pontificate. It's like hey guys, this is what's going on. So there's a directness that's appreciated and required, but that's not, you know, poke speech.
What do you think was the hardest lesson you had to learn through your 20 years? Something that you were struggling with or challenged with, or you kept repeating until you finally learned the lesson?
Yeah, I think the hardest lessons, the hardest lesson, maybe not one, the hardest lessons were just around leadership. What it takes, what leadership what it takes to be a leader? Because again, being a leader and being in charge are often conflated. They're not the same thing, okay?
What's the difference?
Well, anybody could be in charge. As an officer, you know, in the military, I was pretty much in charge of something all the time. It didn't make me a leader. You don't get to call yourself a leader. It's like calling yourself funny or calling yourself handsome, okay? Someone else makes that decision. You can't designate yourself that way. Someone else decides whether or not you are a leader, okay? And that's done through the way you behave in that position. So if you are in charge and you're behaving in a way that causes someone to make a decision, okay, this is the person I would lead. I mean, if we think about the leaders in our lives, the people who we consider leaders in our lives, it's not because they were just in charge of us. In fact, we could probably think of people who we would follow into hell and back, and they have no place in the hierarchy of our lives, right? They are just someone who just behaved that way. in a way that's made us kind of endeared to them. So, the attributes I talk about in the book in terms of leadership attributes are all attributes that actually cause behaviors that typically cause people to look at others as leaders.
What are the behaviors that most human beings admire the most that we want to follow that person or be inspired to be led by something that they're sharing or involved in a community of whatever it may be, what are the three or four main behaviors that they have and we should be developing if we want to be better leaders? Yeah, well, I talk about five in.
The book in terms of these approaches. The first is empathy, okay? And again, I would say this, there's not an exclusivity in terms of what someone will decide because there are people who will live- Subjective, right? It's a subjective thing, you know, again, it's someone's choice as to whether or not they think. So empathy is one. Selflessness is another, and this is not just So, let's just back up here. Empathy, not just I know how you feel, I feel how you feel. I can put myself into your shoes and that reflects in the way I communicate with you and I care about it shows that you care about another human being.
What is the best way to show that? I mean, give me an example. As opposed to saying I know how you feel, how do you empathize showing you feel how they feel?
Well, first deep listening. So, listening to another person but true, like deep, full-on listening. I am hanging on every word listening. Oftentimes we listen to people and we're two things, one of two things is happening. Either we're thinking about what we're going to say next, or we're thinking about how what that person is saying relates to our lives. And it's not from a malicious standpoint. It's really because we're trying to relate. So we're trying to say, okay, you're talking about football. I'm thinking, okay, wait a second, did I play football in eighth grade? Maybe I could talk about that. Yeah, we were late. But what I'm doing is I'm not listening to you. anymore. I'm making what you're saying about me. So what deep empathetic listening is, I have like a whiteboard in my mind, okay? And as I'm listening to you speak, if something pops onto the whiteboard, I erase it and I move on. I just keep on listening. That is, if you do, if you empathetically listen, like look into someone's eyes, attentive behavior, facing each other, they are going to feel cared for because you're exchanging. Now there's an exchange going on. There's serotonin, being released, there's oxytocin being exchanged, or at least released, and all these kind of these bonding chemicals, right? So that type of listening shows someone you care about them. Empathy is a little bit tougher for some. Some people are just wired, we know. Some people are wired to be, my wife is extraordinarily empathetic. I mean, she really feels other people. I mean, I am not. I've had to really try to develop empathy. It's something that she's taught me.
What would you say would be the biggest lessons you learned from being a SEAL then? that, that just about life in general from your entire time there.
So I summarize that in one phrase, get off the X.
Get off the X. Yeah.
So, and, and the X is any point of attack, any point of crisis, any, and that now, that's one of the big things I talk about to companies and individuals. It is the sticking point in SEAL training and special operations lingo. The X was the point of the attack. It was the ambush.
Point.
So for one side of my career, I had trained to try and put the enemy on the X. And that X is a specific point that usually we pick ahead of time that will channelize them into an area that it makes it very difficult for them to get out of and then we rain as much firepower and explosives to try and A, destroy their will to fight and B, destroy them. or equipment or whatever else. And what I had learned also was if you're ever on the X, you have to get off the X as quickly as possible because the longer you sit on it, the harder it is to get out of an ambush. So 2007, my gunfight, we survived because my teammates fought back and we were able to get off that X. I mean, it took a little while. We had to use the air assets, my teammates fought back, but that's what enabled me to be successful out of that gunfight. When we got to the hospital, or when I got to the hospital, I kind of realized that I had stepped out of one ambush into another ambush.
An emotional psychological ambush.
Absolutely, and this journey that I was facing, and I remember when the doctors were telling me, you know, we're thinking about amputating your arm, and it's going to take years put together, I felt like, man, it's no longer the bombs and bullets of battle, it's the bombs and bullets of life. And everybody gets hit by those bombs and bullets. So it took a couple of years for that all to come into clarity, but it made me realize everybody gets ambushed in life.
Everyone.
And everybody gets stuck on that X. And that X is insidious. It's like quicksand. And the more you want to feel sorry for yourself, and that's what happens. When people get on the X, three things happen. Number one, we will look back at what we've lost. And we waste a lot of time at, well, you know, I mean, a little bit like I did. Well, what if I had moved this way? Or what if I had moved that way? Or I want back my life before I got wounded because it was so much better. And we waste a lot of time doing that. We also look forward. Well, I was supposed to be this, or I was supposed to be that, or this was supposed to be my most successful year. You know, I was gonna play in the NFL. This was my launch point. And. And we get bitter about that. And then the last one is we look for someone or something to blame. You know, it was their fault. They did this, or they didn't do this. And that. That is the victim mindset that pins us to the X.
And.
And what happens is, I mean, in a gunfight, you literally can physically die. But in life, I watch people who mentally and emotionally die.
And.
I write this in the book Overcome, that there are people who that life ambush that hits them becomes the excuse for everything in their life for decades. And they become lesser individuals than they ever were before. Like alcohol, drugs, whatever it is, every bad behavior is justified because of what happened to them and they just lay on the X and they're just a dead person walking.
So when you made that conscious decision to make that sign and kind of create a mission statement for yourself to recover in a more positive state, what shifted for you and what shifted for the people around you that you weren't claiming to be a victim?
Yeah, I mean it was just nothing but positivity that and don't get me wrong, I had hard times. I mean, there were definitely days that were hard. I mean, it was not, you know, it's not blue skies and rainbows every day, but it is a choice. It doesn't mean that it's a choice to keep driving forward. And my wife, who I call the long-haired admiral, is amazing. But I, yeah, she's trying to raise three young kids. And really, I felt like this fourth kid because you know who was cleaning my wounds, you know who was grinding up my medicine who was feeding me through, you know, grinding up food so that I could eat through a stomach tube. It was my wife. I was in a wheelchair when they brought me home. I had all this metal and hardware, you know, helping me clean this trach that I wore for seven months and two days. So the last thing I was going to do was add additional stress to her by complaining or by, you know, and not only that, I want to set the example to my kids like, Hey, bad things happen to good people. But by complaining and being negative, you are not helping the situation in any way whatsoever. And this is something I talk to people about in this idea of leading always. When it sucks the worst, nobody needs to hear about it because all you're doing is pulling others down. And it is a virus. It is a cancer when it occurs because usually when a team is at a point in time where people are starting to turn inward and and feel sorry and eat themselves, you're at a tipping point. And this is when a great leader can step up and step out of his own misery to try and lead others forward to push you in the right direction or you will fall in the other direction. And that's, I wanted to show my kids and others that I wasn't going to be that guy. I was going to continue to drive forward no matter what.
That's powerful. Lead yourself, lead others, lead always. For those who are looking to accomplish their goals, but they feel stuck in.
Life.
What would you say were the strategies of the seals in accomplishing your goals at the highest level? What are some of the things that you guys did strategy wise?
Structure and discipline. So muscle memory would be the biggest one, which is now many of the things that I teach in both Overcome and in my Point Man for Life program. And it was something that I was missing. I felt like I was missing when I left the military. And I think a lot of military members feel the same way. The SEAL teams are incredibly effective at what we do for a lot of reasons. One of the reasons is selection. So, and that selection is, there's a lot of things you have to do to qualify just to get to SEAL training. A lot of people don't realize how smart SEALs have to be. So there's a level of intelligence, there's a level of physical ability, there's a level of obviously resiliency that has to come into this. And then we put everybody through this meat grinder called SEAL training that eliminates anybody that doesn't have that ability. And then once we get, you know, once you get to the SEAL team, it's how we train and build teams. And it's forged through tremendous adversity. Because our training, even once you get to a team, is designed to be very hard. I mean, some people would say almost sadistic in the way we would train. We would look for what is the absolute worst case scenario we can think of, and then how do we amplify that just a little more?
To make it even more intense.
To make it even worse.
And then train from that.
And then train from that. And it was grueling and painful, and sometimes we got guys killed in training. I mean, you try to reduce the level of risk, but we also recognize that in order to be ready for combat, we have to train at the highest level. And in order to do that, it was a lot of repetition. And crawl, walk, run was the mentality. And it was not these big goals of, hey, I'm going to take down this entire town right off the bat, because that's really complicated. That starts to get into all kinds of very complicated things. It was, how do I take down a single room? And we walk as we flow through it. And then it became, well, how do I take two rooms? How do I take three rooms? How do I take a house? How do I take a compound of three houses? How do I take a village? So it was a crawl, walk, run mentality all the time. And then structure and discipline in the way we trained. Everything was built up that way. from shooting. You know, oftentimes I was a marksmanship instructor and I've trained some other people to shoot and they're always, they're a little funny because the very first thing to do when I train anybody to shoot is you shoot at the, you know, at the three-yard line. I little black dot and we're shooting at the three-yard line and they're like, hey man, this is stupid. I'm like, no, you're not. You're learning and the repetition that you need to effectively pull your and out and get a positive sight picture, trigger squeeze, release that round, second sight picture, and follow through so that we can do that over and over and over again until at whatever point you're shooting from 50, 100 yards or more. So all of that comes together to create small victories and repetition, structure, and discipline that all come together to be.
How does someone create that for themselves when they're not in the military? Or not on a sports team when I left.
So what I began to realize, so Overcome, when I wrote the Trident, which was my first book, it was just the story. It's a story, it's my story of a young punk kid who did well enough to become an officer or a leader and then totally failed because of ego and arrogance. got a second chance and then redeemed himself and then got wounded and kind of realized there was another level of leadership. And when people would read that, people would say, how'd you do that? And I couldn't definitively answer that question. So overcome became, I mean, it took, overcome came out in, I think, five years after I wrote the Trident, because it took that long to kind of think about what enabled that. And a lot of that had to do with when I got out of the military, I missed that structure and discipline. I missed, you know, a lot of people don't understand that the military is sometimes a really simple existence, especially when you're deployed. Like when you're in the combat zone, it's a very simple existence. You eat, sleep, you work out, and then you train and conduct missions and you worried about the guys around you. And the real world's really complicated. There's all these distractions. There's no one that gives you the guidance. No one hands you a mission and says, Hey man, this is what you're doing today.
You gotta figure out your own mission.
Exactly. And as I got out, I realized that I had to figure out my own mission. And all these things were not there. So I started with, okay, so how was I successful coming out of these injuries because that's what everybody wants to see. How were you so positive? How did you write that sign on the door? How did you, you know, less than a year and a half after your injuries, launch a non-profit? How did you, you know, later create your own speaking company and all these things? And I realized that I was super balanced as a leader when I was wounded.
When you were wounded.
When I was wounded, I wasn't prior to being wounded.
Really?
Not when I had the leadership failure. And at other points in crisis in my life, I realized I wasn't as balanced.
I think I saw one of your videos recently talking about like the key to successful leadership is balance.
It is. I believe it. But balance is a misnomer too, because it's not like, well, I put 20% in this bucket, in this bucket, in this bucket. I teach something called the Pentagon of Peak Performance. So five key areas that a leader should be balanced in. The foundational level is physical leadership. And it's something that I've come to find that all of us as we get older have a tendency to let slide. We do the opposite of probably what we should be doing.
It's going harder.
Yeah, because as we get older we're breaking down. We need to take care of ourselves better than we do when we're younger where your body is so much more resilient. and that's why I tell people as a leader, you need a lot of energy, you need to be able to think clearly, you need, you know, sound mind and everything that you're doing. So that foundational level of physical leadership is critical to what you're doing, and that consists of sleep, nutrition and fitness. So those three components and my physical leadership saved my life when I was wounded. Now for most people hopefully you're never at that level, but in some ways right now you look at today.
You.
Know, COVID is kind of a strange thing, but for the most part, you know, it is individuals who are not healthy that are having the greatest problems. And those with a stronger immune system seem to be doing better. And it's like that with other diseases. So once again, physical leadership to have the energy and the ability we manage stress better. So that's the foundational level. Number two was mental leadership. And when I became a junior officer and I was super arrogant, I really thought I knew everything. And I didn't challenge my beliefs. I didn't question my own capabilities. do as I say, not as I do. I didn't do things to get out of my comfort zone. Those are the things that make up mental leadership. Constantly educating ourselves, constantly challenging our beliefs. We're in a day and age where it's dangerous, in my opinion, because social media feeds you the information that you like to see. And so many people don't go seek out, they don't challenge that belief system of what they're being fed.
Fed.
So it only furthers their belief in things that may or may not be true. But because you keep clicking on that line of thought, you're being fed all that information. The news is no different. The media, people watch what they like to see and it's very biased in this day and age. So mental leadership is constantly challenging your beliefs. It's doing your due diligence to find out what is really true And how does it play into who I am and what I'm trying to do? It's getting outside of your comfort zone. It's finding the individuals who are where you want to be and identifying them as mentors so you can be better so that you're not surrounding yourself with individuals who are pulling you away from where you want to go. Number three, and this is the biggest one of my weakest point, and that's something I've found about the Pentagon. most people have one area that they're super strong naturally, and then they have an area where they're super weak. And my weakest area was emotional leadership. And emotional leadership is our ability to maintain, as a leader, it's critical to be even keeled. We're not too hot, we're not too cold, we're not too excited, we're not too angry, because people can count on you with that consistency. They know as a leader, I I can come to you and tell you bad news and you're gonna take it well, and I can come to you and tell you amazing news and you're not gonna burn it down drinking and be an idiot. You know what I mean? You gotta ride that balance. And I really struggle with that because I was an emotional roller coaster when I was younger, and I came to realize that that really damaged my credibility as a leader.
Yes, yes.
And it's also choosing that positivity in the face of negativity. Nobody wants that leader that is a just an emotional train wreck, you know, or a negative nelly. They want that leader who they can count on that's positive, that's going to push you forward. They also don't want that leader that's something I call a leadership wrecking ball. A leader who they're all about the result, but they leave a path of destruction behind them. They'll crush you in their path to get things done. and that, in my opinion, is weak emotional leadership also. I mean, as a leader, we got to think about the others.
Yeah.
The health of others.
Yes.
And then the last point. Well, the last part of emotional leadership is, is managing our mouths because our mouth. Our mouth.
Yes.
Yeah.
Because so many people.
So true.
So many people. And I was guilty of this. and I'm not impervious to this. Like I said, this is my weakest area, but I'm really aware of myself now because when we let that zinger fly, 90% of the time it doesn't do anything to further what we're trying to accomplish as a leader. All it does is massages our ego. Well, I was angry in the moment, so I wanted to say this. I see this in relationships all the time. husband and wife that let these zingers fly, it does nothing to further that situation in a positive way.
No.
Other than maybe making you feel good to attack people who disagreed with, and that's part of being a leader also.
Right.
That people are gonna disagree with you.
So what? The biggest reason that people quit any of those things I just talked about is because they look at the whole, they're looking at the big picture, man. So, like, with seal training, there's no single Evolution that, that's that, that's that difficult.
Yeah, really.
I mean, it's four mile runs and, you know, two mile swims, and it's nothing that you couldn't get up from this table and go do right now. But guys, the guys that quit. they couldn't break it down like into digestible pieces.
One hour at a time, one moment at a time, one day at a time, one step at a time, one breath at a time. It seems so overwhelming. You're like, if I can't do this right now, if I'm struggling this moment, how am I going to take on all this, right? Six months, four months, three months. And so we become overwhelmed and in fear as post just one step at a time.
That's it, brother. I remember an evolution during Hell Week. All it was was a one mile repeat. The instructors just got everybody together and said, all you got to do is run one mile over and over again until we tell you to stop. There's no time standards. There's no-- you- could walk. You could walk. I mean, you had to look like you were running, but you could walk. So I'm out here like, heck, Yeah, dude. All I gotta do is run one mile at my own pace on a sunny beach on Coronado Island. Like, this is amazing.
No sprinting.
No time limit. No time limit.
It's like vacation.
Yeah, yeah, man. But that was the single evolution during Hell Week where we lost the most guys. And it was because of what we just talked about. They could not, certain people just can't, could not focus on that mile. Dude, all they could think about was all the miles in front of them, which they didn't know if this was the last one or not. So they looked at it as a big picture and they just couldn't handle it. And really it was the easiest evolution that we did in all of Hell Week.
Do you remember how many miles you actually ran?
Dude, I have no clue. And what the instructors do, they just keep it going until until enough people quit and then they call it.
Yeah.
Really?
Yeah.
And just to, they're like, okay, we're gonna do 10 miles, 15, 20 miles, whatever, until many people quit.
That's right.
Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
So that's the biggest thing, dude, about. And I take that now into, like, Ultra running and. And even three of seven, you know, the business model for three of seven and all that we have going on with that, it's just like, you know, conquer what's, like, right in front of. and if you can stay in that mindset, you know, on an ultra race, when I'm 95 miles deep into a race and I've got to climb a 2,000-foot mountain, how do you think I do it, bro?
One step at a time.
Yeah.
I mean, I pick a tree 20 yards ahead of me and I get to that tree and then I pick another tree and then eventually I'm at the summit, you know?
How do you manage your mind the thoughts of, man, I've got five more miles or however many more miles to go, how many more hours to go, days to go. And this is freaking hard. How do you manage the mind that wants to tell you to stop when it seems like there's so much ahead of you, but you're just going 10 feet at a time? How do you do that? When you're tired, when you're hurting, when you're exhausted, or you just don't get tired?
No, no. That's a mantra we use, right? And we can talk about that later. But for me, bro, it's like if you will push yourself hard, if you will push yourself hard enough, you reach this place, I call it the steady state, and it's where it's not gonna hurt any worse. And it's not gonna get any harder. It's the steady state, man.
It's gonna stay hard.
It's gonna just stay just like that. That's exactly right. And it's almost like a, for me, it's almost like a primal feeling. Like everything else is stripped away. And all I have to deal with is this pain, physical pain that I'm feeling. And it's a beauty, for me it's a beautiful thing, man.
So I don't... To feel the pain?
Well, to reach that steady state to where everything's just boiled down and it's just so simple, dude.
You're not stressing about who's calling you, what's happening at home, friends, or... Yeah. You're not stressed about that stuff. You're focused on one thing.
Yeah, and so how... I guess one way that I that I manage that. I like getting to that point in the first place. But some way that I guess you could say that I manage that pain is I stop fighting against it.
I.
Literally just tell myself, I accept this. And I almost just like in my mind's eye, I see it. passing through me.
-The pain.
-The pain. And you can use this with all different types of things that are uncomfortable like cold. If you stop, we'll stop fighting against it. It diminishes its power. But as long as long as you're fighting against the pain or you're using your energy to fight against the cold, it's going to continue to gain traction and power over your mind. So, it's just forcing yourself to let go and stop fighting against that discomfort and just rock and roll, man.
So, for the everyday human being who does a five-mile run or maybe there's someone going extreme into an ice tub for two minutes and they feel pain after a few miles or that first minute in the ice tub, how would you process that mentally or in your mind's eye when you're entering the ice? and you're going to that five mile run where it starts to hurt, you get the cramps, you get the heartaches, sweating, what would you do in that moment? Obviously for you that's like 50 to 100 miles, but for the everyday human, how would you approach that mentally? Like a process we could understand. I understand of like surrendering and letting go through you, but what is it, what's a strategy we could implement you think?
Well, I mean, I think the strategy to implement that particular thing about not fighting against it, I think, is that you could speak it out loud. I talk to myself all the time, and that's something I'm so adamant about is the spoken word. So, you know, if you...
So it's starting to feel painful. I'm on my third mile. I feel like wanting to slow down. What would I say to myself.
Well, I mean, you can you can counterpunch that with with any number of statements or mantras, whatever works best for you. You know what I mean? Of course, I have some that I use on my own, but that's for me, that that would be the number one tool to kind of to kind of manage that pain.
A spoken mantra out loud.
Yeah, the spoken word.
Not an internal mantra or or a whisper, but actually saying it, you think?
Yeah, totally, man. Yeah. Yeah, it has to be said out loud.
Okay. What's the, were you gonna say something else?
No, I'm good, brother.
What's the killer of getting through hard challenges in your mind? What's the thing that kills most individuals once it starts to get hard and they stop?
Negativity, man. Yeah.
The thought process, the words.
It's not necessarily the negative thought because we can't control our thoughts obviously all the time. We're gonna have thoughts in our head that pop up that we don't want to be there but it's when you give those thoughts power through the things that you say. So I give you an example. One of my best friends going through seal training. He came to me one morning and he said, he said he had been think, I could tell he had been in a bad place mentally, but he was doing fine, progressing through training. But he came to me one morning and he said out loud for the first time, I don't think I'm good enough to make it through this training anymore, which was a lie. He was completely physically capable of doing every single thing that we had to do that day and every other day. But when he came and said that, it gave those thoughts that he had.
That.
What do you call it, like lack of confidence or you know those thoughts that he was having that he wasn't good enough, they didn't have enough traction to stop him until he came and told me that out loud.
Spoke it into existence.
He spoke it out loud. Yeah.
So you might be thinking, Am I good enough to do this? Can I make it through? Maybe I'm not as strong as these guys. These guys are more talented. But once you start saying it to someone else out loud, that's when your body starts to believe it even stronger and it gets harder and harder to go back into a confident place, I'm assuming. -That's it, brother.
Yeah.
So, like when he told me that, it was just like seconds later, he was going to ring the bell. -Really? -Yeah. And there was nothing that I I could do to stop him.
It's like he finally believed it 100% and he was out.
Yep. Yep.
Just don't say it and you're halfway there, right? If you like, just don't say it. You have a chance.
That's it, brother. That's it. And so your tongue, your tongue is the thing. I compare it to a rudder. A rudder is the main control surface that steers a ship, steers the direction of a ship. your tongue is your rudder. It's going to steer the direction of your life and the outcomes of your situations 98% of the time.
So.
What you say is pretty important.
Yeah.
Oh, it's, it's, it's paramount to me, bro. I mean, that's like, I take this to such an extreme that I don't curse. I'm a Christian, but I don't, not cursing is not a Christian thing. It's because none of those words in and of themselves have a positive meaning. So why am I going to use them? So for me, it is paramount, dude. The things that we say, yes.
Did you ever come to a place where you started saying negative things to yourself during BUDS training or as a SEAL, where you had to catch yourself or have you always been clear with your words to yourself?
I have not always been clear with my words to myself. I became more conscious about the power of my words throughout life and doing really, really hard stuff. to where, you know, I've put myself in enough situations with other people around me to see the power of the spoken word actually work, not only in my own situations, but in the men around me or women around me in racing, you know?
Yeah.
So as every time I see it work, I'm like, holy smokes. this is powerful, this is powerful. Well then finally I started going on some podcasts and telling people that it works and then I now get hundreds of messages a month of people saying, oh my gosh, this works.
What are the words we should never say to ourselves and what should we say to ourselves every day?
You know, I think that's really, I think that's really individualized, man. I mean, as far as the words that you should never say to yourself, it's gonna be dependent on the situation you're in, you know what I mean? And then the things that you're saying to yourself, you know, a big one for me is, I will not die in the chair. That's a huge mantra that I use. I won't die in the chair, and that has a whole meaning and story behind it.
What's the brief meaning?
So that was born out of that last man standing standing race that I did a few months. Well, that was back in May where I was running, you know, we had to run 4.16 miles every hour on the hour. Each one of those hours, I would dedicate to a fallen brother in the.
SEAL teams and their actual names.
Yeah, I had a wrist coach that I was wearing, and I would have their, you know, index card with their face name, their family's names or date of sacrifice.
And so, holy cow, that probably gave you a lot more power and speed.
It did, man. But it gave me a lot more pressure, too, dude, because each one of these laps was, was for this guy. And, and, and some of those guys were guys that I had spent a lot of time with, you know what I mean? So the way that race worked, there was no definitive Finish Line. You just kept running until only one runner. was left standing. So I could not promise my brothers that I would win. I couldn't promise them victory because I didn't know if my body would break or, you know, I was, I didn't know. I didn't know where the race was going to end. So, but, but I could promise them that if I died in death, meaning death within a situation, not physical death, but death in this scenario would be of my race. If that time came, I would die out on the race course battling for every step that I took.
Not on the chair.
I won't die in the chair. That's exactly right.
Sitting around waiting.
Yep, so at the end of each one of these laps, there was a chair. So if I came in off the lap in 55 minutes, I could sit down for five minutes. And it was hard. A lot of people died in the chair that day.
I'm done. I'm done.
Because it was hard to rise back up, man. For sure.
Did you win the race?
No, I was the, I think I was the third man standing. I ran 116.5 miles. And my last lap, dude, was actually for, my last lap was for a good friend of mine named Blake Marston. And we lost Blake in a skydiving driving accident not long ago. And, dude, I remember looking down at. I went out on that lap, and so it was muddy. I had tied my shoes too tight, and so my shoelaces were sawing through that large tendon in the front of my ankles.
Painful.
Yeah.
So it got to the point that I could no longer Flex my toes toward my shin anymore. So every step was like I. dragging my feet like lead weights. So I went out on that lap and I pretty much, I was broken, dude.
Yeah, your whole body.
But I wasn't gonna die in a chair, dude.
You were on the lap, though.
I was out on the lap.
You fell on the lap or you didn't make it back in time?
Yeah, I got out there, dude, and I remember looking down at Blake and, dude, I just started crying because I knew at a certain point that I could not make it back in time.
Oh my gosh.
And I thought, you know, what does Blake think of me right now? And then I just had the sense of peace come over me, dude. And I could see his face in my mind's eye laughing at my poor physical state. Because we always find, I mean, team guys, we always find humor in adversity. I mean, no matter how miserable at God we would be joking and laughing, at each other. So I saw him laughing at me, you know, and then I found a stick on the ground and hobbled my way back to the finish line.
Yeah, so you made it through. It wasn't in the time allotted. It was after the time.
It was after the time. That's right.
So 116 miles.
Wow. Yeah, but you know, you can apply, I apply that now, that don't die in the chair to all aspects of my life, man, whether it's business or personal relationships or marriages or you name it.
Dude.
So, you have a mantra and you'll say this mantra out loud or internally every day when you feel it gets tough.
Yeah, it's used as a counter punch to those negative thoughts.
You know what's funny? Mantras are talked about a lot in kind of the spiritual meditation communities. But you're this hardcore Navy SEAL guy who's saying the power of the spoken word, the the power of a mantra, a positive mantra, is what gets you through adversity.
That's it, bro.
And that's the secret.
That's your rudder, man.
How do you modify your relationship with fear and pain?
I think, at least for me, man, it began with a recognition of what they're there to do. And, you know, the human brain does a lot of amazing things for us, but its primary responsibility is our survival. Yes. It's to keep us alive. and the brain has a security system within it. And within that are two different alerts, one of which we know is fear, when we know it's pain. Fear is the alert of pending danger or a potential threat. Something bad could happen. You're now scared. I need you to be scared of that to stay away from it. Pain being the alert of damage or impairment.
Right?
Because the brain wants us to survive. Knowing that our brain is there because it wants the comfort zone, like homeostasis, like the medical term, it wants things nice and predictable and sustainable and forecastable. And let's just keep things all nice and calm here when it comes to even a heartbeat, our red blood cell count, like it doesn't want change. Recognizing that, And then knowing that if we set our sights on something righteous, something of ambition, something that is unlikely, unprecedented, there are going to be times when we have to ignore our brain and listen to our heart and our soul. And one of the greater challenges of life really is knowing when to take that risk and asking yourself in that moment, in real time, like right now, Are you willing to take the risk of doing this particular thing, knowing the potential hazards, but then also knowing the potential effects? Are you willing to do it?
I'm curious about, in your mind, I don't wanna assume anything, but has anything become harder since you've lost your leg and has anything become easier or better? since then as well. I don't want to make assumptions either way that things have gotten harder or easier and better. But if there is, is there something on both sides that's been harder and easier and better?
Yeah, certainly. I mean, there are countless specific tasks were really hard to relearn and are still harder today, even after having learned them and doing them now for almost a decade. I mean, walking is hotter now than it was prior. I think generally speaking, the the hard comes from a willingness to accept that you don't know how to do something right now, and that's okay. And not letting my pride and ego get in the way of that. Slicing off a massive serving of humility. be willing to take that risk of embarrassment. And when it comes to fear, sure, we're fear of physical damage, but I would argue fear mostly comes through the lens of emotional damage. Fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, self judged by other people. Judgment, I think most of that. So again, a modification of that relationship. Am I willing to do this? But most, I think it's probably accurate to say most tasks, certainly anything that involves me being on two legs are more difficult today than before.
What's easier or better?
If that's man, I'll start off in the clouds, man. Because if I could go back in time, right? Like Doc Brown shows up in the DeLorean and he's like, Let's go back and we'll save your leg. you know, the butterfly effect is a. Yeah. Is, you know, a concept.
You weren't there and you were in another room or something during that time. Yeah.
But I look at the life I have now, man, and, you know, particularly my family and my boys and my wife, and. And it's just amazing. I would not undo a single thing if. Because there's just a chance that I don't end up where I am here right now, like, talking to you with my family at home. I live such a fulfilling. and loved life that I wouldn't change a thing about this. That's like up in the clouds. But it's important, you know, note, I think. I'll go into the tactical realm. So I'm big into jiu-jitsu. And I started as a two-legged guy and competed. And jiu-jitsu was a huge part of my recovery, which began in the hospital, certainly physically, range of motion, flexibility, Humility.
Also your spirit too. Just absolutely camaraderie, competition, all that stuff.
Yeah, huge aspect of my recovery and just really overall life. But you know, jiu-jitsu is a weight class sport. And although, you know, I walk around now today at around 220 pounds, big strong guy, man, I'm missing about 45 pounds of leg.
Right, right. So you would be a 265 weight class, but you're Right. Against guys, you know, my size.
Absolutely.
You can just bear hug them.
Yeah.
So, you know, I learned that there was like a huge advantage in that realm, which is, you know, I wouldn't say it's silly because you can conceptualize that to say like, no, there's always upsides to it.
So, sure.
I was able to leverage, you know, my upper body strength and whatnot when I would compete as an amputee. And if you looked at me versus some of my competitors from the waist up, you'd be like, there's no way these guys are in the same weight class.
Right.
It's impossible.
Well, you look like a beast next to them. Yeah, right.
So certainly just an example, man, of things that I would say are easier, but certainly things that I can leverage to my advantage.
Yeah. Yeah. That's cool, man. Anything else that's easier or better now with this is. Do you have a different, you know, mental capacity, emotional capacity? Do you. appreciate things more.
Yeah. Oh my gosh.
Is your heart open now because you have different type of humility? I mean, I'm just, I have no idea, but I'm throwing it out there.
Yeah.
My degree of confidence is actually probably higher now than it was as a two-legged guy.
Wow.
Wow.
Why? How?
Yeah, great question. You know, I think you could summarize confidence into two words, training and preparedness. And when you put in the reps and you've got the resources in place to deal with the what ifs, I think drastically increase the level of confidence. And my training was, you know, I attacked that on a whole another scale. And as I was working my way back to the team and then continuing to deploy into combat and doing all these different things, My level of training was quite, was quite insane at times and I needed to physical training or.
Like, oh yeah, workout training to get back.
Yeah, I mean it was, it was belligerent, you know, my lifestyle and structure was nuts. And then my level of preparedness also had to increase as well. I would break these things. I would need tools. I would need stuff to have available. I learned all these through really difficult lessons. So training and readiness or training and preparedness were essential for me to do what I needed to do. But most significantly is as I began to fail repeatedly in front of those in which I wanted to impress, like my teammates and my commanders, I eventually got to a place where I was okay with failing in front of people. Like when I first got back to my unit, I was only in the hospital for a year. I got back to my unit, I was still really raw. I would not be seen without my prosthetic on my body. No one would see me without a leg.
Why?
Because in my mind, that would be seen as a. I would as weakness. I would be seen as a liability. I would be seen as. And there's no way this guy can stay in this community. So I struggled with that for a while. And there was a time, eventually, when my teammates came over and I was hobbling around, I clearly needed to take my leg off. like, let it chill for a minute. And he came over, he's like, dude, why don't you just take your leg off and like, like, sit down for a second? And he knew why without me having to say it. He's like, listen, dude, everyone here knows you only have one leg.
Yeah.
Like, if you take your prosthetic off, it's not going to change anything. I'm like, okay. And that was like step one. And I just did that. And I looked around and no one cared. No one cared. Yeah.
Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. Absolutely. Yeah, the fear of embarrassment or the worry, what are people gonna think? No one cared. No one cared. They just want you healthy, happy, they want you to feel ready to go.
That's it. And then from there, it just kind of began to snowball where I would, you know, I'd push myself harder and I would trip and fall or my leg would come detached or I would fail on this deadlift or I'd be out trying to learn how to run and I'd fall down and I began to just care less about the opinions of others.
Yeah, if you fell down, you didn't matter anymore.
It didn't matter. Like my teammates, my family, my loved ones, they love me regardless. So I just began to build up a greater sense of confidence because I was callousing my mind to a degree where, like, no, I can do this. I can be vulnerable. I can mess things up. And it's not only is it okay, but it actually inspires people around me. and makes them want to dig a little bit deeper.
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