Digital Social Hour - Mastering Emotions: Green Beret's Unseen Advantage | Nick Lavery DSH #876

Episode Date: November 10, 2024

Unlock the secrets of mastering emotions with Green Beret Nick Lavery's unseen advantage! 🎖️ Join Sean Kelly on the Digital Social Hour as he dives into Nick's incredible journey from facing trau...matic childhood challenges to becoming a resilient warrior. Learn how emotions, while making us vulnerable, are key to our success, both on the battlefield and in business. 🧠💼 Nick reveals how controlling emotions can be a game-changer, whether dealing with high-pressure Special Forces missions or navigating life's everyday challenges. Packed with valuable insights, this episode is a must-watch! 🚀 Don't miss out on this eye-opening conversation. Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more captivating stories and expert advice on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! Join the conversation and discover how you can unleash your hidden potential today. 💪✨ #stoicism #motivation #motivation #emotionalintelligence #lifecoaching CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:25 - Nick's Military Career Insights 02:55 - Nick's Business Ventures and Success 04:42 - Mental Strength: Are You Born With It? 07:58 - Overcoming Challenges: Thoughts on Giving Up 10:55 - Motivation for Joining the Green Berets 13:04 - First Mission: Mental Preparedness 18:05 - Injury Experience: Wife's Support 23:20 - Resilience: Why I Came Back 26:43 - Embracing Discomfort for Growth 29:55 - Unlocking Your Full Potential 30:25 - Connect with Nick: Social Media Links APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: Spencer@digitalsocialhour.com GUEST: Nick Lavery https://www.instagram.com/thenicklavery/ https://linktr.ee/TeamMCHN www.youtube.com/@NickMACHINELaver LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode is brought to you by A Real Pain. From Searchlight Pictures comes one of the busiest films at Sundance Film Festival, A Real Pain. Written, directed and starring Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg, alongside Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin, witness a hilarious and moving story about two mismatched cousins as they tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface
Starting point is 00:00:24 against the backdrop of their family history. See A Real Pain, only in theaters November 15th. I am so dreading groceries this week. Why? You can skip it. Oh, what, just like that? Just like that. How about dinner with my third cousin?
Starting point is 00:00:39 Skip it. Prince Fluffy's favorite treats? Skippable. Midnight snacks? Skip. My neighbor's nightly saxophone practices? Er, nope. You're on your own there.
Starting point is 00:00:51 Could've skipped it. Should've skipped it. Skip to the good part and get groceries, meals, and more delivered right to your door on skip. You can't fight your emotions. I mean, they're there. You certainly cannot get rid of them. The sooner we can recognize that the same exact thing that makes us the dominant species on this planet, that being that we are creatures of emotion, is also the same thing that opens up a massive vulnerability to us.
Starting point is 00:01:16 How can I train my mind to be able to control them? I'm not gonna get rid of it, but I am gonna learn how to control it. I'm not gonna get rid of it, but I'm gonna learn how to control it. Alright guys, Green Beret, Nick Levery here, first Green Beret on the show, thanks for coming on man. Thanks for having me, bro. Yeah, I'm honored. Appreciate it. And you're still active. Still active.
Starting point is 00:01:33 That's the first active member I think I've had too. Okay. A thousand episodes. There we go, two birds, one stone. Yeah, you've been at it for a while now, right? Coming up on 18 years. Wow. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:01:44 What's the average length, you think, that people last? Like the average career length? Yeah. In the military, it's probably something like six, seven years, would be my guess. Yeah. A lot of people come in, they do like a quick
Starting point is 00:01:58 kind of four or five year contract, and then call it a day, and then you got some that go, you know, 30 plus years. If I were to guess, I'd say, yeah, probably like probably like six seven damn time frame you want to hit that 30 plus No, I don't think I'm gonna go brother Man, I mean I'll at this point I'll go to 20 which is the amount of time you need to serve to be able to retire with full benefits got it That's right around the corner for me
Starting point is 00:02:18 So I'll go to that point for sure and then really the only question is how much longer do I stay and beyond that? If it all yeah, do you feel like the age is catching up a little bit not really really no not really I mean you know my job now in the military is in a leadership position you know my time on the teams doing the running and gun and stuff that that ended for me about a year and a half or so ago got it so age-wise, I feel great. And as much as I love what I do, I mean, it's a privilege to get to do what I do, period.
Starting point is 00:02:51 With the stuff I'm doing on the side and my entrepreneurial stuff, the more I do that, the more I'm falling in love with it, and the more curious I am to see what that looks like when I just drop the hammer and kind of go full in on that. So I think that that's probably what'll be the catalyst for me to get out is so that I can shift full steam into the other stuff.
Starting point is 00:03:11 Yeah, and we were talking off camera about the purpose of, you know, because a lot of guys retire and then they get lonely, depressed, but having a business to fall back on is really important, right? I would say that, assuming it's something that you have a passion for, which I'd say is a theme and a recipe for success as an entrepreneur,
Starting point is 00:03:29 is a true love of that game, it would likely is not going to fill that void of being a soldier, a service member, a special operator, but I think it gets you close, where it gets you up in the morning, you're fired up, you're ready to go to work, you got the energy and the desire and the motivation to go win the day. So I think that that can at least help those transitioning
Starting point is 00:03:53 from military service into their next chapter. I love it. Yeah, talk to everyone about the business. What exactly is it and how did you start it? Precision Components is the name of the company. We started it, I guess, officially in 2021, I'd say. 2022 is when it really kind of became more operational. It's a service company.
Starting point is 00:04:14 We do training and consulting, mostly in the arenas of leadership, resilience, performance mindset, team building. And it's wild to just kind of look up and look back and around and go, man, how the hell did we, how did we do this? And seeing some of the clients we serve,
Starting point is 00:04:32 like Fortune 100 companies, professional athlete organization, I mean, it's really been remarkable. That's cool. And yeah, it's an exciting ride. We're still very much babies in the space, but it's moving faster than me and my team can really keep up with That's incredible good problem. I have great problem that so these companies they need some mindset help. That's the thing
Starting point is 00:04:52 I would say that's a common theme. Yeah is it mindset which is ironic because a lot of these organizations work with and people are Successful according to every metric you could think of. Yeah, Fortune 100 is like multi-millions. So they got all the numbers and data that shows that they know how to perform, they know what works. But when you can help them flip a switch
Starting point is 00:05:16 into a new gear mentally, and see them adopt those principles, which are a lot, is garnered from my time in the military and within the special operations community. You start to pump that and translate those themes and methodologies and tactics and tools into a way that's absorbable by a business person or an athlete.
Starting point is 00:05:36 And they put that into practice. Man, you just start to see their productivity just start to skyrocket. It's wild. I love that. Were you born pretty mentally strong growing up or did you inherit most of that from the military? It's a good question. I would say that the foundation of that began being developed for me as a young person. Like really young, like four years old. Whoa. What do Ontario dairy farmers
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Starting point is 00:06:39 Available now until November 24th in Ontario only. Woohoo! You know, my background of growing up, I was a new kid in school every year, available now until November 24th in Ontario only. My background of growing up I was a new kid in school every year all the way up until eventually got to college so picked on bullied struggled socially, I mean kind of all those cliche really because you're a big examples. Yeah, so it's kind of ironic that for me they're like no it doesn't make any sense. I know it's true I was a scared insecure kid that's what I was
Starting point is 00:07:04 for a long time. And that's really where my resilience began to be developed. And a lot of that's the result of being put out into a world of suffering and getting your ass kicked, sometimes physically or just figuratively. And then coming back into an environment fostered by both my parents of love and compassion, where they gave me guidance.
Starting point is 00:07:23 But they didn't overly protect me. They didn't create this like force field around me. They gave me some mentorship and they shoved me right back into the game. And when you do that back and forth, like conditioning with anything, that starts to build. It wasn't something that I really recognized I had in me as part of my character and personality traits
Starting point is 00:07:42 until I got into the military and started operating as a green beret and then I was building upon a foundation that was really already there. I just didn't really know about it. Right, cause you're witnessing a lot of people dropping out. You're still hanging in there. So you probably thought you were different then.
Starting point is 00:07:57 Yeah, at that point it starts to mean like, hmm, maybe I do have something here. Maybe this is a good fit for me because of X, Y, and Z. Yeah, why were you moving around so much growing up? My parents struggled financially, and they were just in the grind. Two young parents. My father had me, he was 20.
Starting point is 00:08:13 My mother was 21, so they're a couple kids. And now they're parents of two kids. And trying to do, or doing what it took to keep food on the table and keep a roof over our head and kind of bouncing from job to job, while also trying to find that purpose in life and that passion and like balancing those two things, which is really hard thing to do
Starting point is 00:08:33 when you got little humans that are looking at you for their survival. So a combination of both those things. And so yeah, it was a struggle, but I look back now with just an enormous amount of gratitude for having grown up like that. Not only within those conditions, but having two amazing human beings
Starting point is 00:08:51 that cared for me enough to. I love it. There's a common theme with a lot of successful people I noticed. They have a traumatic childhood. It seems to be like, I don't know, I wouldn't say recipe, but like, there's a common theme there.
Starting point is 00:09:01 You see it within special operations community, you see it within the intelligence communities, you see it within the intelligence communities, you see it within a lot of different genres of organizations, and the way oftentimes it's quoted is, and this is by professionals, by doctors we'll say, you're looking for the person with the right amount of trauma, and of course that's a subjective that you can't put a number to it,
Starting point is 00:09:23 but a person that has experienced the right amount of trauma because too much can be a problem right and not enough So you're looking for someone that's somewhere in that kind of mythical sweet spot I've having experienced trauma growing up as a young person is a theme and or part of that recipe that can create a high performer Yeah, too much you could shut down right sure or give up right was that ever something you thought about giving up completely Thought about it. Yeah, really. Yeah. Yeah. What point in your life? Oh, man I could price that could probably think of just off to my head, you know dozens that come along but certainly going through Special Forces selection and assessment like that first phase of let's see if you have what it takes to prove you have a foundation To then be turned into a green
Starting point is 00:10:06 Beret, I mean that course is designed to beat you down to a pulp Wow, and that even someone like me that went into that with the highest degree of confidence I mean ready to annihilate that course There were multiple points during that 14 days where I was like, hey man, maybe maybe you don't have what it takes damn It's 14 days back then when I went through was 14 days where I was like, hey man, maybe you don't have what it takes. Damn, it's 14 days? Back then when I went through it was 14 days, now it's 21 days. Holy crap. Yeah, so it's a, I mean it's an ass kicker and I don't care how tough you are or how dedicated
Starting point is 00:10:36 you are, you are going to reach a crossroads during that experience where you start to second guess yourself. Maybe I bit off more than I can chew, maybe I didn't train hard. All of these reasons are gonna start to sound really convincing in those moments of weakness when you are absolutely beaten to shit and you have to make that choice. Am I gonna stay on target? Am I gonna keep moving forward regardless
Starting point is 00:10:59 or am I gonna take the soft spot to land? All right, and are you open with your other people that were with you? Were you talking about how tough this was or were you just keeping it inside? During selection, it's pretty much a one-man show. I mean, there are times when you're working as a team, but it's not the type of experience where you're sitting around a campfire with your buddies talking about how close were you to quitting today? I mean, everyone's kind of just gets into that
Starting point is 00:11:25 almost robot mentality and you're just in that grind basically 24 hours a day, damn for the duration of the experience. So you keep most of that shit to yourself. Holy crap. I thought it was like hell week where you're with like a hundred people and they just keep dropping out.
Starting point is 00:11:39 So you're kind of on your own for a lot of it? You're on your own for a lot of it. Selection isn't- Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no.
Starting point is 00:11:53 What about hello, handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Individual evolution. But there are specific points in time during that phase where you are put into small groups and expected to work as a team.
Starting point is 00:12:25 Got it. And it's just guys you don't even know. It's just random people? Mostly guys you don't know. Wow. So I wonder what percentage of people made it through that. That sounds really intense. At the time that I went through selection
Starting point is 00:12:37 and the qualification course, the graduation rate, meaning the guy that started on day one of selection and the guy that eventually earned his green beret was around 9%. Damn. Is the percentage of those that actually made it. That's crazy, that might be the lowest of any branch to get into, right?
Starting point is 00:12:55 They're all pretty low, man. I mean, all the different special operations units, there's some different aspects of their selection processes and then follow on training, There's some different aspects of their selection processes and then follow on training, but the attrition rate for most is pretty high. What drew you to the Green Beret branch specifically? Really a couple things.
Starting point is 00:13:17 One is after graduating college, I knew I was gonna enlist and I knew I wanted to go in special operations. And after meeting with multiple recruiters from different branches, I decided to go the route of the Army to become a Green Beret. And they offer what's known as an 18 X-ray contract option, which gives guys off the street the chance to bypass serving
Starting point is 00:13:40 in the conventional Army and going straight into the Special Forces pipeline. So it was the speed in which I could get to the tip of the spear that I really needed to get to. That enticed me. But then also once I started doing a little bit of research into what the Green Berets do, cause I really hadn't a clue.
Starting point is 00:13:58 And I'd seen John Rambo and John Wayne, but like I really didn't know. I started to research what do SF teams do? And our primary mission set, that being unconventional warfare, when you start to unpack that a little bit, it was, I was enticed by that. So it was the mission and the speed
Starting point is 00:14:17 in which I could get to the mission. Got it, so you guys are mainly undercover like secretive missions, is that how it works? No, that's a common kind of misconception now there are times really within any special operations unit where you will be asked and forced to operate in a low visibility type environment green berets built specifically to work with and through indigenous personnel.
Starting point is 00:14:45 And those are the two key words. That's the differentiator of Green Berets and the other special operations units, is we are designed to work with and through others. Meaning that we need to be as kick as ourselves. You take a 12-man team, they need to be highly capable of going on target, kicking down doors, shooting bad guys in the face, doing all the movie guy stuff, right? But what really makes us successful is our ability to advise, influence,
Starting point is 00:15:10 teach these different skills in a foreign language to others to enable and empower them to go do the things that we need them to be able to do. Got it. What's going through your head on that first mission where you get sent out? Oh man Drink it from a fire hose
Starting point is 00:15:28 Really? Yeah, it's uh It's overwhelming to a degree, you know when you kind of have this vision of what it's gonna look like when you finally get into Afghanistan in my case my first deployment and Some of that comes to fruition but there's also just an overwhelming amount of variables that you were not anticipating that are being thrown at you so you rely on your teammates your seniors your leadership those that have been there and done that a bunch of times and they're there to guide you and mentor you through the things that you need to do so it was it
Starting point is 00:16:04 was amazing it was challenging, it was challenging, and it was in that moment on that first time over there that I fell in love with this business. My intention, Sean, was to come into this lifestyle, serve the minimum contract possible. Four years, right? It was gonna be five for me. Five-year contract, get to the tip of the spear,
Starting point is 00:16:23 kick some ass, get some payback for 9-11, and then get out of the army and figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. That was the plan. And when I got over there for the first time and I actually started doing the work, everything shifted for me. I was like, whoa, I not only do I not want to do anything else, but I can't even imagine doing anything else. And that's where the whole game changed. It was no longer a job. It was no longer a job It was no longer this lily pad to kind of jump off to the next thing It not only became a profession for me, but it became a lifestyle Wow She felt really aligned with with your purpose 100% that's interesting. I would have thought like you'd be nervous
Starting point is 00:16:57 You'd be scared that first mission, but plenty of that as well going on I mean, it's an emotional rollercoaster, you know And you know, and I'm glad you bring up scared because it's something I really love to talk about. You know it's very easy to look at special operations personnel, SEALs, Rangers, Green Berets, you know Delta Force, choose your unit that we are these emotionless, fearless, hotless, perhaps instruments of death like robots. And that's completely and totally inaccurate. Completely and totally inaccurate.
Starting point is 00:17:29 Fear is part of being a human being, period. What makes special operators unique is the ability to control those emotions. You don't get rid of them. They're present, but it's your ability to regulate them, to take them at times, recognize the emotion you're present, but it's your ability to regulate them, to take them at times, recognize the emotion you're experiencing, compartment it in order to make logical decisions.
Starting point is 00:17:51 So was I scared? Absolutely. That there were moments of fear? 100%. But through training and repetition and guidance from those around me, you learn over time how to take those in and then still be able to operate with objectivity and with logical decision-making. Right, yeah I'm
Starting point is 00:18:09 glad you put it that way because you can't fight your emotions, I mean they're there, you can't just put them into the side. You certainly cannot get rid of them, and I think any attempt to do so you will fail and then you will become incredibly frustrated about it. Yeah. So I think the sooner we can recognize that the same exact thing that makes us the dominant species on this planet, that being that we are creatures of emotion, is also the same thing that opens up
Starting point is 00:18:33 a massive vulnerability to us. Sooner we can recognize that, and that you're not gonna get rid of them, the sooner we can start moving towards, oh well how can I train my mind to be able to control them? I'm not gonna get rid of it, but I'm gonna learn how to control it. Which is super important in business too.
Starting point is 00:18:49 Absolutely. I've seen a lot of deals get lost over uncontrolled emotions. Business in your personal life, with your spouse, with your kids, I mean I got two young boys. My oldest is seven, my youngest is three. They're animals, savages,
Starting point is 00:19:03 and the absolute highlight of my life. They're an amazing part of me. If you don't learn that at some point, the ability to control your emotions around your children, man, you're gonna have a real hard time, and odds are you're gonna be developing and influencing some people into some directions that you don't want them to go in.
Starting point is 00:19:22 Right, because a lot of parents take out their emotions on their children, right? Whether it's anger or sadness, whatever it is. For sure. And that can traumatize the children. 100%. And they don't even realize they're doing it. And the kids in general,
Starting point is 00:19:35 whether they're yours or anyone else's, are more so influenced by the actions that they see rather than what they're being told. So it's one thing for me to tell my son, like, don't do this or do that or whatever. It's something entirely different and more powerful for him to witness me living those ethos myself through implementation. That's what he's really absorbing. So if I'm flying off the handles every time something bothers me, whether that's anger or rage or sadness or choose your emotional extreme, certainly the negative ones,
Starting point is 00:20:07 then it is without question something that that young mind is going to begin to replicate repeatedly over and over and over again. Now you're creating another human or influencing other human who also lacks emotional control and that's a very slippery slope to be on. Absolutely. So you were married during your deployments?
Starting point is 00:20:25 My wife and I got married after my, I think, fourth deployment. My wife, my now wife, she was in Afghanistan with me. She's also active duty on me as well. OK. So she was deployed into Afghanistan on the deployment when I got wounded. So she had a front row seat the deployment when I got wounded. So she had a front row seat to this entire thing. And at that time, we were really just really close friends.
Starting point is 00:20:51 And her and I could both tell that there was something maybe more meaningful there. We had known each other for like a decade. We were in two locations. We weren't physically at the same spot. But we were relying on each other as a means of emotional support. She's doing her thing and I'm doing my thing. So she had a front row seat to the whole thing. I mean, so she was literally right along my side from the very beginning and
Starting point is 00:21:11 then also through the entire recovery process and everything like that. And you wanna talk about starting a relationship at your absolute lowest point, that's where I was. And not only was she supportive, she was an enormous asset to me. So that is where things really started to foster and then we got married after that. That's beautiful.
Starting point is 00:21:32 Yeah, man. Wow, yeah, talk to us about that injury, man. That was a life-changing moment for you. It was, yeah. Also a blessing in a lot of ways. Wow. Yeah, also a blessing in a lot of ways. The short version, Sean, is on the tail end of our deployment, we were set to
Starting point is 00:21:47 be there for six months. We had been there about five and a half. Again, Green Berets work with and through. So on this particular day, me, my 11 teammates, and a handful of other service members are getting ready to go on target with about 180 partner force personnel. And prior to that operation, a member of the Afghan National Police Force, a guy that we've been working with for months,
Starting point is 00:22:12 climbed up on the back of a Ford Ranger pickup truck that had a mounted PKM belt fed machine gun attached to it and open fire. And to me and my friends, we're about 30 feet away. Geez. It's considered the lodgest, most catastrophic insider attack that we know of during the global war on terrorism.
Starting point is 00:22:30 Whoa. Or 12 US casualties, three of which were killed. Me and other eight varying degrees of wounded and you can probably assume where most of the damage to me was, my right leg was basically vaporized. Holy crap. Yeah. That's insane. And you don't know why he flipped
Starting point is 00:22:46 or was he always undercover? No, I do know why he flipped. And in fact, when that became made aware to me, it was another massive moment for me. Really? I didn't find out till about a month or so after I'd been wounded where the rest of my teammates eventually made it back stateside.
Starting point is 00:23:02 And then they came to visit me at Walter Reed, where I was going through my recovery. And they told me what happened. And they said, here's the situation. About a couple weeks prior, nine Taliban fighters bombed into this guy's house in the middle of the night. Nine guys with guns. This dude was a husband and a father of like seven kids.
Starting point is 00:23:25 And these Taliban fighters walk into his house and they say, hey man, here's the deal. You got two options. Option A is you do this attack for us. Option B is we brutalize your entire family right now in front of you. When I say brutalize, I'm talking next level, medieval shit.
Starting point is 00:23:43 Brutalize your entire family right now in front of you and then we slaughter them and then we slaughter you. Either way in this equation you're dead. But if you choose option A, we will ensure your family is taken care of. And what made this tactic successful was that they would actually follow through on that and they would take care of those families.
Starting point is 00:24:03 So they had done this repeatedly and they built up a degree of credibility over the years having done this. So this dude is put into a really difficult position. I want to talk about stuck between a rock and a hot place and although I didn't have the family I have now then I could still empathize with this guy and being put in that position with no practical way to really fight back, right? You have to decide this right now, what's it gonna be? Dude, I would do anything to protect my family.
Starting point is 00:24:35 And if I'm put in that position today with no practical means of fighting back in that moment, I'm doing the exact same thing that this guy did. Wow. Period. What a statement. So when my teammates informed me of some of the backstory behind how and why it allowed me to release a lot of this anger and rage that I had meant up this this sense of betrayal like I have been working alongside you
Starting point is 00:24:59 because he was a friend to you right I wouldn't say friend but he was someone that we we worked we worked with. I mean, I taught him how to use the gun that he eventually shot me and my friends with. Oh, wow. So that sense of betrayal is quite powerful. And when my teammates told me what the deal was, it was like, you know, man, I get it.
Starting point is 00:25:20 And no hard feelings. Damn. And it just allowed me to just release that and then focus on business. That's crazy. Did your team take that guy out? Oh yeah, he was killed. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:30 In about nine or 10 seconds. Wow, I wonder if his family survived. That's a good question. Damn, that's crazy, man. And you decided to come back after all that. Yeah, yeah. And you use the word decide and that's a fair way to say it,
Starting point is 00:25:43 cause it's true, but I can tell you, man, when I was in the intensive care unit, I saw this very simply. I had two options. Option A was roll over and die. Option B was going back to doing what you do. At that point in my life, Sean, being a Green Beret and being a professional warrior
Starting point is 00:26:02 and a war fighter, a service service provider was not what I did. It was literally who I was. Now that has changed for me since back then. We're talking 11 years ago, right? I'm not married, I have no kids. It's a different version of me then. But back then, that was who I was. I was put on this planet to do one thing and it was that.
Starting point is 00:26:21 So it was either roll over and die or go back to doing what you do. That was it. So I saw it roll over and die or go back to doing what you do. That was it. So I saw it as a very simple decision to make. It was one I was able to make almost immediately. I of course didn't have a clue as to how I would do that, but I knew exactly what I was gonna do. Right, cause the legs weren't around back then, right?
Starting point is 00:26:39 The what? Like the legs, the metal legs you have now? The prosthetics? Yeah. No, they were around. Oh, they were? Yeah, actually the leg I'm wearing right now is Very similar to the very first one that I was given when I was at Walter Reed now 11 12 years ago Oh, okay. Yeah, so you they gave that to you and you were able to walk on it right away
Starting point is 00:26:58 Not right away, man. I mean it took it took months. Yeah, it took months of like basic rehab Just to be able to get upright out of a bed. I ended up needing about 40 surgeries on my right leg as they were battling this infection that it set in. So they were just incrementally amputating it piece by piece. Oh my God. Sometimes three, four times a week.
Starting point is 00:27:18 I would go to sleep, I'd wake up, I'd have a little less leg and just rinse and repeat that about 37, 38, 40 times. Whoa. So eventually they get the infection under control, right? And now it's, all right, let's just get your general recovery stuff going. Eventually, yeah, you meet with a prosthetist.
Starting point is 00:27:35 You start getting fitted for this robot leg. You have no idea how this is going to work. You kind of navigate through that very awkwardly. And it's a clumsy progression. So it took months. And of course it's really hard, but yeah, like anything else with enough reps, you can figure it out. Damn, that's crazy. I thought they just took off the leg in one surgery, but 30 is holy shit, dude.
Starting point is 00:27:57 Yeah, that's quite a bit. That is crazy, man. But then you started how long between then and the business did that transition take? Between that and me getting back into like- Starting your business. My business? Yeah. Man, so well, this all initially happened, this was in 2013.
Starting point is 00:28:19 And then eventually I get back to the teams and I'm just living the life of a typical, I say typical, obviously there's something pretty different about me. But I'm just a team guy with a job to do. So I'm deploying and I'm just training and I'm doing my thing. The idea of starting my own business really didn't happen until 2020. It's a while. Yeah, it was a while.
Starting point is 00:28:43 I was living the team guy life, and that's all I wanted to do. And I was back to doing it, and that was my complete and total 100% professional focus, was on that. The idea of kind of starting my own thing on the side didn't happen for years. Got it, got it.
Starting point is 00:28:58 You tweeted out that discomfort is the gatekeeper to destiny. I probably did. That sounds like something I would say. That's a deep quote, man. I'd love to dive into that. Yeah, I mean, in my opinion, struggle is a requirement for growth. It is something that we are going to experience
Starting point is 00:29:18 physically, professionally, socially at times. I have another expression I like to throw around, which is the size of the struggle is commensurate with the size of the goal. As much as we would like to have this massive goal with this huge win and the journey to get there being without discomfort and without suffering is almost certainly never gonna happen. There are those like unicorn experiences that are the exception to the rule. You win the mega lotteries and overnight
Starting point is 00:29:48 you're a multi-billionaire. That's the exception to the rule. The rule is you must suffer. And to what degree you are willing to struggle in the amount of discomfort you're willing to put yourself through is going to be directly correlated with the size of the victory at the end of that game. Wow, I love that way of thinking.
Starting point is 00:30:04 Because people, like you said, they want this massive success, right? Whether it's financially, health or whatever, but they don't realize what it takes. No, I mean, not only do very few realize what it takes, very few realize, in my opinion, the amount of capability and capacity is within them right now.
Starting point is 00:30:24 Like many think that they're operating at like 90%. Like I'm pushing it almost to the absolute extreme. When in reality, I'd say it's probably closer to like 50. Like you barely know how much you have inside you right now. There may have been moments where you've gotten a glimpse of it. Most people barely know a fraction of what they're truly capable of. And I can tell you, I use me as an example, man. As a two-legged guy, Sean, I have a lot of accomplishments
Starting point is 00:30:51 that I'm proud of, plenty of. I played football in college. I got selected to be a Green Beret. I was the honor graduate of my qualification course. A lot of these accolades as a two-legged guy. To do those things took a lot of hard work and discipline and resilience and consistency and all these things.
Starting point is 00:31:08 It wasn't until I was met with this traumatic event of losing my leg, setting my sights on doing something that was seemingly impossible, and then begin moving towards that with this ferocious obsession of having to make it, that I realized I had an entire, another level, multiple additional levels within me already to tap into in order to stop making something
Starting point is 00:31:32 like that real. And it's not like when I was in the hospital at Walter Reed, some like mad scientists showed up and rammed a metal spike into the back of my fucking head and uploaded another degree of work ethic or discipline or Resilience or mental toughness, right? It was literally there the entire time. It just took a Obsession to do something and that being something that was really difficult to accomplish right you couple those two things together,
Starting point is 00:32:06 and you find out you've got not only another gear to shift into, but probably multiple. Dude, I agree 100%. 50% is pretty low, I'd say, but I could see it. I thought it was more like 60, 70, but I'm sure some people are 50. I'm sure some numbers are out there with some like compelling case studies
Starting point is 00:32:22 that could actually put a number on it, but what I can say with a degree of certainty is that most Think that they're at a higher capacity than they really are right and that's been my next mission in life With this book and with my business is to help people not only recognize it But then provide them with some tools better start tapping into it. Absolutely. Is this book on audible? It is yeah, I tell you right now if this voice bothers you You're not gonna want to listen to it because this is the guy that narrates. Oh, I love when authors do that, dude Yeah, yeah, it means a lot. It's way more purpose-driven when the actual author reads it. I think so
Starting point is 00:32:54 Nick where people find you man with where people check out the book The one-stop shop is our website. It's team machine calm machine is mchn It's got links to the socials and to the books and to the merchandise and to our training offerings and all the things. Perfect, we'll link below. Thanks for watching, guys. Thanks for coming on, Nick.
Starting point is 00:33:13 Appreciate it, Sean. Yup, thanks, man. See you guys tomorrow.

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