The SECRET To Becoming UNSTOPPABLE | Nick Lavery

Being unstoppable doesn't mean that you are not going to be stopped at times. In fact, you need to fail at certain points because if you don't, it means one of two things. You've either set the bar too low or you're not moving with enough aggression, with enough determination. Right. Like pick up the pace or elevate the buy. You've got more to give. So being stopped is actually what will make you unstoppable.

This show has always been about helping people overcome extreme adversities, whether that's life or business or any kind of, any number of things, relationships, you name it. And let's just say you've overcome a few adversities. Obviously, I want to kind of step in there a little bit and I actually want to talk with the really kind of step in there with kind of how you got to where you are from a perspective of, you know, multiple tours, obviously multiple situations that ultimately having you obviously losing one of your limbs, like walk me through that entire process.

Yeah, there's a lot there, man. You know, the, the 30, 000 foot view. I came into the military because of 9, 11, you know, I was a sophomore in college and it was a moment that I'll never forget. As is the same for most of us that were old enough to appreciate the gravity of the situation and really pissed off and you know, I wanted to be part of that response, ultimately decided to come in as a Special Forces recruit, an option that gives guys off the street the chance to bypass the conventional army and go straight into the Special Forces pipeline, which is what I did after, you know, just over two years or so, two and a half years of training. I earned my green beret and then, you know, boom. Bob in Afghanistan on my first trip, like four or five months after that, my third time in Afghanistan was when things changed for me quite significantly. I was wounded on three separate occasions in combat.

All the same tour, right?

Yeah. All the same rotation. Yeah. All in the same six month period of time. The last injury being the most catastrophic, resulted in the amputation of my right leg above the knee. And then I knew from that point literally that I was going back to my team, I was going back to my unit, I was going back to my lifestyle like nothing was going to change other than the how. And after a year in the hospital after winning a slug fest with the army, who really tried their best to have me medically retired. Yeah, you know, eventually I earned my, my way back onto the team and I've really been doing the same thing ever since.

Yeah, well, I don't want to undervalue because I. One of the things that I appreciate most about your story, it's not just the resilience of getting back onto the teams. It's everything that you faced just living. You know, obviously, if I'm not mistaken, you're the one that actually originally tied off all the tourniquets and things of that nature on your own leg that ultimately I think gave you a little breathing room. And then you obviously had some medics that really poured into you and really kind of like, you know, basically tried all kinds of things because right before. But you actually had the wrong blood put in your body as part of the transfusion process. Right?

Yeah, that's accurate. And, you know, it's a, it's an honest mistake that was made. I'm very particular when I, when I talk about this portion of my events because, you know, myself and my teammate, we both have very similar last names. We both needed blood. They just, they switched up our names. And fortunately for him, I'm all positive, so I can give blood to anybody. Unfortunately, that's not the case with me. So it turned an already really ugly situation into something much more catastrophic. But, yeah, I have nothing but gratitude, even for those medical docs, personnel that were working on it. You know, adrenaline's pumping. I don't care what you do for a living or how much training you've had. I've made countless mistakes in those type of high pressure environments and that's, that's it. It's just, you know, human error. But I will say, Stephen, that I'm incredibly grateful that this had happened to me because the. On the offset of this event, a mass distro was sent out to the entire medical community throughout the entire region about what happened. And because of that, they updated some of their protocols when it comes to their blood works, protocols that still exist today. So I was obviously strong enough and lucky enough and by the grace of God, able to survive that. But had that not happened to me, who's to say that the same mistake couldn't have happened to someone else who was incapable of surviving? So it worked out.

No, I mean, you know, obviously we're, we're talking about a situation that, know, intense pressure. Everybody's trying to just save lives at, at the time. So I just wanted to, I want to make sure the audience has appreciation of how, how, how much you've been through and how far you fought to get to where they, to get to where you are in the nake, you know, sharing your story, sharing the warrior ethos, sharing objectives, secure, like, sharing all this really positive, impactful things that you would have not have learned or gone through or been able to share with other people without having gone through those experiences. And one of the reasons I like to bring that up is because one of the things that I believe is there. There really is no quote unquote, sec success, if you will, without extreme levels of sacrifice and accountability, you know, and kind of working through that. One of the things I've heard you say before, and I think this. I think I see this in. In a lot of people that are extremely resilient, extremely driven, is they hate losing more than. Than they hate or they hate to lose more than they love winning. Talk to me a little bit about that.

Yeah, man. I mean, well. Well, while winning is certainly important and it drives a lot of us, and I do believe competition breeds results. And you can decipher what winning looks like a lot of different ways. Is that synonymous with success? Perhaps, but striving for victory, I think is incredibly important.

Yeah.

For many of us, however, comma, myself included, losing creates a much bigger scar, a much greater emotional effect than the winning does. And you can. You can almost look at it in terms of gambling and people that have gambling addictions that they're almost. They almost get a greater high when they lose versus when they win. And that's part of their perpetual problem. Yeah, that can obviously be quite negative in a lot of ways, but it's very similar to. To those of us that have a more distinct intangible and palatable relationship of what it feels like to get your ass kicked and lose and what happens on the offset of that versus the victory which we are all consistently striving towards. Yeah.

What do you think that that played a role in, you know, you wanting to get back to your team and get back to your, you know, get back to your crew and put yourself back out there. Because, I mean, you're. I mean, not let you go through the traumatic experiences that we've kind of already briefly mentioned, but you also put yourselves back in an environment to go back to active combat duty, not just like death duty. Like what. What kind of like, I guess, gave you the. The sincere desire to get back out there with the guys?

Yeah, and that was a huge aspect, particularly in the beginning, was the idea of losing. Was the idea that not only was I gonna lose in the. In the state of combat. Right. Like I lost that particular battle, but this individual is going to be the one that dictates the rest of my life, like that type of loss. And I was unwilling to accept that whatsoever. So my competitive nature, my hatred of losing, my stubbornness, right. No one's going to dictate my future but me. Like, that was most of the driving factor in the very beginning. Like my times in the hospital, even once I got out and I was just going after that thousand miles an hour. So I attribute a lot of my successes to be able to overcome a lot of those difficult times to exactly that. Like, I am not going to lose in the macro. I am going to come back and I'm going to make you regret not killing me when you have the chance.

Yeah, no kidding. Geez. Yeah, I don't want to run and see in an alley, not, not if, not if I can help it for sure.

You know, I know one of the things in the, in the, in the Green Berets is obviously you guys are force multipliers, right. We can put you anywhere in the world and we can anticipate that much like the 300 held all thousands of Persians, right. That, that, that, that that small force is going to, is going to multiply itself in a, in a, in a very big way to make a meaningful impact that will be felt and even talked about. Right. I am curious. A lot of what I see in people who have extreme perseverance, extreme resilience, extreme drive. All of that comes down to a mindset. And I was hoping that maybe we could use the, almost like the force multiplier kind of theology and apply it to the mind. Like, if I'm going to, if I'm going to put myself in a position to be a force multiplier, so to speak, what types of things am I thinking about versus someone who's not?

Well, I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is leadership. And I could spend hours talking about the importance of it. You know, again, in terms of force multiplication, we look at a lot of factors when we're deciding what elements we want to link up with, partner with, and then expand. One of the most significant, arguably the most important aspect of who we're looking to link up with is their leadership. Because it's so significant.

Yeah.

Into the structure of the unit we're looking to work with. And then for us, right. We need to be able to influence. Influence. That's the key word. We need to be able to influence these individuals. And in most methodologies and leadership training, it will look at influence and leadership as being relatively synonymous. That is what essentially what leadership is. So the ability to come in and influence via inspiration and understanding and education and knowledge is essential for us to be able to do our job. If without that, we don't exist, Period. All stop. So that that particular methodology, that aspect of force multiplication can be applied. This is part of some of the leadership consulting and coaching that I do is exactly within this, this paradigm. It's within this model. It's. Yeah, we do this in some of the most extreme of all circumstances. The most austere environments, mountaintops, swamps, jungles, with people we may barely know that all have weapons and want to hurt people. And then we're going to go take that and apply it to people who actually want to hurt us. Like the extreme examples. Yeah, but the same principles can be applied regardless of your sector, regardless of the industry. Industry, it's leadership, influence via inspiration and understanding and knowledge.

Yeah, no, dude, that's so good. It actually reminds me of some, some earlier days and you know, I've be an owner and entrepreneur of multiple businesses at this stage in the game. I think one of my most heartbreaking moments in leadership and using that force multiplier kind of theology was actually going to an environment where I was deeply betrayed. You know, in my case, having to fire an executive team overnight for embezzlement.

And from what I've seen, and I know, I think, I know you've had an experience with this as well, where someone that you pour into ultimately becomes the deciding factor. Somebody that ends up injuring you in some way, shape or form. Talk to me a little bit about overcoming betrayal and getting back to, you know, getting back to a healthy mindset after, after a betrayal.

It's such a, it can be so damaging. Betrayal could I arguably be the most damaging to, to our emotional wellness, you know, and the first example that obviously comes to mind is, is I was wounded along with 11 of my friends, three of which were killed at the hands of someone that we had been working with. This was an insider attack. So Afghan national police officer that we had been training and going on operations with, you know, and I literally taught that guy how to use the machine gun that he shot me and my friends with. So that was. That added to the impact of being wounded. And I've been wounded twice before. I fully bought into the comeback with your shield or on it, like this could be it. And I'm willing to accept that under all circumstances. Circumstances, yeah. But the knowing that it was going to come at the hands of someone I've been working alongside of did twist that Knife significantly hotter and deeper into me. What was critical for me was, and I didn't learn this for months later, when my team, they eventually got back to the States, they came to Walter Reed, they visited me, they informed me as to the reasoning behind why this dude did what he did according to the intelligence and the information that they had. And essentially this is a tactic that had been used wildly, successfully with the Taliban in particular, is they would, they would barge into the home of someone that had access to us in the middle of the night, nine guys with guns, and say, here's the deal, man, you got two options. Option A is you go do this for us, you're definitely dead. But, but it's better than option B, which is we brutalize your entire family right now in front of you, slaughter them, and then kill you. Either way, you're dead. But if you do option A, your family will be taken care of. And I could, when I was told that I could empathize with that guy, I mean, I would do absolutely anything to protect my family. So through that lens, I would have done the exact same thing. So by hearing that, it allowed me to release a lot of anger and rage that I had built up and be like, you know what, dude, I get it, man. You know, no hot feelings.

Yeah, for sure. Well, you know, I think perspective is powerful. I've told the story before on air, but a long time ago, you know, I grew up in a crazy home myself. Like, you know, parents are all over the place and, and whatnot. And then, gosh, it was probably, I was probably 35 years old and talking to one of my mentors at the time, and he's like, dude, you always got, you know, when are you gonna let go of that chip on your shoulder? Like, when you gonna let it go? I'm like, what chip? What are you talking about? He's like, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You're always ready for a fight. He goes, and I appreciate the fact that you want that, you know, that you're a warrior and you've kind of been resilient, you've gone through a bunch of stuff. But let me, let me ask you something. You know, you got all this, you know, this, this frustration and all this, you know, pent up demand inside of your heart. Like, let's talk about it a little bit. I said, okay, well, it's fine. Where do you think that comes from? And of course, we went backwards and backwards and backwards and, and finally got to a disappointment that I had with My mother that unfortunately, you know, at that time had abandoned us. And he said, let me ask you a question. He said, who do you think taught her to be a mother? And I'm like, I have no idea. She's. Well, she probably learned to be a mother from her mother. What was that relationship like? Right. And come to find out that was obviously a difficult relationship. And then we fast forward a little bit. She goes, from now on with anybody that you need to kind of maybe get to that place of forgiveness, I want you to picture them as a little child who falls down and skins our knees. Are you gonna, are you gonna come up to them and be really aggressive and like, you know, come at him with a lot of anger or, or are you gonna come at him from a place of they're a wounded child and kind of step into it? And as a person of faith, that speaks to me a lot of different levels. But I love perspective just for that reason, because it's, it's that outside way of looking at things that tends to shift everything, you know, wow, that's great. You know, I know that.

Obviously with three Purple Hearts, which I know I haven't, I haven't said it in the show just yet, and I, you know, forgive me for it, but I am incredibly grateful for your service. I'm also grateful for your service of your fellow brothers and sisters that have served with diligence and, and, and try to take as best care of as they possibly can. I think we underestimate that sometimes. On top of that, I, I personally will volunteer with USO on a consistent basis. They have a program called Reset Program. And I was speaking at Fort Bragg, this is probably two years ago, and I was talking to a young man who had just gotten back from a combat deployment, and you could tell he was visibly shaken. So I guess the question I'm going to come at you with next is really for fellow brothers and sisters that have been in combat, he was really struggling with a couple of the choices that he had to make in the heat of battle from, I guess what they refer to as moral injury. Right. And I can only assume that a lot of brothers and sisters have had to battle a lot of different things. What are some, some techniques or some mind. Mind methodologies that can find healing from that? Because obviously they did what needed to be done.

I mean, I'll first say here, I don't, I don't believe that there's necessarily a black and white answer that that's going to work. Like, this is the way you Know, it's certainly independent case specific and variables can, can certainly change. I, I can just say from my experience, I've been in those positions many times and you know, one, one particular example, I'll tell the quick story. We get ambushed, you know, it's, it's a pretty significant gunfight. I, I grab a Carl G, which is an 84 millimeter recoilless rifle, and begin lobbing rounds into the second story structure of this building that we're receiving dishka machine gun fire out of. I'm like maybe my fourth or five fifth round. I finally dial it in and I unload. End up being about three or four high explosive rounds directly inside this two story structure that that particular aspect of the engagement turns off. You deal with the rest of the problem. And about two or so hours later, we eventually get ourselves to that location to conduct BDE or battle damage assessment to actually see what is what happened on the ground. I make my way up to that two story structure and you know, there's a lot of pink mist and goo all over the place.

Yeah.

Including some shoes that were clearly being worn by at least one child. And seeing that with my own eyes, knowing that I'm the one that caused that damage, I'm the one that caused that death was a really difficult moment for me in that time. You know, I had to step outside and kind of compose myself. You know, I see my team leadership came over and they said, hey man, like they put them in that position. You, you did it right. You did not put them in that position. They put them in this position. This is their fault. You were doing your job. And the unfortunate reality is even with the highest moral standards, the highest ethical standards ever, you're talking about fraction of a second decisions that human beings have to make, man. And we can train and we do, and we have SOPs and we have all this protocol and all this stuff that we spend hours and years on in repetition. But the end of the day you're talking about human beings. And human beings are susceptible to emotions.

Yeah.

Both in the decision itself and then the offset of having to deal with the emotional wave of this decision that was made. So I'll just summarize that by saying, you know, as long as you're an individual that knows where their integrity is and knows where their morals are and maintain a grasp on that consistently, the reality is combat is a very ugly, nasty world and you can see just how brutal human beings can be in some of the extreme circumstances. But if you maintain a grip on who you Are as a moral human.

Yeah.

That, for me, was what I was able to continue to grasp onto, you know, following some of these events.

Yeah, man. Well, first of all, I appreciate you sharing that because obviously that was a. Probably not an easy question just in general. And I did it specifically because I wanted the brothers and sisters out there, if you will, to. I guess one of the things that I've seen too many times working with the USO programs is a lot of people that have. A lot of servicemen and women that have gone overseas have been deployed. Many of them have had combat. Some of them are, you know, some of them are special detachments. We, you know, we would, we would do special programs, a lot of special forces. And sometimes I can. You can just. You can just see a broken heart that just wants some hope. Right? They, they've, they've been through. They've been through hell. They've managed to get home, and then they kind of start to rebuild themselves from a place of hell, like, you know, basically reconnecting with their family, you know, reintegrating with their spouse and things of that nature that I've seen. And, you know, no one knows how to talk hope into somebody. Like, somebody's already been there. Somebody's had to make those choices and pour into that. So I appreciate you taking a time for that because I think it's going to help a lot of folks. I really do. I want to talk about Objective Secure a little bit.

Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah, it's a brand. It's a brand new work. You know, for the most part, um, I'm trying to get my hands on it. Right. But let's, let's talk.

Yeah, we owe you one.

Yeah, man. So. So tell me about Objective Secure. What, what made you want to spend some time in it? Why is now the time? All that kind of stuff.

Yeah, I think the easiest way, the most accurate way to summarize, you know, what the project is about is really the genesis of it. And quickly. I came back from my first deployment as an Amputee in 2015. We were incredibly successful. We had a lot of visibility on what we're doing because it hadn't happened before. I'm talking like, decision makers in Washington were like, who's. What's up with this one legged Green Beret running around Afghanistan? So I came back from that. We, you know, things. Nothing went. Nothing went haywire, which was obviously a good thing. And I really got thrown into the spotlight by the army, by socom, by. You suck. You know, they wanted to Highlight what we collectively were able to do. This was an unprecedented event.

Yeah.

And I was being asked to do interviews and speak to decision makers. And a lot of it was focused on our strength conditioning program and they needed an increase in budget, so. Hey, Nick, can you come talk to these guys about this thing? And I hated it, Stephen. I wanted nothing to do with it. And I learned very quickly that when a three star general asks you to be a part of something, he's really not asking you anything. Because I tried to.

Yeah. Very much a voluntary scenario.

Yeah.

And it was during one of these particular events that the USASA commander at the time pulled me aside and said, hey, man, thanks for doing this. I said, of course. Yes, sir. And he said, listen, I know you don't want to be here. I know you don't like this stuff. You're a quiet professional. You don't want to be treated any differently than any other team guy. I get all that. Here's the thing, however, karma is. You now have a responsibility to share your lessons learned and your experiences. And it's not about you. It's not about you seeking the limelight, fame, fortune, whatever. It's about enabling someone else that's struggling with a similar situation or just some other type of adversity. You owe it to them.

Yeah.

And that was the catalyst for my. My mentality to kind of change. The light bulb didn't go off and it was. Yeah, it wasn't shining down on me super bright, but that's what turned the light on. So I gradually began kind of putting myself out there. Social media, it kind of blows up a bit. And I'm getting asked the question, how did you do what you did thousands of times? And I'm answering people one at a time, boom, boom, boom, boom. I do that, Stephen, for maybe three, four years.

Yeah.

Well, at some point I realized this is wildly inefficient. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to answer this.

Yeah.

On a, like a Microsoft Word document. I'm just going to outline the answer. How did I do what I did?

Yeah.

So I ended up coming up with, you know, about a seven or eight step phase model. Step one, Step two was a guide. That was it.

Yeah.

Purely based off of efficiency for me, so I could just copy, paste, send, and then be done with it. And then secondary to that, I felt like I would give the end user even just a slightly better product, one with more analysis and reflection, whatever. So I did that. Used it that way for several years.

Yeah.

Well, now it's June of 2020. Okay? Like peak Covid. People are living crazy, locked in the houses, losing their minds. It's like a really weird time for all of us. Well, I'm in Key west going through dive school, and one of my really good friends, we play football together in college, he calls me up and he's like, hey, man, how you doing? I'm like, not good. I'm getting my ass kicked down here. But I'm hanging on, you know, hanging on by a thread. I got two weeks left in this course. And he just comes at me and says, I think you need to write a book. And I'm like, what? Like, dude, I'm in no condition to have this kind of conversation with you right now. And I hang up on him. He circles back. About a week later, after I'd been home, he hits me with it again. I said, you know what, dude? I love you, I respect you. Let me just think about what you just said to me. Now keep in mind, this is now July of 2020.

Yeah.

And the gyms are closed, the fight houses are closed. We're doing weird one off half team room type schedules because. All because of COVID So I got a lot of extra time and energy on my hands that I otherwise wouldn't have had. I would have been spending it doing my normal thing.

Yeah.

So I sit there and think, you know what, man? I kind of have this, this Word document product that I've been using for the last few years. And it's been successful, it's been helping people, the feedback's been tremendous. Yeah, maybe there's something there. And he's like, there is something there. Keep going with it.

Yeah.

So it's July of 2020. I decided I'm going to move forward on this thing. No idea what it's going to look like. I'm going into Iraq in December on my next deployment on the team. So I gave myself that window just to see what I could come up with. And dude, I caught the bug for this thing and it just became this obsession. And I found myself, at times I'm hammering down like 2,000 worth in a day. Fast forward to like mid November and I'm sitting on 75,000 worth. And it's like, holy. It looks like you might actually have two books, homie.

That's two.

So I use that, that story to just educate people on kind of how it came to be real. But the major point is it still objective secure. Although now it's a book. And the audio versions on its way out, it still is exactly the same thing it was when I first wrote that nine page thing outline, you know, seven years ago. It's still the exact same thing. It just answers the questions how did you do what you did? And why did you do what you did?

Yeah.

To enable those that are also striving for goal achievement and dealing with some adversity.

No, dude, I love it. In fact, you know, it's, it's interesting that I feel like certain works, right. Whether it be a videos that you create or a book that you write, I feel like certain works come from certain experiences and other certain experiences, certain works call you to them and I think objective secure called you to it. So we could then be delivered to other people to encourage them and kind of, and kind of walk them through a process of fighting back and putting themselves back out there and, and kind of getting that what I recall the resilience muscle really defined and really built really well, you know, at that point. Yeah. And then, you know, and I think we underestimate that because if you look at the top producers, it doesn't matter what industry, all of them share one very defining trait in common. They're all incredibly resilient when others would not be. And anything objective secure, any works like that that can help people increase that and grow from that and use it as a tool need to be used on a consistent basis. I'm curious, would you mind giving us one or two of the steps that you outline in the book?

Yeah. So the first section of the book is all about the mindset. There's two sections, mindset and strategy. And the mindset, it takes up a pretty big chunk because I just believe it's absolutely essential. You can have the greatest plan and the X's and O's are all lined up and your set rep scheme is perfect and you got your macros are dialed in and you're doing the journaling and you know, you're doing the high conversations with your spouse and like all the tactical things. But it all starts and ends and is maybe able to be maintained.

Yeah.

With, with your mentality is absolutely essential. So I place quite a bit of bandwidth on that. I use the, the warrior ethos to really frame this. Warrior mindset or ethos is extracted from the soldiers creed. It's very militant language in general, but it's very easily translatable and relatable to anybody regardless of your circumstances or what you do for a living. So there's, there's a heavy emphasis on, on that and Then when you move over into the strategy piece, I'll just highlight, you know, one. The first section of that, which is identifying the mission. Like, what is the. What is the goal? Like, what is it we're trying to do here?

Yeah.

And there's a lot of people that are going to listen to this on your platform that I've probably already engaged with, that have come at me with questions. And 99 times out of 100, regardless of the question, my immediate response back is like, well, what are we trying to do here? Like, what's your goal? What's the mission? Because I can't. If I'm going to give you something real, I need to know where you're going. But more importantly, you need to know where you're going.

Yeah.

And I do believe that 100% that, that, that has to be. Or at least without it being rooted in both passion and purpose, it's going to be really difficult to achieve that because of what you just talked about, Stephen, because of that need for resilience, because adversity is coming. You are going to get knocked down, you're going to get derailed. It's. It's inevitable. And I can just say for me, having a love of the game, of being a Green Beret and earning a Green Beret every day, and then having a very strong attachment with why I'm put on this earth, my purpose. There you go, right through this.

Yeah.

That is what enabled me to get past all these difficult challenges at its core. And then it's just a matter of finding out the mechanics behind how do I actually do this. So identifying the goal, having that to be extremely clear and defined and continuously refined to the point where you can see it, touch it, smell it, taste it. Yeah, I hit that aggressively in the beginning because I do believe if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. So let's place considerable bandwidth on that and then we've got something to work with.

Yeah. No, dude, that's so good. And I would dare say that that kind of falls in line with something else I've heard you say before, which is that is your mission critical executive. Right. So no matter what industry you're in, what is your mission critical objective? What. What must you do here now today to do this next thing tomorrow? And I think getting clear on that is super important. As I've been, as I've worked with people, and I know you've seen this in your work as well, almost everybody that come in contact with that would define themselves or stuck or confused or lost or. I'm in almost every single case. They have not defined where it is they're trying to go. Like, they can't articulate it right. Which is another reason I love that so much. I think the other thing that. That sticks out to me, that you had a recent Instagram post that really, really stuck out to me and really, really spoke to me, and it's do the hard work in isolation, essentially. It's kind of like, you know, be willing to do the hard work. Talk to me a little bit about that, because I feel like there's. That in and of itself is a very, very powerful message.

Yeah. And one. And I want to emphasize this is when I talk about hard work and comfort within isolation and solitude, I'm not suggesting that it is beneficial to intentionally isolate yourself from a community. Right. Community and team. And that dynamic is. Is incredibly powerful. And for me, that was essential at every single point within this journey was who I decided, who I chose to surround myself with, and their influence on me. That said that that particular aspect of. Of progression is being comfortable in isolation. And not only that, but being able to. To output difficult work.

Yeah.

In solitude. I mean that both figuratively and literally.

Yeah.

So it's in the hours of the. You know, the early mornings, the late nights, when it's just you and your character and you could easily go 50% or skip the task entirely. And no one's going to know. Right. No one's going to know the difference. There's no coach watching. There's no spouse, there's no teammate, there's no teacher. Like, none of your haters are. Like, no one's paying attention to you right now. Yeah. Are you able to dig in and go at 100% anyway? Are you able to work that hard when the lights are off? Because it's significantly easier to do that stuff when the lights are on. When people are watching and you want to perform, you don't want to be embarrassed.

Yeah.

Can you do that kind of output when the lights are off? And then from a figurative perspective, from almost a mentality perspective, even if it. When we're surrounded by people that are right around us and they're supporting us, no one's going to see our vision as clearly as us.

Yeah.

And there will almost certainly be people that have doubts. They may express that or you may sense that this was the case for me when I said I'm going back to being a Green Beret, 99.9% of the people around Me, People that love me were like, yeah, man, you got this. And you look in their eyes and they're like, this ain't gonna happen. I knew that, and I was okay with that because my faith, my belief, my unwavering faith and belief in what I was doing was strong enough for me to continue to pursue it anyway. That's what I mean by comfort in isolation, but then also the ability to dig in and grind in that isolation.

Well, I think that's fantastic. In fact, I love the fact that you actually. You actually talked about the importance of community, but also the importance of, like, it's almost like you're working on any. Working on yourself and within yourself to excel yourself. Like, it's kind of like that. That domino effect, right?

Absolutely.

And when I look back again to these, what we refer to as these unstoppable stories, these. These stories of people who are. Who have become unstoppable, meaning that nothing stands in their way. They go after what it is they set out to go. They have a level of certainty which you just expressed very clearly about, this is where I'm going. I want you to come with me. Or you can watch me do it from afar. You can be part of the squad. That helps me get there, but I'm gonna do it. Like, during that. During those moments of certainty, while you were doing the work. While you were doing the work on your own, developing the character, all that kind of stuff, why are you doing. Did you. Did you have doubts? That came up, you know, because you strike me as someone who's very, very, like, hardcore focus. But I mean, I would have to assume at some point in times you had to talk yourself into things 100%, 100%.

Countless moments of doubt and questioning, is this possible? Right. I mean, objectively speaking, that's a fair question for anyone, including me, to ask myself. Like, this has never been done before.

Yeah.

So it's in those moments of failure and fear and mostly on the offset of something going wrong. And I'm laying face down on the ground sometimes literally.

Yeah.

And it's in that split second where it's like, dude, really? I mean, is this even possible? I'm a human being, and I think that this is the case for most of us. I would. I would say all except we don't live in a world uncertainties. But this happened to me countless times immediately following a failure. Usually the epic ones where I'm just. I'm out of my ass and I'm done and exhausted. I cannot figure out how to do this task.

But being able to grasp onto the vision of where I knew this needed to go is what I was able to use to pull myself back up and say, there is no question as to what it is you're doing. You've already answered that. So let's all just. All roads proceed to the how. What you just did clearly didn't work. But that's a good thing. That's a good thing because that's where the wisdom is located. So get up, suck it up, learn, let's analyze what just happened, and then let's keep going again and again and again. And I don't want to, I don't want to paraphrase or mislabel the name of your platform. I think it's. I think it's incredible, right? But being unstoppable doesn't mean that you are not going to be stopped at times. In fact, you have to be that you need to fail at certain points because if you don't, it means, it means one of two things. You've either set the bar too low for yourself or you're not moving with enough aggression, with enough determination. Right? Like pick up the pace or elevate the buy. You've got more to give. So being stopped is actually what will make you unstoppable.

Yeah. Well, because that stopping is building that muscle, right? No matter what muscle it is, you know, it's. It's putting you in an environment where there is no certainty. And the only way to get out of that environment is to creatively figure out a way out of it. It's, it's. It's that strategic problem solving, you know, that I think it teaches you a kind of thing. In fact, I've always told our audience that to me, unstoppable is nothing more than making consistent progress. Like, to me even like. And what I mean by that is some days it's just getting out of the fricking bed, right? It, that's, that's a step where you consistently made progress. Some days it's, you know, picking up the phone. Some days it's going for a run, putting in a harder workout than you did the day before. That kind of stuff. I'm curious how you would define unstoppability just in general.

The second warrior ethos tenant that I use within objective secure and is within the creed is I will never accept defeat. And I, I like that language because to me, the defeat and failure are two different things, at least in my mind. Right? Failure is, is getting something wrong, getting knocked down and Then getting back up and then continuing to go defeat is when you get knocked down and then you don't get back up.

Yeah.

So in the. The modification of our relationship with failure, as we. As we discussed, is. Is what I focus on at that point. Like, the failure needs to happen. Like, fail early, fail often, but always fail forward kind of mentality. So, and. And I. I think that that is essential in order to make the consistent progress that you're talking about.

Sure.

Like, the consistency is key. And on some days, man, just showing up is the win. On some days, just showing up is the win. Right. The only bad workout is the one that didn't happen.

Yes.

You may be beat up, tired, lethargic. Everything in your brain is screaming at you to, you know, take a rest day or whatever it is, you know, but if you show up anyway, even if you're only getting 25 ROI like that, not only are you getting something from the workout itself, but mentally, you were able to win. That. That was the. That was the win is the. It was winning the mental battle. The workout in that.

In that.

In that example is more of just a byproduct. It's more of a bonus. Like, you won the street fight in your mind where everything was saying, no, and you said, no, I can keep going. That is the win. And some days I think we just need to be okay with the reality that while we need to make tangible progress on the ground, on some days, just showing up is the win in itself.

Yeah. No, I love that. In fact, I've always. I kind of always believe that sometimes, to me, we need to celebrate the effort of. Of going after something just as much, if not more, than we celebrate the result of that thing. You know, you go. You know, it's just like.

There'S a certain grit and tenacity that comes up from just getting up and trying again. All right. Or. Or putting yourself out there consistently. Right. I know one of the other things that I've heard you discuss, and it resonated with me huge, is this concept of radical honesty. Because I don't. I don't. I know for me, when I was overcoming homelessness and that stuff like that, it was the radical honesty that ultimately set me free. And I'm curious to know from your perspective, what it means to have radical honesty in a constructive way and then radical honesty, or, if you will, on a. On a deconstructive way.

Dude, that's a. That's such a great point. I would argue that in today's, you know, Instagrammed and filtered and photo edited world that we all live in. And I'm by no means anti social media. I think it's a powerful tool.

Sure.

Today's environment, because of that, places an enormous pressure on us to display this vision of ourselves that may not exactly be 100% authentic and we're all guilty of it. You take 19 photos and you choose the best one and that's the one that goes hot. Couple filters here and there, maybe a slight edit or two.

I never possibly.

There you go. Right. And it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's just a kind of a reality of what we're living. But because of that, I think just has enabled that much more, a more difficult internal dialogue within ourselves about who we actually are. What is my actual current operational environment and who do I actually want to become? For real? Like, forget about what I just sent out with the, you know, I'm sure inspirational caption and forget about what I'm telling my parents and all these, all this facade, like externally projected aspects of us really. Who do you want to be? And what do you want to. What do you want to become? And in terms of identifying what the mission is, which we talked about, and the criticality of that, you can look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself the question, what do you want to do? Who do you want to become? And then sit back and listen and begin that internal dialogue. For that to have any value, you have to be able to operate with 100% honesty and self awareness. There is zero upside in bullshitting yourself.

Yeah.

So forget what you just posted. Forget about the BS story you told your teacher or your best buddy who you're trying to impress or the girl. Like forget all that for a second. Just focus on you and at least initiate that conversation. Because more often than not, the answer to those questions is not going to come blasting through the glass and punch you in the face. It'll likely show up in the form of a whisper and you have to put it out there to be able to hear it. And that level of honesty is essential for that to be rooted in something that's real.

Yeah. And then to me at that radical honesty, the, the only way for it to actually become helpful is going to be from the concept of you're not using it to judge yourself, you're using it to where to kind of make yourself aware. Right. You know, I've made, I've made. I'll give you an example, quick example. So I had a. I caught, I cost one of my largest businesses Seven figures. A seven figure mistake because I promoted somebody who was not ready to go to a role and I put them in place to handle a role that ultimately they made enough mistakes that ultimately cost the business. You know, seven figures and mistakes. And I felt like it was crazy important because I had to stand up in front of my team and own it. Like, guys, this was my decision. It was the wrong decision. I'm sorry, it's affecting everybody.

But at the same time, I know that I was, with my radical honesty part, I was trying to do what was right for that team member. And it taught me again, a different perspective of doing what's right for the whole. You know, I could have spent a lot of times beating myself up, shaming myself, and I would be lying to you if I didn't say I didn't have a window of time where I felt a lot of extreme shame, I felt extreme guilt, I felt a burden. But at the same time I said, okay, well, if this is going to be useful to me, I have to use this moment to say, okay, what can I learn from this for the future? Like, what can I do differently to make sure this example doesn't happen again? How can I show up transparently to my team and kind of let them know that, look, I've learned, I've learned a very valuable lesson where you guys can still trust me to make future decisions when you have every right to doubt the decisions that I could make in the future. Right. And I'm curious to know when it looks, when we take Objective Secure and we start applying it from a perspective of radical honesty and we start looking at ourselves objectively. You know, is there, is there an element of how we ask the question that kind of defines the answers that we get?

I mean, my immediate response is, you know, you ask the question in a manner in which makes sense to you and you'll receive a response. Another aspect of the objective secure methodology is the power of tracking what we're actually doing. And I know this is a concept that I learned and used solely for physical training. My training lock, right rep sets calories, whatever, for sure, that eventually morphed into something that's also more journal, like how am I feeling? What am I dealing with? What other variables are going on? Because those are correlated. My performance in the weight room and on the field and on the track and on the battlefield. Physically, those, those other intangibles were correlated within that.

So I wanted to be able to.

Track that so I can see what was going on. Very analytical perspective, which Also provided some therapeutic value. But there are multiple ways that you can, you can track to be able to use that information to your advantage. But if what you're, if what you're annotating is, is a facade that isn't real.

Yeah.

You're, you're throwing off your, your data like you're, you're not going to have authentic information to.

Yeah.

So that is a form of a way to increase this radical honesty that you're talking about. A term in which I love. I'll probably steal that from you. I'll hashtag you on it to give you the credit.

But I love that just a brother can use it always.

No, it's great. And you know, whether you're talking about how many reps you did in the back squat that day, or if you're talking about, you know, what you're dealing with on the home front or emotionally, like that's an opportunity to be 1000% honest because it's just you, you don't need to broadcast that out. That's for you. But if you, if you are inflating the numbers, if you're not being authentic and you use this for the incredible tool that it is. Yeah. You look back a month later and you're reading your data, you're like, what. It's, you're, you're setting yourself up for failure. So that is a mechanism. Right. Like looking in the mirror and physically talking to yourself is one tool that I still use today. But also documenting it via tracking logs, journaling, etc, is another way to enhance that radical honesty relationship that you have with yourself.

Dude, man, I could talk to you for a year. Like I'm, I'm easily.

Yeah, good times.

I know we're out of time, but I'm curious, like, everybody needs to pick up Objectives Secure. Where can they, where can they find out more about you and Objectives Secure. Yeah.

The easiest spot is through our website, which is machinenick.com for the book itself. You get the standard copies over Amazon and then we actually just, just a few months back unveiled some signature, some signed copy.

Oh, very cool.

You can get straight through the website and the audiobook, we recorded it back in November. That should be live, come like end of February. That'll be.

Did we get lucky enough for you to record the audiobook?

I narrate like a little bit. Maybe like half. A little over half of it. Me and my buddy Eric, who I told you about. Yeah, we decided long time ago we first decided to do this that when there is an audio book we're going to do it together because this is a team effort.

So, yeah, I love it because.

You'Re so raw and real. I would. I. I would find it really weird to hear somebody that didn't have that same level of grit and passion like you're. I think one of the reasons you're so effective and why I think God's going to continue to use you in a mighty way is because you are raw. You are. Like, you're real. Like you're. You're not. What you see is what you get, right?

That's. That's it, man. Take.

You're trying to help people get onto a better life and a lot of different. A lot of different varieties away. You've done. You've done the insurmountable. You've done things that people told you were impossible. And I feel like there's a lot more people that can be encouraged consistently by that same story.

Thank you. Thank you, brother. I appreciate that.

Awesome, brother. We'll catch you on the next one.

Great talking, man. I'll see you later.

I hope you liked that video. And if you did, make sure you check out this next video right here.

Go out there and fail.

First, don't be afraid to say, I don't have the answer, but I can find it. I think resourcefulness is the number one skill that you can have as a.

Human being right now.

So it's like, I don't know the answer, but I can find it. And so you don't have to lie.

You don't have to be deceitful, Especially.

If you're brand new. You get to say, hey, I'm brand new. I don't have the answer, but I.

Can find it for you.