This NEAR DEATH Experience Will Change Your PERSPECTIVE FOREVER... | Nick Lavery & Lewis Howes
Lewis Howes interviews Nick Lavery, a Green Beret who lost his leg in combat. Lavery talks about his recovery, the mental resilience needed after severe injury, and what combat taught him about leadership and sacrifice.
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He jumped up on the back of a Ford Ranger that had a truck mounted, belt fed machine gun and he opened fire into us. Most of the damage was to my right leg. And once I realized that my femoral artery had been cut, I knew I had maybe eight or so minutes to live unless I got that pinched off completely.
I think you gotta have a dream. The School of Greatness.
Really? Yeah.
Please welcome Luis Alfonso.
Why would you want to go back into combat? After losing your leg?
That's a great question, man. It's layered, I'll say, kind of on the cusp of that is, I'm stubborn, I'm competitive, as much as I enjoy winning, I really hate losing more so, and there's a difference, as you know.
Sure.
So the idea of my future being dictated by anyone or anything other than me, was something that just didn't sit well with me laying in the hospital. Taking it a little bit deeper is passion and purpose. Two terms that get thrown around a lot. Different interpretations perhaps from individual. I'll say that I have recognized the passion I have not for being a Green Beret, but for earning my Green Beret every single day. like a love of the game, a passion of the game, and then a deep sense of purpose. You know, like, what is your why? Like answering that question, what is your soul pulling you towards a deep connection with this lifestyle and having realized that I was put on this earth to be a warrior and to pledge allegiance to a society in which I'll protect at all costs. Wow. So I know that that's who I am. So it really didn't give me an alternative option.
Sure. And how long does it take usually to become to enter in the Green Beret and to be in that community? And how many members are there active Green Beret?
The process can take usually somewhere between 12 and 18 months of training to be able to do that for the special forces aspect of that in particular. that really doesn't include basic training, airborne school, some of these other qualifications you have to have prior to, yes sir.
So it might take a couple of years first, and then 12 to 18 months after all the basic training and the certifications.
Right. Once you go into selection, Special Forces assessment and selection, which is now about a 20 day process to determine if an individual has the physical and psychological and character traits that could make a good Green Beret. From that point moving forward, it's about 12 to 18 months.
How many current members are there?
Current members? Oh man, I'd have to, what's the range? Is it thousands?
Is it tens of thousands? Is it hundreds?
No, no, no. We're probably talking somewhere around 8,000.
8,000.
Yeah, 7 to 8.
7 to 8.
Don't quote me on that. It's an extraordinarily small number compared to the overall.
How many are in total active? military.
What's like the, in the entire Department of Defense military? Around 2 million?
2 million. So 7,000 roughly out of 2 million.
Somewhere around there.
Yeah. Wow.
Yeah, we make up it's like 0.07%. Wow.
It's inspiring. And what does it take to sustain it and stay in that, you know, community? Do you have to hit certain benchmarks every year to be a part of it or can people drop off?
Yeah. I mean, it is possible for individuals to come in to Special Forces as a Green Beret and then leave or go somewhere else for a reason. It's extraordinarily rare for that to happen. And then our career progression model is based off of our, you know, our performance, our annual evaluations, really just like any other Soldier. Wow.
And what is it, what is required of Green Beret? What is, what is put upon you that's different than everyone else in the military?
Yeah, it's a good question, man. So the Army Special Forces, we specialize in unconventional warfare. That's our primary mission. And there's a lot that goes into what that means. It's a sexy term. There's a lot that goes into that. To break it down in more simple terms, we are teachers, we're complex problem solvers, we're advisors, and we're force multipliers. that term means that you can take a 12 man SF ODA, which stands for Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha. You can take a Special Forces ODA, put them anywhere in the world under any circumstances, and we will create a much larger fighting force. Hence the term force multiplier. So we all have to have a certain working knowledge and level of expertise in foreign language. geopolitics, regional dynamics, culture. So it goes beyond the cool guy stuff, the jumping out of planes and kicking down doors and shooting bad guys in the face, which we all enjoy doing. You have to have a high degree of maturity, intelligence, trustworthiness, because we're a self-sufficient element that is designed to get dropped off somewhere and thrive on their own, not just unilaterally, meaning just us doing things ourselves, but with other human beings. You don't really send a Green Beret or an SF team somewhere to do something by themselves. We have other aspects of the military and special operations that are designed to conduct missions themselves. You sent us someplace because you need a larger fighting force, but you don't want to risk putting in additional Americans.
Interesting. So you would go and join another group to support making it bigger. You wouldn't go alone and just take over and do a mission by yourselves, is that right?
That would be extraordinarily rare for us to do something by ourselves. and the degree in which we have to find, train, advise, lead our partnered force can change from area to area and dynamic to dynamic. There are situations where we have to literally find these humans from the very beginning. There are other scenarios where that's already been done before and we come in and we just take ownership of this group of people that's already been established and vetted and trained to a degree and then we take them and run with them.
Right.
To conduct our missions.
What would you say are your top three skills as an individual in the military that you've developed, trained, and mastered personally, individually?
For myself, top three skills. Communication comes to mind really fast, both verbally and written. If you're unsuccessful or unable to do that, it's going to be really difficult. to accomplish anything, especially as a Green Beret. We live in the relationship business. We live in the relationship and the rapport business. So if you're unable to communicate with another human being, that's mission failure. So communication is certainly there. Complex problem solving, I would say most Green Berets are somewhat natural or have at least a bit of talent in that, being able to look at a problem and then kind of rapidly assess current situation, desired end state, what resources do I have available, but learning the methodologies and philosophies and tools that they teach us to be able to do that faster and at a higher rate is something that I would put on that list as well. And then I'll close it off by saying what's probably most important, that's leadership. And whether you're talking internal or if we're conducting an evaluation of a potential militia group that we want to work alongside of. One of, if not the first things we look at is what is their leadership dynamic look like? Because that will make or destroy any organization. So it wasn't until I was in the military, almost embarrassingly, kind of a far along my military career, that I realized that leadership is very much a skill. Whereas my preconceived notion was that it was a A talent, it was a gift.
Like you either had it or you didn't. You were born with it.
Exactly. Some of you were born with it, or you weren't. You're either born charismatic, social, outgoing, but it's very much a skill. Just like shooting free throws. To get good at that, you have to do it a whole bunch.
What does it take to be a great leader? And who is a leader that taught you, either by example or by communicating those those skills that you need to acquire.
Yeah, I think to be able to train on it first requires knowledge, which can be received via reading or interacting with another solid leader. In fact, even interacting with a horrible leader, you oftentimes learn more what not to do. What not to do. Those are phenomenal lessons. But then being very deliberate about how you employ that day to day, it's not just gonna happen on its own. you're not just gonna automatically start shooting free throws. You have to walk to the free throw line, think about what you're doing and actually do it. So just being very specific about going into your day knowing I'm gonna exercise and practice on these aspects of leadership throughout my day, week, month, et cetera. The first resource I stumbled upon when I recognized that leadership was a skill and one that I needed work in was Jocko Willink, someone we were just talking about offline. I found him, I read a lot of his stuff, and then I began consuming John Maxwell as well.
He's great.
Right.
So kind of looking at those models, those would be my kind of my one-two punch where, you know, Jocko is very blunt and direct and at the tactical level, and it's very simple, which I love. He doesn't overcomplicate things. John's work tends to get a little bit more conceptual at times and at a larger scale where it's a full-blown philosophy as well. So I've leveraged the lessons by those two guys who I consider mentors. And I keep just visual cues of some of their stuff around me throughout the day just as a reminder.
What are the three key attributes you see of the best leaders in the military? What do they do? How do they show up differently? than average leaders.
I'll steal Jaco's word, which is ownership or accountability, is absolutely essential. Everything that goes well is because the team made it go well. Everything that goes wrong is because you failed as a leader. And just owning that, I think, is essential. Providing consistent value, I think, is a real simple way and to describe how to go about being a leader. And I really like those three particular words 'cause you're saying provide, meaning you're giving yourself to someone or a group of people. You are really of service to those that you lead, right? You work for them. You are providing consistent, which means if you just do it for a day, it's not gonna matter. You have to live this, live this. Provide consistent and then value. If I'm either making you as an individual better, day to day, making myself better day to day, making the organization better day to day, and providing value to those that I serve in the organization in which we represent. So provide consistent value. And then lastly, I'll say, man, is I said value, I'll just say values and having a solid degree of self-awareness on our own values, for one, and then knowing that Others are likely going to be different. And one of the most critical components to successfully influencing someone else is knowing their values. And that may not be the same for you, but it's about them. What do they see to be important? And that typically happens through dialogue and asking a lot of questions rather than coming in and saying, I'm a leader, which means I need to tell you what to do. It's like that sounds more like a boss to me. Leadership means you get a sense of those in which you are attempting to influence, therefore lead, to being able to know their strengths, weaknesses, values, and how you can provide them that to guide everyone in the same direction.
I like that. That's powerful. Let's talk about the story of, you know, what happened to you with your leg.
Let's do it.
When was it? what was happening, what can you share about it, and when did you know you were going to lose your leg?
So this was in March of 2013. We were on the back end of a six-month deployment in Afghanistan. So we were set to leave in a couple weeks. And this was actually the third time I was wounded in combat on that one deployment. You mentioned three purple hearts. Those were all earned on the same deployment.
So you got hurt twice before.
Twice before.
In that deployment and you stayed and kept fighting. Yeah.
Holy cow.
Yeah.
First time I took some shrapnel, some.
Grenade shrapnel to the back of my shoulder.
You just dusted off, you just, nobody did. Yeah. I mean, it blew about a lemon size hole. Oh my gosh.
Required some treatment. What does that feel like when you get a grenade shrapnel in your back?
Like someone hit you with a sledgehammer. Oh my gosh. It's not like a penetrating feeling. It's more of just impact.
Just boom.
Yeah, just boom. Hear the boom, feel the impact, look back, and there's a massive hole in the back of my shoulder.
Come on.
Yeah.
Holy cow. Now, are you wearing, like, protection or it just goes right through it?
No, it just went around it. Yeah.
So, hit the shoulder, not like the backpack.
Right. So, where were armor plates that covers our front and our back? Sometimes, if we're doing what we're supposed.
To do, we wear side plates.
Yeah.
But it's heavy and it's kind of uncomfortable, right? So you're like, oh, let's take off the side.
I know.
Not advised. A lot of us do it. Holy cow. But the shoulders tend to stay pretty much exposed. So you took some-- you probably took.
Some of the back, but it blocked it. Possibly. Maybe. But then it hit here.
Yeah.
And you saw just a big-- yeah, one massive hole and then some smaller ones as well. There's actually still some shrapnel that they left in my shoulder.
Come on.
'Cause it was less intrusive to go in and take it out. So I'll set off metal detectors.
Oh my gosh. So the hole, how do they, do they sew it back on? Are the skin's gone?
No, it's a good question 'cause in order to treat something like that, you can't sew it shut 'cause it will leave an open cavity which is prone for infection.
I gotcha.
So they pack it with this antiseptic gauze about three or four times a day.
Oh my gosh.
So it gradually closes from the inside out.
It kind of grows back and flattens or whatever, right?
Yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah. So I did get medically evacuated to one of the Laja bases after that happened. I was after I was actually wounded. We got the situation under control. We ended up back at our camp. My medic took a look at it and he's like, yeah, let's get you in front of a doctor just to be safe. I got sent out. But after about a week, I was back with the team.
It heals up.
Heals up.
Enough.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was still healing when I was back to conduct admissions. I bleed through my it was. Sure, sure. But it was. It really wasn't that big of a deal. Okay, so that was the first time. The second time. First time. Second time was about a month later. I took an AK-47 around the face.
Oh, my gosh.
That's intense. Which. Yeah, it sounds a lot worse than it really was, man. I got really lucky.
It just grays. Okay.
Just a little. Yeah.
The ear or just.
No, it just grays right here.
I see the line there.
Yeah. Yeah.
And so it didn't hit the ear. It did not. It just kind of like went above it or something or.
Yeah. Holy cow.
Cause I could have taken the ear off.
Could have taken the ear off, could.
Have taken my cheek cheek off. So it was right here. I see the scar.
Yeah. I mean a half an inch over.
It goes through your head.
Yeah, and I'm probably dead. Oh my gosh. So real lucky. And the timeline was relatively the same. I mean it did clip an artery, so I did lose quite a bit of blood, but this was in the event where six of my friends were badly wounded. in an IED that decimated their vehicle. So I went out, eventually got treatment. They happened to be a plastic surgeon who was an Army Reservist, who was deployed, who was there who treated me, which is why it looks as good as it does, right? I was again, I was out of the fight maybe four or five days and then I was back.
My gosh.
With the guys.
So this is back to back within a month.
Yeah, six weeks.
Two injuries.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
And then back to work.
And then when did the leg happen?
And then a few months later, again, tail end of the trip was when the third time I was wounded happened. And we were about to go on a mission and we had a bunch of different units, Afghan units we were working with that particular day.
Local units?
Yeah, Afghan National Army. We had Afghan National Police. Our dedicated partner force, like we talked about, was an Afghan Special Operations Commando unit. that lived with us. But depending on the mission, sometimes we would go with much a bigger package. We would bring in some of these conventional forces. And this day was one of those. And one of the Afghan National Police offices, as we were finishing our mission brief, all just kind of outside in a big group, he jumped up on the back of a Ford Ranger that had a truck-mounted belt-fed machine gun, and he opened fire. Into us.
Wait, who is this?
This was Afghan National Police Officer that we were working with. So he turned on us.
Why?
It's a fair question, man, and this is an important part of really the process, but the Taliban at the time had discovered a really successful tactic, and they would walk into the home of an individual who had access to us and say, here's the deal. We're either going to brutalize your entire family.
Oh my God.
And then slaughter them in front of you and then kill you, or you go do this for us.
Oh my gosh.
You're dead either way. But if you do this, not only will we spare your family, but we'll make sure they're taken care of for the rest of their lives. And what makes this tactic successful is they actually follow through on that. So those family members are actually taken care of.
They'll hear about this from other family members taken care of.
Exactly. So it builds up the credibility of this tactic.
So you die right now, or you go do this and you die.
And they kill you. But your family will be okay.
Oh my gosh. You've been building rapport with this person for a year or months, right?
Yeah.
I actually taught him how to use the machine gun.
Oh my gosh.
That he shot us with.
Holy cow.
Which is added to the frustration of it.
So how many, I mean, how many people did he injure that day?
12 Americans, three of which were killed.
Oh my God.
And then another eight or so Afghans that he killed. Killed and wounded. Yeah. Holy cow. So it's considered the most catastrophic insider attack that we've, that we know of since 9/11, if not prior to that.
That one event.
Yeah.
Holy cow. Catastrophic.
So how many bullets did you take?
It'd be around four or five to my right leg. I took one to my lower left leg. My scrotum was lacerated by either a round or from some debris. But most of the damage was to my right leg, and that was really obvious. And once I realized that my femoral artery had been cut, which I could tell with the amount of volume of blood that I was losing.
Oh, my gosh.
Just pumping out a river.
Oh.
I knew I had maybe eight or so minutes to live. To live, unless I got that pinched off completely, which is really tough to do without doing it internally. Like, right, you've got to turn it. Tourniquets, especially on a really lean thigh, it's really tough to get enough pressure on that externally to truly pinch off that that bleed. Although I did put a tourniquet on myself, and then I put a second tourniquet on myself, and then one of my teammates got to me, and I remember trying to fight him off of me to go work on someone else because I knew I was dying.
Oh, my gosh.
I knew I was dying. There was no question in my mind. Like, this is where it's gonna end. You're doing a poor job of triage right now. because there are others that are down that have a higher probability of survivability and you're wasting moments on me.
Oh, hell.
So I'm trying to get my boy Jason off of me and he's ignoring me and he puts on a third tourniquet. He gets some IV access for some blood or for meds or whatever may have to happen. And then, you know, we said our goodbye for the last time and and he went off to he had a lot of work to do. So I'm laying there, I got three tourniquets on my leg and my femur is completely shattered. So I pick, I grab my leg and I pick it up and I can still see blood seeping out.
Oh my gosh.
And my leg looks like hammed meat at this point. It looked like a shock had gotten a hold of it. The exposed bone and tissue, it's just a mess. And I'm still leaking and I'm like, all right man, time is getting really low. Have I done everything I can do? and the answer was I hadn't. So, I grabbed some gauze out of my kit, ball it up into what we call a powerball, which really just gives gauze a little bit of density. I loosen up one of the tourniquets and I just ram this up into my thigh and I'm kind of reaching up towards my pelvis, towards my hip.
In the bone area, inside the leg.
So, I'm in one of the wounds.
Oh, my God. Is the shock so intense that your adrenaline's taking over, that you're not feeling the pain? Here's where I felt the pain.
Yeah. Now you're like, oh, it's in the nerve. This was the first time, 'cause I'm scraping past shattered femur, and now I'm on the verge of going unconscious, 'cause the pain is like surging through my face. And I'm just saying, man, you know, stay awake, focus, you can find it. So I'm trying to find the Femoral artery, which we do these types of things in training. I've never done it on myself and I realized that when you're losing that much blood your blood shunts inwards from your extremities to try to protect your organs for as long as possible. So I'm dealing with these kind of meat nuts. Oh yeah. No dexterity, numb.
It's like the blood's rushing down this way. So you don't have, yeah, it's not.
I can't really feel much, but I think I feel a pulse I just kind of go for it. I ram down as hard as I can. I feed the rest of the gauze in on top of it. I re-secure the tourniquet on top of that. And then I blacked out. And I just happened to get extraordinarily lucky because I nailed the femoral artery. And I know this because I was on the ground for 90 minutes before I could get on a helicopter.
Another 90 minutes. So if you wanted to put it in there, there's no way you survived.
No way. No, no, no, no shot. And the reason why it took 90 minutes is because when this guy cracked off that gun on us, that was the initiation of a complex ambush.
Sure.
So enemy fighters were all around opposition, and they began firing rockets and machine gun.
How did you not get, like, blown, you know, even more? Did someone kill the person that turned against you quickly, or how did it?
One of my teammates took him out in probably eight or nine seconds.
But he had done the damage from the machine guns. And so you're on the ground doing this, he's dead. He's gone. So you're not getting shot at, at least. You can kind of like, you're not also having a, you know, defend yourself.
No, I mean, we were being engaged from outside of our perimeter. But not in the, I wasn't receiving effective, accurate fires.
Yes, yes.
So while I was working on myself.
So you can hear stuff in the distance, but it's not shooting next to you.
Correct. so the rest of the guys were dealing with the fight outside of our compound, which is why it took 90 minutes for the medevac bird to be able to land, because they're not going to risk the bird, which they can't. So eventually my guys got that situation under control. Medevac bird comes down. I'm on the first lift. Me and two of my teammates, I'm in desperate need of blood. We get medevac out, and they really, they had two options. One was to send us to Bagram. which is where we had one of our biggest military bases in Afghanistan, has a full-scale hospital, which looks just like a hospital you'd see in the States, every resource you could think of. But it was a FATHA flight, so they flew us to an outstation that had what we refer to as a forward surgical team, or an FST, which is kind of a hodgepodge of different medical personnel that work in a more austere environment.
Sure.
Plenty of capability. Just it's not a hospital, but it was a faster flight. So they went with speed versus level of care, which makes a lot of sense. They pulled the three of us off that bird right into the clinic and hooked us up on blood transfusions, me and my teammate, because we both were desperate for it. Well, within a couple minutes, I begin to completely crash. And they are assuming it's because of how much trauma my body had been through. for now approaching almost two hours. They're like, okay, we need to get this dude to Bagram, like, immediately.
Oh, my gosh.
So they throw me back on a helicopter.
Oh, my gosh.
And I'm now flying to Bagram, which is like a nine minute flight. And it's while I'm on the flight that they go to change out the blood of my teammate, and they realize that they're giving him O positive, which is my blood type. They had given me his blood type.
Oh, my gosh.
Which is AB negative, which is extremely specific.
So.
That was the result of me.
Going to shock or shutting down.
Everything shut down. Yeah. So liver, kidneys, my lungs, everything was dying because I was being pumped full of an incompatible blood type. My teammate was fine because O positive is a universal donor. You can give blood to anybody. So he's okay. But they realize what happened. They check what they gave me and they're like, oh no. They call Bagram Hospital, I'm still airborne. And they say, Hey man, we just pumped Nick full of like eight units of incompatible blood type. There's no way he survives the flight to you guys. So just be prepared to receive his body when he gets there. And, you know, a lot of ways they were right because I totally coded. The flight, the med crew on that flight were getting real creative with ways to try to keep me alive. Alive. Panels, direct shots of adrenaline.
Give another minute. Give another minute. What can we do to keep the heartbeat going? Keep him alive, right?
Yeah. Wow.
Yeah. So I get to fog room.
I guess at that point it's like you got to do whatever it takes, you know, to keep someone alive.
Yeah.
Whatever's available, whatever tool you've got.
Yeah, man. And they got some pretty amazing capabilities on what they could do. And they're willing to take enormous risks.
Yeah, they have to, right?
Because why not?
You got two minutes left or five minutes left, maybe. Sure.
Wow.
So you get to the hospital.
Get to bog room, pull me off. I'm totally flatlined. That was when they took my foot off immediately. Really just try to minimize how much damage my body was trying to recover from.
Are you asleep at this point?
Are you awake? No, I'm out.
Okay.
Yeah, I have no reflexes. Pulse. There was a bit of a pulse.
They can see you breathing or what? No, you're not breathing.
Nope.
No, very little pulse.
Very little pulse.
But they know you're alive.
They pretty much assume I'm dead.
Oh my God.
But they're still working on me. So it's more panels, blood transfusion, dialysis, I'm intubated. So a machine is breathing for me.
Holy.
I get enough of a pulse back where I'm barely, it's like boop, you know, boop, but I'm barely there. And so machines were pretty much keeping me alive for, ended up being like two and a half, three days.
Oh my gosh, man. So you're unconscious for three days.
Oh yeah.
Wow.
And then I kind of came back after that.
Three days on machines. How do they even know to take you off the battlefield after 90 minutes? How'd they know you were still alive?
Like, they don't really decipher that. I mean, at the point of injury, I I still had a pulse. Got it. When my. My teammates loaded me on the bird, I was still alive. Okay. I actually have memories of being loaded on that. That initial helicopter.
You're kind of in and out of Consciousness. You're. Wow, man, this is incredible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you're unconscious for three days. They're. They're doing everything they can. They amputate the. the ankle first. And then when does the rest of, you know, three days later you wake up, did they take the rest of the leg by then? What happens?
Yeah. So it took five days or so total to stabilize me enough to survive a plane to Germany. So I'm in Afghanistan, five days I'm getting worked on. They fly me to Germany. They amputated my leg up to the knee in Germany. I was there just one day. And then I arrived at Walter Reed. in Bethesda, Maryland, which is like the premier military hospital. And I get sent, I'm in the intensive care unit. I'm still in really rough shape.
My family's there. You're in and out of consciousness.
You're in and out of consciousness. But you're drugged up like crazy. Crazy. Ketamine, Dilaudid, morphine, I'm on all the drugs. So it's a wild ride I'm on. But my first legitimate thought that I had, or my first memory I have, is the chief of orthopedics coming into the intensive care unit and he said, Hey man, my name is Dr. So-and-so and here's your current situation. Your leg has gone up to your knee. My staff wants to take you into the operating room right now and amputate your leg at the hip because your leg is riddled with infection. And any one of these bacterias could kill you. So they want to play it safe, which is really the right move to make. But I think I can save more your leg. It's just gonna be a street fight and I need you in this fight with me.
Oh my gosh. What'd you do?
I looked up at him and I just met this guy, right? He's telling me that there's bacteria that could kill me and all this stuff and I don't think I processed most of what he said, but I do remember him saying something about getting into a street fight and I was like, yeah, let's go do that. Yeah, let's go. Let's go do that.
Get me in the fight. Wow.
So that began my process of being in surgery three, sometimes four days a week. And they would just go in and amputate more, cut out dead tissue, dead bone. And I lived that for about 35 for some surgeries.
That seems exhausting.
Yeah.
You're just on drugs nonstop to just manage the pain.
Yeah, quite a bit. But it was in those moments, man, in the Intensive Care Unit that I determined that I was gonna go back to a special forces team.
Crazy man.
I can still remember the moments seeing my family there with the masks and the hair nets and all the level five trauma suits and me in the Intensive Care Unit. I can still see that and having made the decision then, that I'm going back to my lifestyle. It was from the very, very beginning.
Even though you didn't know if you're gonna live or die.
No. Yeah.
You made that decision. Maybe you're on too many drugs when you're making that decision.
Maybe.
What was the, what was the, what do you think was the thing that got you through? Really a year of kind of surgeries and recovery and and you're still recovering in some ways, you know, from the trauma emotionally, physically, all these different things. But what allowed you to get through that mentally, that period of time, to be determined enough to get back into service at full capacity?
Yeah, I think what enabled that was a very clearly defined and continuously refined vision of where I was going. and again, having knowing that this is what I was put on this earth to do didn't allow me an alternative option. So, and I say this delicately because I, you know, I really never went down this dark path of negativity and depression and struggle mentally, certainly. Countless times of frustration and anger and disappointment and all that, but I stayed generally positive and target fixated, I think because I had that sense of mission. I knew what my mission was. And I say that not that it's something I'm really proud of because I don't think it's something to be ashamed of if that happens. I know some absolute warriors that have struggled at times with that. I just made a decision in the extraordinary early parts of this journey that this is what I was going to do. And it gave me something to grasp onto during the countless moments of doubt and second guessing myself. And when all of the off-ramp justification starts sounding really convincing, it was like, no, no, no, no.
Wow.
This is what's going to happen. Get your head back in the game and figure out this next problem.
So you had to enroll yourself and other people who were saying, Hey, listen, it's okay if you need to retire. It's okay if you needed to, you know, to really think about the next chapter of your life. Think about your family, all these different things. You had to coach them essentially in saying, that's not an option. this is what we're focused on.
Yeah.
Is that right?
I was surrounded by that. And, you know, because they were trying to take care of you.
They were trying to do their best. It comes from a place of love, man.
It's not like, I don't believe in you. It's. Right.
You can't be. You're not gonna be able to walk for a while, you know?
Like, let's. Yeah, they're thinking about that. Let's be practical. I'm looking out for what's best for you.
Right.
I was able to coach those that I was able to, or at least get into a place where they understood. my mentality, but there were many that I was unsuccessful at convincing or communicating. I was unsuccessful at effectively communicating to them what my intentions were. And, you know, a lot of times the road of ambition is the lonely one, and you just have to accept that. And if you're willing to do it anyway, Sometimes that's the road you're on, man.
Holy cow. How do you think you kept your emotional strength so high under extreme pain, loss, physical loss, psychological and emotional loss with fallen brothers and teammates? How did you keep your emotions, your heart at a level of some sense of peace and not get into a depressed state or a downward spiral like so many people do, which is probably normal for people. They've lost their brothers or teammates, their family, lost a leg, potential loss of identity of being a soldier again. How did you keep your heart and your emotions in a state of calm peace and certainty? with all this trauma.
Yeah.
One aspect of that was being made aware of how the attack happened, the information that I explained earlier. Once, once my teammates got back, they came to visit me. They told me what they had learned about the, about the incident, because I was holding on to a lot of anger from that, particularly because it was someone that I had been working with. And at that point, I had been in, you know, a whole lot of different engagements and gunfights and the explosions and to be killed by someone or that wounded by someone that I was working with.
You trusted.
Trusted to a degree.
Collaborated with.
That's a better way to put it.
Yeah.
Was frustrating to me.
I mean, you can imagine. Betrayal, the hurt, all that stuff.
Yeah, betrayal. That's some powerful stuff, right? So once I was made aware of his reasoning, I was able to let go of quite a bit.
And have some understanding or some type of compassion. It's hard to have compassion for someone who's doing this to you, but when you know why.
Yeah, man.
He cared about his family and he knew he was gonna die.
Right.
Because although I didn't have the wife and kids I have now, I could empathize with that. And saying, if I'm put in that position between truly a rock and a hard place, and I have no practical way to fix it, fight this, right? Like nine guys with guns and I'm a dirt farmer in my home, I'm doing the exact same thing. So I was able to like let that go. And then, you know, get to business and you ask, you know, how and I'll just sum it up into one word because it's the only one I can think of to explain it and it's faith, you know, which certainly has a to a strong, you know, religious and biblical feel to it. However, a definition of faith being a firm belief in something for which there is no proof. And I just felt it in my heart, in my soul, as I was laying in the hospital bed, and as I began doing early phase physical therapy. And once I originally got my, you know, my first prosthetic, I just had this belief that this is possible. It's never been done before, but that doesn't make it impossible. I just have to figure out how to go about doing it. And, you know, I mentioned Green Berets are somewhat natural problem solvers, and then we become highly trained problem solvers. This became the greatest problem that I needed to solve, and I just leveraged everything I had learned as, you know, certainly an athlete in college, but more so. as a Green Beret, working on a team and being tasked to do these things, I leveraged those lessons and I leveraged the people that I had the chance to work with to begin solving that.
Do you think, have you seen anyone else in the military get out of a tough situation? I mean, a situation similar to like yours where they lost an arm or they, something happened physically to them or they, some of their teammates were lost. Have you seen anyone get through it in a positive, semi-healthy way, if that's possible, without faith? Like, have you seen people rise up against extreme adversity, whether it be physical trauma, emotional trauma, psychological trauma, with something other than faith?
I'm not sure I've seen it. Do I think everyone who I know that has done that would recognize that faith or at least verbalize it that way? Probably not. But I do think that it is a fundamental requirement, depending on the degree of goal that they're trying to work towards.
To overcome adversity.
When it comes to achievement, The struggle is, the size of the struggle is commensurate with the size of the goal. When it comes to achievement, the size of the struggle is commensurate with the size of the goal. So if you are trying to overcome the greatest challenge in your particular life, whether or not it's been done before ever is irrelevant, but this is your biggest set of adversity, your greatest challenge ever. The struggle is going to then be the highest that you have ever dealt with before. so in the likelihood of success is also probably the lowest it's ever been before. So to say that you can accomplish something like that without faith seems to be unlikely. At some point you are going to believe in what it is you're trying to do, whether or not anyone else does or not, but you believe in it. There's no proof that you're going to make it happen. There's no proof that it's possible, but you feel it. and you buy into that to such a degree that you're willing to do it anyway.
Yeah, yeah. I'm curious about this. It seems like there's a lot of pain and adversity people are facing in the world, whether it be pandemic or no pandemic, right? It seems like a lot of people take on the weight of their pain or their struggle, the adversity, in such a big way that it holds them back and they get stuck. When I hear your story or someone like your story, you know, it makes the painful situations of normal civilians lives not that big in my mind, right? If I'm comparing them.
Sure.
You know, someone was mean to me at work and I'm feeling depressed is a different type of adversity than what you faced, right?
Sure.
And sometimes people get so stuck in these day-to-day struggles or pains Not to say it's not challenging for them in their season of life, but 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 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 you know, 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. Cause 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 to 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 gonna 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 easy for us to begin to believe our own and 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. 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 really am, I'm journaling, I'm being honest, I'm doing all these things. I still don't know what my purpose is. I'm still, my soul is not being lit towards something, you know, 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.
I think it's beautiful. This is everything that I've been preaching but communicating to my audience about. From my lessons in sports, if I didn't have a goal, I wasn't willing to I would quit football if I didn't have some type of mission or goal that I was excited about. It was meaningful to me, that had a reason why I wanted to do it. Because three days were so painful and it was hot and 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 sacrificing 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 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 going to be hard no matter what.
Sure.
Right?
There's going to, 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, right?
Absolutely.
Consistently.
Yeah.
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 with 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. A few languages, no.
Yeah.
Pretty fluent or less?
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 got to 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, you know, one of those certainly not towards the top, but one of them, one I would say is my my level and commitment to efficiency. And the example I'll use or really the way in which this has been reinforced is, you know, when you have an amputee or when you use a prosthetic with a traditional socket system. So imagine this is my actual leg. my legs 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 starts 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. I'm a big 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 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.
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 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 just, 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, right? 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, right? It's like 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. 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, you know, 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. 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 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 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, 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 our heartbeat, our red blood cell count. 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. Like, 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 hod 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, you know, 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 that relationship, am I willing to do this? But most, I think is 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.
Sure. Yeah. But I look at the life I have now, man. And you know, particularly my family and my boys and my wife 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 would be a 265 weight class, but you're against guys, you know, my size.
Absolutely.
And you're freaking just bear hugging 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.
Oh, 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 this is 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.
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. My degree of confidence is actually probably higher now than it was.
Really?
As a two-legged guy. Wow. Wow.
Why? How?
Yeah. Great question. You know, I think you could summarize confidence and into two words, like training and preparedness. And when you feel, when you've, when you've 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, my lifestyle and structure was, 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, man, 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 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 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.
Like, 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.
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, 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, you know, a greater sense of, 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.
What is the thoughts and the feelings around in the conversation around vulnerability in the military, especially the the special forces. Is it okay to be vulnerable? Is it only okay at certain times? Is it respected at a high level and appreciated? Or did you feel like you weren't able to be vulnerable for a long time for some reason?
Yeah.
It'S uncommon in the special operations world. It's part equally of what makes us the most successful military asset the world's ever known and sets us up for absolute failure, is our willingness to just keep going no matter what opens up a threat.
Extremes of each side, right?
Yeah. Right, opens up a threat. And the idea of being vulnerable and raising your hand and saying, I'm struggling with something, is rare. I say that it's getting better over time. It's getting better over time. I think we still have a lot more work to do because there is still this stigma associated with that, the stigma of weakness and being mission incapable. You need to be this robot cyborg that doesn't fear pain, doesn't fear or feel fear, like go, right? And we've seen the negative effects that that has had, particularly over the last 20 years and even actually beyond that.
When people retire and move on and they don't know how to process or they're, or if they're not processing in the military also, right?
Yeah.
So it's, we have an abundance of resources at our disposal the challenge, however, is getting that individual to recognize that not only is it not a weakness, it's actually a sign of courageousness. Because for us, the easier route is to suck it up and keep going. That's what we prefer. We'd rather just add more weight on my shoulders. I got it, and I'm gonna keep going no matter what.
It's more painful to be vulnerable.
It's more difficult to be vulnerable.
It's more challenging than it is to just, put more weight on my back.
Right, like that's the hard route to take. Therefore it does deserve an enormous amount of respect. You're taking the hard right over the easy wrong. So it's not something that... Is it.
Looked down upon if someone's being vulnerable or sensitive about a matter or emotional, or is it respected and acknowledged and supported? Or is it kind of like, okay, be over there, I gotta be in my own lane.
Now, you're seeing a a distinct and deliberate shift and trend, even just over the last 15 years that I've been towards the latter of what you just said, towards it's okay to say I need to take a knee. It's okay to say I'm struggling with something. Not only do we accept that, but we're here to support that and enable that. It's not going to mean the end of your career. We have resources in place. It's our job is to get you better and get you back into to the game, but it's different. That wasn't always the case. That was not always the case.
What do you think makes the ultimate warrior moving forward? Is it this stoic machine or is it someone who can process their emotions in the appropriate times, obviously, process, navigate their emotions and be flexible in their range of vulnerability? and strength moving forward. What will make the ultimate warrior moving forward?
Yeah.
In the military and in life.
I'm not sure if there would be even much of a difference. The ultimate warrior is, I think, one that recognizes that human beings are not creatures of logic, we're creatures of emotion, as Dale Carnegie puts it. you are not going to be emotionless. Like you're not a robot, you're not a machine, you're a human being. And emotions are literally attached to every decision that we make throughout every single day. There's an emotion there, whether it's fear, anger, joy, sadness, like those are fueling what you do day to day, moment to moment. A warrior is one that can recognize the emotion and then has learned the skill to control it or influence it, to not let the emotion overtake the actual actions of the human. It's not this no fear mentality. Fear exists. There's no such thing as courage without fear. So It's not an emotionless cyborg. It's, I think, someone who has deliberate control of the response to the emotions.
What have you learned about your heart and love since this experience nine years ago? Did you look at, you know, family, relationships differently. Did you start to love and appreciate yourself more? What did you, how did you navigate a lot of this, you know, emotionally around love?
Yeah, I can't, you just, you're, you saying the word love, I can't think of anything other than my wife, because she was, she was in Afghanistan when I was wounded. She had a front row seat.
And you were married then?
No, we were not. So we had just begun kind of, we were friends for years and just had begun taking a relationship to something new while we were in two separate locations in Afghanistan. We became each other's support mechanism. So she had a front row seat to that and I get medevac, I'm in the hospital, she finishes up her deployment, she's coming to visit me in the hospital. She was there when I was at my absolute lowest point, my most vulnerable, my weakest point. And this was during what would normally be the courting phase of a relationship. Right, right. You're trying to woo her.
Right, you're trying to present your best.
Self and all the fancy dinners and the clothes and the stuff, right?
You got tubes down, you had barely a heartbeat. Yeah.
You know, I've lost 90 pounds, I'm emaciated, I can't do anything on my own. I mean, literally, this was the beginning of our real relationship.
Holy cow.
And.
Not only was she supportive of that, she was an asset. She became my number one asset.
So.
I think back on that and it's like, I don't know how I would have done what I did had I not had that. And to take it a step further, when I left the hospital, I moved in with her and I was home maybe two weeks and I sat her down and I said, Hey babe, I know that this is like real. I can see the white picket fence and the family and like this is real. But I have to do this and I don't have another option. I have to do this. I have to see if I can't make it back to this lifestyle. One of two things is gonna happen. I'm gonna make it or I'm gonna die trying. There is actually no Plan B. I'm actually burning the boats. Those are not just words. This is what I have to do.
And if you don't do it, you're gonna be miserable.
Right.
There's no-- I can't even conceptualize another option right now.
You need to know you went for it 100% all in, and for whatever reason, if it's not working out, okay, you'll find-- something else will happen, but.
At least you don't have to live with that. Ever. Yeah. There will be no regret. Right? Leaving it all in the field. And this is what that looks like. And I put this day to day schedule, which is in my book, it's minute to minute. And it's like boom, boom, boom, boom. And, you know, there will be no dinners, there will be no going to weddings. If someone dies, there will be no funeral.
Really? Why?
Like, this is my life. It's eat, sleep, train, dialed in to the minute. because I just believe if I'm going to have a shot at doing this, this is what it's going to take.
It's going to require every moment of you.
Everything. It's going to require me being completely and totally unbalanced. Obsessed. Obsessed. Obsessed and unbalanced.
Like all in on this one thing. For this season of life.
It doesn't mean forever. No, no, no. Just for now. Yeah. Yeah.
Right.
Like, you know, the size of the struggles, commensurate with the size of the goal. This is the largest goal I have ever possibly set my sights on. I to live the ultimate level of struggle, because that's what I think it's going to take. And I was really expecting her man to say, Hey, dude, what you just described is a little crazy to me. And I don't think that this is going to work. I was expecting that. And I would have understood that. But she, she was like, okay, I understand. And like, let's do this.
Holy cow. So this is what 2014 now or when is this 20?
This is 2014. Wow. Yeah. And you know, I was willing to sacrifice what I knew was the love of my life who family kids I could see it. I knew that that's where things were going man and I was willing to sacrifice that For mission. For the mission.
It's so interesting you say this. Is there anything else you wanted to add there before I interrupt you?
Just when you think of love, I think of that. And I think about not only the sacrifices that she made and the support, but her being along my side as a teammate. That's love, man.
I want to break this down for a minute because I'm in a relationship with an incredible woman. Her name is Martha, who I had a conversation with. Now, this is not at the extreme. I'm not in the military, all these things, but She came to me after a few months before we became committed and she said, what's your, you know, she asked the priorities question. And every woman asks the guy, what are your priorities in life? You know, what is it, what's your top priorities? And I go, I'm gonna tell you something, but I don't think you're gonna wanna, you know, date me after you hear my priorities. You know, it's probably kind of what you thought.
I love where this is going.
It is. And I was like, because every time I've told this to women in the past, They get upset, they were hurt, they were saddened, and I didn't have the courage to let them sit in their frustration and sadness. So I would shift who I was to try to make someone happy. Anyway, so I said, listen, you're not gonna like what I'm gonna say, and you're probably gonna walk away. Are you sure you want the truth about my priorities? And she said, yes, please tell me the truth. I go, okay, well, you're not my number one priority. and no woman wants to hear that.
No.
It doesn't mean you're not going to feel like a top priority. It doesn't mean I'm not going to pour into you a lot of my love and energy and effort. It's not that you're not going to experience this, but you have to understand that you're not my number one or my number two priority. No woman typically wants to hear they're not number one or number two. Now you've got to understand context with everything. So I said, listen, I need my health to be the number one priority, mental, physical, emotional, spiritual health. I need to be able to take care of my health so I have energy, focus, and expansiveness to take care of the rest of my life. So if I'm in a relationship when a partner does not want me to be fully healthy and know I need to take the time and energy to focus on my own personal development and growth, physically, mentally, spiritually, psychologically, all these things, because they need me for them more than they respect my health, then it's just not gonna work. And I want your health to be number one too over me. Because if you're not taking your health, then someone's gonna have to take care of you. That's number one. Put your Oshin masks on first, right? She said, okay. And I go, you,'re not number two. Because I feel called by my Creator on a mission right now. I don't know how long this is gonna be. It might be the rest of my life. It might be 10 years, a season of life, until I don't feel called on this mission. I need my mission to be a top priority for me. That means I'm gonna be traveling, I'm gonna be speaking, I'm gonna be working late hours, and maybe doing things to serve humanity. It's part of the mission that I'm on. And if I'm not attacking my mission with full energy, I'm not gonna be fulfilled. And I'm gonna feel like I'm discounting my creator for what I'm supposed to be doing, what I feel I'm supposed to be doing in life, this meaningful mission. And then number three will be our relationship and you. Now, she was excited when she heard this. She was like, 'cause she'd always want to find a man who had a mission and a purpose. And they made her her purpose. And she would always be like, well, but what's the thing that you're supposed to do in life? Well, I just want to be with you. You know, I want to make you happy. It was good, but it wasn't great. So when she heard this from me, she was excited. Now, listen, I spend all my free time, pretty much all my free time with her. We do incredible things together. It's not like she's not a top priority.
Sure.
So it's creating context around this. But I'm not going to sacrifice who I am, my health or my mission every day for one person, because then I'd be discounting myself and my creator. What I'm supposed to do.
Wow.
And so she really respects that. She pushes me to go after my mission, which feels great because I want to pour more into her. Right? So I don't, you know, so when you said this, they're like, Hey, every moment I'm going to be obsessing about this thing for a period of time. And you may not be okay with that. And I understand, but that's, you know, it'll be sad to see you go, but I'm not going to discount what I'm supposed to do right now in my life. I think it's really courageous of you doing that. Because a lot of people would be afraid of that. A lot of people would be like, well, you're gonna, we can't go to a freaking funeral, we can't go to a wedding, we can't do this, this is who you're gonna be for the next decade, I don't know. And so the fact that she was all in on you putting your health first really, your rehab, your health, and then your mission, number two. It sounds like similar to what your priorities were.
And I just learned something just now, so I appreciate that. phenomenal breakdown.
Because you put number one, your health, you're like, I'm gonna be obsessed about rehab and training and maniac. What I eat, how I train, what I'm doing. And then you were like, every minute is dialed in on my notebook for the next five years of how to tackle this mission of getting back to this place. And then the free time after that will be with you and building a family and all those things. If that's what you're open to, then let's do it.
No.
I didn't. conceptualize it that way back then, but you are 100% accurate. Right.
So that's when you said that I was like, this is what I've been kind of understanding over the last couple of years that I've been doing and I've been communicating with her and it's worked out beautifully, you know, because someone was in an acceptance of those priorities. Again, it's not like I'm working out eight hours a day and then going on my mission eight hours a day and I have notes time for her.
Right.
It's creating moments with it's, you know, going on trips and how we have fun, right? We go on trips and go to weddings.
Yeah. But.
But communicating, this is what I'm going to need.
Yeah.
And, you know, if she was like, well, you can't train that hard and you got to spend three hours a day with me doing this, then maybe it wouldn't have worked. Right.
Yeah, probably not. Been tough. Yeah, probably not.
Because you would always been feeling like I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do right.
Right?
Right.
You'd have felt resentful if you weren't taking it on 100%.
Yeah.
Powerful word.
Right?
Yeah. Powerful word.
What's the thing you love about your wife the most?
Oh my gosh. Her independence comes to mind. It's tough to say what I love about her the most, but I do love the fact that she doesn't need me for anything. I love the fact that she doesn't need me for anything. I mean, we're a dynamic duo when we're together, but I can go, I know I can leave for forever. And not only will she'll be just fine, but our boys will be just fine.
That's so interesting you say that because when I met Martha, I was like, I never really felt like I wanted to have kids before I met Martha, my girlfriend, partner. I was always like, yeah, I think I'm supposed to be a dad, but let's say I wasn't choosing based on that partners in the past, based on that vision. So I take full ownership and responsibility. And I never felt like if something happened to me that the person would be resourceful enough to like raise my kids, right? If we had kids. So hearing you say that like, something happens to me, she's got it down.
Yeah.
And they're gonna be just fine.
Yeah.
Right. maybe they'll be sad and there'll be some tragedy, but they'll be able to overcome it.
I think, I mean, I'm literally thinking in real time because you got my wheels spinning like crazy, but it's similar to your priorities breakdown.
Right.
It's similar to that.
It's true, man.
Where, you know, if I were to ask her that same question right now, my guess is that she would probably verbalize it similar to that. And it's because she has her health, her well-being as priority one, followed up by her mission in life or her mission for now, is deeply rooted in why she's so independent and resourceful and capable. Because it's not, Nick, you're my husband, you're my number one thing in life. Well, if that were the case, and I'm removed even just temporarily, there's a huge void. Screwed there, right?
You'Re struggling then.
Yeah. Right.
So I think that.
Wow.
I'm gonna. Her and I are gonna have the same exact conversation. I'll be interested to see what she says, man.
That's cool.
Yeah. And thank you for reframing my priorities a little bit. Yeah. The priorities conversation is a great one to have, regardless of what they are, and mine will likely change, thanks to you, a little bit. You know, priorities and. And focus are something that can kind of work hand in hand. And just because something is priority three or four or ten, doesn't really matter because you choose the moments to focus on those priorities. And it doesn't mean that if I'm focusing on priority five right now, it doesn't mean that number one is unimportant to me. It just means in this moment right now, this requires my attention. I need to do this.
Yeah, and Priority One doesn't take eight hours a day for me, right? It's like, I really only need an hour, an hour and a half of physical activity that I like to create for myself to get myself physically fit, competitive, things like that. I do different coaching or therapeutic coachings, you know, once every couple of weeks for a couple of hours where I've got a coach and I'm working through and processing stuff, and then I'm doing my own meditation, which is 20-30 minutes a day. We do it together sometimes, stuff like that. So it's like, okay, a couple hours a day is priority number one. So it's not like it takes all the time. Priority number two is mission. It's like, okay, when I show up and do my job, my mission here at my business and my company, and structuring my day around doing that, that doesn't mean I have to work all day at night. But that's got to be a priority. You can't pull me away from that. You can't say, I don't like you doing this work. You got to accept the mission that I'm on. And at least be neutral if not excited for me.
Yeah.
So, I mean, priority three could actually, you could invest more time and energy in that, even though it is a lower priority.
100%.
Right.
And it's not that it's lower, I think it's, again, it is a, how do you call it? I wanted to say it's a lower priority. It's still a high priority.
Right.
It's just not the number one.
Something's gotta be number one. Something's gotta be number 10, man.
It's true. It's true. You know, the language, you know, you gotta be careful around language with women. Sure. It's like you're lower, you know, it's like, no, she's still a massive priority. And the relationship of it flourishing and growing is a top priority. But, you know, and it's a lesser time for one, so being aware of that. So, yeah. It's all in the context of how it's communicated. Of course. If you're like, 10's the priority, people.
Are like, well screw you. So I don't mean anything to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What you're saying. This is a, I just want to spin off this for a second, man, because I have this conversation a bit, I'm asked about this quite a bit. You know, how do you balance all these things and like work and family and training and your passion project and like all this stuff? Military and all, yeah. Military, right? Like most people, I would argue live a lifestyle where there's a lot of different things that are important to them. There's only 24 hours in a day. And, you know, so how do you balance all these things? I get that question a ton. And, you know, my first recommendation is take an honest calibration of how you're spending your 24, your time and energy, your bandwidth. There's probably a lot of wasted effort and minutes that can be removed and reinvested elsewhere. It may be difficult because you like, you know, binge watching Netflix for two hours. That's like your thing at the end of the day. But that's probably a place to look. And then once you've kind of worked through that and you've trimmed the fat a little bit, you've become more efficient, productivity is going up, chances are there still may be like, oh, like am I doing this too much over here? Not enough over here. And I just throw out When most of us that are doing a lot of different things and are really serious about it, we struggle with quantity. There's only 24. You're not getting any more of that. We have the choice to increase the quality. When quantity is low, we can increase quality. And that doesn't mean that it has to be trips to Disney World or to some exotic vacation. Quality time with your spouse or your girlfriend or your kids, just means that you're in that moment at that time and you want to be there. And you're deliberately present.
Yeah, and I think it's recalibrating priorities too. I think, you know, five, 10 years ago, based on where my attention and time went, even if I didn't say this was a priority, based on I think where you spend your time and energy, that's what your priority is. So if you say my priority is my health, but six hours a day on Netflix, Well, based on your time and attention, Netflix is a priority, right?
Right.
Based on your energy. Right, the data proves otherwise.
Exactly. So I used to spend time with lots of people, like take meetings with everyone and be like all day spending times, like just doing meetings with people that networking, right? Yep. 5, 10 years ago as I was kind of building my business or brand or whatever.
Yeah.
And now specifically after the pandemic, it's kind of like, okay, who are like the core four or five people I want to spend deeper time with and do less of like spreading my energy everywhere. It's like just reprioritizing energy time and efficiency. And so we've got to evaluate these things throughout life as well. So like, okay, well should I be on Netflix two hours a day? Maybe not. Maybe there's a day where you do that and you just kind of decompress. But I'm loving this conversation. I want to ask you a couple final questions.
Yes, sir.
One is about goal setting. you mentioned goal setting at one point. What is the, I think a lot of people struggle with discovering what goal to set, how big to set it, and how to actually accomplish it. Is there anything you've learned from the military training, Green Beret training, but also your own development from overcoming extreme adversity physically, mentally and emotionally? about goal setting that you could conceptualize for people.
Yeah, I'll stop by saying if your mission doesn't scare you, at least a little bit, it's probably not the one you want to choose. I think it needs to scare you because if it doesn't, are you really striving high enough? Have you set the bar high enough? And if you reach that goal, are you going to feel fulfilled? so a place to start is it should make you maybe at least a little bit nervous. And then, you know, the methodology that I've learned in military and I apply throughout my day-to-day life now, it's, it's operation. I've operationalized my success, and it's very, it's very deliberate, and it's the same way we go about if we need to take down an enemy location or we're infilling into a, you know, country X for the first time ever. It's just essentially a backwards planning system where you determine your desired end state, you determine your current environment and your current situation, and then identify what is in between us now and where we're trying to go, and just simply break that down into a series of objectives within time and space. And then from there comes doing the research, gaining the knowledge, assembling a team, all the resources to be able to tackle one 25 meter target at a time as you work towards the actual mission.
What do you think should happen on the journey towards accomplishing a goal? Say it's a six month or a year goal, right? It's a little bit longer than maybe people would like to wait to accomplish something. But the bigger the goal usually takes a little more time. All right? So call it six months or a year where people are used to instant gratification. They got to wait a little bit longer. And I know for you, you probably set goals that are like, this is five years out, this is 10 years out, but about six months to a year. How should we be appreciating the little micro wins along the way of a year long journey? Should we be celebrating along the way of the effort, the attention, how we keep showing up day in and day out? Or should there be no celebration and self-acknowledgment of the continual journey and the effort? When we accomplish the goal, should we celebrate and acknowledge, man, I just overcame all these objectives and challenges and adversities and look where I am now and take those moments. What happens with that and without that?
Yeah, I think we call them small victories are important. and I think it's important for us to recognize when we do that. I also think it's important to then quickly shift onto the next Ridge that needs to be climbed.
Yeah.
Because it's really easy to get stuck there for a really long time and enter into this world of satisfaction and content where it's like, oh, look what I did. And then that drifts on for a day or two or a week or. And then it's like, okay, yes, we did that, but, like, let's go. Let's keep the momentum going where I don't have to. re begin from a static position or worse, I start to regress because it takes a lot of time and energy to build up, you know, your body, let's say physically, if you sit there and celebrate the fact that you hit, you know, a PR on the squat for a month, well, like that all just went away. So absolutely take like take those moments in time and maybe it's just a moment or two. Maybe it's just you look in the mirror and you go nice work, bro. Okay, now let's move. Or grab your wife, pick her up, throw her in the air, give her a kiss. She asks you what happened. Hey, I just closed this one deal. It was a big win for me. She's like, Awesome, let's have a nice dinner tonight.
Great.
And then it's like, what am I doing tomorrow morning? Let's leverage the momentum and the wins. But absolutely enjoy the ride because you need to love the process. just as much, if not more than the prize. And if you're not allowing yourself to love the process and enjoy the process, even if you make it to the prize, it's not going to be nearly as glorifying and gratifying because the route to get there was stagnant, miserable, a chore. That's not life, man.
Yeah, that's beautiful. I love it. Okay, a couple of final questions, but before I ask them, I want people to get connected to you. You've got a book called Objective Secure, right? The Battle Tested Guide to Goal Achievement. So if you want to learn more about accomplishing, setting, and achieving goals, get this book. It's also got a lot of more great stories and tactical approaches towards achievement and life.
Mm-.
So I want people to get your book, Objective Secure, the Battle Tested Guide to Goal Achievement. Are you, where can we connect with you online? Is there a good website or social media that you spend time on?
Yeah, website is machinenick.com and that's got links to the socials and the book and all the things. I'm mostly on Instagram. It's Nick.Machine. Lavery.
Okay. Even though we're not supposed to be machines, but that's what your title is.
Yeah, an awesome conversation we'll have another day.
Nick.Machine.Lavery? Lavery.
Yes.
So we'll have all that linked up there. Check out you on social media, Instagram for sure, machinemick.com, get the book if you guys want to learn more about this stuff and just hear some incredible stories. I didn't even get into like your whole bio about all the things that you've overcome and it would take me an hour to just read off all the accomplishments that you've done serving this nation. So I really acknowledge you, appreciate for how you've shown up for multiple decades in service, how you've shown up for yourself, for your family, for your wife and your kids, even with the challenge and the adversity that you've overcome physically and emotionally, how you show up even though you have fallen brothers, and it's a beautiful testament to your spirit and your soul and your heart that you keep showing up to serve in the way that's best for you right now. So I really acknowledge you for your service, for your in going beyond the military and trying to serve, you know, us civilians as well by giving us these tools and this inspiration and training that you've gained from your experience in the military. So I really appreciate and acknowledge your leadership, your ability to communicate, your ability to process things and share them with others and create meaning from the tragic moments that you've experienced as opposed to be stuck in a depressed state. Because I think it's really easy for us to go to that state when these types of challenges or when an extreme challenge may happen. So, I really acknowledge you for you finding meaning and staying true to your mission.
Thank you.
It's really beautiful.
I appreciate it.
Of course. This is a question I asked everyone at the end called the Three Truths. So, it's hypothetical question. Imagine your last day on earth, many years away. You live as long as you want.
Sure.
You see your family grow up the way they're supposed to. You serve in other ways in your life, but it's the last day. For whatever reason, you've got to take all of your work with you. The book, this conversation, anything you've ever shared that's been recorded, it's got to go somewhere else. It's hypothetical.
Okay.
So we don't have access to your content or your message. It's all gone in the next place. But you get to write down three things you know to be true from all your experiences in life, personal, military, adversities, triumphs, and three lessons you would share with the rest of the world. And that's all we have to remember you by. What would be those three truths for you?
Number one would be this is not a dress rehearsal. You got one shot at this life. It's truly a gift and it could end at any moment. We have, I believe, an obligation to live a life of both happiness and success. So this is not a dress rehearsal would be number one. Number two, I would say when you invest in others, you're investing in yourself. I think us as humans have most anyway a natural desire and instinct to serve. And by doing so, we actually build ourselves up. We actually look at service as a somewhat selfish act because we end up being just as much, if not more fulfilled and impacted by our service to others. And then lastly, I'll say, you brought up love. I'll say, it sounds negative, but I'll say love is not enough. Mmm. love is an emotion. It's powerful. However, without a deep respect for another individual, without an understanding of yourself, their values, yours, how those align. In my opinion, I don't think it's enough to last. That may sound like a negative way to cap that off, man, but. I will stick by it.
I love that. I mean, I have a video out there that says love is not enough. You need values, vision and lifestyle.
That's a better way to put it. Right?
You need the alignment in a relationship at least of shared values, vision and lifestyle for, you know, along with respect and other things. But if you don't have the same values or their opposites, if you don't have the same, you know, lifestyle or their opposites and a shared vision of where you're heading, you're going in two different directions. It's just gonna be a lot more challenging.
Yeah.
A lot of friction. So I was trying to minimize the friction and create that alignment. So I think it's a beautiful match.
I'm gonna add a fourth one. Give it. And I said it at least once already, but when it comes to achievement, the size of the struggle is commensurate with the size of the goal.
I love that. Final question. What's your definition of greatness?
My definition of greatness. Oh, man, that's a good one. I'd say having set our sights on multiple ambitious goals, achieving them with consistency, and doing so while happy, if you do that, I think that you've reached the realm of greatness.
My man, Nick. Thanks, brother.
Good talking, man.
My man.
I appreciate it. The way I look at regret is.
What did I learn from it?
What did I learn from whatever thing.
I'm looking at that I know I could have done a better job, could have done different?
Sure, there's a million things like that.
But I don't sit there and think about them all day long. What I think is like, hey, here's the lessons that I learned from them. I will make those mistakes again and move forward.
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