Jocko Podcast - 163: The Trident: A Symbol of Strength, Courage, and Humility. Overcoming Adversity w/ Jason Redman

Episode Date: February 6, 2019

0:00:00 – Opening 0:05:24 – Jason Redman, “The Trident”. 1:55:18 - Wounded. 2:05:00 - Recovery and Aftermath 2:42:32 – Final Thoughts and take-aways. 2:44:44 – Support: How to Stay on THE PATH. 3:01:52 - Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 163. With Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Feel my life ebbing away as blood seeps from my body into the Iraqi soil. A few brown weeds splashed crimson now are crushed around me as I lay sprawled on my back in the middle of this ambush. The weeds offer no concealment. I'm in the open, alone, and wounded.

Sizzles of pain hit me in waves like pulses of electricity. A bullet has torn off my left arm. After I get hit, I reach over to grab my left hand. It isn't there. I hunt around feeling only the gear on the far left side of my body. No arm. I try to move the fingers on my left hand, but my mind sends signals to a station that doesn't exist.

Now I can't feel anything. can't feel anything but pain. Bullets kick dirt in my face. Through my night vision goggles, I see green blooms of light strobing the darkness. Muscle flashes from automatic weapons. Ten meters away, an enemy machine gun opens fire again. It is a belt-fed Russian-made crew-served weapon, probably a PKM. They sound like giant zippers tearing open when the gunners go cyclic. Like now. The air around me erupts with sharp cracks. The miniature sonic booms of 762 millimeter bullets speeding past me at 2,500 feet per second.

The terrorist gunner lowers his aim. A spurt of dust blows across my face again. Several bullets pass so close to my head that I feel shockwaves as they go by. To the left, an AK-47 assault rifle opens up. Then another. I'm pinned in a crossfire without cover or conceiving. A crippled sitting duck in a kill zone at least 100 meters long and 75 D. With my right hand, I key the radio hands that I have mounted on my chest.

Troops in contact, troops in contact, I call to my command. We have three severely wounded, including me. Static greets my words. I can't duck. I can't crawl away. There's no place to hide. All I can do is ignore the incoming five. the incoming fire and stay focused.

The P.K.M. Gunner finds the range. Bullets crack around me. Dirt flies. The terrorist eases up on the trigger, but only for a second. I hear him unleash another burst. Then I hear nothing at all. And those right there are some excerpts from the opening chapter. of a book called The Trident,

which is written by a retired seal officer by the name of Jason J. Redman. And this book does an incredible job not only of bringing the reader to the front lines in some pretty chaotic combat situations, but equally important, it brings the reader into the challenge of leadership and the challenges of life, especially the challenges of facing significant adversity.

And Jay's book humbly splays those challenges wide open for all to see. And that humility from Jay is what makes this book so beneficial. He tells us plainly and bluntly of his personal triumphs and tragedies, his victories and his defeats, and how he eventually found success and overcame by traveling the path of humility. And since I have the honor of actually knowing Jay, He has been kind enough to come by this evening and talk about his experiences with us. So with that, Mr. J. Redmond, thanks for stopping by, brother.

Jocko, brother, Echo. Thank you both for having me on. Awesome to have you sitting here, man. Hey, man, honored to still be here. Bless, that's for sure. You know, like I tell so many people, I'm living on a second chance. You know, you and I got too many brothers who are not. I don't know why the big man decided to give me a chance, but I'm making the most of it.

Outstanding. So I want to try and start, you know, a little bit at the beginning so people get a little bit familiar with where you are. Everyone always wants to know where people are, where people came from, how they grew up. I'm going to the book right here. I came from a family with a rich tradition of service. So in retrospect, this made sense. My dad was a U.S. Army airborne rigor at Fort Campbell. during the Vietnam War, my paternal grandfather earned a distinguished flying cross while piloting a B-24

Liberator bomber over the flack-filled skies of Hitler's Europe. I also had a great-uncle who flew fighter aircraft in the Southwest Pacific during World War II. He made the ultimate sacrifice in battle against the Japanese. I dreamed of adding to that legacy, a life of combat, medals, and service. I was young and naive and had a long road to travel before I could truly understand what my grandfather and great uncle gave for the country. But that idealism became a very big part of me. I wanted to carry a rifle for a living. My dad watched this desire grow in me and decided to focus it. My freshman year in high school, he sat me down in our tiny living room and said,

you know, Jay, we had these guys come through airborne school. They were U.S. Navy called seals. They jumped out of airplanes, swam. They blew stuff up. Given how you love the water, maybe you ought to look into them. So your dad planted a seed, huh? It did. Yeah, at a young age.

And, you know, this was 90, probably, or I'm sorry, probably 89. You know, 88, 89. So back then, you really couldn't find hardly anything. about the SEAL teams. And this was at a point in time where GI Joe was big. I mean, I'm a 12, 13-year-old kid into that. And then I was probably about 14 when my dad told me about the SEAL teams. And started researching it, found almost nothing.

And by sheer happenstance, one of the guys in our church was a huge special operations buff. He was a guy that was unable to go in the military. He had had polio, actually, when he was a kid. But he was just infatuated by it. And he had done tons of research. And he actually had collected some things about the SEAL teams. He had an old Soldier of Fortune magazine. Dang.

Yeah, it was awesome. It's so different nowadays. No, nowadays you just Google it. Exactly. But back in the day, you had to be lucky enough to know some dude in church who happened to have a copy of the issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine. Is that still a thing? Is Soldier Fortune still out there? Dude, it actually is.

As a matter of fact, somehow in some weird twist of fate, I ended up being on the cover of Soldier of Fortune after the book came out. And it was the most bizarre thing because now, you know, you're in the military and you look at this thing. You kind of laugh at Soldier of Fortune. It's a little bit of, you know, really focuses on probably the gung-ho aspect of Soff as opposed to. You came full circle. Yeah, full circle. Dream-ful filled.

Cover of Soldier of Fortune. It was pretty funny. But that magazine and that journey of coming to understand who these guys were that you really couldn't find much about them, it just drew me in even more. And the only thing, the core thread that I found over and over again was toughest training in the military. And, you know, I was a young kid. I was a small kid. And I just had this inner fire that if you told me I couldn't do something, it just drove me even more to one. to do it. And everyone, you know, at that point in my life, I was probably four foot 11 and about

95 pounds. So when I told people I was going to become a seal, they laughed me out of the room. And that just fueled me even harder. And I set my sights on that dream and that's where I was going. And some of the things you did, you started playing football, you started getting involved in sports to make sure you were physically fit and all that. So that was part of the driving factor and part of in a good way to sort of prepare at least in a minimum way for buds yeah absolutely i mean i wanted to build a mindset i knew that fitness i knew that being part of a team i knew that pushing myself in different areas so i started wrestling and i started playing football and i was the smallest guy on our team but man i just i love football i've always loved football my dad had always told me no

you're too small you're too small you're going to get hurt and uh so probably my 10th grade year i said, you know, I don't care what you're telling me. I'm going out for the team. And thankfully, we lived in a really small town. And I think they would take anyone. And they looked at me and they said, well, you know, we can at least use you as a tackling dummy. And I said, Roger that. I'll do it, man. You know, I will, you know, I'll hit somebody as hard as my 95 pounds can. And got out there and just, I love the sport. You know, I was, you know, not a starter in any way. But I was out there every day just grinding and I'd try and lay the hardest hits I could on people. And I played receiver and cornerback.

Nice. Yeah. Now, I was also a little bit as I read through the book and was kind of piecing together what you were like when you were a kid. I got to this point here. And it's just kind of a little bit of a different direction going back to the book. At the same time, I fell in with the wrong crowd. I got a job my junior year and my work friends were drinkers.

I started sneaking out of the house by sliding down the antenna pole outside my window. I'd meet with friends, we'd go drink, I'd stagger home drunk at odd hours of the night, scaling the side of the house with the help of that pole. My family tried to nudge me into course correction, but I had a chip on my shoulder and refused to listen, especially to my dad. Things got worse. My relationship with my father and stepmom spiraled out of control into the ground. Months of this wore us all down as that slide continued.

That happens, right? I mean, that straight up happens to kids, especially boys. And I think it has to do with, I'm going to prove myself. That's what I think. Hey, I'm going to prove myself. And one of the ways that you prove yourself is by proving that you're willing to sacrifice in a way. And what better way when you're 16 years old to prove is like, oh, watch what I'll do. I'll drink, I'll drink this whole bottle.

And I think that leads to young males doing a lot of dumb stuff. and it sounds like you were right on board. Absolutely. You know, the thing that saved me, though, this is where I got really lucky is I was smart enough and disciplined enough to understand that if I got myself in any kind of major trouble, I wouldn't be able to go in the SEAL teams.

So like I said, we lived in a real small town in rural North Carolina and, you know, drugs were prevalent. And a lot of my friends were starting to get into that. And I just said, man, if I get, you know, that'll stop me from going in the Navy. So at least there was kind of a line I wasn't willing to cross. And I'm fortunate. There were a couple of times we got ourselves in trouble where, you know, we were right on the edge of the law being involved. And, you know, we managed to dodge that bullet.

But, yeah, I wanted to get out there. I wanted to fit in. So I think it's a combination of both peer pressure as a young man. You know, I want to fit in with this group. But I have my hopes and dreams. So this is the direction I'm going. And I think that's where a lot of young men get off track. They want to fit in so much that they give up on their hopes and dreams and they get sucked down this path.

For me, I had such a little laser focus on what I wanted to do that it at least kept me in check. Yeah. I will say this, just to kind of add to that point, from my perspective, if you've got someone that's aspiring to do something, you know, higher, the people that don't have those aspirations are more than, you know, you know, than happy to try and crush that dream for them and more than happy to pull them down. And so I've found that throughout life. If you have some high aspiration that you're trying to achieve or you see someone that's got high aspirations that they're trying to achieve, you can watch the people around them. If they're not good people, we'll try and rip those things and pull them down and pull them off that track. Scary. And it's unequivocally true. I mean, it's one of the tenants, you know,

I now speak on something I call the Pentagon of Peak performance. And the fifth, level is, or I'm sorry, the fourth level is social leadership. So how we lead ourselves, how we build our ring of friends and influencers. And you're unequivocally right. A great influencer and entrepreneur I've been recently working with. He gives an amazing analogy of he was up in Alaska on a vacation. He was walking the beach and there was a fisherman that was fishing with a net and catching crabs. And he was putting the crabs in a bucket. And, you know, It's early morning, and the guy's name, Badros Kulian. And Bedros was watching this happen early in the morning.

Looked in the bucket, there was about 10 crabs, and probably about, you know, a five-gallon bucket and probably about eight inches of water. And he kept watching as one crab would climb up and grab on to the edge of the bucket and try and pull itself out. And he, like, tells the fisherman, hey, man, I want to let you know, you're going to lose one of your crabs. And the fisherman doesn't even turn around and look at him. Keeps drawing his net.

And he goes, watch what happens. And Pedro kind of steps back and he looks down into the bucket. And he watches all the other crabs grab onto that other crab and pull him back down. And he had this epiphany moment of the circles of influence he had in his life. And he was like, oh, my God, I have crabs in my life. He's like, I have people that I want to climb up and be better and they are pulling me down. And it is unequivocally true. I mean, it's something I brought up to the Bud students yesterday.

I said, if you want to be the best seal, you need to surround yourself with the guys who are driven, disciplined, and they're pushing themselves to the edge. If you want to go to the next level, you need to surround yourself with the guys who are either already there or they aspire to get there. Because if you're going to surround yourself with people who are content to just drink and not move forward at all, they're going to try and pull you into that circle. because they're going to feel threatened that you don't want to do what they're doing. And they want you to assimilate with them versus driving forward and being successful. It's unfortunate. It's just kind of a way of life. It's a horrible situation.

So watch out for it because it's everywhere. So how do you end up, so you graduate high school and go to recruiter and boom, right? I mean, any other particular things around the recruitment process? Yeah, the recruitment process was actually, I actually kind of. I actually kind of got off track a little. So I went to the recruiting station. As soon as I decided I want to be a seal, I went to the recruiting station. So I was 15 years old, this 95-pound weakling.

And walk into the recruiting station, and I'm like, hey, I want to be a seal. And there was an old crusty. I mean, he was like an old school, probably 25-year E-6. And just crusty is all get out, you know, Boatsun's mate. And that dude basically laughed me out of the office. office was like, get out of here, stop wasting our time. You know, you couldn't even carry the paddle, much less the boat, you know, get out of my office. And it didn't phase me in the least. I came back like next week and was like, I want to be a seal. And they, this guy chased me out of the office.

I came back about four or five times and he just continued to not even give me the time of day. So finally, I was, you know, kind of tired of that. By the way, things are real rough when a recruiter won't give a kid the time of day. Yeah, yeah, no kid. That's trying to make that quota. This dude was hardcore. Oh, man. Yeah, well, I mean, you think about it, 25-year-E-6.

Yeah, he was at a point. He didn't really care. So, you know, when I got to the point, I came back again, probably about eight months later. And at this point, I'd, you know, really started training. I was focused on it. I didn't let him deter me. And I came back, and he had left.

Just by sheer happenstance, he was gone. And there was a new recruiter in there, a guy by the name of Henry Horn. Henry, if you're out there and you listen to this, I've never been able to track him down and thank him. But Henry took me in and was like, yeah, man, absolutely. Sit down and add this video. You may remember this.

Be someone special. And it was the cheesiest. It was like 1980s video at its best. And it was this high speed, you know, the seals come in on a helicopter, and they get out and they take down this target and take out these terrorists. And, you know, the tagline is be someone special. And I just ate it up, man. And came back on a regular basis.

And Henry was fantastic. He told me these are the things you need to do. You know, Asphab Fitness. This is what's going to happen. So went to go sign up, you know, right as I was turning 17, I was going to do the delayed entry program. And I went to go sign up and went, well, I got back up for a second. there was a glitch. I'm sorry, I got my facts backwards here. I actually, because of the deal with the

Krusty E6, I was, and him being a block to me, I changed my mind, decided to go Army at first. Henry happened after this. I'm sorry, I got that backwards. Henry happened after this. And when I went back, I decided to join the Army. I said, well, fine. My dad, you know, he was Army, the Rangers, I'll go the Green Beret route. So I went to MEPs to, or to, to do my intake screening for the Army delayed entry program. And I failed the physical because when I was a kid, I had ruptured my eardrum. And I had a lot of scar tissue on my eardrum.

And the Army said, oh, well, you're not going to be able to equalize. So they tried to convince me to still go in. They were like, oh, well, you don't have to be an airborne ranger. You know, you can do this or you can do that. You can drive trucks. And I was like, no, man, that's not what I want to do. So I left. And I didn't sign up.

and probably a couple months went by and then that's when I came back and the crusty 6 was gone and Henry Horn was there and really helped pave that path. So kind of an interesting road and I think the lesson is this is there's always going to be roadblocks

that are going to deter you from your dreams. You know, don't let it stop you, keep driving forward because by, you know, if I just listen to that guy right from the beginning, you know, I never would have been a seal. So you go in, you show up at buds i like this is a good going back to the book your your intro to buds one night i was ordered to escort a member of class one ninety nine back to his room building in 602 he'd quit the

program and the neighbor required an escort for anyone who rang the bell during hell week i went off to find him in the darkness he was waiting for me a smaller guy like me wrapped in a blanket he was shivering so badly he seemed ready to fly apart he'd put the blanket over his head like a hood giving him a monastic look. He said little, so we made our way to the barracks in silence. I walked alongside him fit to burst wanting to get any details on what I'd soon experienced. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. As he reached his door and opened it, I blurted out. So come on, man, what was it like? He turned to me and looked me in the eyes. His room's night light cast an orange glow across his face. His skin was waxing, and he looked at.

looked hollowed out. At length, he answered in a slow, earnest tone. Dude, it was so cold, I would have poured gasoline all over myself and lit a match just so I could have been warm for a few seconds before I burned to death. He stepped back without another word and slammed his door. For the first time, I wondered what I'd gotten myself into. That's legit right there. Intro to Buds. So there's a so not only did that blow my mind You know there's a funny little side story We actually had to edit that So the fire thing

We actually created because what he actually He told me that exact thing So the dialogue is the same But what he told me was about as vulgar as all get out It would have made the book rated triple X And it was so mind blowing Because I mean you know the fire thing We tried to come up with what is as impact

impactful as possible. But it does not convey. I'll let your imaginations run wild. But what he told me and he slammed the door in my face left me so stunned that I was like, what the hell did I get myself into? I mean, but we could not put it in the book. I mean, it was so bad.

I mean, I was like, my kids can never read that. Check. Check. So, anyways, I mean, then you get to bud,

you go through buds. Buds is cool. And you write about buds a little bit in here, but you don't spend a bunch of time on. it because, as we know, Buds is not a huge part of our careers in the SEAL teams. And I'm going to jump right ahead to the book here. Seven years in three South American deployments into my career as a seal. I found myself in Fort Knox, Kentucky, working as a basic warfare instructor with a small group of fellow operators.

We worked 18-hour days, but being 20-something and single, once the gear was stowed, all we wanted to do was get out on the town and blow off some steam. Work hard, play hard. That was our pre-9-11 mantra. The 90s teams. Work hard, play hard. I always have to explain to people how cool it is being in the teams, being an E5 in the teams. Were you an E5 or an E6 at this point?

I was an E5. E5 in the teams. And I was telling the story the other day. When I got to SEAL Team 1, I was a new guy and I was quietly walking through the locker road. I'm trying to keep my eyes averted from looking at anyone. And I hear this guy go, Ah, yes!

And I was like, oh, my God. And it was this like barbaric yell from this human being who was, and then I looked at him. And he was this monster guy, probably 6-7, 6-6, 280 pounds of tattooed flesh. And someone's like, what happened? And he goes, made E5, master chief as far as I'm concerned. So, yeah, you know, you get to be an E5 in a seal platoon.

You know, you've got, if you, if you're not looking for a lot of responsibility, you won't find it, but you won't, you know, you're a little bit above some of the crap work. So it's not a bad place to be. And that's where you were doing, doing deployment after deployment, three deployments to South America and doing the training gig. Were you at training cell at the team at this time? Or was it already consolidated?

No. Each team had its own individual training still. Yep. I did that too. And this is also the time during one of these trips where you met your future wife. That's right. So, you know, the SEAL teams are an interesting place because being an all-male unit, you know, the only time you have an opportunity to meet people, ladies,

typically in the bars. And because we did such a good job, you know, I tell people the mindset of the early teams really was, you know, you know, Marcinco captured that mindset in his book, The Rogue Warrior. But it's interesting to see post-9-11 how guys are so laser-focused on combat. You know, but for us, you know, literally we trained hard. And then, you know, you were actually looked down on if you didn't go out and party and burn it down to like four in the morning and then get an hour of sleep.

get up and start training again the next day, you know, which was just stupid. You know, you weren't operating at optimal efficiency. But that was just the way it was. That was life. And accepted it and drove through. So, yeah, I was fortunate enough one night. We went into a crazy huge bar that somebody had scouted out and said, hey, man, this is a target-rich environment.

And the Phoenix Hill Tavern. And went in there and, yeah, beautiful blonde walked in. and I was like, I need to get to know this young lady. You did all right, man. Along the course of this, you apply for the Seaman Admiral Program, which is the same program I did. I think you were a couple years behind me, and we're going to the book.

I had applied to the Seaman Admiral Program, something the Navy started to encourage, top performing enlisted to become officers. Only 50 candidates a year were accepted back then, so the competition was fierce. I gained a slot, and the Navy sent me to college just in time. to miss the outbreak of the war. I watched the towers fall.

I recognized the magnitude of the moment and left school in a days fully aware that our country was heading to war with three years of college ahead of me. I feared I'd miss my chance to be a part of it. A few days later, I drove back to my old seal team to see my former CEO and mentor, Commander Vince Peterson.

He had stuck his neck out for me more than once, and had been instrumental in getting me a shot, a slot in the seaman-admiral program. I told him I wanted to drop out of school so I could get back to a platoon and help with the war effort. Commander Peterson sat listening quietly as I explained my desire to come back. He was a legend in the SEAL teams. He had been a former Marine before joining the Navy and headed to SEAL training at the age of 36. He was highly respected both up and down the chain of command. In my leadership fence analogy, most men fell on one side.

side of the fence or the other while there were those small few who had the unique ability to stand on top and move back and forth. For Vince Peterson, there was no fence. As I sat down with him and asked him to put me back in the platoon, he looked me dead in the eye and said, Red, this will not be a short war. It's going to go on for years and we're going to need strong warriors and leaders for upcoming battles, you need to stay in school, then come back and lead. Check. When I read that, of course, I thought about, guess what I was doing when 9-11 happened. I was in college as well on the same program. That's probably a year or two ahead of you. And guess what I did? Same thing. I called the D. Taylor, who was a friend of mine who I had worked for, and I said, hey, I don't care.

about college. I'll do online. I don't care about any of this. Send me back to a seal team right now, please. And you know who this individual too is as well. And I know who this guy is and that he told me the exact same thing. He said, this war is going to last a long time. Yeah. Of course, I didn't believe it. And it, you know, and this is what's interesting. I recently saw the guy that I called. And I saw him and his wife who I know his wife and she's a great person. And I was telling her this, telling her this. And you know what she said? It was so awesome to hear.

She goes, do you know how many calls he got that day? So there was zero unique about Jocko calling the seal detailer and saying, sir, get me back to a team right now. Every single guy that wasn't in a SEAL team in the teams or everyone that a B-billet of any kind was calling the detail of and saying, get me back to a team. Put me in, coach. Yeah. And it goes to that mentality you were talking about.

We were, we were just training and training and training and training. And it would be like training for a game and training for the Super Bowl and never get in the play. Yeah. So you actually did a great job in college and you, you were an ROTC too, right? I was. Yeah. See, I got the real scam deal where I just went to college and wasn't wearing. uniform. I was like far enough ahead of you that I got the deal. You were in the original program. So

you got commissioned and went to school as an officer. So you were getting paid officer paid just to go to school. I got the most ridiculous deal. I apologize to the taxpayers. Yeah, I think and the Navy quickly realized. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we screwed this one up. So I think it took them two iterations. Yeah. I was in because I think I was in the third iteration, third or fourth. But no, we actually were required to be a part of ROTC. So, you know, every day we were, we were up early and we, and the Hampton Roads in ROTC at that time was the largest ROTC consortium on the East Coast. So you had Hampton University, you had O'DU, Old Dominion University, and you had Norfolk State. And they had at that time probably about, I think we were at about 330 midshipment and officer candidates. And we

had a huge contingent of ex enlisted. So there was actually, it was probably six or seven seals in the program there at that time. So it was good. I had teammates to go through with. But yeah, man, we played all the games. And real quickly, I realized, I said, okay, you know, they want to, you've got to step up. You know, they're going to put you into these different positions. And a lot of the guys that had come there before me were kind of like, no, dude, we don't

want to do anything. We don't want to be involved. We just want to, you know, a lot of times typically. team guys we want to create our own little circle of of trust and we don't want to let anybody else in the circle and I was like no man we got to change that mindset you know there's young kids here that we could influence to become future frogmen I said and because there was no they had all these communities at the school they had they had you know surface warfare community they had the aviation club they had the submariner club but there was no special operations club and there were young kids who were interested and I said

We need to create this. We have the experience we can help these kids. And then the other thing I said is I said, well, you know, I'm going to try and step up into leadership positions. And I think all the rest of us should do the same. And thankfully, you know, it worked. We all jumped on board. And, you know, I was fortunate. I did excel in school.

And I ended up leaving the school as the student battalion commanding officer prior to being commissioned. Damn. I was the regimental commander. at officer candidate school and that was you know the number one position yeah and I was the man yeah I was talking to

my mom and I mentioned to which I shouldn't have done because my mom just doesn't understand I was like well yeah I'm you know I'm the regimen because at the last couple weeks of OCS yes and she's like oh so what's going on now because then I could call because you weren't allowed to call

so I said well we're doing this and I'm in charge of the thing here. It's called the regimental commander. And she goes, oh, what do you, so you're the commander? And I said, yeah, I'm the regimental commander. She goes, what are you in charge of? And I said, I am overseeing the cleaning of every toilet at officer candidate school. And it's going quite well. So spotless. Spotless. So you do a great job in college. And now you go back to the teams after college going back to the book instead of having an advantage. I found myself left behind. Everything had changed and as our platoon went through its training cycle, I always felt like I was playing catch-up. I made mistakes and exercises that I'm never made in the 90s. It made me

edgy and tense feeling the pressure of trying to be a leader and drinking from that training fire hose at the same time. I got tight and held on even harder which only made things worse. In our time off, I drowned my frustrations and booze and routinely made an ass of myself. None of this was helping my credibility with the men I was supposed to be leading, but I didn't see that at the moment. It also didn't help that Senior Chief Pete Carey and I despised each other almost from our introduction. He was a good skilled seal and I respected his tactical abilities, but I felt his people skills were lacking. Rough and abrasive at times, his leadership style clashed with mind. which set us on a collision course.

While I privately railed against Kerry, I was too blinded by arrogance to see my own flaws. I wasn't making a good transition to being an officer. I'd been enlisted for so long. I identified with my enlisted teammates more as one of them rather than as one of their leaders. It put me too far away from the fence. The senior chief and the AOIC are supposed to work closely together

to make sure the team functions effectively. The AOIC, and that's assistant officer in charge, is also supposed to learn from the chief's tactical experience. That never happened in our platoon. Instead, I refuse to humble myself and listen to the senior chief. As the pre-deployment workup wore on, we couldn't conceal our dislike for each other. The feud spilled out into the open and culminated with a public screaming match in Europe after a tactical exercise with some NATO allies. in the weeks that followed my arrival within the team, our relationship became the cancer in our locker room.

By the time we got to Afghanistan, we refused to be civilly to each other. I had lost touch entirely with what it meant to be a leader. During the daily briefs, we would openly take shots at each other. I talked about this dynamic many times with my superior, the platoon's officer in charge. One day, the OIC finally said, look, you do have to work this out. I'm tired of it.

We never could or did work things. out. Different platoon structure things in different ways in our platoon. Senior enlisted members acted as fire team leaders with chiefs and some more experienced officers acting as the assault force commanders. I had been assigned as neither. If I'd taken a step back, I might have realized that I hadn't given my boss as much confidence in my leadership, but I didn't see that. I only felt slighted and embittered. Rough tour. Yeah, but all brought on by myself. I mean, you know the dynamics obviously created some interesting uh you know problems but you know as often happens i wasn't taking ownership of my own actions and instead was just kind of trying to point

fingers externally well you know it's p. Carey's fault that these things are happening when the reality was 80% of it was me you know 80% of it so it's one of the things that i talk to a lot of about I think you see it in special operations. I know you and I both have spoken to professional sports teams. I see it there where young men accelerate quickly and achieve this elite status and then get a little bit of enamored with who they are and their abilities and lose sight of the end state, which is to be an effective part of the team, to do their job so ruthlessly well, it plays this huge part in the team. And at the end of the day, whether you're in professional sports, whether you're in the SEAL teams or even whether you're in some elite

business, you know, that's what has to happen. And I lost sight of that. And more focused externally instead of internally. And really, now I speak a lot on what my three rules of leadership is. And the foundational, the first rule is lead yourself. And how you lead yourself, 80% of leadership is leading yourself. You know, you talk so much about discipline. It's how you discipline yourself. It's how you structure yourself. It's how you push yourself. It's how you set the example. And in doing so, it automatically leads to rule number two, lead others. It almost makes it easy to lead others because you've already done all the work. They want to follow you because you're setting the example. I kind of had it backwards. I was trying to lead others, but I wasn't leading

myself. And it's almost impossible to do. And I meet all these people, you know, that I've gone out in business and talk to and they say, Jay, man, how do I be a better leader? And, you know, my first question I always ask them is how well do you lead yourself? Because that's where I really, really failed. We talk, you know, and several times you've mentioned a principle I talk about called the leadership fence. And the leadership fence was just kind of a concept I came up with after watching a lot of really good leaders and bad leaders, including myself in that category, you know, years later.

later I looked back and the idea was this that imagine a chain link fence and and that fence represents where you are in your leadership journey and on one side of the fence are all those you lead and on the other side are those you report to your superiors everybody has a natural tendency to kind of fall on one side of the fence or the other depending on how they grew up or how they came into the organization for me obviously when you start out as in e1 I connected a lot more with the guys on the side of the fence that I was leading. As a matter of fact, the teams back then typically wanted to switch coasts with guys. If you're an enlist guy, they want to send you out to the opposite coast. And that didn't happen for me. And I tell you what, I look back on that

now and I think that was a mistake. I created a lot of my own problems and the SEAL teams were right in their thinking on how to do that because now the hardest leadership often is purely leadership, you know, to break through those bonds of, hey, you and I were both friends, but now I'm in charge of you. So how do we navigate that waters? And if you're close with those people, it makes it a lot more difficult. You know, you have to be the one that really has to break those bonds. And sometimes, you know, it can damage friendships if you're not careful with that. And I think I was more focused on retaining that. So that was on one side of the fence. The other side of the fence, a lot of times you see individuals that come into an organization later at a higher leadership

position. So they get brought in as an officer. They get brought in as a leader to a company. And they're more focused on that leadership position that they don't take the time to get to know the people they're leading. So they're too far away from the fence. It's a chain link fence so that you can talk through it, so that you can communicate through it. And the best leaders have the ability to be right up against that fence. So whether they're on either side, they're able to turn around and gain guidance from the individuals, whether it's their leadership and communicate it through to those they lead, or whether they're on the side of communicating and interacting with those they lead and communicating through and getting guidance from who they follow. Problems arise when you're too far away from the fence. You know, the leaders who are so far on the other side of the fence and all they're thinking about is how do I make the next rank, you know, we know who they are. I mean, we've seen those guys who literally, you know, you think, man, you would like.

kill your mother to make the next rank to be this or be that. And then we also know those guys who, you know, they have no aspirations to try and get better on the other side of the fence. I mean, you know, we joke about the career E5s, you know, the perfectly content, you know, the magic position in the SEAL teams where, you know, you're at that level where you're high enough above to not do the grunt work, but you don't really have tremendous responsibilities. I was way too far away. That was the bottom line. And this is where I was tremendously failing and not setting the example. I wasn't communicating with the leadership. They were trying to provide me guidance and basically saying, hey, dude, you're screwing things up.

And even Pete Kerry himself was trying to convey to me in his very abrasive way, hey, dude, you know, this is not the way you do things. But I was blinded both by having excelled at this point in my career really rocking up and thinking, oh, well, I know these things. You know, I'm the man. So humility is such a critical component of leadership to take that step back. And if anybody's given you advice, always take a second to think through it and, you know, evaluate, hey, even if maybe you don't think it applies, there's probably pieces of it that do. That's the reality.

Yeah, I was, when someone's giving me critique points, you know, and of course, and it's every single, I say every single person on earth doesn't like receiving critique. And I always joke about the fact that even when someone asks for criticism, when they get it, they still get mad. Even when I say, hey, Jay, would you, you know, read this thing that I just wrote and tell me what you think of it. And then you read it and you say, you know, I thought it was a little, you could do this a little bit better.

I'm going to be mad, right? Everyone gets mad. And so that's, so what I do is the same thing. I take a step back when somebody gives me a critique point, even though I'm completely offended and I don't agree with them and I think I'm right because I'm an egotistical maniac. I put all that aside and I say, wait a second, there's a reason that they're telling me this. There's got to be some truth to it. I like, one of my favorite things about this book is the fact that it reveals the, the difficulties

that we have in the SEAL teams, which are the same difficulties that I see all the time. So people think, oh, and you're in the SEAL teams, everyone's just perfect. And, you know, this Pete Carey would be the perfect mentor and he'd just be able to come along. And then you'd be the perfect recipient, the perfect mentee, ready to learn. And everything is just perfect. And it's actually completely untrue. And what you have in the SEAL teams, actually in the, like in the civilian sector and companies and organizations, they have these personality, you know, different personalities in the SEAL teams.

And so you think, oh, in the SEAL teams, you don't have that. No, you actually have it worse because you've got these guys that have really built, their ego's been built up. And we all think we're great. We all think we're a tactical genius. We all think we don't have anything to learn. And so we have a lot of issues around this exact kind of thing. And it does completely derail, not just leaders, but it derails platoons. And I mean, we would disband platoons.

And when we would disband a platoon, that means the platoon is no longer going to exist. We'd have a platoon coming through training. the platoon would get disbanded. It doesn't happen very often, but it happens. And when it happens, it has zero to do with the E4s, E5s, and usually the E6s, and it has 100% to do with the senior E6s, the chiefs, and the officers inside the platoon that just are disasters. And it does happen.

And I think the fact that you talk through some of these issues are, I mean, that's what's what's very revealing about the SEAL teams. in this book is like, hey, we got, you know, we got the same issues that they have in other or any other team, any other organization. And that, that, you know, that thing that you talk about, this, this fence, you know, that's, to me, that's the dichotomy of leadership, right? That's like, you can go too far in one direction of the other. And if you go too far in one direction of the other, you're going to, you're going to fall

apart. Yep. So, check. All right. Now you're on deployment in Afghanistan. And I always, oh, I always mentioned this. I haven't mentioned it yet, but I'll mention it right now because I'm only reading small portions of this book. And there's so much more great detail in the book.

And you'll have a better understanding of these lessons when you read the whole thing. So if it seems a little bit, you know, if it seems it's jumping around a little bit, it's just because I'm only reading chunks of it because I'm not going to read the whole damn book. You can read it yourself. All right. So now, speaking of jumping around, you're in Afghanistan. You had a mission go down where it sounded like you guys got some bad intel and it caused a little bit of a problem.

You hit the target pretty hard and you guys got put on an operational pause meaning, hey, you guys aren't going to do anything. And that's a great story and how that unfolds is great and people should read so they can learn lessons from that. But then I'm going to go skip a lesson here. You are in the chow hall and you're sitting with some of your boys. and I'm specifically using that term because at this point you definitely were boys with the boys and I'm going to the book. I've been searching for a way to prove myself ever since I'd come aboard.

Now the opportunity to do so had just fallen in my lap. I had to take it. In time, I learned there was nothing more dangerous on the battlefield than an immature and arrogant officer who feels he needs to prove himself. It can lead men to their death. And what you're looking at is you happen to be sitting in the chow hall with the commanding general and these guys kind of your your boys kind of egg you on to go talk to him but hey why are we why are we standing now and you're in ensign at this point yeah oh jesus okay so here we go i walked over and stood beside the general's table excuse me general ensign redman naval special warfare do you have a couple minutes his aides glowered up at me stamped on their faces is who the hell are you?

Look, that made me momentarily waver. The general invited me to sit down. His aides looked frosted and grew more so after I began to talk. Sorry, I just wanted to talk to you about this operational pause we still seem to be in. I began. The general's face registering nothing but interest. I continued, I know there was a miscommunication with our first mission, but we know the enemy's out there, and we'd really like to take the opportunity to go after them.

The general heard me out, then replied diplomatically, well, Ensign, I've got to look at all the strategic factors here. We must always weigh the strategic impact with the impact on the civilian populace, and there are implications to going out and operating at night. I understand that, sir. Right now, we're at a crazy time in the war, and we have to balance what we're doing. Well, General, I said, I can hardly read that with a straight face. Well, General, I said, we really feel like we can contribute in a positive way by going after the men who pose a clear and present threat. to coalition forces. General's non-committal, but remained polite.

I don't think his aides took their eyes off me through the entire conversation. I could feel them boring holes through me. I thanked them for their time, got up, and headed back to my table. The other two operators were gone. Why hadn't they stuck around? Yeah, beware of peer pressure.

And beware, you know, once again, it comes back to that lead yourself, you know, lead yourself that found, principle because you know this was a dangerous thing and and I did this several times during that deployment you know this this misunderstanding or this idea that somehow there's this shortcut to being an effective leader that there's this push button easy button that beat look at me now I'm a great leader and this really was this moment and I mean people understand this was an interesting time so this was this was July

of 2005. So June 28th, 2005, Operation Red Wings had just happened, and that was our troop. So we had lost, you know, we had lost five of our guys, including our troop commander. We had lost my Eric Christensen. We had lost my good friend in the OIC of that platoon, Mike McGreevy. I originally was in Echo Platoon. We had trained alongside those guys. So we were all grieving. And, and we were all grieving. And, And we all wanted revenge. We all wanted to go after the enemy. So the very first mission we did was the mission you talked about that got us in a little bit of trouble. So now take the dynamics of everybody grieving because of the loss of our teammates and then doing our first mission and being put in hack because of really some outstanding issues that you can read about in the book.

We had actually done everything right, but it kind of got placed back on us. So I just, you know, it's these moments that as a young leader, whether you're in a business, whether you're in the military, law enforcement, whatever you do, that you see this shortcut. Oh, look what I can do. And it got fueled when, you know, my teammates and I sat there and started talking. And, you know, teammates were the biggest, you know, shit talkers on the planet. and they definitely were egging me on and I ate it up, hook line, and sinker. And I was like, you are absolutely right.

Here is a great opportunity for me to, you know, shed some, you know, amazing wisdom and insight to this general where he now is going to be like, oh, young ensign, you're so right. We should absolutely allow you guys to go out and conduct all these operations because I'm, you know, I'm not smart enough to allow this to happen. I mean, the arrogance that I had and really sad that I didn't think through, you know, what are the implications of this, you know, for you to go do that? I mean, it was just a stupid decision. And I realized it. As soon as those guys were gone, like, all of a sudden I'm like, huh. What did you just do, moron? And as I walked back from the Chowal Hall to our, you know, our campaign.

I was like, this isn't going to go. You went and told your boss that you did it, right? I did. I went straight back to my CEO and I said, hey, I want to let you know what just happened. I said, I thought it was a good idea. And I don't think it was. And, you know, it was funny. He kind of looked at me and he said, why did you think that was a good idea?

And I said, well, I was, you know, I was doing it. it for the boys. It was about the boys. So it really wasn't. At the end of the day, it was about me. And that's where, you know, really understanding that, you know, in leadership, you are the last point in the equation. And don't get me wrong. You know, there's an overlap of everything that happens that we do. So oftentimes you're focused on the mission, you're focused on the men. And of course, by doing that well, there is a positive impact for you. And there's nothing wrong with that. But that thought process, it should be, it should be by sequence, if you will, not because you're focused on it. Yeah, no, 100%. And you're right. The byproduct of focusing on your people and focusing on your

mission, the byproduct of that is you'll be successful. And the contrary, the contrarian situation is literally, if you focus on yourself instead of your people and your mission, you will fail. You will, and you know what? Fail is a strong word because there's people and you and I know them who have focused on themselves and they can win this battle and they can win this tactical battle and they can win this tactical battle and they can get to a certain point but eventually it will come back on them and you won't be as truly successful as if you would as you would have been had you focused on the men the mission and not focused on yourself I call those people leadership wrecking balls that they're good they're good at what they do you know in some ways

Pete Kerry is one of those people. He was very good at what he did and he got things done, but he had a tendency to leave and a lot of organizations have these individuals. And they keep them around because they do get things done, but they leave a path of destruction behind them. And over time, people don't want to work with them. And, you know, that's why I call them the leadership wrecking ball. So, you know, I tell people, you need to evaluate yourself. Are you one of those people? Do you turn around, you know, forward you look at the successes you have, but you turn around and look and there's a path of destruction on the way there. No doubt about it.

All right. So you guys eventually do get back in the game. The operational pause gets lifted and you guys are operating again. And here you are out on an operation. You're in an Overwatch position on a hilltop going back to the book. Between bursts of gunfire, I heard him report troops in contact, troops in contact. We're facing at least 20 enemy fighters. A wash of static followed.

Then I heard Joker add, one of our Afghan soldiers is wounded. We need reinforcements. Jay, here's your chance. Your teammates are in trouble. I looked down into the valley a thousand feet below. The slope was steep, perhaps 60 degrees in places. Getting down there would be a serious climb. Once at the bottom, we'd have to maneuver to the sound of the guns through broken terrain and vegetation. That would complicate approaching our guys without getting shot by accident. I called to Fred and asked to, if the Western Overwatch team was still in place. Gunfire erupted over the radio as he keyed his mic and answered, I think so. Okay, good. That gave us eyes above and control of the high ground over there. This is the moment, Jay.

Go prove yourself. As we dropped off the lip, Senior Chief Kerry called to me over the radio and wanted to know what I was doing. We're going down, I told him. He went ballistic. Absolutely not. We need to link back up.

back the boys needed help and we were closest if it had been anybody else I might have thought twice about his call but my own personal quest to prove myself coupled with my intense hatred for him clouded my judgment I ignored him and we pressed on as we dropped further into the valley we lost all communication with the headquarters team I began to realize what a hairy situation I just placed the two of us in we had given up the high ground to moved down a thousand feet of vertical terrain to try and link up with an element under fire with an enemy force almost one kilometer away. I pushed this thought to the back of my mind. The boys

need help. Focus on that. But where was the fight? The sounds of battle echoed all across the valley making it difficult to calculate distance and direction. A broken transmission filled my earpiece. I couldn't tell what it was, but I recognized J.D.'s voice. I tried to establish contact a moment later through washes of static, J.D.'s voice came back. Where the hell are you? J.D. demanded. I told him, we were at the T intersection on the valley floor. Get your

ass out of the valley now, he said with so much anger, I could almost feel a blast of fire shoot out of the earpiece. I was about to explain my intent when he added, those guys are in a major fight and we can't call in close air support because we don't know where you are. That shook me.

There were aircraft overhead waiting to join the battle with rockets and But they could not make their runs because of my decision to go into the valley. I should have thought about our air assets, but I was too blinded by my own ambition with my combat inexperience on full display It started to dawn on me at last had I made a mistake? What if somebody got hit during the delay I'd caused? I keyed my radio and reported that we would be pulling out of the valley and climbing up the north face of the T intersection to link up with our element there Once we were consolidated on the North Ridge and our security was set for what was surely be a long night ahead, JD came looking for me. As he approached, I could see he was livid. What the hell were you doing?

Indignantly, I told him I was trying to go to the aid of my brothers. He looked at me like I just spit on his wife. That was a stupid thing you did, Red. You could have gotten people killed. His words made me even more righteously indignant. I fired back at him. The boys were in trouble and I went to their aid. I did what I needed to be done in the moment.

J.D. refused to accept that. I tossed out a similar situation that occurred in Afghanistan a few years before as if establishing precedence would help my case. J.D. knew the mission too and he cut me off with not the same at all read. They didn't have air support available. I didn't know I know he did. I shouted back. You delayed it with what you did, J.D. roared.

at last when it was clear to J.G. That his words were not sinking in, he ended the argument. Currently, he said, we'll deal this after when we get back to Kandahar. He turned and stalked off. I watched him leave and struggled with my own thoughts. Had I really made that big of a mistake?

No, no way. I went to help. When is that ever wrong? That's rough. You know, a lot of people read that section who don't have tactical background and they don't fully understand. they're like, oh man, no, you did the heroic thing.

You know, you went down into the battle. You know, you tried to take the fight to the enemy. But, you know, I try to explain to them. You know, you don't have a tactical understanding. You know, there are so many things that were done wrong there. That it literally, and this story would be so different if something had actually happened. And the potential for something to have gone wrong is through the roof. I mean, you've been in Afghanistan.

I mean, you know the fighting positions. And basically, I took myself off. a very advantageous high ground position that we owned down into the valley a thousand feet below. I mean, there could have been hundreds of fighting positions in caves above me that any one single fighter could have just decimated us. And it would have been one thing if I got myself killed, but I pulled a young team guy, machine gunner down with me. So I placed this guy's life in jeopardy. And, you know, the funny thing is, you know, I tried to paint it in that moment arguing with J.D. I was doing the right thing.

I'm taking the fight to the enemy. I'm, you know, supporting my brothers and all this BS. You know, the reality was I wanted to get in the fight. At that point, I had been on the edge of a lot of firefights and, you know, and even in fighting. I mean, until you get in there, you have improved yourself. And I wanted to prove myself. I wanted to prove myself both as a seal, as a fighter, and as a leader. and this was another moment just like the general where I thought,

here's my opportunity. And I was so unwilling to listen, you know, that I had made a mistake. And the reality is, if I had owned it in that moment, it probably would not have been as bad as it was. But the mere fact that I just planted my flag on that spot and was like, screw you, you're wrong, I'm right. and I did the right thing, I think just turned what was a fire into a raging inferno. Yeah, yeah, no, that's definitely rough.

And I think also from a tactical perspective, people make mistakes like this. Like, it can happen and it can happen. And, you know, I talk about being able to detach, and that's something that I definitely learned in the SEAL teams. And it was, I think, one of the most. advantageous skills for a leader, especially a combat leader to have, is to be able to step back from the situation as it's unfolding. Because if you fully knew, hey, we've got air overhead and they're in a firefight. And if I go down there, we won't be able to use air support. You wouldn't have done this. Even a 60 gunner, you know, even a pig gunner would say,

oh, okay, no, I need to, I need to let that unfold. But, you know, you're excited. to get down there and get in the fight is definitely, you know, that's something that can grab a hold of of anyone if they're not careful. And again, it's what we just talked about with you at that moment, put yourself ahead of the mission, ahead of the team. And then, yeah, I mean, this idea of ownership and, you know, when I kick off the book that I wrote with Laif Extreme Ownership, you know, kicks off with a blue on blue. And, you know, it was a lot of bad things happening. There was a lot of moving parts going on.

It was a horrible situation. An Iraqi soldier got killed. Several more got wounded. One of my guys got wounded. And I can tell you right now, like, I think if I would have said, hey, this wasn't my fault. Blame it on someone else. I think I would have gotten fired in about three seconds.

Because it's just a bad situation to unfold. And, yeah, you. planting the flag on that is is rough and and I mean your humility and putting this out there is awesome and people can learn so much from that because if you recognize how easily you and you know okay let's let's let's let's let's let's paint you in a bad light that you were young and you were but let's paint you in a good light even with you had those qualities of being hyper aggressive and you wanted to get in the fight and you're you're a little bit arrogant you're still a team guy that's trying to do a good job it wasn't like you were trying to do a bad job so

To recognize like, hey, even if you're well-intentioned, if you don't pay attention to these things, they can grab hold of you and they can pull you in a wrong direction and you look up and you're planting your flag and putting up your defenses around an indefensible position, which is where you ended up here. And you nailed it with the idea, you know, it's something I know you talked to people about in business I talk about.

I think it's no different probably in fighting. You know, you've got to let the ballot. feel developed. Sometimes we have this natural instinct that when something bad happens, when a crisis happens, we feel this, you know, oh my God, I got to react immediately. Before we actually take the time. And even in a gunfight, you typically have a few seconds. And it's amazing how much information we can process in a few seconds before we react and move. And so that was one problem. and the other problem and, you know, was I was driven by this relationship issue. And it's funny, you know, the individual, the retired match chief that you were with on, you know, Thursday, who was, I served under him twice.

Later, we had talked about that exact situation and he had given me advice later. And he said, never let your personal feelings get in the way of your professional relationships. And I had, I had absolutely let my personal feelings drive that. And that was probably the biggest FU moment, you know, like I said, if it had been anybody else. But my hatred for him had grown to the point that I was just like, yeah, let me show you, buddy. You know, and so all these things, you know, dangerous, you know, that not only did, you know, all these things you have to be careful of. I mean, this is what falls under, you know, a lot of people call these different things. And my Pentagon of peak performance, I call it emotional leadership.

So your ability to attach yourself for a second and say, okay, I'm not going to let my own personal feelings drive this because what's going on around me, my ability to lead and make the right decisions is more critical than what I feel. And obviously, you know, I had not learned those lessons yet. I was on that glide path. And at this point, I was on the glide path down. I was crashing and burning. Rough, rough. Going back to the book, back at Kandahar, I heard the first whispers about me floating around the team. The men had nicknamed me Rambo Red, though some may think being compared to Stallone's lone wolf silver screen icon was a compliment.

Within our community, it was a supreme insult. In the SEAL teams, there's no room for individualism. The foundations of our success rest on mutual cooperation and communication. A lone wolf like Rambo could destroy a team with catastrophic effects on the battlefield. field. After we debriefed the mission, J.D. Richardson took me into his makeshift office and said, Red, your operational abilities have been called into question. We're sending you back to Boggham to meet with the CEO and we'll discuss this further when the rest of the team gets back. I was stunned. At worst, I was starting to expect something more than a wrist slap, but nothing

like that. I was being sent back to the rear out of combat. Nothing can ever be more humiliating for a warrior. I trained my entire adult life for this and now I had been told I didn't measure up. I felt like a mule kick to the gut. I heard rumblings that Senior Chief Kerry wanted to see my trident taken away. Behind the scenes, he was pushing for a Trident review board to determine my fate. The months of infighting between us had been bad enough. Now he was trying to destroy my career. I was sick at the thought of losing my trident over a single bad moment in a valley whose name nobody back home would ever know and whose location would not matter to anyone but a handful of men who had fought in it. Ensign Redmond had demonstrated a consistent pattern of bad decision making. I thought again about my screaming match with senior chief carry during the NATO exercise.

When it ended, what did I see in the eyes of my teammates? embarrassment. This wasn't really about one moment in the valley, was it, Jay? I had to face that fact. I rubbed my aching temples. I felt like my head was going to explode from the pressure building inside of it. My life was being destroyed, and I had made myself vulnerable to these attacks with my own actions. If I was allowed to continue to operate, stories of this deployment would circulate through the teams.

If I go to my next platoon with my reputation in tatters, who would follow my lead? Sitting neatly on the wooden crossbar on the floor beside my bed, my holstered SIG-Sour P226 sat well-oiled and cleaned. I leaned over and pulled it out. I knew a round was already in the chamber, but I drew back the slide and took a look to make sure. We called us a press check and it confirmed what I already knew. My gun was ready to go. as I held the pistol I thought of the great samurai warriors who if disgraced would commit ritual suicide part of me willed my hand to raise the sig to press it firmly to my temple my life is over

there's nothing left but an honorable exit I glanced over at the desk and saw a picture of my beautiful wife Erica the image of her face riveted my attention her easy going smile, her eyes alight and lively, always quick to laugh and offer love and compassion. What would this do to her? After all, she'd sacrificed for me. Would my death snuff out the life of her gorgeous eyes? With the bullet I put in my temple, I'd leave her the burden of my failed career and a ticket to a lifetime of grief. The kids would live under that cloud as well. you know it's interesting a lot of people who have not read my book or maybe they have read it and they gloss over this but they will wrongly assume that my injuries and that ambush in the aftermath of that ambush were the

hardest thing I've ever been through and and I tell them absolutely not by far that that moment right there in that period of time in my life, about a, that was about a four-month period, maybe five months, that journey to the bottom. And I was almost at rock bottom at that point. And this is where the psychology of humans is an interesting thing because all of us have that little voice that lives inside of us. I call mine my demon.

And my demon has been my greatest pusher because he tells me what I can't do. And he also at times can be the most dangerous thing out there because they will push you to do things. They will push you to do things and tell you you can't do things. And it was in that moment that I literally was listening to that, you know, you will never recover. You know, your career is over. There's no way you're going to come back from this. the guys are never going to follow you again. All these lies.

These are lies that we tell ourselves. And I think it's really important. You know, if there's anything about me, I tell people that I am an expert on overcoming adversity, failure, and crisis. And it doesn't matter how bad things have been. You always can recover. It goes back to those three rules of leadership. You just once again go back to leading yourself.

And in that moment, though, I was so. crushed, so crushed, because I had convinced myself that I had done the right thing. And unfortunately, I still believe that and I just saw myself as a victim, a victim who had no way that I could recover. And, you know, it's sad and, you know, that God moment that I glanced over because I don't think if, if I had made the mistake or wherever I was, I'm not having pictures of my wife and kids right there, I probably would have done it. because I just felt so hopeless. And then I was ashamed, honestly, for thinking that. And thinking about the impact I would leave on them. So I'd love to say that was the catalyst of starting to climb out of that hole,

but I actually continued to spiral down over the next couple of months until finally, you know, my, you know, that moment occurred right after, you know, my judgment had been set upon me, which really I was very fortunate. it because I should have been grateful because really what they could have done is said you're out of here. Yeah. You know, we're sending you out of the teams. You're going to go before trying to review board and they didn't. You know, the CEO believed in me.

He said, you know, you've done a lot of great things. You've had some amazing moments. You've just, you've got some flaws. You've got some arrogant flaws and you definitely, we need to work on your decision-making leadership abilities. So that's what they did. it's it's you know when I was reading this part it's it's it's it's I don't think you could have I don't think a human being I don't think you could explain I don't think Will Shakespeare could explain to

someone that's not in the teams what it feels like to be in the teams and to feel like maybe that's not going to be your life anymore that's rough man and I don't think I mean you did your best and like I said I don't think it's just to explain. And I mean, I guess you do it because you explain, listen, you were at a point where if you couldn't be in the teams, you didn't want to be alive. That's where you were at right there. And I guess that does explain it. I think it might be hard for people to relate to.

But for people like you and me that grew up literally whole adult life in the SEAL teams, I can't even imagine if in the in the in the, in the, in the, you know, in the highlight of that moment of being deployed in combat, you just lost your comrades in arms from your task unit and to be told, okay, you can't do this job anymore. I mean, like you said, and again, I think it's gonna be hard for people to understand that it seems like you would never wanna, you wouldn't wanna live at all.

And then just to add this on to what you're saying, and I say this every time that I talk about these kind of personal, storms that people get into. And I've just got to say this in case someone hasn't heard me say it before. When you're in that storm, it seems like it goes forever in every direction. Anyone on the outside would anyone 10 feet away from you would look at you and say, oh yeah, you made some mistakes.

You need to get back on the horse. You need to get back out there. Here's what's going to help you get fixed. Here's what gets you back on. But when we're, every direction you look is black and you think you're not getting out. And team guys don't play around either at all going back to the book. So you decide, okay, I'm going to stick it out.

You're on your way back. I made my way back to my hooch. When I entered our living quarters, I walked by our message board and saw a note scrawled next to my name. Why don't you go ahead and kill yourself? I stared at the words for I don't know how long. The hallway was empty. Nobody had been standing around waiting to see my reaction.

that's team guys there's no mercy in a seal platoon there's not you know i've often thought about that and and you know the deal we have incredibly dark humor yeah so i often wonder was somebody just trying to lighten the mood and kind of shock me into hey dude come out of it you know go fix yourself uh i've always i've often wondered that or were they serious and just like dude you're a disgrace yeah we don't and i know for a fact i mean there was a point right before we left on that deployment a couple weeks later where, you know, guys were being divvied

up into where they were going next. So next platoons, next leadership. And they were asked, you know, who do you want to work with? You know, who do you want to work under? And they unequivocally wrote, we don't want to work with Brett. So this was an additional blow that really kind of

reinforced, hey man, you you got some you got some work to do. Except I'll be honest, I wasn't at that point yet. You weren't there yet. I was still at rock bottom. You know, you talk about the storms. I talk about life ambushes.

And this was a major life ambush. One of the first major life ambushes I'd ever encountered. And I literally was on the axe taking withering fire. And I couldn't figure out how to get out of it. And you were doing your best to return fire with your pistol. Yes. In this case, I was going to return one round thinking that was. I'm going to fix things.

I'm right. Yeah. I'm going to maintain this position right here and I'm going to win. No, actually you're not. You need to look around. You need to maneuver. So you do end up keeping your Trident because obviously there were some guys that believed, like you said, believed in you and saw that you had the potential.

And actually, sometimes people ask me what makes a guy get fired or not get fired? And for me, it's like almost 100%. if the guy lacks humility, they're going to get fired. Or if they, if no one, if I would see a guy that had no humility whatsoever and I didn't see a crack, it'd be like, okay, this guy's a lost cause because he's never going to listen to anyone. You can't coach someone that lacks humility completely. So, or you can't help them.

They're going to sit on the X and just get shot up. That's the way it's going to be. So somebody saw that, hey, we can get through to this guy. You know, he's a good team guy. And more importantly to that point, and this is a great leadership. point, an organizational point, not only are they going to sit there and take those hits because they're too arrogant to be willing to move, they're going to pull everybody else down with them. And that's where it gets really dangerous. I mean, especially in our community where lives are on the

line. I mean, if they're unwilling to learn or humble themselves enough, they're going to get somebody else killed. And that was the big concern at that point. And man, I've got to give kudos to my commanding officer who is a friend to this day. He saved my career because I wasn't exhibiting humility. I was fighting back. I was, I did the right thing. I'm the victim here. You know, I'm just being thrown under the bus. And thankfully, he had enough faith in me. I guess he had seen enough good that he said, I think we can fix him. Yep. Good man. And one of the things that they do to fix you in the SEAL teams is send you to Ranger School. A wonderful vacation in Fort Ben, George. And I would say there's a small, there's some people that go to Ranger School because they want to go

Ranger School right on but oftentimes in the SEAL teams Ranger School and I wouldn't even call it punishment but it's it's like a re-education and that's definitely something that has always been and that's what they did with you okay they're gonna they're gonna send you to a really tough training school where it's not just a tough training school where you get weeded out you learn some tactics you learn to you learn leadership and I did not go to Ranger school but you know it's a great school. Everyone I know that the Rangers that I know are awesome guys. So great school. But oftentimes we use it in the SEAL teams. Maybe punishment is the wrong word. In some cases, I know it's been punishment. Occasionally a guy I'll want to go there. But generally guys, I mean, generally guys are

working. So they're not going to go to Ranger school. You end up getting the Ranger school. And here we go. Sick, hungry, burning with resentment. Because as you said, you're not, at this point, you're still like, oh, this is, this is crap. I don't deserve this. Yeah, I was, to say I was bitter is an understatement. Burning with resentment, I went into the first few days without my heart or mind engaged. The first week of Ranger School is nothing but a gut check, long days with minimal sleep, exposure to elements and constant physical and mental evolutions to get those who don't want to be there to quit.

Teamwork, leadership within a circle of peers and decision-making under stressful conditions were the objective of this first phase. As a seal, I should have represented my community in the best possible manner by displaying leadership, a commitment to teamwork, and a willingness to overcome obstacles. Instead, my actions showed me to be arrogant, ill-tempered, and unwilling to work with others.

Many soldiers falsely believe that seals are like that, and my actions simply reinforced it. I failed to represent my community as anything but that stereotype. So you have this bad attitude. You go out on a compass course. You're pretty good at land nab. You think you're going to kick ass. You don't kick ass.

You do a bad job. The black hats, who are the Ranger instructors? Here we go. The black hats chuckled with laughter. Damn squid got lost. We should have given you a boat, swabby. Another growled. Not surprising, seals don't know how to navigate anyways.

I failed at something I once took great pride in. Not so good without your Gucci gear, are you? Another sneered. I lost it. All my pent-up fury frothed out of me. Screw this course and screw you. kiss my ass. I walked up to my company instructor and told him, I'm out of here. I quit. Are you sure you want to do that? Without thinking, I said, yes. I was reading this book,

and I was like, damn, I was thinking, damn, I mean, holy shit. Yeah, talk about a total breakdown of emotional leadership. I mean, that's your reality. I had, I had, and, and, and, And here's the problem with that. I had allowed this to happen by not managing myself. I had allowed this. I was like a pressure cooker waiting to pop off. And instead of managing it and recognizing it and come to grips with it, I didn't. And it just manifested itself in that moment where I failed the land nav course because of my own arrogance.

And then, you know, I allowed those Ranger. instructor is to get under my skin and that failure instead of immediately saying well hey no big deal i could have gone back and done it again like three days later because there i wasn't the only guy that failed there were other guys that failed but instead of that i instantly just it was one additional blow that i had sustained and being at this tipping point you know i allowed them to get under my skin and snapped and it is the only thing i have ever quit in my life that i have verbally quit i mean for all intents and purposes i rang the bell in that moment. And so angry

and frustrated and listened to that demon that said, your career is over. You will never recover from this. You know, this is the final straw. You know, you had an opportunity and you missed it, man. So, you know, nobody's ever going to follow you again. Yeah.

And everyone screwed you over and put you in this point. Absolutely. That's why, you know, victim, victim, victim mentality. Now, this is a miracle. This is a miracle. This is the biggest God moment that, you know, people don't understand this. This is a miracle. The colonel in charge of Ranger School happens to be friends with Vince Peterson, who we talked

about earlier, and that's not his real name, but he's a legendary seal officer and a prior Vietnam Marine Battle Away City, by the way, just an awesome guy. and for whatever reason, miracle, the colonel that's in charge of Rangers school is friends with Captain Peterson. And here we go, going back to the book, you're sitting there talking to the colonel. Vince Peterson was the greatest natural leader I'd ever known. He had a knack of expressing where the team needed to go with just a few words. He'd plant seeds like his men taking ownership of the plan, then watched as everything went

forward. When the plan succeeded and it almost always did, he never took the credit, he gave it to everyone else. In retrospect, I'm not proud that all I could manage was the fable. And this goes back to something you talk about earlier in the book. But at this point, I was still unable to face the truth myself, let alone admit it to the leader. I respect it above all others. And so here you go. Your conversation with Captain Vince Peterson read, do you really think Ranger School is punishment? It is, sir. Red, have you ever thought that maybe there is an opportunity here? Sir, you have a chance to learn something of value if you're willing to take it.

I didn't know what to say to that. I'd not been trying to learn anything since Afghanistan. I'd been trying to defend and justify. You're getting ready to throw your career away, Red. I'm not sure I have a career left, sir. Red, he said firmly. What are you going to do if you get out? If you come back, you'll be out of the Navy in a month.

How are you going to support your family? He let that sink in. I had no answer and stayed silent. Besides, do you really want to go through your life, having ended your career this way? You can recover. You control your destiny and your future. You can earn back the respect to the guys if you give them something to respect, if your actions demand respect. I hadn't looked at it.

my situation from that angle. Red, get back in that course, finish it, then come back with your head held high, and show that you have the ability to lead. That'll leave a mark. Yeah, well, and, you know, for people to understand, I didn't sleep a wink that night after I quit. And I was so ashamed of what I had done,

and I was so convinced that there was no way I could undo it, that I literally was just resigned to the fact that my career was over. And when I went into that office, I first spoke to the Sergeant Major, and the Sergeant Major asked if I wanted to speak to anybody in the SEAL team. Hell no, man, I don't want to talk to anybody. You know, I am a failure. I am, you know, broken. And then it was the colonel who asked me, and I said the same thing.

So the mere fact, and this is, he didn't even offer. started dialing. And the mere fact, you talk about this fate moment that Vince Peterson happened to be at his phone and answer right then and be on the phone and him to hand it to me. And there was no way in hell. I mean, I had such respect for this man. There was no way I could say no. And, you know, that conversation, you know, this is this is the highest levels of leadership.

to be able to quickly analyze a situation, especially when you're working with people, to understand, you know, okay, this is where we're at, this is the battlefield I'm looking at, this is what I have to work with, and this is what I need to do to move this person to where we're going, to motivate and inspire them. And, I mean, he did it flawlessly. You know exactly what to tell me. He told me both the good and the bad. He gave me hope, and he told me what happens if you don't, which would be hopeless.

You know, I will have you out of the military unless in a month. And then, you know, I tell people that is the most succinct and powerful leadership advice I've ever been given. You know, people will follow you if you give them a reason to, if you give them something to respect. And that really is the foundation of, you know, the three rules of leadership I talk about. Lead yourself. That's 80% of it, you know. Leading others comes naturally. And he was right because I left that office. And the funny thing about it, though, is I got off the phone and I asked the colonel, I said,

sir, would you put me back in class? And he didn't even miss a beat. No. He said instead, you will go to the holding company and we will class you up with a new class a month later. Which is just what you needed. You get rolled back for 30 days going back to the book. I bent down and picked up the cigarette butt lying in the grass at my feet. With a flick, the butt spun into the garbage bag. I'd been dragging cross post with me.

So here you are a combat seal officer picking up cigarette butts. 13 years in. 13 years in. As I filled my bag with litter, the bitterness flared again, I've put in 13 and a half years. I was a member of one of the most elite special operations units in modern history. Millions of dollars were spent preparing me, training me, outfitting me to handle the toughest battlefield tasks our nation can face.

And my own brothers have reduced me to this. I stopped and thought about that statement. Where was the personal responsibility in it? Vince Peterson's word came back to me. You have an opportunity to learn here if you're willing to take it. I served with good men whom I respected. They turned their back on me. Or did they?

What did all this say about me? A door suddenly opened in my mind. The place it led to was a dark room that I had never entered. Inside, I could see the truth about myself through the facade of lies I had built. I stood at its threshold, not really wanting to walk through. Sun Tzu once said, if you know your enemies and you know yourself, you will never be defeated. I didn't know myself. I was running blindly through life, refusing to even acknowledge my weaknesses.

I have been an arrogant ass most of my career. Clearly, I needed to come down to earth. Maybe trash detail did serve a purpose after all. I guess I needed to mentally flatline before I could reconstruct myself for leadership. I found another cigarette butt inflicted into my bag. The bitterness over being forced into this sort of work evaporated. Far from a humiliating bird.

It was giving me clarity I surely needed. For years, my attitude had hobbled relationships and endangered my career. I suddenly recalled a moment years before I'd worked my tail off for months on a special project. When I finished it, I knew I was going to receive a significant award for the effort. For whatever reason, it got downgraded to a lesser award. What did you do after you found out? I'd thrown a temper tantrum.

I went off on one of our admin guys who had congratulated me after I received it. instead of being grateful receiving any sort of acknowledgement, I'd thrown the award of him. I might as well have thrown it in the face of Captain Peterson, who was my CEO at the time. That incident stuck with my peers who witnessed it. And for years after, when I ran into one of them, they'd remind me of it.

Jason Redmond, Navy Achievement Medal Thrower, Vanguard of Leadership. I can't say I look forward to picking up trash the next morning, but I didn't start the day to spy, what would come next. I was a shame that I had thought so highly of myself that I saw myself as above picking up trash. I realized that as a seal leader, it was my responsibility to accept the example with everything I undertook. There you go. There you go. It was, you know, so this is probably the point. And I talked to a lot of people about this. Like I wish I could say that after I hung up the

phone with Captain Peterson that I went back and was like, you know, yeah, let's go. Let's do this. You know, let's crush this. And instead, I still was kind of finishing. I was on that slope down to crash that plane. And I finally crashed that plane and hit really the bottom of the barrel. And it was at that point that I really started to analyze myself. This is something I talk to a lot of people about. You know, you truly have to know yourself. You cannot, because our weaknesses manifest themselves in the hardest times. They don't come out in the good times, and the good times there's no issues with it. And the only way you could manage that, you know, is through mental leadership and emotional leadership at the highest level. Because in the hardest times, and usually

those are the times you've got to be managing the most, is when it comes up. And it was by really starting to rip myself apart and look at, you know, all these things that I had done and understanding, oh yeah, when I get into these situations, I feel that, you know, that meltdown with the Ranger instructors, you know, I felt that coming on. I could have stopped it, but I didn't. I let it go, you know, they lit the fuse and instead of tamping it, you know, out, I let it burn and blow up. So it was, you know, really it was these moments. And this is probably the biggest thing that I tell anybody out there, it is never too late. You can always come back. So for months I had convinced myself that I was a victim. For months I had convinced myself, there was no way to do this.

And for the first time, when I finally looked at, you know, these are your weaknesses. But oh, by the way, man, you've got some amazing strengths. And, you know, you need to figure out how to amplify these strengths, minimize these weaknesses. And what an opportunity you have. You are a seal that's in school that couldn't crush this course, set the example and come back every day as another opportunity. You're going to screw up again and that's okay. But, you know, so for the first time I saw hope standing at the rock bottom and looking up through this tunnel, I saw a glimmer of light. Well, what's, what's, when you say that, what I think about is what people get themselves into, they box themselves into this scenario, and it's exactly where you had boxed yourself into,

which was, hey, look, this guy doesn't like me. This guy's blaming me for that. These people have a bad attitude. And you're, and guess what? Other people, you can't control. And so you end up in a hopeless situation because I can't change this guy's attitude. He's an asshole. He doesn't like me. He, whatever, we had to run in. This person, they don't trust me. And I can't change that. And so when you're in a situation where you can't change the situation at all because you don't have control over any of it, well, then guess what? You're hopeless. But the minute you look at yourself and you say, wait a second, I actually control everything that's going on right now. Everything. People's perception of me is based on my behavior, not theirs. And that's what I liked what Peterson said.

you you control your destiny and your future that's that that to me i highlighted that 98 times you control your destiny in your future and at this point in the book is where you saw and it took you picking up cigarette butts and it took you to that point where you say wait a second all these things that have happened to me i can get control of them and i can turn them in a better direction and yeah that's awesome and the journey began yeah that you kind of expand a little bit more here I could not I could not change my decision but I should you're talking about this is what you're talking about you're reflecting now on what happened on your decision to go into the valley in Afghanistan that whole scenario that you got in trouble for here's what you said

about it I could not change my decision but I should have owned it In its aftermath, I should have listened to those with more experience, taken my lumps, and moved forward. That is how leaders grow. I was so desperate to justify and defend my actions. I lost sight of what to do of what I was there to do. I was there to lead when necessary and to follow when called upon, but above all else to accomplish the mission as part of the team.

Instead, in the aftermath, I made it all about me and the defense of my ego. Again, when you come into the office and you say, this wasn't my fault, I was doing the right thing. Everyone that's looking at you is thinking he doesn't even see what he did wrong. And that's where, you know, you talk about in this book, you talk about the fact that one of the most, one of the most horrible things on the battlefield is an arrogant young person that thinks there's not going to listen to anyone. And you, when you sit there and put up your defenses, you're showing everyone that. Back to the book, yes, senior chief Kerry hated me. We loathed each other. But the truth, he was a damn good

operator in a firefight, I would have wanted him there as a tactical leader. In his own abrasive way, he'd attempted to mentor me. If I had put down my pride, I would have seen it, and I would have learned a lot from him. That never happened. I failed to manage our relationship, and it poisoned the entire platoon. It also hurt my reputation with my teammates. My self-deceit finally collapsed. Carrie had not done this to me. I'd done this all to myself. I was being punished less for the decision I'd made and more for the way I'd I'd fiercely refuse to take responsibility for it. The more I railed against those aligned against me,

the more I deserve to be punished. I wasn't betrayed by my teammates. I betrayed them with my selfishness. It was time to grow up. Damn. Yeah, it was exciting because it suddenly, Ranger School suddenly became a new opportunity. And really, I set my sights on, you know,

kind of interestingly enough, I think all of us are super goal-driven people. And for the first time, I saw an opportunity and set a goal, you know, which is what I think all of us do so well at. You know, we have a target to move to, and now I have a path to go after it. And that path became, I want to graduate the honor man of this course. And set, you know, woke up the next morning firing up the guys around me. And hey, man, we're getting ready to start up again. it's going to be awesome.

Let's go do this. Yeah. Again, I'm harping on this a little bit, but just the fact that this book is so powerful because to walk through that transition, and I'll tell you, anybody that's read Extreme Ownership or anyone that listens to this podcast is going to be especially, they're going to be having an even deeper understanding because I talk about this all the time. And to see you go down that.

path, see where it leads, and then be able to come back out. Being able to come back out is awesome. But it's so powerful to actually hear from your perspective, from someone that was in that exact position and doing those things to hear you saying it and be able to witness the turnaround. It's powerful, powerful stuff. Next morning, I hit the ground running and never looked back. The company I joined was full of strangers. No matter, I did everything full bore, made sure I help, but made sure I help everyone in my squad whenever I could. I was going to be the, I was not going to be the disconnected, selfish jerk. I had been this go around. My heart was fully invested. And you kick ass in Ranger School. You're not honor, man, because you find out that. Yeah,

I only find out at the very end that if you're rolled back, you're not eligible. But I did really well. I was ranked at the top of my peer evals. I mean, all the instructors gave me a lot of, hey, man, you're, you're just crushing it. And so, no matter. It was a goal, you know, another great guy earned it and well deserved. You end up back at the, back of the teams. You go back into a task unit and you're an assistant platoon commander now? Yeah. Again, is this a re-roll as a, is it a re-reaf reload as an assistant platoon commander? Or were you still just super junior because you were a seeming animal guy? No, I had just made JG at this point. So back then we still, you know, now they're kind of doing it differently. A lot of us, Seamanal guys, did have the ability to do two pumps. Yeah. They made me do two pumps. Yeah, yeah.

They wanted me to do two pumps. And this is, I mean, for those who are not aware, there was a little bit of impetus on me because they basically, so as officers, if you ever get a letter or reprimand in your record, it effectively ends your career. I mean, if that official letter goes into your record, you're done. You won't make the next rank. You're going to be out. And they basically wrote this letter. My outgoing CEO, who was in Afghanistan, to my incoming CEO, who was taken over the team. And they basically said, you made some mistakes.

And we question your tactical decision-making and leadership abilities, but we're going to give you a second chance. So this letter, and I was in the office with the CEO, and he put it into his, safe and basically said, this will be burned or shredded at the end of the deployment. If you show us, you have the ability. And if you don't, it will go into your, and they had my officer record right there. And they were like, it will go right here into your record. So, and I think they knew the power of that also. And it gave me additional momentum.

And I think this is important in leadership. You know, I mean, same way we raise our kids. There's got to be accountability. You can't just tell somebody, hey, this is what I want you to go out and do. we have to lay out the right and left limits and tell them this is where you're going to go and you have to have those things that hold you accountable. So I don't know if I necessarily needed that. I was pretty fired up on wanting to get back and set the example and redeem myself.

But I will say, in the back of my mind, I knew, hey, man, you got to crush it. Yeah. That's a, I don't know if that happens in all the military, but in the seal teams, there's a lot of letters that get shredded. And part of it is like a cover your ass. Like when I was a commander, part of it's cover your ass because, hey, look, you screwed up. And if you screw up again and everyone knows that this has happened multiple times and you haven't been counseled about it, I look like an idiot.

And not only do I look like an idiot, I am an idiot if I'm not documented that you screwed something up. So I'm going to document this and make sure that you know I've got it documented. But by the way, I'm not trying to kill you. your career if you can turn it around and you can get back on the path cool this thing's going in the shredder but here it is got to get some ways to go before this thing goes in that shredder yep it's a it's a pretty common thing in the seal team's not too common but um so you're in a task unit you're assistant platoon commander and things are going good and you you were a lot more self-aware

and again you have to read the whole book to get all these details about that transition you're a lot more self-aware. And you started off as mobility commander, and then eventually you start working with the assault team. And here we go. Back to the book after that first successful mission. Now, on the assault team, I had earned a spot in the mix and harmonized with the task units battle rhythm.

Our platoons rotated back and forth between running mobility or running the assault force. The pace was intense, and the mission started to blend together in a groundhog day, sort away. I may have lost my way years ago, but through God and a willingness to work hard and learn my strengths and weaknesses, I had earned my way back into the brotherhood. And you detail some some good missions, some pretty hot missions. You know, you guys got in some pretty good gun fights. And you're getting towards the end of deployment and your T.U. Commander, he's, he, you have a little conversation with him and he says, we're going to have you run as ground force commander on the next one for a second what this really meant failed to register really

jp in the date at this point in the book jp is a guy he's your task unit commander jp nodded yeah i spoke to eric and paul and we all agree you're ready for it besides as it'll help get you up the speed to be a platoon commander at length i finally answered that's awesome thanks for the opportunity you earned it bro he turned to leave i had done it my career was back on track at last i knew so some in our community would always hate me for my mistakes, but I had earned back the trust of the men I served and fought with. Since 2004, I'd been an officer within our community. Rank does not automatically make you a leader. Your character makes you a leader. Your actions make you a leader. Rank is almost irrelevant. After years of selfish focus on myself, I'd finally understood what it

meant to lead men of this caliber and what was required of a man in order to be part of this most elite of all fraternities. The letter in the safe would be destroyed. For an instant, the horizon ahead held no boundaries. And again, I skipped. This was not like an easy process, man. You worked your way right back up.

You started with small jobs. You made some mistakes that you, you know, you talk about the, you lazed the Marine. A Marine colonel and, and, he was not happy about that. Yeah, not happy. So quick story, you're doing deconfliction and you can't identify.

And so you escalate the deconfliction to a visible laser. And then, you know, they realized that both sides were friendlies. And it was a Marine Corps colonel that you were lazing and he wasn't too happy about that. And when you, when your commander brought you in and said, hey, what that happened? You took ownership of it and said, hey, here's the mistakes I made instead of blaming everyone else. So big, big turning point. And I think this is an important point, you know, you know, I mean, within our community, it's pretty hard to turn around when you've made a major mistake like that.

I mean, all the guys get out. We've had guys that have been sent to the fleet. Some never come back. And then some come back and redeem themselves. But in a community. And some just get put into an ostracized position of low importance in society. the SEAL teams. Right. And it's like, oh, cool, yep. Oh, yeah, you're stationed over there. Yep, we know what you're doing and we know all about you. And we get that you still have your Trident

and you're still considered a SEAL, but you're not a team guy. And we all know that. Yeah. You would not be invited to go back to an operational billet. You know, you're relegated to training and all the, you know, other things. So, I mean, it really is for people to understand. I mean, our community is driven by amazingly talented warriors. And at the end of the day, you know, know, the leader, they rely on the guys next to them and their leaders to make those good decisions. So if you've made bad decisions, I mean, to be able to come back and them say, okay, you know, you've shown us that we can trust you once again to lead and make the right decisions. So it really, I tell people, there's the hardest road I've ever walked. I mean,

when I got wounded, I was like, I got this. Yeah, the trust when broken is extremely hard to rebuild and I get asked a lot how do you build trust with people either whether it's been broken or whether you don't know him and it's very clear in the book and again this is why people should get the book the way that you're tasking a commander and I'm trying to think of the alias because I know him to a JP the way that you're tasking the commander is very common to what a guy does he gives you a little bit of responsibility and let you let you earn a little bit of trust and then once you've earned a little bit of trust gives you a little bit more responsibility once you earned a little bit more trust, and that continued going.

This is now a six-month appointment plus a year-long workup or whatever. So he's been giving you a little bit of trust, and you've been earning and earning and earning and earning back your trust. And you are digging out of a deficit, right? That's a lot harder. So that is a lot harder when if you show up as a new guy, you're like a zero, right? And then you're going to get a little trust and maybe you get to a 0.2. And then you get a little bit more responsibility and you get to a 0.4.

You were at like a negative 9. And so you had to just, you know, earn your way back to get to zero. And then once you're at zero, then you had to build up. And at this point in the book, and you did some, again, I'm sorry, I'm not going to go into everything, but you know you had a pretty dynamic, potentially horrible situation unfolding, big gunfight going on. Some headcounts not accounted for people, and you took charge of situation. And that probably is what, you know, jumped you up a bunch of levels. in people going, okay, you know what, we can trust this guy.

And then you continued these to build that trust. And up to the point where, and I need to explain this because I didn't, up to the point where the task unit commander said, okay, one of these next coming missions, we're going to make you the ground force commander and what that means for civilians is that means you're in charge of everything. You're going to go out. You're going to be the main leader, the senior leader,

not even the main. They're going to be the senior leader, the guy in charge of every. that's happening on the battlefield. That's what the ground force commander is. And you're now being, it's the end of deployment. You're being told, look, you've, hey, we want you to be the ground force commander on one of these upcoming operations. And that is the ultimate trust for someone to give to a subordinate is, hey, I want you to go out and take my job that I would normally do. You go do it. So pretty amazing comeback. Oh, humbling. I mean,

Yeah. So you're almost at the end of deployment and a like an op comes up. We were one week away. Yep. One week away. We were packing up to get ready to go home. Note to self. Those last operations.

Be careful. First and last, man. The first missions and the last ones. Gotcha. And it's the mission comes down. It's one of those missions where you guys are kind of. like this probably isn't going to go down. It's sketchy intel, high visibility if it goes. And you're thinking, because we get a lot of those, you know, oh, this is going to happen.

And you get used to getting all amped up. And then eventually you don't even get amped up anymore. You continue with your daily routine, go to the gym, work out, whatever. In this particular case, you literally went to the gym. You're working out like normal. I didn't think there was a chance in hell this mission was going to happen. And some of the guys were looking at it, but I just didn't think it was going to happen. It was already late. So we were outside really the window, you know, to really try and execute in a good manner, in my opinion. And then there were external things, you know, there's some classified factors to it that I don't talk about in the book, which were other some of the really big reasons why I did not think there was any chance this was going to happen.

But it does. And you guys roll out on a, you know, Al-Qaeda target. And definitely you guys had the intel that bad guys expected, security team expected, enemy security team expected. And again, like we would hear that a lot. I mean, it's not like, it's not like, oh, this intel's 100%. And you're not going to do anything different. They tell you there's a enemy security team.

You're like, okay, check, we've heard that 27 times. They've only been there however many times. And so you always always expect it. They had, there was a little more detailed information about this security detail that made it a little bit hairier than some of our regular missions. I mean, there were things that we knew. You got some good intel. Yeah, I can't get into the details. But basically more solid intel.

Absolutely. So it made it a little bit different and kind of raised our hackles a little more than normal. But, you know, the process of the mission is the same. I mean, I know probably you, I've talked. to other people, you know, the guys that did the bin Laden raid, the mechanics of that mission were the same. It was just a level, you know. How we take down a target is pretty much the same regardless of where you go.

And it was the same for this case. There were just some things that made us go, maybe we should prepare a little more. You guys roll on to target and things get pretty intense, pretty quick. Once you've hit the target, you've got it secured. Now we got some squirgers, meaning some folks that we think have run away from the target building. Again, I'm not going to go into the full detail of the mission, which you did a beautiful job of explaining what this was like in the book. And that's why people get the book so they can read it. But as we mentioned earlier, this ends up in a firefight and you're in it.

Going back to the book, I keyed my radio and called JP. Troops in contact, troops in contact. I have three wounded, including me. The machine guns were still blazing away at us. and they walked their barrels right and left, crisscrossing our positions with hundreds of 7.62 millimeter bullets. I recognize that if I didn't get a tourniquet on what I thought was the stump of my left arm, I was going to bleed out.

I looked back at Al and the rest of my team behind the tire. Right then, Al saw me get to my feet and try and run to join them. Al told me this later, but I have no recollection of standing up after I was hit the first time. The P.K.M. Gunner spotted me moving and laid on his trigger. According to Al, I'd only take it. a step or two in my head whip sawed forward and my body spun around to the left I fell limp to the ground the team thought I'd been killed I'll recognize the dire situation we were in and called in an immediate fire mission the AC 130 crew turned it down the first time

two times before finally making Al acknowledged that if anything happened to us it was Al's fault not the gun ships the first 25 millimeter shells hit the thicket behind the enemy I lay less than 50 feet from the enemy machine gun that engaged me. I drifted in and out of consciousness the entire time. Awake in a fog of confusion, one minute, out cold the next. Al risked his life to save me. During a lull in fire, he rose from behind the tire and charged over to me. Sean laid down cover fire as Al ran into the teeth of that PKK.

Bullets cracked and whined around him, but he reached me and dragged me back behind the tire where he put a tourniquet on my mangled arm. I remember nothing of this, and I didn't know Al had even moved me to the tire until months after the firefight. The Medevac bird arrived a few minutes later, and the guys helped us aboard. Once we were airborne and out of harm's way,

the remainder of the task unit fell back to the original target compound to wait for extract, but the fight wasn't over. The gunship detected more movement in the thicket. Enough was enough. Al called in 105 millimeter howitzer from the AC130 and turned the thicket into a smoking crater.

Months later, when J.P. He'd visited me at home, I learned that the Al-Qaeda commander had fled the house when he heard our birds coming at the start of the mission. He left part of his personal security detail behind to fight a battle he had no stomach for himself. And they died to the last man

after inflicting three casualties on us. Months later, another SEAL team ran the Al-Qaeda commander to the ground and killed him. Justice served. So that firefight, and again, people should read the book to get the details of that firefight, but just reading about you, wounded, which I've covered that part, and now you're up and

run and get shot in that face and down every, you know, guys think you're dead. And, you know, I should have covered this with a little bit more detail, but, you know, you're trying to make calls. You're trying to let people know what's going on. You're trying to decipher the situation because it was a rough situation that you guys were in. And you end up, you know, getting extracted. Your boys took care of you.

They did. I owe my life to those guys. I mean, they fought back. That gunship overhead, you know, Force Special Operation Squadron. And I owe my life to those guys. That was the closest fire mission ever in the Iraq War. We were well, well.

wouldn't bring in that mission because we were we were literally within any danger close parameter there were the machine guns that had me pinned down were about 45 feet 50 feet away so um al did an amazing job i mean this was his third combat deployment you know experienced jac experienced team leader and you know really i mean he hung it all out there exposed himself to get me saved my life with my tourniquet and the rest of the guys you know fought amazing to get us out of there and get off the axe and survive and yeah I wanted Al to get a Navy Cross they they downgraded it to a Silver Star to this day you know I'll tell anyone he deserved Navy Cross but all those guys did an amazing job I owe my life my life to them and the

gunship it and obviously you know in the beginning of the book you know the thought that I'd lost my arm and what happened is actually, I guess, my arm was pinned under me. So when I reached for it, I couldn't feel it. And, you know, it just stunned all my nerves. There was nerve damage too, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So when, when, and this is kind of an interesting point that I talk to people about and something I'm speaking on all the time now, this idea of surviving. So having trained in a career where we learn how to execute ruthless and devastating violence of action in an ambush to crush the enemy and destroy the enemy in that kill zone on the X. And to now be on the flip side of that coin and be in a very well-executed ambush.

I mean, they had us, it was an L ambush. They had us caught in a very good crossfire, you know, and just sheer will for us to fight and at least push back enough that it gave us a window. and by the end sheer we were sheer luck that there happened to be that tractor tire back there at least one point of cover because beyond that there was nothing but thousands of yards of open Iraqi desert but to be in that ambush in that devastating and withering crossfire I stepped out of that ambush into another ambush and the next ambush was what I call a life ambush Suddenly here I was. I'd been on this amazing journey of failure, growth, understanding, gaining experience and wisdom and redemption. And, you know, career back on track, getting ready to screen and go over to the next level SEAL team was my goal. When I came back from that deployment, I was doing that.

And suddenly to find myself laying in a hospital bed so weak. I needed nurses to help me go to the bathroom from the amount of blood loss I had. The very first thing I woke to was the doctor's telling me most likely they were going to have to amputate my arm. I had no use of my hand. I had not seen myself in the mirror. My face was totally blown apart. I had lost my nose, cheekbone, my eye, the bullet traveled. The bullet hit me right in front of the ear, traveled through my face and exited the right side of my nose.

So it took off most of my nose. took out most of my cheek bone. It vaporized my orbital floor, so my eye actually dropped down into the newfound hole in my face. So it damaged my eye muscles. I broke all the bones above my eye. It shattered my jaw. I broke my jaw to my chin.

So I had not seen myself laying in the hospital bed, and I'll be honest, I wasn't ready to look at myself. I knew I had tubes coming out of everywhere. I was traked. I was wired shut. I had a stomach tube. they were feeding me. So I stepped into this next ambush. I was, you know, with this thought of where do I go from here. And I'll be honest, for the first couple of days, I kind of struggled,

and I think this is natural. So we talk about this idea being pinned down on the X and how we have to survive in whether it's a real world ambush or it's a life ambush. For anyone that's out there that's encountered some sort of devastating event, and I classify. a life ambush as an event that'll forever leave physical, mental, or emotional scars on you. You have to get off the X. So I'm laying there in this hospital bed, and I'm like kicking myself. I'm like, God, man, what if I, you do the things that humans do when bad things happen. We start to think, well, what if I had done this or what if I had done that?

Or, you know, what if I could go back and change this fact? And I did that for probably, I don't know, 36 hours after I got to Bethesda, you know, just kind of lost in my mind thinking about it. And at one point, I just said, stop. You can't go back and change the past, man. What's happens, happen? The only thing you can do is shape the future. And I thought back to that journey that I had been on from ground zero, from that broken man in Afghanistan ready to kill myself to where I had come. And I said, dude, the only thing you can do from here is shape the future.

So get off the X and go. And I never look back from that point. And I tell people that, you know, you have to push yourself into those zones of discomfort so that you can handle these hard situations when they come. Because if you've never forge yourself, if you've never been put into these areas of discomfort, you're going to be crushed when they come because you're not going to be ready. I was so ready for that moment when it came. I mean, you know, it took me about 36 hours after I got home to figure it out,

but still, that's pretty quick for a devastating injury like that. And I never looked back. You're in Bethesda, and just to kind of give a little bit of detail around that. You got some doctor named, female doctor named Dr. Mallard. And here we go. Back to the book. She's about to list your kind of your situation that you're in with energetic bluntness. She laid out the extent of my wounds.

The machine gun bullet entered just in front of my right ear. It shattered my jaw, vaporized my right orbital floor, destroyed my cheek, and exited through my nose. I'd suffered nerve damage as well. Virtually nothing was left in my cheekbone or ocular floor bones on the right side of my face. She and her tame was amazed. I didn't suffer greater eye damage, so that was a blessing. My nose was almost completely destroyed and we need a full reconstruction. They would need to repair my shattered jaw, implant a titanium plate to replace the ocular floor,

and would have to repair the damage to the rest of my facial bones on the right side. I was still under the impression they could fix me right up and get me back into the teams. Now I was not so sure. And at this point, your jaws wired shut and your trick so you can't talk so you write out a note. How many weeks are we looking at here, Doc? Weeks, she said surprised. No, Jay. We're talking years.

A few years, at least. years. It didn't even sink in at first. There will be progressive surgeries. Each one will need to be fully healed before we can move on to the next one. She went on to explain that there was no roadmap for the extent of the, because of the extent and nature of my wounds. My case was highly complex, and I would require extensive bone and skin grafts in the years ahead. After she left, I struggled to keep my spirits up. This was news. I did not want to hear. year. Yeah. You know, and this is an interesting fact. You know, I talk to a lot of other team guys about this. I think a lot of us, we do a really good job in the SEAL teams. And, you know,

I'd like to assume other military units do the same. We do a really good job of preparing guys if they get killed. You know, page two, we make sure they're all taken care of. I don't think any of us ever give much thought. I sure didn't if I was severely wounded. I think most of us think, one side of the coin is, you know, it'll be merely a flesh wound, you know, and we'll walk away and we'll get back. And then the other side of the coin is I'll be killed. And I was good with either of those. I, you know, just kind of resigned myself to that fact. So it was a whole other thing to be severely wounded and be faced with this fact that, hey, you may be forever disabled. And it was tough for you. And here's you run into this situation going back to the book, one afternoon, two family

members came to visit us. Erica took the opportunity to step out and grab some lunch for herself. I talked with them for a bit, which left, which quickly fatigued me. I started to drift off before I even realized it. While I was dozing, I heard them whispering to each other. I only got fragments of the conversation, but it was enough. They were full of pity for me. When Erica returned and my relatives departed, I wrote down all that had happened. Recounting it sent me into a fury again. I tore off the sheet of paper and handed it to her. Then I thought for a minute and added never again never again would someone feel feel sorry for me I fought for my country and I'll fight to regain my health so I will ultimately be able to return to our nation's

battlefields I was not here for sympathy I was here to recover to be a leader to set an example of mental fortitude it would be all too easy to give up into despair but I refused there were men and women in this complex who were far more badly wounded than I was missing limbs burned suffering brain trauma or eyesight loss I would be grateful for what I had determined to succeed in the days ahead and when you use these principles I learned over the last two years to guide me forward I wrote a note to all my visitors and asked Erica to hang it up on the door and here's what the note said attention to all who enter here if you are coming into this room with sorrow or to feel sorry for my wounds go elsewhere The wounds I received, I got in a job I love, doing it for people I love, supporting the freedom of a country I deeply love.

I am incredibly tough and will make a full recovery. What is full? That is the absolute utmost physically my body has the ability to recover. Then I will push that about 20% further through sheer mental tenacity. This room you are about to end. is a room of fun, optimism, and intense rapid regrowth. If you are not prepared for that, go elsewhere from the management. And awesome.

I mean, and that picture got sent to me by someone, and eventually it got sent to everyone by everyone. So it was a viral picture of that sign on your door that you eventually put in bigger writing to make sure everyone saw it. That's right. Um, you, you eventually, you do get home. And again, you know, it always I, I, I, when, Jacko, I, I want to make a really important point about this, because that, that, that, that was really a learning point for me or it was a, a jump point.

And it, and it comes back to what we, we talked about earlier in the beginning, a little bit of this social leadership idea, who you surround yourself with. And in that moment, I had individuals that wanted to express. pity and I realized how dangerous that was because if I listened too long to people express that it would be easy to accept that to accept this victim mentality and I'd walk that road before and I was like no way am I going to allow that to happen it is a choice and that's what people need to understand you know having a positive attitude on how you handle the situations you're in is a choice and the more you accept positivity and drive it forward the more you actually start to believe it and it will create momentum and that's really what happened with that sign i said it i

will not allow that to happen again no one will come in here and be sad because i refuse i will not allow it and uh and you you never know the impact of the decision that you're going to make you you never know how even though deep down inside you're like you know holy shit how do i get out of this situation but you project that positivity who you can bring with you and bring up and and how much you can an impact that will last a lifetime. That sign has gone on to help hundreds of thousands of people. I've had people write me that have had cancer. I've had people that have written me that have had major horrific accidents.

I didn't keep the sign. I had it framed and it hangs in the wounded ward at Walter Reed. And the bottom of the sign is like rub clean now. And I'm told that all these wounded warriors, whenever they go to a surgery, they go by and they rub it. And it just, it continues to have this impact. Secretary Gates wrote about the sign in his book. Michelle Obama's book just came out. She wrote about the sign and what the impact is. So one moment of saying, I'm not going to allow someone else to drive my thinking, makes all the difference. And I tell so many people that. It is a choice. It is a choice. You can choose to be a victim and to feel

sorry for yourself or you can choose to be a victor and drive forward even if you don't believe it in the moment it doesn't matter you know say it live it and start driving forward and that belief will catch fire within you and everybody else around you no doubt about it man and and the the unfortunate opposite that is when you start allowing yourself to be negative and you start listening to people that want to be negative and drag you down, you can easily head yourself in that direction as well. So when you make choice and make a decision on which one of those two directions you want to move in,

up or down, we recommend you move up, move forward. Yeah, absolutely. Later that spring, Eric and I went out to eat at a local outback steakhouse to celebrate the unwiring of my jaw. it had been almost seven months since I've been able to chew food I was still underweight and confined to a wheelchair because of the grass but we both needed a night out I just you know when I was reading this book

I was like eating something whatever you know and it's just one of those things that we all take for granted every single day and you know I've had multiple prisoners of war on this podcast and you know they're eating a ball of rice once a day or ball of rice twice a day that has chips of wood in it for three years, for six years. And here you are, you know, you're not a prisoner of war, but something as simple as eating a steak. And that really, like, hit me hard because, as you know, I take stakes very seriously. And to think that, like, for seven months, no steak.

And the daily things. And that always gets me thinking about the daily things that when I talk to my friend, that have been wounded, it's like, it's the daily, everyday things. And as a matter of fact, when we had Jim Webb on and he was talking about one of his friends that have been wounded in Vietnam, and he's like, that's the daily courage. Like, that guy was courageous in Vietnam, but he's courageous every single day, takes him X amount of time to get up out of bed, takes him X amount of time to get his prosthetics, it takes him X amount of time to do normal functions that people can normally do easily.

he's got to struggle with them all and he does it every single day without complaining daily courage and so just thinking about you in that situation man awesome i flew to chicago almost once a month of preparation for my first surgery with dr walton which he'd scheduled for july the airports and their crowds continued to be a torment little kids pointed at me and called to their mothers to look at me too people refused to talk to me they'd act ashamed or embarrassed or they'd set expressions of pity on their Faces. Internally, I raged at them. Are these the people I sacrificed for? Coming back from a ship, coming back from Chicago on one trip, I just broke. Everyone who stared at me, I treated with a sudden, boo. By the end of the trip, though, I realized I needed to do something different

or the bitterness would eat me alive. It gave me a thought. I came up with an idea. I went online and designed a couple T-shirts. The first one said, stop staring. I got shot by a machine gun. It would have killed you. I put an American flag on the back and called it wounded wear so are you still making wounded wear shirts so wounded wear is on pause for right now but it will be coming back so we we've got some work we're getting things online in 2019 but yeah a lot of people have asked me when it will it come back it will be back I assure you yeah so this podcast is eternal so most likely when people are listening to this it is live you get it you can get your wounded wear t-shirt

That's right. Yeah, you were talking about that sign, and that sign got so much attention and was so impactful to so many people. You ended up going to the Oval Office. You ended up meeting President Bush with your family. And then you ended up coming back to the White House again, and we're going back to the book. I went to Mike Monsor's Medal of Honor ceremony in the White House that April. Mike was a fellow seal who had jumped on a hand grenade thrown onto a rooftop he had and saved two of his teammates in a firefight in Ramadi he shielded his brothers with his own body and paid the ultimate price for that devotion it was deeply moving to be there to see Mike's family receive his posthumous Medal of Honor but while I was there I met another seal named Ryan Jobb he'd been part of the team three and had served with legendary sniper Chris Kyle in Iraq during the 2006 campaign.

Ryan had been a Mark 48 machine gunner for the team and during a firefight that spring a bullet had struck his weapon then hit him in the face destroying his right eye. He survived and reached Bethesda much as I would a year later but nerve damage cost him his vision in his left eye. The prospect of spending the rest of his life blind had to have been terrifying, though he never showed it. Instead, he announced that if he had to be blind, he would be the best damn blind man there was. So that's where I met you for the first time. Obviously, Mikey and Ryan and Chris were all with me in Task Unit Bruiser, and you came out for the Medal of Honor ceremony for Mikey. and I actually remember looking at you guys,

you know, looking at you guys talking to each other. And I actually thought I had pictures of it, but I didn't. I thought I had pictures of you two talking, but I didn't have any pictures. But it was crazy to sit there and look at both you guys that had been, you know, both been shot. Unfortunately, Ryan, you know, he lost vision in both eyes,

which obviously could have happened to you very easily. And thank God. You know, it didn't. And you guys kind of, you know, I guess when you have getting shot in the head in common, you guys kind of became bros and continue on here. Ryan and I bumped into each other on multiple occasions over the next several months. On one of the occasions, Ryan had come out to the East Coast SEAL teams for a Wounded Warrior, a benevolent organization conference.

As we made small talk and met different people, I, Ryan, and another SEAL who had been shot in the eye were joking around and came up with the idea for a cleveland. club for seals who had been shot in the head. It was a very small club. We decided to call the club shit. Seals hit in the head. We unanimously voted on our motto, this club sucks. So, yeah, just, just pretty awesome. And that's pretty much that, you know, that's definitely Ryan Biggles, Job's attitude was, he was just going to have an, awesome time all the time regardless what situation he was in he was going to he was going to get after

it and um yeah it's cool to see you guys meet yeah Ryan was awesome and you know he was ahead of it was interesting because the reconstruction process that they were doing with me was the same they were doing with Ryan and obviously I was blessed to keep my vision although they were fixing things with this right eye so often I'd call him and I'd be like hey you know you had this done How did you do? Do you have any recommendations? Like anything, you go to the people who have experience. So Ryan and I got close through that.

Yeah. Just kind of learning from him. One of the, this was another bit of a surprise to me. Again, this is the kind of thing that I never had to think about. But here you go. Going back to book, in the months that followed, I knew that I was in for the long game. The slog through surgeries and setbacks continued. And again, you got to read this book to realize the absolute

just medical, uh, medical, uh, medical trauma that you're going through day in, day out. And this really drove it home to me. I called it medical buds. There you go.

That's really what it was. Medical buds. And here's, here's one thing that just hit me like a ton of bricks. By the summer of 2009, I was starting to run low on the available patches of skin for grafting. My body was roped with scars from surgical sites and over a dozen grafts. That to me, I'm thinking to myself, I mean, you're running out of skin to graft to do damage repair to your face. What is that process like?

So a lot of times they harvest the skin from, you know, your thighs and areas. And it wasn't that I was just running out of skin. They were running out of skin because I've got quite a few tattoos. So my back is totally tattooed, you know, top of my arms. So that's what the problem was becoming. Putting tattooed skin on other parts of your body is no big deal. They could have cut that in a second. But obviously they were like, you know, I did not want to put tattooed skin on my face.

So that's where we were starting to run into issues. And this really is something that a lot of people don't understand with battlefield injuries is they're super dirty. Bombs are dirty. Bullets are dirty. and you fall in the soil and you bleed into the soil overseas and that's dirty. So the vast majority of wounded warriors come home, especially from this war, with infection problems. And there's so many guys, myself included, that it's not your initial injuries that are as devastating.

I mean, obviously there's levels of devastation, but for so many of us, it's the infection problems. So many guys come back with their limbs and end up losing their limbs because of the infection. I had major infection problems, which caused us to continue have to do more and more graphs. They would have to cut out what they had done because it was infected and failed. They rebuilt my nose three times. So the first two, they had to totally cut out and start over. So that's why we were starting to run into issues.

Hey, where do we get more cartilage? Where do we get more skin? They can use cadaver, but it does not last. It doesn't always take. So they always want to use your own body. And that's where we started to run into issues. September 24th, 2009, Ryan Job is dead. I hadn't known Ryan incredibly well.

I wouldn't call him a close friend. We talked on the phone occasionally. We shared a common experience and discussed our notes on recovery. And we shared a twisted sense of humor. But above all, I respected his spirit and relentless energy recapture all, all he could out of life. He made the most of every moment and achieved things most people

with their eyesight intact, never would. In 2008, he climbed Mount Rainier. When I heard about that, I was blown away. In the climbing community, the 14,000-foot volcanic mountain in Washington State is considered one of the most difficult to summit in all North America. It has deadly crevices, narrow ledges, and glacial ice. It is as technical climb

as you can find. Mount Rainier claims on average three lives a year of those who aspire to summit. And Ryan made it to the top two years after that bullet robbed him of his vision. He and Kelly, who he had married, he and Kelly were getting ready

to have a daughter together. Ryan had started a new life, found a fresh path to blaze, and had built something from the ruins. He really was being the best damn blind man out there. Then with the snap of cosmic fingers, it was all stolen from him. And if you don't know the story, there was, he went through one of his many surgeries because he was still going through surgeries.

And after the surgeries, there was complications. And he died as well. They killed him. I mean, they messed up. Yeah. They overdosed him. That was a total mistake, and that slayed me. Ryan's death rocked me because I know how hard it is to stay positive

and to drive forward despite these really hard injuries. And it just killed me to know that, you know, it was a medical mistake that killed him. You know, I mean, it's hard enough to go through all this, and you survived battle and all these things. So that really shook me when Ryan had died. And you're still looking at unknown numbers of surgeries ahead at the time? Yeah, I was halfway through. So this was 2009.

I ended up having surgeries all the way up until 2011. Yeah, and the other thing that was crazy about Ryan was, I'm not going to say he was out of the woods I mean but he was pretty damn far out of the woods and that's why you know to lose him like that was just a a fucking nightmare yeah at this point you still want to get back to the teams

and you're trying to get your arm fixed to the point where you can have enough mobility in it to change magazines to operate your weapon so you're going to a bunch of different people trying to see who is who can make this happen you finally find a guy that's you know you think you have a good lead on somebody that can make this happen and he you go to see him and he says going back to the book jay i'm going to be frank with you if you were my son i wouldn't let you do this what you have now is the best possible outcome if you proceed and have another surgery you'll probably lose some of the range of motion you have now worse you'll set yourself up for a lifetime of chronic pain

the drive home was a quiet one for me as i deliberated whether or not to roll the dice one last time by the time i turned off the freeway for virginia beach i knew it was not worth the risk my days as an operator were over part of me always suspected this might happen this might happen now it was confirmed I had no epiphanies during the drive home about what to do now as that dream to kick doors again slipped away. What would I do? How would I support my family? I didn't have any answers, but I knew one thing.

I'd live as Ryan Job had, honor his memory, and never take another day for granted. Death reminded me that nothing is guaranteed in life. It can be taken away in a heartbeat. The life you've built with everything you've got can come apart an instant from circumstances far beyond your control. You either adapt and overcome or you become a casualty of those twists of fate. I refused to be a casualty. So you get this news that, hey, you're not, we can't do this.

This is what you got what you got. This is where you're at. and the idea of getting back operational again is gone. And it's funny, you and I were just talking about, you know, you were over talking to some students at Buds and you had a guy that was, was, what did he been injured? Older guy, you said it wasn't really able to come back? Yeah, he's medically dropped.

Medically dropped, not going to be able to come back. And so dream is gone. And it's interesting, you're talking to him. and you'd been through it. You've been through it. And your attitude was, okay, what am we going to do now? And like I told him, I mean, so, you know, this idea of life ambushes, I told him, I said, you just stepped into one.

And they're small ones and big ones. A lot of times they're totally unexpected, but the reality is most ambushes aren't totally unexpected. There are indicators that we see before we ever get into it. Whether we're aware of seeing them or not, sometimes it's after the fact that we look back. 9-11 is a good example of there were indicators that we missed before 9-11 happened. For us as seals, when we move into areas, we know that's a bad area. We are in an area where we're getting channelized. There's high ground above us. This would be a good area to execute an ambush. You know, for me, I had seen those indications. coming so I kind of knew what was coming I had met so many doctors who said literally

the doctor from Johns Hopkins who put my arm back together they actually wrote a medical journal about what he did with my elbow I mean he successfully reconstructed an elbow that had been totally destroyed and it was always funny to me there's an arrogance and I think there has to be there has to be a little bit level of arrogance and confidence and high-level orthopedic surgeon so every time I I'd go meet one of these guys, they'd be like, oh, yeah, I can fix your arm. And then they'd slap that x-ray up, and I'd watch. It was like the air got sucked out of the room as they looked at it.

And then they would look at me and they'd say, yeah, man, I'm sorry. They're like, I don't even know how your arms work and the way it is. So when I met the guy from Duke, who was one of the premier hand-and-arm guys, literally the guy that put my arm together was probably the premier hand-and-arm guy. And I tried to get him to go back and do more. And he said, no. He said, there's no way in hell. He said, your arm, he said, going into your arm and getting what we got is a miracle. He's like, I am not going back in.

And I recommend against anybody else doing it. Well, I still tried to find other doctors. And it was this guy from Duke who finally convinced me. So when that moment came, I kind of knew. So as opposed to this young man from Buds, it was less. unexpected than what I stepped you know for me it was less unexpected so it just became where do I go from here and and interestingly enough I had laid out some different things for myself one I wanted to do a 20-year career so that kind of

became my first thing can I still stay in and finish my career maybe I can't be operational at this point I was at Damnack and I think I was at 18 years at this point. So it had been four years, almost four years from my injury. And so over a couple of days, I talked to, I was working in operations and I just said, hey, what are our options? What can we do? And they actually allowed me to go work some new things, different projects and different things. So it was great. They allowed me to finish what I set out to do. But it also gave me a decent amount of time. At this point, it was another year before we started the medical retirement process, which actually took two years. So it carried me to 21 years. And it gave me a lot of time

to really look at, you know, where does my future go from here and to kind of lay out, what are my new passions, what is my purpose, and where do I go from this life after the military? What can I do with all these lessons that I've learned? And, you know, how do I pay it forward? How do I honor Ryan? How do I honor all these guys that every day I walk by this granite wall and they didn't get a choice. They didn't get a choice to come home. So thankfully, you know, I had that time. It's still within the community, but also coming to grips with the fact that, you know, like I talked to those young men about, so many people are so strongly tied to what they do

for a living that they cannot function if suddenly it's taken away from them. I meet a lot of police officers and firefighters or professional athletes that if suddenly their career is over, they don't know how to function without that. They've tied their identity so much around what they've done. And I realized that the lessons that I learned in the SEAL teams and this journey that I'd been on was incredibly relatable. And it had nothing to do with tactical lessons. You know, I didn't need to be the guy that got out and taught you out to shoot or do anything like that. What I realized is there were amazing life lessons. The lessons, human lessons, lessons in leadership and teamwork and overcoming adversity

and this idea of helping people, you know, not only survive but thrive from crisis and ambushes. So that really started to become the path that I was walking and to help other wounded warriors. Well, I just want to wrap this last little section of the book Because we're talking about the identity and what you invested your life into and You say this I held the trident in my hand this golden emblem had driven my life I focused on it I coveted it I became enamored by it I almost lost it and then I earned it back before I sacrificed my body for it Only then did I finally understand what it truly represented. It carried the spirit of warrior poets like Mike Murphy, Mike Monsor, and Chris Kyle.

It carried the spirit of my friends Ryan Job, Adam Brown, Mike McGreevy, Kevin Houston, and the 79 other men who have made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom and the brotherhood since 9-11. I didn't know why God spared me. but I did know I would find a way into the future where I would use each and every day to honor my brothers who had not made it home. Obviously, you've done a lot to honor our brothers. And I think you continue to do that obviously every day with what you're doing and how you're doing it and how you're taking the lessons that you learned and bringing them to, to more people spreading the word broadly. What did that transition look like from the time you got out into where you are now?

Because, you know, I mean, obviously everyone that's in the military right now, one day, I hate to break the news to y'all, one day you're going to be not in the military anymore. Bring us from, you know, the end of your career into where you are now and where you're focused right now and what you're doing. Yeah, absolutely. I think that transition is a lot harder than people realize. I think a lot of things, I'm sure you experience this. We take for granted the level of structure that exists in the military, and suddenly you get out in the civilian world and that's not there. I was a little bit fortunate enough that I had launched the nonprofit,

Wounded Ware later to become the Combat Wounded Coalition while I was still on active duty. So when I got out, that kind of became my focus. Got it. I will say that I made the mistake that a lot of military members and especially special operations members make when they get out. I tried to do everything. Everything I saw was an opportunity that I didn't want to lose out on. And I falsely convinced myself, yeah, I have the ability to do that. So running the nonprofit, we did a lot of amazing things.

You know, $2.5 million, we helped thousands of wounded warriors, even created a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, specifically to help one new warriors build structure, find their new passion. But what I started to realize, and I was doing all this while I was still trying to speak and develop content and work on things and take care of a family and kids and all these things. And I kind of had an epiphany in 2018. I'd been doing this for, you know, I had retired in 2013. So five years I had been doing this. And I suddenly realized you've got to find that one thing that you try. truly are going to make a difference at. And I took a step back in 2018 and said, where can I have the most impact and what really is my new mission? What drives my passion? Where is my destination? Where am I going to set that course to go?

And I realized, I look back, you know, we were doing a lot of great things with the nonprofit, but there's 43,000 veteran nonprofits out there. We are losing more guys to suicide right now than we lost to the enemy. and I said, okay, so one option is you go create a whole other nonprofit, but there's a lot of good ones out there, and I think that's part of the problem. It's diluting some of the message. So I said, maybe I'm better off focusing on helping a whole bunch of people with this message and lending my support to another organization. So myself and the board made the decision that we were going to phase down our organization in 2018 and 2019 made that shift that I'm totally full. focusing on delivering this content, to help people overcome adversity, to launch themselves

out of failure and to not only survive, which some people just survive from these life ambushes from these massive catastrophic events, but to thrive from them, to use them as a launch point to get better, and to understand how to do that. Because I realize, man, you know this. You've written all this amazing content on it, And all that is coming into the second book that will come out in December called Overcome. So I have online courses that are getting ready to come on board here in the next couple of months. And I just want to get out there and help as many people as I can and then lend myself to some of the organizations that are out there that are helping our wounded warders

specifically with post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries. One of the things I've started doing a lot of research and what we're beginning to understand is, I used to think that if we could help guys find a new purpose after they got out, it would help solve their problems, wounded warriors. But what we're beginning to understand is that we have never, the way we train now and the way we have fought wars is exposing guys, especially on frontline combat units and special operation units to level of blast that we've never, and up until this point in the way we train in the military we haven't done before. So, I mean, you look at our breaches and how many blasts we expose

them to, just in training. And what we're starting to see, I mean, I've had multiple friends now that have killed themselves who I said, no way, no way. And I've watched these downward slides. And what we're starting to find out is we are creating physiological impacts on the brain from these continued exposures to these blasts. So we need more research. We need, you know, we need more non-pharmacological solutions to these problems. And there's a lot of things that are out there that are on the forefront. So one of the things with research, I started doing some stuff with the Concussion Legacy Foundation, which is the same group working with the NFL or, you know, highlighting the impact of CTE on NFL players. And we're beginning to realize that some of our special operations guys,

like Rob Guzo, who took his life, severe CTE. But what they figured out is it's different. Some of the premier neurologists that are out there figuring out it's different. It's, uh, it's blast. And the blast goes all the way through the brain as opposed to a concussion that creates an impact and there's a centralized location. Now, for guys or even gals out there that I've had multiple concussions, that creates more. But the bottom line is we need this research. So I donated my brain to the concussion legacy foundation. And I'm encouraging all the veterans that are out there. If you have been in combat, donate your brain. You don't need it. it. You don't need it when you're gone and they're not going to come early and collect,

you know, but the bottom line is it is an amazing way to be able to give back to the veterans that are coming up behind you because they don't have enough veteran brains in the brain banks that are out there to understand the kind of trauma we're putting on our brains. And until they, and obviously they can't study the brains while we're still alive. So if you want a way to give back, look up the Concussion Legacy Foundation and donate your brain. I did it. We need the research. 20, 30 years from now, we can make a difference to save some young warrior that's out there that got exposed to blasts and now can't figure out why his world is falling apart around him. So those are my passions. That's my purpose. And I want to help as many people out there. I want to

make you better, help you thrive from adversity, help you thrive from failure and crisis. And for our wounded warriors I want to help try and solve this epidemic we're seeing in the suicides and the brain trauma yeah that's I mean that's just awesome it's awesome to see you moving forward with that and I know we've been going for a while here and that's probably a pretty good place to wrap where do where can people find you where should people locate you and when they want to when they want to hear from you yeah absolutely best place go to jasonredman dot com that's my website and you can see what I'm doing. You can contact me through there. I'm on all the major social media platforms, Jason Redmond on Facebook, and Jason Redmond, WW on Instagram and Twitter. Awesome.

Echo, speaking of making people better, do you have any quick recommendations on how, you know, we could improve ourselves? Sure. This is Echo Charles, by the way. I have one question. in Ranger School when they told you to like all right when they asked you do you need your Gucci was that the thing that kind of sent you over the edge when they said the Gucci thing

no I don't think it was that really it was it was the Land Nav comments I mean I had taught Land Navs so the funny thing about that Gucci jacket is so the Army guys were only allowed to wear the Army jacket liner well we didn't have those

and I some Gucci Paddock I had the, remember the green fleece that came? Yeah, that's what I had. So every day I put that on, the reindeer instructors would lose their minds. And in the beginning, I had such a bad attitude that I just took it in the negative way. But the second time I went through, it became the, how often can I put this on and spin these guys up? So I still have it.

To this day, I still have it. Every time I pull it out of my closet, it puts a smile on my face. Nice. Nice. What else? No, man, that's it. For questions. Yeah, yeah, we can talk about getting better, though. Yeah. And Jay's about to start training in Jiu-Jitsu. Boom. So he's going to need a J-Jit-Ti-Gi. So we need to get that hooked up.

Where are we going to hook him up with a Ghee from? Origin, 100%. Not even 99%. 100%. 100. Origin, all made in America. Hey, that's what we need. Continue to grow this country. Yes, sir.

So, yeah, origin. If you're into Jiu-Jitsu, getting into J-Jitsu, or already in Judith, you want a new ghee or another ghee. I thought you were going to say used ghee. You can get a used guy. Is it a market for used geese? No. Not that I was going to say, it probably depends on who wore it. I guarantee there's people out there that would love a jaco ghee, but that gets a little weird.

Yeah, that doesn't smell good. Well, yeah, maybe some people, maybe if someone like lost weight or something, you know, I don't use this guy anymore. You would make sense. You wear out geese, too. Eventually, you wear out a ghee. Although I was talking to Pete the other day, the amount of ghee pants or geese period that have been returned is like so, he said, yeah, we get like three geese back a year with someone that's actually worn something out. They just don't wear out. The orange geese just do not wear out.

Yeah. Yeah. So get some of that. Yeah, you got to like, yeah, like if you lose weight or something and then you don't use it anymore. Or if you're like, you get the new one. And you know how like you turn you back to the old one because the new one, that's the new hotness, you know? You don't really wear it anymore, so you give it to your friend or something like this. There's that.

You get geese, rash guards, t-shirts, other stuff. Yeah. Supplements. Supplements. Joint warfare. Joint warfare and krill oil turned out to be the most important supplements there are, in my opinion. Dang. You thought it was the protein powder and the creatine.

That's what we thought in the beginning, not anymore. Joint warfare. In the 90s, we thought that? Yeah. Well, yes, I agree. We do have Joint Warfarin Coal Oil. And if you do want protein, you might as well enjoy it. Yes, sir.

Get yourself some milk. It's still good for you. We need protein. We need protein. We do need protein. We do have milk, which, have you tried milk? I haven't. Okay, we can get you some milk.

And especially, well, it depends on what flavors you like. I like mint chocolate chip. I am a fan of mint chocolate chip. I am a fan of mint chiquet. But apparently Doc Luke hates mint. Well, apparently he was going berserker the other day saying, why would you drink something that tastes like toothpaste? Yeah. Yeah.

But so as it turns out, you know, back to another fence analogy, some, it's like you either love it or you really don't like it. That's what as it turns out, that's the situation with the mint. We got mint, peanut butter chocolate, vanilla gorilla. I'm a huge fan. Peanut butter chocolate. Okay. That's okay. That's my jam.

I do like mint chocolate. What about vanilla? I got hostile with my whole family the other day. Well, not with my whole family, with my wife and my youngest daughter. Because there was no, I wanted some yogurt. And there was no blueberry. There was no strawberry. There was no coconut.

There was only vanilla. And so I started saying, why would a human being in 2019 buy vanilla yogurt? Like, choose the of all that. I get if it comes in the variety pack and you end up with it, understood. But straight up select it? No. Wrong answer. So I had to get hostile.

Super hostile. And I was telling my wife and my youngest daughter that they are crazy for just liking that vanilla. Yeah. They are for sure. But at the end of the day, you know, you got to understand other people. They have other opinions. My youngest daughter, nine years old, she makes. So what she does is she takes strawberries, cuts them up.

And then she puts a whipped cream on it. And then she takes Warrior Kid, Molk, Strawberry, and sprinkles it. Nice. Yeah. Gourmet. Low protein. Yeah. Yeah.

A little protein. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. It's good. Oh, yeah. Warrior Kid Mok, that's for the kids, right? A little more formulated for them.

But there are adults. I know that possibly do drink it like me. They sneak it. Yes, sir. They do. Also, if you want to represent while you're on this path, Jiu-Jitsu working out, waking up early. You wake up early?

I do. How early? I get up at five. Dang. Okay. So the up early crew, if you're on that. And you want to represent aesthetically Jocko has a store. It's called Jocco store.com.

So you go to jocco store.com. That's where you can get shirts. Discipline equals freedom. A shirt that has Jocco's face on it. It says good backwards. It's for you. It's a message for you. Anyway, you want to represent?

Very fitting for today's story, right? Yeah. I love it. Looking at yourself. Yes. Adversity. That's essentially what it is. Got a bang problem going on.

Good. Good. Opportunity. Look forward. Actually, I like that like a free in-haw. Because there's a lot of different approaches, you know, like you say get off the X and like look forward absolutely you have to so many people look back

they look back at what they've lost yeah back oh you gotta look forward what's going on right now kind of thing which is natural by the way oh it is course right yeah but man yeah that's good you look back long enough to assess what you did wrong and then you move forward yeah learn some lessons and then move forward but yeah so yeah if you want to represent go to jocco store dot com a lot of cool stuff on there if you like

something get something new hoodies out there by the way by the way Are they thick? Brother thick. Okay. You know, that's not what I'm looking for. Well, you know. We're making, I think I'm going to call them, when I finally get the hoodies that I want, I'm going to call them Michigan hoodies or Minnesota hoodies for them people.

Maine. Eskimo hoodies. Yeah. We're up north. North polar hoodies. There you go. Polar vortex. Yeah.

You think they wanted that lightweight hoodie during the polar vortex, bro? No, but I'm just saying there's like different regions of the world. You get that line with fur guaranteed for 20 below. Yeah. You're on to something. The region that we're talking about is cold. Yes, sir. Okay.

I dig it and that is a good name for it for sure. Cool. So anyway, yes. When it gets cold, you can have hot jocca white tea. Yes. As opposed to cold jocca white tea. You can both those on Amazon. Whatever.

Subscribe to the podcast if you want to. Don't forget about the Warrior Kid podcast. Yeah. It's good on. A lot of people say that's the best. podcasts for kids ever. Yeah. And you're not a lot.

Yeah. Well, from kids. And here's why you feel that way. You won't be wrong, by the way, if you feel this way. Because it's so simple. So you're like thinking of it in terms of, well, yeah, when my kid listens to this, oh, they're going to get it fully. And then you listen to it.

You're like, dang, I kind of get it too. You know, like it's kind of for me. So I get it. That's a problem with adults, man. We complicate everything. Yes. Yes. Yes.

That's the, that's why I love the warrior kid books. This is a message for a 10-year-old. And guess what? I've had, I have many adults that say, thank you for writing that Warrior Kid book. Echoes one of them. Another one. Yeah, so there's that.

Don't forget that Warrior Kid. Soap from Young Aden. 13-year-old Warrior Kid has his own business. He's getting after it. He's got goats up in Central California. He milks them. You can't sell goat milk or whatever in California because they got all these rules. So what can you do with it?

You can make soap. He started making soap. And his motto is stay clean, which I made up. Don't worry. Don't worry. Don't worry. I gave it to you. I'm so arrogant and egotistical.

I want to take the credit for the name or whatever the mantra of Aden's Soap Store. That's messed up. That's weakness right there. It's a collaborative thing. YouTube channel. Echoes makes a bunch of videos speaking of arrogant. He thinks his videos are great and he posts them on there. There you go.

I've never demonstrated that. But yeah. Oh, really? Cool. Thank you. Okay. You sure about that? Bras? I think so, yeah.

Sending me little clips with a big excitement. I want you to see. All right. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yes, sir. Yeah, YouTube. That's a good on the video version of this podcast, too, by the way.

So, you know, you can see what everybody looks like. If you hear about that sort of thing. People watch, people watch the ones with guests because they want to see what I look like. They know what Echo looks like. They want to see what J. Redmond looks like. They want to see. What does a man look like that took a round through the face? Yeah.

At that point, they stop the podcast and press play on YouTube. Yeah, yeah. See what up. See what's going on. It is $2 million in sexiness. So if you've ever wondered where your American tax dollars went, it went to a good cause this time. You're not quite the $6 million, man. You're the $2 million.

I'm the $2 million. Check. That's 100% legit. Psychological warfare. You can get that too. It's a little something to help you out. Look it up on iTunes. That's all we're going to say about it.

Period. Period. I have more to say. Period. You got to go, man. Jay's got to go. All right. Well, maybe Jay doesn't know what psychological warfare is.

This is what it is. It's an album with tracks, Jocco tracks, telling you how to get through moments of weakness that you might come across. And about instilling that discipline to get up. I've actually listened to Psychologically. Oh. Oh. I thought I got flanked for a second, but it actually wasn't. I stand corrected.

Yeah. What else we got? we got Onit if or when you add to your home gym situation your home fitness situation

go to on it.com slash jock with a lot of good stuff on there get a jump rope if you don't like get rings actually rings are 100% in my opinion

I'm signing on 100% the best thing that you can get I need some rings they're the first thing I know where to go I've been thinking about that for my home gym oh you definitely

you definitely got to have rings in it that's the first thing you need I used to say the first thing you need is a pull-up bar but you can do more with rings and you can do

pull-ups so you might as well just get rings yeah and kettlebells too by the way on it has some solid ones we got some books okay first of all book I again read a bunch of excerpts today but not even close to putting giving justice to this book the trident by jason redmond we will have it up on the site right yes sir it's on the top menu on the top menu of books on the podcast or something from episodes you'll be have you ever looked at our website and thought oh that looks like a cool website for 1996 yeah I was just wonder if I was the only guy I was I was like yeah well that's 96 but that's cool maybe echoes just doesn't like me retro yeah retro is in and 28 more years it's gonna look cool that's what's happening

with it with the website so do you know you're ahead of your time the jocco store website looks all cool yes it does why is that well you know various reasons okay cool that sounds great. We also got some books. Mikey and the Dragons, kids book for kids between the ages of 4 and 100. Yeah, 100. So get Mikey and the Dragons. Way the Warrior Kid and Mark's mission. Those are out and we have

book 3 which I completed is being drawn by the artist right now, John Bozac. We're going to put that up so you can pre-order it so I don't sell out of books like we did Mikey and the Dragons immediately. So I will fix that this time. I apologize. Last time, Discipline equals Freedom Field Manual. Get that, how to get after it. Audio is on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play. Extreme Ownership, first book that I wrote with my brother Laf Babin, and the follow on to that, the dichotomy leadership, talking about don't go too far in one direction or the other as a leader, or you will

blow it. Eschlon fronts my leadership consultancy, and what we do is solve problems through leadership. Whatever problems you have in your organization, I 100% guarantee they are leadership problems. That's what they are. And that's what we do. Me, Lafab and JPML, Dave Burke, Flynn Cochran, Mike Sorrelli, Mike Baima. Go to Eshlonfront.com if you need help with leadership in your team or organization. The muster, speaking of leadership, this is our leadership conference. 2019, this is when it's going down, May 23rd and 24th in Shytown. Shytown. Chicago.

We're going to get stakes. We're going to talk about leadership. September 19th and 20th in Denver, Colorado. We're going to get stakes there too. And then December 4th and 5th in Sydney, Australia, we're going to go there. And yes, we're going to get stakes there as well. Look at all these events have sold out completely and all these are going to sell out to So if you want to come, go to Extreme Ownership.com to register.

It's selling a lot right now, and I haven't even posted anything about it. So I'm scared to post, so I don't want people to, I don't want non-podcast listeners to get a crack at it early. But I'm going to have to post soon so to let people know what's up. EF Online. So this is online interactive leadership training. It is interactive, though. I know. It sounds like one of those words, like a buzzword, right?

Interactive. But you straight up interact. Yeah. Like, okay, remember those video games back in the day? We're all about the same age. Where on the old school computers, right? Where you can, you're like, oh, I'm traveling through the woods and I can go down this path. Choose your own adventure.

Yeah, you know, and you can choose one and it'll go do it. It's kind of like that. Yes. You have to make leadership decisions in the online training. Once you learn the principles, you have to try and apply them. to combat and business situations. So that's eFonline.com. Check it out.

You can get it as an individual or you can get it enterprise version for your whole company. So that's that. And EF Overwatch where we're connecting combat proven leaders from the spec ops community

and from the combat aviation community with companies in the Sillian sector. That need leadership, proven leadership to align and move their company forward go to eFoverwatch.com for that and if you want to continue this conversation ask questions give us answers tell me what I mispronounced tell me what historical fact I got wrong hit us up we're on the social media on Twitter Instagram and on the face Jason Redman is at

Jason Redman at WW. Echo is at Echo Charles. I am at Jocka Willink. Echo. Anything else? Oh, thank you so much for coming. Jay Redmond, any closing thoughts. Just shout out to everybody out there. You know, most importantly, obviously,

my beautiful wife, who our journey is included in this book. So if you are one of the lovely females that are out there that would say maybe this book isn't for me, it absolutely is. Once again, it is not a combat book. It is a journey of leadership, and at its heart and soul it is a love story.

And my wife never batted an eye on this journey. And this book is dedicated to her and my kids whose love brought me home. So big shout out to them. And a big shout out to both of you guys. Thank you for having me on and for getting out there. And we need more leadership out there. And you guys are putting it out there. So it's awesome.

Brother, thanks for coming on. And obviously, thanks for your service to our country. Thanks for what you did for the teams. And thanks for what you're continuing to do right now. You've sacrificed a lot and you're still out there every day grinding and making things happen. Thanks for doing that. Amen. Overcome.

And, of course, thanks to all our military personnel that are standing watch around the world to protect our freedoms. and utmost appreciation for those wounded warriors like Jay who continue to sacrifice bravely every day for the freedoms that we all enjoy. And also thank you to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, correctional officers, border patrols, all the first responders out there

who stand watch on the home front to keep us all safe. And to everyone else out there that's listening, There really are no excuses. They're none. Men like Jay Redmond prove that. Men like Ryan Job prove that without question. So don't allow yourself to fall short. Don't allow yourself to give anything less than everything you've got

to take the fight to the enemy. Whoever and whatever that enemy might be. do what you're supposed to do, be who you're supposed to be by going out there every day and getting after it. This is Jason Redmond and Echo and Jocko.