Kind: captions
Language: en
and usually when there's a bad situation
there's a natural tendency to focus
inward on the pain and the misery and
all these things but the reality it's on
you to take that first step
and and that became the genesis of this
idea
that i now speak on getting off the x
and and it is a victor mentality is a
mentality that i don't care what happens
in my life i'm going to continue to
drive forward i'm going to figure out a
way
and and that is the essence of what i
speak on and what i believe in the
overcome mindset
jason redman welcome to the show tom
honor to be here thank you dude truly my
honor you're one of those people where i
had to stop talking to you before we
started rolling so i'm like hold on we
want to talk about this on camera yeah
but your mentality is insane so
you've got the whole overcome mentality
the book was phenomenal literally from
like nine words in i was like i have got
to meet this guy
so really stoked to have you on the show
if you would
you've obviously been through a lot for
anybody that doesn't know your story
give us like that quick thumbnail sketch
so that all the stuff we talk about no
bad days overcoming [ __ ] not making
excuses they'll have some context
yeah jason redmond in a snapshot i um i
don't know i guess i'm the epitome of
defying the odds i um i am a
i'm not a big guy so i'm not the average
person that you would think would become
a navy seal
um grew up poor
and just had these big dreams of that's
what i wanted to do
everybody said you couldn't do it
managed to do that
decide at one point i wanted to become
an officer many people said you can't do
that i did it and then i stumbled and
fell and gotten myself in trouble i
almost got myself kicked out of the seal
teams many people said you'll never come
back i actually believed i couldn't come
back for a short period of time
continued to grind re-establish myself
finally got myself back
in a community where it's very difficult
to come back from
mistakes at that level
got my career back on track and right as
i got it back on track found myself on
the wrong end of a machine gun in a
firefight in iraq
all shot up
face mangled almost had my arm amputated
and once again found myself in a
situation where i was told you'll never
be able to come back you'll never be
able to do this
and i did it
although i was never able to be
operational again i
learned like many of us find out in life
that there is a new path and i started
to walk that new path um
so
and i've done it over and over again i
mean i launched my own business and hit
a major crisis in that business and you
know
thought that we were going to lose the
business and my professional reputation
was damaged due to some
false accusations uh and had to grind
through that um so it's i you know at
the end of the day my motto is overcome
and that really is the essence of my
story
um if you don't mind you put a sign on
the door which you became famous for i
don't know if you can paraphrase it or
if you actually remember the exact words
but um for context you
were you wake up in a hospital
just [ __ ] up
and
in a way that i can't even begin to
imagine you have an acrylic version of
your skull that shows how terrifying the
damage was i mean it's crazy i don't
know how you survived it's
pure insanity yeah but people if
do yourselves a favor anybody listening
to this go
uh look at i assume you have it online
people can see the i do it's tough we
put pictures on it's tough because of
the way the acrylic but yes i mean there
are pictures on my website you know if
the skull we've made the skull into art
you know yeah it's
crazy so you wake up after that has just
happened
and people are looking at you with pity
and so you write something down
yeah um it was kind of a hard moment and
i just and it is a defining moment and i
think all of us in this life hit those
moments and one of the biggest things i
try to talk to people about
when these moments occur when you get
punched in the face with adversity or
when people want to place you in the
victim box which is a big thing and i
we are
at a time in society where it's almost
like people want to out victim each
other like no i'm a bigger victim you
know and then we like encourage people
to be victims right now
and i was in that moment in the hospital
and there were some people who
really kind of tried to place me in the
victim box like oh you know these wounds
are so bad you know what happens to our
wounded warriors is so bad they're never
going to recover they're never going to
be whole
they're never going to be the same you
know and i remember when they left and
all of that the doctor's telling me the
amount of damage potentially amputating
my arm i had no use of my left hand
i got tubes coming out of everywhere i'm
trach they're feeding me out of a
stomach tube i was so weak from all the
blood loss i had to have nurses help me
to use the bathroom
and on top of that
i had just come back from this i mean a
two-year process of coming back from
this leadership failure and building
myself back up finally getting my career
back on track
and to be severely injured and laying in
this hospital bed and to have these
people say you're never going to be able
to do this so the
greatest gift you have is you have a
choice you have a choice that's the free
will is one of the greatest things we
have as humans and i remember laying in
that bed thinking to myself like is this
me like is this finally the end
um
and i said no i said hey man
you know the formula the formula is you
get up and you walk forward and i think
also how we
allow people to come in
to our circles so
how close do you allow the negativity
and how much do you allow the negativity
affect you
there are too many people that allow it
and then they start to feed off of it
and then that's how you become that
victim and sit on the x is one of the
things i talk about but in that moment i
said no like i'm not doing it and when
my wife came back into the room i
motioned her and said hey hand me my pen
because i couldn't talk um i could only
write
and i wrote to her i said never again i
said that's it i i from this point
forward i will not feel sorry for myself
i will lift others up
how many days in are we
maybe seven oh my god yeah it had been
about a week
and and
there were some things that had occurred
one
all around me i realized that
there were young men and women the
average age of a wounded warrior in the
military hospital is probably
early 20s i mean probably 22 so very
young
i was 32 when i was shot and i've been
through quite a bit of my life
i also had the benefit of having been
through
several different iterations of special
you know seal training ranger school i'd
had to overcome some pretty big
adversity in my life i'd already
developed a pretty good overcome mindset
at this point and all around me were
these young men and women and i remember
thinking to myself man like in the room
next to me there was a young kid who had
a traumatic brain injury who had no
function with probably a 19 year old
wife that had just had a baby on the
deployment
and i remember seeing them and and you
know it's easy to look at yourself and
feel sorry for yourself
and i was like all around me are other
people and they look to you know as a
seal or as any leader in any capacity
whether you're a seal or whether you're
a ceo
people look to leaders to lead and i
kind of just after the whole journey i'd
been through from a leadership failure
to fixing myself
i was like
you've got to lead like
part of leadership is just your attitude
in the hardest situations and i told my
wife i said i will no longer i will not
feel sorry for myself i will set the
example you know be the light in the
darkness and that's when i wrote that
sign
and it said attention to all who enter
here if you're coming in this room with
sadness cesaro don't bother
the wounds that i received i got in a
job that i love doing it for people that
i love defending the freedom of a
country that i deeply love
i will make a full recovery
what is full that's the absolute utmost
physically i have the ability to recover
and then i'm we'll push that about 20
percent further through sheer mental
tenacity this room you're about to enter
is a room of fun optimism and intense
rapid regrowth if you are not prepared
for that
go elsewhere
and uh
we signed it the management which i'm
not sure why i always laugh when i read
that
um you know i've sometimes asked you
know hey do you think it needs an
additional level of credibility or
something
um but uh yeah we it was originally
written on a
regular piece of like printer paper
that's what i was just writing on i have
like 500 pages of this at my house
from that time in the hospital but a
couple days later somebody else came in
the room and uh we had put that white
piece of paper on the door and they uh
totally missed it and came into the room
kind of with this same sense of pity and
i told my wife i said hey i need
something bigger brighter bolder that
people will not miss i want everybody to
read it when they came in and she went
and got that
big orange red piece of poster board we
transcribed it word for word and it went
on the door and it was at that point
that
a new york firefighter took a picture of
it and wrote about it and it went viral
from that point forward all right my
friend i have a big announcement my
incredible and talented wife lisa is
about to launch her new book radical
confidence in it she has managed to
perfectly capture the process of how to
go from feeling lost and insecure to
taking control of your life and doing
amazing things despite feeling fear
sometimes a lot of fear now let me tell
you nobody knows lisa better than me but
when i read radical confidence for the
first time and heard her describe what
it was like for her to go from having
these big exciting dreams as a kid to
then as an adult scheduling her life
around the tv shows that she wanted to
watch or how lonely and isolated she
felt instead of pursuing her dreams it
was brutal for me i would never say
though that it was worth it for her to
go through all of that just so that she
could write something down that allows
others to avoid it but i will say that
at least she was able to capture the
strategies that she used to break out of
that rut find her voice and begin doing
incredible things despite her
insecurities and fears that she wasn't
going to be good enough to achieve great
things so while it hurts me to know the
dark place that lisa went through i
really am excited for people who are
going through something similar right
now to read this book radical confidence
is an instruction manual for how to
become the hero of your own life even
when you're scared to death look i know
better than just about anybody how easy
it is to get off track in life or to
just not have yet found your calling and
it's even easier for people to feel so
insecure and unprepared that they don't
even want to pursue the things that they
want but what lisa shows people in
radical confidence is that the radical
part is that you can accomplish
extraordinary things even when you feel
fear that's what radical confidence is
being afraid and unsure and having a
tool kit that allows you to still make
massive progress pre-order your copy
today because if you act now you can
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for you at
radicalconfidence.com they're only
available if you pre-order so act now
then once you've done that we'll get
back to today's episode all right guys
read the book and get ready to be the
hero of your own life peace out
[Music]
the whole time you were saying that it
just gives me the chills man it's really
incredible i always said that i if
anything really traumatic ever happened
to me
i would give myself 30 days to mourn the
fact that you went through something i
couldn't even begin to imagine and seven
days later you've already got that
mentality it's really incredible
why though why cultivate that mentality
why do you think that's more useful than
a victim mentality
like what what's the purpose
because a victim mentality pins you to a
specific location you know i i often
talk about you know people that follow
me know i talk about the x the x is
really a military term that stems from a
point of attack um
it can be an ambush site it can be a
target you're trying to take down the
flip side of the coin if you get
attacked you are on the x and the victim
mindset if you say to yourself i am not
able to do something because race creed
color gender you know
size
you know where i came from
socioeconomic economic status whatever
it is any of those things pin you to the
x they they give you an excuse to sit on
the x because you're able to say well i
can't do this because i'm a specific
color i can't do this because of my
gender i can't do this because of my
gender persuasion
none of that really matters and there's
millions and millions of people it
matters but it doesn't matter because
the reality is
it doesn't matter for your ability to
drive forward out of a bad situation
and usually when there's a bad situation
there's a natural tendency to focus
inward on the pain and the misery and
all these things but the reality it's on
you to take that first step
and and that became the genesis of this
idea that i now speak on getting off the
x
and and it is a victor mentality is a
mentality that i don't care what happens
in my life i'm going to continue to
drive forward i'm going to figure out a
way
and and that is the essence of what i
speak on and what i believe in the
overcome mindset um
a victim mentality limits
your success in this life
you know you will stay
wherever you are and you will achieve
the limit of what you believe which
you know if you believe
if you believe you're never going to get
out of the neighborhood you grew up and
you're right you will not
and if you're waiting for somebody else
to save you it most likely is not going
to happen and actually what i have come
to find over time is even if someone
comes to save you
if you don't believe in yourself if you
don't you we can't drag anybody off the
x you can't drag a victim off the x
because guess what they will climb right
back onto it it's only an individual
that believes in themselves and and i'm
such living proof of that now having
worked with so many amazing individuals
who have been through incredible
traumatic events who stopped looking at
themselves as a victim and as a victor
and i and i looked at myself as a victim
at one point when i got in trouble as a
as a leader
there was a long period of denial almost
five months where i saw myself as the
victim that i had been thrown under the
bus
and it was all inward like hey you don't
like me and you don't like me and the
reason i'm in this bad situation is
because
um you know
because of all external factors not
looking internal like hey man
a lot of this is you you made poor
decisions you didn't step up in the
areas that you should have
so that's why i believe
that we need to teach people
you know and get out of this
this this pandemic i you know not covet
but the victim mindset pandemic you know
the power
greatness lies in every single
individual and the only thing stopping
an individual from being successful is
that you know it doesn't guarantee it i
will say that
but i tell you what will guarantee you
never moving forward is if you buy into
that victim mindset and just sit on that
x forever waiting for some miraculous
thing to come along and save you
because if you don't start that process
it'll never happen
yes i agree with that so violently that
uh i i don't even know what words to put
around it and my thing is that
i no judgment i ca it is all too easy to
when something bad happens to you that
really isn't your fault to
blame other people to give away your
power and my thing is i don't judge that
i understand how easily somebody ends up
there and how it really
is unfair like there are unfair things
in this world it just doesn't help to
stay there
and
as you were talking you kept saying move
forward and andrew huberman i don't know
if you know who he is but just a
phenomenally interesting guy and
he is a researcher and his lab looks at
vision and one of the things they found
is that moving your eyes laterally so
just literally back and forth back and
forth back and forth can break somebody
out of um
depression or anxiety because it mimics
what your eyes do when you're walking
forward so literally ingrained in you is
if you sit on the x to use your language
and you're not moving forward
you build up that stress that anxiety
the depression but if you start going
after the problem you literally move
forward that your body's like okay word
we're solving this and for years i've
been saying action cures all now that's
a message to myself right that hey
you're in a moment like overwhelm i see
overwhelm take a lot of amazing people
down
and my whole thing is dude overwhelm
makes people stop they they get
paralyzed like i actually had a guy who
couldn't finish a sentence because he
was feeling overwhelmed and i was like
whoa like it is such an and that's not a
slide on him that's just where his mind
goes right he feels overwhelmed and boom
it just clicks out of gear and he can't
even
talk
and so
once people realize the solution is to
break it down into one small piece so
that you can move forward because once
you go after the problem there is some
deep-seated thing in your brain that
goes word we're handling it we're
solving the problem and it changes your
neurochemistry
and like you said action follows belief
so if you don't believe you can
you you are right
and and
you and i are right on the same page
when bad things happen first off
life is not fair
bad things happen to good people perfect
plans suddenly in the blink of an eye
can be ripped apart
and just be totally thrown off course
and and it is this so many people and
the victim mindset is a mindset well
that's not fair well you're right it's
not but guess what sitting there and and
focusing all your blame and time on the
fact that your perfect plan or something
happened or your world got thrown upside
down accomplishes nothing nothing you
still feel worse it makes you feel worse
well and it pins you to the ex
because what happens in that moment is
it's human nature and what's been
interesting is these last two years i
mean you talk about being in my lane uh
you know speaking and coaching to
companies all across um
both nationally and internationally and
individuals
everybody's feeling the same thing you
know between kovid political division
you know now you watch what's happening
in ukraine everybody's feeling this
overwhelm
overwhelming uh impact the stress
uh the pressure
and but it's been interesting that
across all
businesses and across all individuals
everybody's feeling the same thing
there's no hope
it's all outside of my control there's
nothing i can do
these are the common things it's not
fair these are the common things that
people feel
but
when you decide to get up and drive
forward you know
i think action cures all is what you
said i say movement is life
movement is life movement creates
momentum and the great thing about
momentum is even if you step into
another ambush or into another hole
guess what movement enables you to you
know hopefully knock out of it and with
that movement no different when i was in
that hospital
when you take action when you get off
that x and drive forward number one it
creates hope
like suddenly you're not sitting there
in this pain and misery and dwelling on
the problem suddenly you're moving
forward you're like i don't know what
the future holds
for me i wanted to
i wanted to be a seal operator again i
wanted to someday hopefully command a
seal team those things did not happen
but guess what deal with that
uh
there was a different path and i'll be
honest it kind of happened over time
um so it wasn't like this instant thing
um
so i would like to say i kind of came to
grips with it slowly and by the time
like the final nail got pounded into the
coffin i had kind of already come to
grips with what was the final nail
so
with my arm injury
initially so step one was right in the
very beginning they said they were gonna
amputate my arm uh thankfully that did
not happen did you tell them not to
no actually what happened and you know
life has interesting twists and turns
you know if you believe in god i call it
a god moment there are others who may
call it fate serendipity whatever it is
the lead doctor in charge of bethesda a
guy by the name of dr dan village he was
the head orthopedic surgeon
was a former seal
and when he came into the room and saw
me and saw the damage to my arm his
entire team said we should amputate his
arm which was some of the original
things that i heard
but dan told me i'm gonna figure out a
way to save your arm
and he did uh although in the beginning
my arm fused in place i had so much
damage that literally i grew this
gigantic block of bone around what was
left of my shattered elbow
and
yeah at one point it was growing so
badly it's called heterotopic
ossification uh it's a byproduct of war
sometimes you'll see it in really bad
injuries um
but
the bone was growing so badly that i was
having pieces that were pushing against
the skin and i said hey this isn't
this wouldn't protrude from the skin
would it and they were like no that
won't happen it happened i had like this
horn growing out of my arm
but anyways dan
who later became a friend fought to
shave my arm
it was fused like this and one of the
highest levels of medicine and i just
give him so much credit and if you are a
doctor out there i hope that you will
listen to this because sometimes i think
doctors get
a little overly confident in their
abilities and they also don't want to
admit they don't know how to do some
things or it's beyond their abilities
and i think at the highest levels of
leadership being able to get to that
point is actually a strength and not a
weakness
and dan came to me after several months
and said jay i'm at the limit of what i
can do with your arm it was totally
fused i couldn't bend it at all we had
all this
had you know all this heterotopic
ossification growth
i had a little bit of movement but i
still had some nerve damage at this
point and he said i'd like to recommend
you to a doctor at johns hopkins a guy
studied under he's one of the foremost
hand and arm experts out there
and i went to him and he looked at it
and he said
i don't know what i can do but he said
i'm willing to try and what he did was
really pretty groundbreaking i think it
was one of the first times that he
actually
uh took
the ho and actually grounded and made
like this bone paste he cleaned out he
rebuilt me an album
heterotopic ossification yeah sorry the
medical short term
much better yeah but uh he rebuilt it up
and turned it into a paste a bone paste
and he used that to replace some of the
areas like the head of my elbow part of
the head of my elbow was gone part of
the part of my humerus both on a radius
the bones that come into you know that
makes a elbow joint were both shattered
and he basically rebuilt me an elbow
from your own bone from my own bone
which is a big deal because when you
start bringing in
external parts if you will oftentimes
the body will reject it
or it doesn't take
so by doing that it actually
it was pretty groundbreaking and
it gave me this much range of motion
um
this is great when you don't have
anything
but this did not give me the ability to
be an operational seal again
with my arm like this i s you know
reaching you know we wear
load bearing equipment your your body
armor and best and all these things that
you query carry your military equipment
you carry it all your body well i can
barely reach this stuff with this arm
even clipping my helmet
i can do it but it's a little
problematic
so i started to come to grips with well
i may not be able to physically do this
job which
if you can i mean people's lives are on
the line what was your wife saying
through all this though wasn't she like
hey i'd much rather you didn't go do
this or was she like if that's what you
want then i'm game for it so my wife was
saying that which one if that's what you
want i'm gay got it although inside she
told me she was terrified and then this
is the mark my wife is amazing i call
her the long-haired admiral she is
incredible i mean just you talk about a
spartan wife and a rock of our family
and just such an anchor for me through
everything we went through but yeah she
allowed me
to go down this path
even though deep down inside one she was
afraid she didn't want me to be
operational again but two
she didn't think it would happen
so she kind of wanted to allow me to
explore this on my own and to reach the
conclusion and i did i
i ended up going all over the country
and meeting some of the best doctors out
there and it was funny because doctors
are confident individuals some may be
arrogant and they would be like oh yeah
i can fix your arm and we throw my x-ray
up and like i watch the just the air get
sucked out of the room
they're like dude i don't know how your
elbow works the way it does but there's
like there's nothing i can do with that
i went back to
dr eagle setter was the doctor at
hopkins who repaired my arm i went back
to him and said i need more movement to
be operational and he was like
going into your elbow was like going
into hell he's like i will not go back
in again wow and he said and let me tell
you something if you go down this road
he said i don't know the outcome you
will have he said
you have a pretty good outcome and i was
like yes he said there's no guarantee it
will be better he said there is a high
likelihood it will be worse
so
finally i ended up at a very highly
respected hand and armed doctor out of
duke university in north carolina when i
went into him
and i had seen about 10 different
doctors at this point that had all told
me the same thing and he sat me down and
he just said look
he said you've had a great career
he said you're chasing something that
probably is not going to happen and it's
probably going to have a bad outcome
he said if i if you were my son
i would not allow you to have this
surgery wow
and i remember walking out of the office
thinking
all right this is it you know this this
is this is the end of this phase of my
life
so and i just kind of came to grips with
it but it taken a while to get to that
and i think i've been mentally preparing
for it that's the part i want to
understand so what does that like you
start getting hints okay maybe this
isn't gonna work out what's the story
you start telling yourself
was there a moment of like heartbreak
again where you had to sort of regroup
or are you like just old hat nope i know
better and
so the way i operate and the way the
overcome mindset works funny i had a
coaching call this morning talking to a
guy about this
i always look ahead at what is the
absolute worst case scenario and i think
that's one of the great gifts that
that the seal teams gave me
we typically in both training and in
combat we look at okay you know this is
potentially what can happen so now let's
take that to 5x what's the worst thing
that can happen okay now let's just
squeeze a little more out you know let's
go to 10x like you know the nuclear
explosion occurs on this target you know
i mean it's a little extreme but we we
do we talk through that and then we have
a a
we we game a little bit of a plan we
don't get super deep in the details on
this 10x negative thing because the
reality is you don't know
you don't know what it's really going to
look like i mean when bad things happen
when extremely bad things happen whether
in battle or in life oftentimes there
are pieces of it that are what you
possibly thought of but usually when it
all comes together there are things that
you just couldn't have predicted
so
i have always kind of lived my life that
way
from a younger age after going through
seal training what's the worst that
could happen what happens you know
so having a plan for it is the thing
that helps you deal with it so when i
talk about the overcome mindset there's
two parts of it there's preparation and
awareness part number one so we're
always looking ahead at what's the
absolute worst case
people sometimes say i'm a little sick
because i have thought about what
happens if i lose my wife what happens
if i lost a child what happens if one of
my children was killed
like that's heartbreaking to think about
but at the same time
at least if it ever happened i'm not
going to be so blindsided that i'm
crippled into inaction and that's part
two is action preparation awareness and
action is what
builds an overcome mindset so that
you're not sitting on the x forever so
that you know i i have to get up and
move i have to take action
and by looking ahead at worst case
scenario so for me
i'd already looked ahead at what does
the world look like
beyond being a seal
talk to me about becoming a seal it's
one of those things that man i there was
a documentary series like buds class 268
or something like that or they show
what that looks like it it's insanity
it's uh it's excruciatingly difficult um
you know today
my numbers may be a little off but
there's only about 12 000 men that have
ever earned the right to wear a shield
try that's it that's it
we're a very small community um
[Music]
and most guys when they come in they
stay it's most guys stay for an entire
20-year career so that's why the
turnover isn't quite as high
if you think about
i won't get into numbers but the
graduation for each class is pretty
small so every year
we're only putting out
i'll just hypothetically say maybe about
a hundred seals a year
and you're probably losing at least that
amount who are retiring at the end of
their career so the turnover is you know
it's pretty small tight-knit community
but to get there it is
you know a lot of people don't
understand that most seals are
incredibly intelligent um
the navy has or the military has a test
the armed services
vocational
aptitude battery test the asvab
and in the navy for an enlisted seal it
is actually the second highest score you
have to have in the entire navy only
below nuclear so if you go into the
nuclear field that's the highest asvab
score second to that is the seal teams
so a lot of people don't realize to be a
seal you have to be very smart so not
everyone can try out
if you don't score high enough on the
asvab absolutely not i don't care how
physically tough you are
because physical toughness is one aspect
we need thinkers we need guys who
you know
one of the things that typically
weeds people out of seal training
besides the physical but when you move
past when you show hey i'm physically
hard enough to do this or i'm mentally
hard enough to do this the next highest
level of special operations is your
ability to process information at an
extremely fast rate so oftentimes where
you see guys who will fail out
especially when you start to get to the
highest levels our tier one levels
it's when you are doing close quarters
combat training so when we take guys and
move them through an incredibly chaotic
environment when you step into a room
and there's all kinds of chaos in this
room and explosions and gunfire and
potentially a hostage or whatever it is
you have to process everything in that
room in a split second and then start
acting you know i have to take out that
bad guy we have a hostage there we have
to get over there to protect the hostage
i'm moving in this dynamic environment
where and and a lot of people can't do
that so it takes both a level of
intelligence it takes a level of
i don't know aptitude to where you can
process information quickly so anyways
go back to the beginning of seal
training how you're screened
um you know so one part is intelligence
uh the other part is a psychological
profile which they didn't do when i was
younger
now i think the navy's really trying to
be more efficient how we bring seals in
and then the last part is the physical
you have to be incredibly physically fit
today there's an actual draft
there is a draft for young men to come
in to seal training
so they look at your your intelligence
scores
they look at your psychological profile
and then they look at your physical
scores and they put you into this draft
and then senior
guys who work in our recruiting you know
the seal recruiting command look at all
that and they say yeah tom this guy he
meets the mark on all levels and there's
some experience let's get him to try out
let's get him
just to try out yeah just to try out and
they'll look at external factors too
they'll look at there are certain things
what's your leadership aptitude
what's your how do they test that well
they look at what you've done before got
it so if you are already doing
leadership things in high school that
already says well this guy has natural
leadership abilities or maybe you're
already fluent in german you know maybe
a bad language let's say russian
russian's a much better example right
now
maybe you're already fluent in russian
so we say wow this guy meets all our
parameters and
he already has a skill set that would be
beneficial for us for the future and
then they try to break you and then they
try to break you they you so you go to
seal training
and uh it has an 80 percent attrition
rate wow
80 wow so we select the hardest core
[ __ ] on planet earth and then
we break eighty percent of them correct
that's crazy yeah
and uh so
training is broken into three phases and
the first phase is
first phase is just designed literally
to break you i mean it is just
physically grueling
it is designed to be as unfair as
possible it is designed to put as much
pressure physical training
you are broken down by the cold you are
broken down by lack of sleep when you
get to hell week which
usually you'll see a big exodus of
people within the first two weeks of
training that's the people who are like
oh my god what did i get myself into
what was i thinking and
you'll lose a large part of the class in
the very beginning and then it kind of
settles and then when you get to hell
week
hell week is the considered
to be the hardest block of training the
entire us military and some people even
say one of the hardest blocks in global
military training and hell week starts
on
on sunday you don't know when it starts
you you get put into a
area where you're secured
and sometime
sometime that day it will begin
it begins with a bang
literally and and it will go until
typically
friday usually uh and during that week
you get no sleep uh the the average
student gets about three hours of sleep
the entire week oh my god um you are
you're always physically doing something
aside from when you eat
you are well fed during hell week but
you need to be because the average
student is burning probably at a minimum
6 000 calories a day
you're
you're cold all the time you're wet
coated in sand
most people chafe holes into their body
just by being wet and running
you're carrying around if you're not in
the water in your boat typically you're
carrying the boat around on your head
it's not uncommon for the boat to rub
your head bald
you know to rub the skin away just from
carrying this boat around it's not
uncommon for your fingernails and
toenails to fall off just because of the
you're wet and just your body's not
regulating once again because sleep at
night allows us to regulate so your body
starts swelling up
so it is it is grueling 80 of the class
quits during hell week
uh did you ever consider quitting oh
hell yeah and if there's anybody out
there who says i never thought about
quitting they are a liar
uh you know david goggins probably the
hardest
[ __ ] you know out there
but i guarantee at one point he
questioned himself
because at the end of the day no matter
how genetically gifted
goggins is he's still human yeah but the
difference is you keep going
how how did you talk yourself into
staying i mean if if that little seed of
doubt creeps in and you're cause i
remember in the book you're like oh god
the thought of a warm shower yeah and
they play it man like i remember uh on
tuesday night we were doing an evolution
where we were down on a a steel pier
and guys out there that have been
through steel
seal training when i say steel pier all
of them are like shaking with uh you
know like oh my god it's one of the
worst evolutions
that you do
and it is it is
just
merciless
and uh
and i remember
they had the vans parked up above this
steel pier so when a guy would quit they
would give him a blanket they'd give him
a hot cup of coffee and he would go sit
in the van that they would have the
lights on i mean it's all psychological
warfare and he'd be sitting there
looking you'd see all these dudes that
quit in that nice warm band with their
hot coffee as you were still getting
your ass kicked freezing your ass off
so all you need to do was go up there
but for me i didn't i didn't think about
it on steel piers i thought about it
several days later
it is unusual for guys to quit hell week
after wednesday and for most people in
this life and what they're teaching you
in seal training
your
mind can push your body to do ten times
more than what you think you can but
most people will reach that physical
breaking point where their their body is
telling them i can't go anymore and
that's when most people quit
if you can push through that point and
you get to that i don't [ __ ] care
anymore point like you you literally
there's a switch that gets thrown and
for the vast majority of people at that
point it no longer matters what someone
does to you you will literally push
yourself to death at that point and
that's what we're trying to teach guys
and training and so most of the time
after wednesday guys get to that point
they flip that switch
i felt like i'd reached that point but
it was actually thursday night and this
comes down to in life sometimes we
we wrongly assume what the outcome is
going to look like before we get there
unrealistic expectations and that's what
i did
my buddy had told me if i made it to
wednesday it gets easier
and uh
and it sort of does but not really
just what happens after wednesday is one
your pat you've been able to throw that
switch and two it starts to slow down
but you don't realize that you're so
tired from lack of sleep i mean you're
literally
it's like being drugged you know and
you're just you're just
continuing to push yourself
so thursday night
hard night we had failed a whole bunch
of stuff my boat crew you know and it
pays to be a winner so if you win you
get rewarded usually with maybe a little
sleep or maybe an extra snack or
whatever it is and if you lose you
typically get punished you're doing
push-ups or god oh yeah you get extra
you get extra
so uh and i remember one of the
punishments was we were at the pool and
they had us standing on top of the 10
meter so 33 feet up above the deck it
was about 40 some degrees in san diego
the wind was howling off the bay it was
a nasty night and i remember standing up
there jackhammering and i looked down
and i saw the bell on the back of the
truck and i was like i'm going to quit
like this sucks like actually i thought
like make it to wednesday morning it
gets easier i was like [ __ ] you
i'm going to quit you [ __ ]
um
but i stopped myself and i think this is
the key in this life like
you have to know simon sinek calls it
your why i call it what is your mission
in this life what is the legacy you want
to leave behind and you i think everyone
needs to come to grips and figure out
what that is
um for me i knew that my mission at that
point in my life was to become a seal
and if i
quit
it ended that it ended that journey it
ended that mission and i took a breath
and was like bro like if you go ring
that bell this is over you will not
accomplish your mission
so i took a breath and i sucked it up
and made it through uh i told myself
just make it to the end of the evolution
and and life often times is like that
that's what we tell guys as they go
through seal training do not look at the
long road only look at when it gets
really hard only look at finishing that
evolution because the the mind has this
interesting thing that
we can endure so much pain and misery
for a period of time but if we reduce it
for just a short period five minutes you
can do it all over again it's just that
mental physical break that allows us to
have this reprieve where we're like
okay i can go again
if i have to
yeah that's uh man that is something
that
just knowing that fatigue makes cowards
of us all
that they are doing all of the things
that are designed to break you cold lack
of sleep physical exhaustion and that
some people a very select few are able
to continually manage their mind and
that's really the game i mean unless
something breaks and you just can't keep
going this is a game of mental emotional
management
and
life is a game of mental and emotional
management but it really is like what
navy seals are able to accomplish it's
really pretty extraordinary and in the
book obviously you go into pretty great
detail about the fire fight and
everything
and you end up
waking up after getting shot
multiple times but the most recent in
the face and
actually getting up and i'm assuming
with some help but you walk to the
evacuation helicopter
walk me through that because
when there's a point at which you're so
tired you're not really you anymore
i have to imagine that waking up from
being knocked unconscious by getting
shot
that there's a a moment where you have
to like recompile your personality
and
what was that moment like as you
reorient yourself and have to decide now
i'm gonna keep going
so the the you know when i was
i did so i knew i had been shot up
in the body are we in screaming pain at
this point
no i would i never screamed apparently i
mean my teammates said yeah dude you
were the calmest dude we've ever seen
[Music]
my arm hurt a lot when i got shot in the
arm initially and i continued to fire
and engage i thought my arm had been
shot you'd already been shot and you're
still shooting back
yeah because i um i got i got stitched
across the body i took that's when i
took i didn't know it at the time i
ended up taking two rounds in the elbow
i just knew i got shot in the arm you
say stitched across the body what do you
mean uh i got
the machine gun to cross the body arm
and oh across the body yeah and and uh
across my and then the two rounds in my
arm
i also took rounds off my gun uh rounds
off my helmet left night vision tube
shot off uh later when i was laying on
the ground i took a round off my right
side plate
um at some point
at some point during the firefight i
took my helmet off why here let me take
this yeah this is this life-saving piece
of equipment off but for some reason i
mean you know i was a little obviously
messed up so i took my helmet off uh and
my helmet actually had to round through
it that's actually why the skull now has
a hole
it wasn't actually in my skull thank god
but it was in my helmet and my buddy the
artist just drew it for creative effect
but
um
so when i was shot in the arm it was
super painful and i turned to try and
move back to the only point of cover we
had which was the large tractor tire
that was about 15
10 yards behind me
and where our guys had fallen back to
and it was at that point that i guess i
got shot in the face
um i did not realize it uh the guy saw
me get hit and fall and thought i was
dead
and i was unconscious at that point um
when i and we don't know how long five
ten minutes maybe the entire gunfight
lasted about 40 minutes
oh my god yeah it was long and intense
um
there
when i came to
i won there was no stream it wasn't like
it wasn't like i woke up and was like oh
something happened we're like oh i've
been out you know i've been unconscious
i
woke up in like this fog
and i was trying to figure out what
happened like i was laying there and
like
i don't
i was just trying to like sort things
out
and um are you hearing gunfire going off
i don't maybe not in the beginning in
the beginning it was just kind of like
this awareness that i'm still here maybe
you know
i felt no pain i felt no pain i just
felt like i was thinking through
concrete
and then like the world started to come
back like i was laying flat on my back
and i started to notice uh red laser
beams traveling above me
and i quickly realized that's tracer
fire machine guns
every fifth round in a machine gun belt
has phosphorus in the gunpowder which i
mean a lot of people have seen the news
or we've seen movies and it looks like a
laser beam going through the sky that's
uh tracer fire from machine gun so i had
rolled over and was laying on my back
like literally as this gun fight was
happening above me um
so
um i kind of realized dude you're still
in you're in iraq you're in this gun
fight and and you're super [ __ ] up
um
but i couldn't quite figure out what had
happened
um i think my first initial thought was
don't sit up um
uh important safety tip you know
um and then at some point
like it dawned on me there was something
like my face felt messed up and i
remember reaching up and i had gloves on
and uh
and i went to reach for the right side
of my face and i felt my fingers go into
like where my cheeks should be into this
hole
and i was like holy [ __ ] like i've been
shot in the face like holy [ __ ] my nose
is gone
um
and
uh don't know there wasn't any like oh
my god panic or anything like that there
wasn't
i don't remember incredible i don't
remember it uh i don't remember being
like oh my god um
in that initial moment it was just like
okay you've been shot so at this point
though it's more dazed and confused than
it is like yeah cool and collected i i
will say that there was a lull in fire
at some point like there was a lot of
gunfire and there was a lull in fire and
i called out to my team leader um
al
is the name in the book not his real
name but i called out to al and said hey
man
how long to the medevac because what i
did know is i had limited time i thought
my arm had been shot off
obviously i'm bleeding profusely from my
face
and i called out and said how long to
the medevac and i remember him like
astounded like red
like i think they were shocked that i
was still alive and i said it again and
he said five minutes
i was like all right i can hang on for
five minutes
um
i think he told me five minutes three
times that son of a [ __ ]
but uh you're five minutes five minutes
yeah exactly i did feel that way at one
point um so
at that point i kind of started going
through several thought processes one
i um
i
knew i had limited time
like you know we learned trauma medicine
and i knew that you only have so much
blood in your body and at some point you
know if you lose too much blood you die
um i also knew
the the physiological
effects of what was starting to happen
um i
started to get really cold i
started to have limited mobility i
started to
it got harder and harder to think
in that process several things happened
number one i kind of got angry at one
point and i was just like you gotta be
[ __ ] me like
this isn't how i intended to go out like
it's just how i'm gonna die like in this
field in this dangerous part of iraq and
it also made me angry that the enemy had
got us like i didn't want to give them
the satisfaction of knowing that they
had killed a seal so that made me angry
um
and then the reality of like you're
gonna die here um
and then i started to think about my
family and uh i thought about my wife i
have three kids my son at that time was
uh eight and my daughter was five and my
youngest was
three and uh it was september september
13th 2007.
halloween was always like a big we loved
halloween man we loved decorating the
house and you know and and i remember
thinking to myself you're not gonna
celebrate halloween this year like and
you're not gonna be there for christmas
and then like thinking you're not gonna
walk your daughter's down the aisle and
and that was kind of heartbreaking
um
and then i kind of shook myself out of
that and was like you know [ __ ] that
like no
um
i i grew up in a pretty uh religious
home
i think i kind of lost my faith a little
bit over the years but i in that moment
i called out to god and i said i need
help
i need strength to go home i need
and
like that i can't explain this
i
but i suddenly had energy i suddenly had
energy
and this thought popped into my head
stay awake stay alive um
and i just grabbed on to that and just
said focus on that like there's nothing
else
you know you're out of the fight there's
nothing you can do you're like pinned
down you're in the middle of all of this
so i just focused on stay awake to stay
alive at at some point in another
lowland fire my team leader ran for it
and grabbed me and dragged me back he
got a tourniquet on my arm and they
packed my facial wounds
hopefully to try and stem some of that
blood flow
we ended up calling in the um we ended
up calling in a a fire support mission
in the military this is where an
aircraft rains you know bullets or bombs
down on the target that night we had an
ac-130 gunship which special operations
used a lot
air force air force
for special operations squadron and
initially they said no for the first two
fire missions because
in the military there's something called
danger close parameters
much smarter people than me uh figure
out how far a bomb or whatever type of
munition you use how far both the
fragmentation and the concussive blast
go so we know when we're operating
around the world if we're calling in
whatever munition we know this is how
far we have to be those are called
danger close parameters
and they were like you guys are so close
we will kill you
and my team leader finally on the third
call said if you don't bring this in
there will be no one left
we were running