Jocko Podcast - 201: Life is Precious, Short, and Unpredictable. Don't Wait to Become the Person You Want to Become. “The Knock At The Door” W/ Ryan Manion.

Episode Date: October 30, 2019

0:00:00 – Opening 0:07:35 – Ryan Manion. "The Knock at The Door" 2:24:46 – Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:32:54 – How to Stay on THE PATH. 3:00:16 – Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 201 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. I had left my daughter, Maggie, with my parents, while I and my business partner drove a few minutes away to look at a vacant store right in the heart of town. As soon as I saw it, I knew it would be perfect. As the landlord was putting the lease in my hand for me to sign, my cell phone rang. And I saw it as my mom.

thinking she was just checking to see when I would be back, I ignored the call. When my phone immediately rang again, I knew something was up. My initial fear was that something happened to my 10-month-old daughter. My mind went to the worst place, and at the time, I didn't think anything could be worse than that. When I answered the phone, all I heard on the other end were muffled screams. It was clearly a noise made by someone who was so broken up and in such a state of shock that he or she couldn't even cry properly. I didn't know how to prepare myself for whatever news I was about to receive. I started shaking uncontrollably.

Tell me what happened, I cried. I was terrified that something horrible had happened to Maggie. Had she tripped and split open her head, choked on something, my mind was running wild with possibilities. Not knowing was almost worse than knowing at this point. Have you called an ambulance? I yelled. Yes, answered the voice on the other phone before the line suddenly went dead. I knew that I was too upset to drive. I asked my business partner to take me home. A five-minute drive I had traveled countless times before, but this time those five minutes felt like an eternity.

And while the car was crawling through the streets, my mind was racing at a thousand miles a minute. My husband was at work about an hour away. While I wanted the comfort that his voice would bring, I decided not to call him until I got home to the house and could figure out what was going on. I didn't want to upset him if I didn't have to. As we pulled onto my parents' street, my heart started racing as fast as my mind.

I didn't see an ambulance anywhere in sight. For a moment, that gave me a sense of relief. Maybe things weren't as serious as I had led myself to believe. My dad was standing in the driveway next to a friend. Lieutenant Colonel Corky Gardner. He and my father had served together in the Marine Corps. And he was a dear friend of the family. He and his wife lived about 45 minutes away,

so it struck me as odd to see him standing there, especially since my parents had not mentioned he would be coming over. I jumped out of the car while it was still moving. Where's the ambulance? I screamed. My dad stared back at me with a blank look. Then, in a very measured tone, he said,

Travis was killed. I heard those words loud and clear, but they didn't make any sense to me. It took me a few seconds to process what I was being told. Since the moment I hung up the phone, I'd known something was wrong, but this was far worse than anything I could have imagined. I thought my daughter was in imminent danger,

and here I was being told that brother was dead he was 26 years old and that right there is an excerpt from a book called the knock at the door three gold star families bonded by grief and purpose and this book is written by Ryan Mannion who wrote that open opening section who is the sister of US Marine First Lieutenant Travis Mannion who was killed in Iraq is also written by Amy Looney Hefferman the surviving spouse of Lieutenant Brendan Looney, a SEAL officer killed in Afghanistan. And the other author, the final author, is Heather Kelly, the surviving spouse of First

Lieutenant Robert Kelly, a Marine Corps officer, also killed in Afghanistan. And you may recognize these names, because I've talked about all these names, this podcast. I read a speech on podcast number 162 about two brave Marines, Jonathan Yale and Jordan Herder, who held the line at an outpost while being attacked by a vehicle-born bomb. And these two brave Marines stood their ground and stopped the vehicle before it could enter their outpost and kill many more of their fellow Marines, but the bomb did dead. And it killed both of them and that speech was made by a Marine Corps general general Kelly Then I mentioned when I read that speech that General Kelly's son was killed in action

And that was that was first lieutenant Robert Kelly and then you may have heard me talk about Brendan looney a seal that I put through training who was loved by his brothers and the teams, who was a few days from coming home after a tough deployment in Afghanistan, who volunteered to go on a turnover operation and was killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan on September 21st, 2010. And when I talked about him, I spoke a lot about his best friend. Travis Mannion and I talked about Travis Manion as well when I had Brian Stan on the podcast Well Travis Manion was killed in action on April 29th 2007 and I went into detail around the relationship between Travis and Brendan

Who are buried next to each other at Arlington National Cemetery when I had Travis's dad on the podcast number 72 and we discussed his book which is called brothers for a And this book that I'm reading from today, The Knock at the Door, this gives a different perspective, a perspective of pain and of anguish, but also of surviving and overcoming and of moving forward through the pain and to a place of pride and a place of purpose. and it is an honor to have one of the authors of this book with us here today. Ryan Mannion, sister of Travis Mannion, to share some of what she has learned. So, Ryan, thank you for coming out here and thank you for coming on the podcast. Yeah, I'm really happy to be here and happy to talk a little bit more about the book. This is a tough way to start off a book.

Yeah. With, I mean, with what's got to be the worst day of your life, I'm assuming, or at least right up there. 100% the worst day of my life. And, you know, it's interesting to hear you reading it. You become a little desensitized when you're putting things on paper and when you talk about it a lot. But to hear you reading it, it definitely brought emotion.

It's probably in the way that you read too. it, you know, it kind of brings you back to that place. Well, whenever I read something like this, not only am I thinking about what you went through or what your family went through, but I'm also thinking about how many times this happened to my friends, my friends' families and the pain and anguish that this causes. and yeah, it's just, you know, you titled the book, The Knock at the Door, and for anyone that doesn't understand this, the military has a very well-defined protocol that they take when a service member is killed overseas.

And it's a personal notification, which is actually a great thing compared to what they used to do and I don't know if you've ever seen the what are those little messages that they used to send a telegram yeah like a telegram message that's right it was a telegram they would send a telegram that said you know dear mr and mrs smith we're sorry to inform you that your son barry smith was killed in action around this day in around this area so at some point someone smart realize that that was a horrible way to notify families. So they have a very strict protocol. And what the protocol consists of is uniformed personnel from the service branch that the

service member was in going to the home and knocking on the door in full dress uniform. And it's these days what's become challenging about it is it's a race against social media and it's a race against the news. So when you have when you're overseas and one of your one of your troops are killed There's like immediate radio silence you're not allowed to tell anyone because it's all to prevent the family from finding out that this has happened on the news and let's face it even with this protocol Which is designed to try and support the family as much as possible I mean it's it's still just an absolute it's just an absolute nightmare and it's the worst fear of of any family that has has a service member on active duty deployed.

It's the worst, the worst nightmare for all of us. I think you did a great job of capturing how that impacts. Now, before we go further down this story, I want to give a little bit of background between you and Travis, and I think it's, it starts to tell the story of your relationship with him. I'm going to the book here. Travis and I had been born only 15 months apart. So to say we were close would be an understatement.

The fact that ours was a military family also brought us closer than most siblings. Like many military families, we had to adjust to new situations very quickly until I was 12 when my dad left active duty. Before that, we had moved almost every two years. We knew that no matter where we moved next, no matter what school we ended up in or which sports teams we'd be on, be the new kids on, we always had each other to depend on. on. Travis had been my built-in best friend at every stage of my life. What about the, what about the sister-brother dynamic? Did you, were you, you were older? So were you kind of like the I mean, I was definitely, I was the older sibling. Yes, there was no doubt about that. And it was funny. I was having a conversation with someone last night and they were asking me about my

relationship with Travis. And, and I said, you know, Travis really did look up to me. And sometimes that didn't fare him well because I was a bit of the wild child and, you know, I wasn't always listening to my parents. And so I could kind of skew him in the wrong direction. And, you know, looking back on things, I look at who my brother was and he was very driven, even at a young age. There was something different about him. And, you know, I, I, I, I talked about a little bit in the book, like, I felt like at times like, well, what happened to that piece of DNA for me? Because I didn't have that drive. I didn't have that commitment to goals or anything of that sort.

But, you know, along with that came this idea that in the way that he was, I admired him so much. It wasn't a jealousy. I wasn't like, oh, you know, there's great Travis. Or, you know, I was so proud of him. And I was so proud to have him as my brother. So that's pretty unique. Yeah. I mean, my, I remember in high school, my girlfriends and I, we'd follow him around the Philadelphia area to his wrestling matches.

And we were like his main cheering squad in the front row. And I'm like, that's my brother, the All-American wrestler. You know, I was so proud of him. And it was really cool to grow up with someone that even he was younger than me, but that I could look up to so much. You know, and I think at the end of the day, he helped me from not going too far off the rails, you know. It's weird. And you got three children. I have three children. So I have four children.

And it's weird how, and I was trying to explain to people that they're going to be different. Oh, yeah. You know, they're going to be different. And you just kind of have to brace yourself as a parent, which it sounds like your parents had to brace themselves for you. Oh, my dad braced himself for many, many years, many years. And, you know, growing up, I mean, I was an athlete. And what sports did you play? I played lacrosse through, I played every sport growing up, soccer, basketball, everything.

But I played lacrosse through high school and college. And my dad always said, you know, between you and Travis, like, you were the born athlete. Like, you had athletic ability. It came naturally to you. Like, Travis had to work hard at everything he did. Travis played on, I remember we moved to Pennsylvania. and he played on a CYO football team. And he was a short little chubby kid

and his nickname was pork chop. And, you know, and Tres had to work to become who he became. I glided right through, never worked at anything, still got some money to go to school for college and play lacrosse. And I look back now and I'm like, God, if I'd only even applied myself a little bit and really tried to work at something. Yeah, it's weird. That's a trait, right?

Like this work ethic thing. Yeah. It's a trait that some people have and some people don't. I don't know. But what's it? I heard a quote. I heard a quote from one of my Brazilian friends. And he said, there's a saying in Brazil that there's a reason that God doesn't give wings to a snake.

Because if he did, we'd all be screwed because the snakes could just fly around and kill you. So that's like what happens, right? You can have that awesome work ethic, but you maybe don't get the full athletic capability that is optimal. Or you can be this really gifted athlete, but, you know, you like to party. Yeah. That pretty much describes it. And it's cool that you, it's cool that you didn't have this jealousy thing going on, right?

Well, I guess you were an accomplished athlete as well. So I guess it really wouldn't be there. Yeah. It was that, but more than that, it was also like, hey, my parents were so focused on Travis that I could kind of slide by with a lot of things, you know? It was like, hey, you know, we're taking Travis to Lehigh for the nationals for wrestling. I'm like, sweet, I'm going to have a rager at the house this weekend. So would you legitimately do that?

I legitimately did that. When your parents were gone, you would have ragers. Yes, several times. And you, and did you ever get caught? So I'll tell you story. It was my brother's senior year who was going to wrestle at the national preps. It's huge. I mean, it's the hugest tournament he's going to wrestle in.

And he goes up to, he goes up and we, my best friend and I, my mom took us out to breakfast. And she's like, I'm taking out to breakfast. Before they left, they were heading to Lehigh for the weekend. And my girlfriend, Chris and I are sitting there. And my mom says, doesn't. doesn't say to me, she says, Krista, look me in the eye. You are not having a party at my house this weekend. And Krista said, I promise Mrs. Mannion, we're not going to have a party. She said to this day, it's the, like, she's like, I lied to your mom's face.

Just straight up. I mean, we had the kegs being delivered, like, you know, within the hour after they were gone. And the party got a little out of control. We were, you know, we had all these upperclassmen show up. It was, and I'm like, oh my gosh, it got ahead of us. And so finally we get everybody out, the house is trashed. And so, like, my core group of friends were cleaning up the house. We're trying to get everything taken care of. And I tell my one buddy, there's, there must be 12 bags of trash. And I said, take this trash. You're on trash due to get it out of here, get it in a dumpster. So he leaves with the trash, and I'm feeling pretty proud. I'm like, I think, I think we can cover

this up, you know? So my parents come home the next day. And, you know, my mom walks in and she's kind of like looking around, like, sniff, like, do you have people over here? No, it was just Chris and I. Yeah. And I'm looking at everything. And we kind of, I'm like, we got away with this. It's about two hours later, knock on the door. My mom goes in the answers the door.

And there's a lady standing there with all 12 bags of trash at the front door. And she's like, these were thrown into the field behind my house. She went through the trash, found like, because we had taken out the trash with, like, like mail in it, found our dress, and I just remember looking at Travis, and he just shook his head, like, you're such an idiot. I've, when I go away and, you know, I got teenage kids now and even, well, a couple of them in college now, but I used to go away for whatever, with my wife or whatever, and leave the kids at home.

And I'd be like, are you guys going to have a rager or what? I kind of encouraged them. And they were like, no, they're like, dad, none of our friends will come to our house. they like don't want to come here because of you. Yeah, totally. And I'm like, oh, well, okay, I guess that's a positive thing. So that's awesome. You guys had, it's awesome that you didn't have that rivalry,

which can happen. Yeah. In, in a sibling relationships. My kids don't really have it either now that I think about it, which is cool. What about like competition, like even on a more friendly level? Like, did you ever feel like you're competing with him? Ping pong death matches or anything like that? I mean, listen.

You know. Just in life, I mean. Yeah. I mean, growing up, I mean, as when we were young, like, I used to tease him endlessly. I mean, my aunt tells the story of her wedding, you know, and she said, all you did was make Travis cry by teasing him the entire day. We were like 10 and 11 years old. So we fought like siblings. But I think by the time we hit high school, there really wasn't competition.

Like, hey, would we get out back and play basketball and, you know, yeah, that sort of stuff, like friendly company. But, like, there was nothing competitive in terms of how our relationship worked. Interesting. Awesome. All right. You dive into this a little bit more. I'm going to go to the book here. On a wooden beam in our basement by the bench press on which he would punish himself nightly,

Travis wrote his goals in permanent black marker. Here they are. All-American wrestler. First team, all Catholic in lacrosse, maintain 3.9 GPA. My aspirations were far more modest, rarely recorded, and let's be honest, not terribly admirable. While Travis' key performance indicators consisted of grade point averages and athletic milestones, mine were quantified by number of parties attended or classes skipped without getting caught. Travis had a work ethic uncommon amongst most 16-year-olds and as his older sister I found it fascinating and a little unnerving

I marveled at Travis's ability to set a goal one year out even two years out and then work tirelessly to meet it Occasionally I questioned what genetic material was absent from my DNA that caused this quality to skip me But I never lost sleep about it and though I admired his self-discipline and focus I'm pretty sure Travis envied my vibrant social life and lighthearted attitude towards responsibility. So you guys kind of balanced each other out? Totally. Did you, when you were looking at him with his goals and everything like that and you're saying,

well, that skipped me. Did you ever say, well, it didn't skip me. I can make a goal and I can go for it. Did you ever, did that ever cross your mind? Or is that just not part of your brain? You know, I mean, I have to be honest, I just didn't really care. You know, I was, I was happy to take the backseat to his stardom. But you played lacrosse in college.

I did. I mean, that's no joke. Yeah. I, yeah, I mean, I broke some school records at my playing college lacrosse. And you know what? And so I don't want to take away anything from that. But it was like I went to a D3 school. I played lacrosse.

I was the leading scorer on the team. And it was a lot of fun. And, you know, and Travis would come to my games. I remember Travis came to one of my games. And him and my uncle Chris were, like, like heckling the goalie because the goalie had like had a cheap shot at me. I played attack. I was right up front. And so they're like standing behind heckling the goalie. And after the game, you know, we win the game and we're standing there and the coach says the coach is like,

doesn't directly say anything to me, but she goes, I'm just going to say this right now. If I see anybody's family messing with, you know, messing with another team again, that so-called player will not be playing on my team anymore. And so I like leave it. I'm like, thanks a lot, guys. You know, you come to one game and, you know, I'm about to be kicked off the team for where you're doing. What the hell are they doing?

I mean, you've got to make a pretty significant impact on the game. Yeah, I mean, there was, it was a cheap shot by her. And what, you know, I shot, she came out and whacked me so hard in an intentional way, you know. And that was my brother. Like, he was, if someone met him. with me like don't mess with me yeah I mean if someone messes with you he's gonna heckle them yeah but yeah if you're a girl you're gonna get heckled if you're a guy oh yeah yeah

so you you tell a good story in here it's like a a Saturday night and there's a party going on and I you have this ideal situation because you got your brother who's kind of a straight and narrow kind of guy so that means you have a designated driver you invite him to go to this party. The party, you know, it gets kind of wild and then the cops show up. And so here we're going to the book. Teenagers scattered. Travis, Krista, who's one of the people you're with and I quickly found one another

and joined the mad rush toward the back of the house. We barreled through the kitchen door, hopped the fence that surrounded the property and sprinted for the woods behind the house. Those woods were our ticket to freedom. They also represented a blessed escape from the terrifying wrath of my parents, who almost certainly would have disombed. me for what would have been my third underage drinking citation in my high school career. So you had some milestones you were making.

So you're running and through the woods. There's a footbridge and somehow you fall off the footbridge, which actually the words you're using here, you say I got thrown off the footbridge. What does that even mean? Well, because there's a hundred kids running over a bridge that's this wide, all trying to hit that same cornfield. So, yeah, some button, you know, pushed off. Because you get to the cornfield and then you're good. Yeah. Because they cannot find you in a corner field.

They're not running. The cops are not chasing us into a cornfield, you know? Cornfields are crazy. Yeah. Like you can get lost in cornfields. I have many times. Yeah. All right.

So you end up, you end up getting thrown from this footbridge and you, going back to the book, I became aware of a pain coursing through my leg. I looked down and saw that my shin was covered in blood. My khaki pants were red. So now Travis is like, hey, we got to get you some help. And you guys discussed that a little bit. Finally, you are going to walk back to the car. And finally, the car was within sight.

But just as we rounded a giant pine tree, a blinding light shone in our eyes, busted. Hey, kids, get over here. A square-jawed officer examined us with his flashlight. He wanted names, ages, and a full account of our whereabouts that evening. Somewhere in the interrogation session, a light bulb seemed to go off in his head. His eyes softened. and his lips turned up into a smile. Hey, wait, you're Travis Mannion.

Yes, sir. Hell of a wrestling season you've had, kid. Thank you, sir. And so then he, you know, Travis kind of plays this thing up to get you guys, to get you guys out of, out of trouble. Yeah. So this is the kind of thing that you two had going on. Yeah.

It was, uh, did, uh, did your, since you guys were close in age, Did your friends all hang out together? Oh, yeah, totally. I mean, my friends were his friends. Did he go out with any of your friends? He's hung out with some of my friends. Did you go out with any of his friends? A little bit, yeah.

No serious relationships. My kids are like, well, my oldest three kids are about 18 to 24 months apart. It's 18 for the first two. And so there's always, but the oldest two are girls and then there's the boy. Yeah. But the weird thing is the boy's like six, three. and he's always been taller than them since so i don't know it's but there's there's like a little line with my kids the friends all hang around but there's never been like a relationship

anywhere yeah no i mean i'll tell you like in in i think it was my was it my senior year my senior year you know we had i had one friend who uh didn't get asked to prom and you know it was a sad thing you know and she's like heartbroken about it and i'm like Travis you're taking her to prom. And he's like, I don't even know this girl. I'm like, you're taking her problem.

He's like, fine. You know, like he always just kind of like stepped in. I mean, certainly a lot of my friends were, um, enamored by Travis.

Yeah. I'll put it that way. Travis was a stud. Yeah. All right. So you guys have this awesome relationship. And I'm going to go back now to the day you find out. So here we go.

couldn't believe it I didn't want to believe it I collapsed in a heap right there on the driveway I remember thinking that the asphalt felt unnaturally warm for a mid-April afternoon that had been mild it's not fair it's not fair I screamed over and over into the sky I wanted to make sure that everyone even God himself knew that he had made a terrible mistake as I screamed my parents neighbors spilled out of their houses to find out what was happening my dad didn't rush to my side to comfort me He let me get those tortured screams out of my system before I went about the hard work of trying to understand what had happened and pick up the pieces. As had always been the case with my dad, he knew exactly what I needed before I did.

I have no idea how long I lay on the ground screaming. I just know that it was long enough to get the rage out of my system. At some point, one of the neighbors helped me up and walked me down the driveway toward my house. As I walked, I turned around and saw an unfamiliar car parked out in front of the house. In my shock, I hadn't even noticed it earlier. Inside sat a young man about my age in full military dress blues. His forehead was resting on the top of the steering wheel, pressed between two folded arms that cradled his head.

His eyes were closed, and he looked dejected or perhaps unconscious. I later learned this poor Marine 26 years old. had been charged with the unfortunate task of sharing the news with the people closest to Travis that he had been killed in Iraq. Captain Eric Cahill, as I later learned, his name was, had been assigned to carry out the job since he was local, and it graduated from the Naval Academy the year before my brother. Lieutenant Colonel Gardner had also been called

since the military knew that he was a family friend close by. Together, while I had been out scouting sites from my boutique, they had approached my parents' door. and knocked. My mother opened the door, took one look at Corky in the young Marine uniform, and slammed the door in their faces. She simply couldn't face what was on the other side. Like I said, that's what every military family knows.

There's only one reason that that person's come to your house in their dress uniforms. Yep. And since your dad was in the Marine Corps for whatever 20-something years, and she obviously knew this as good as well as anyone. So she wasn't sure she could face what was on the other side. I wasn't sure I could either. When I reached the front door with the help of my neighbor, I stopped. I had walked through that door thousands of times before,

but this time I wanted to turn the other direction and run away. I knew deep down in my soul that once I passed through that door this time, the life that I had known was over. and there was no going back. That permanence, I was at the SEAL teams, I was in the training command, and a guy got wounded really bad overseas. And somebody called me and said,

hey, this guy, he got wounded really bad. And I think the guys that called, there's two guys on the other end, and I think they were looking for like, a little bit of sympathy, right? Like, hey, one of the guys got wounded really bad. And I remember saying, because I had heard the initial report

that a guy was wounded really bad, really bad. And then these guys, this call came probably 36 hours later. And I said, like, hey, is he stable? And they said, yeah, he's stable. And I said, well, then we're good. And for them, I mean, for them, they were still thinking, like, hey, this guy's going to lose limbs. Like, this guy's going to be in really bad shape.

But for me, like, because, you know, I only come back from Iraq a little while before and lost guys there. Yeah. And so for me, the difference between, hey, this guy's, as messed up as this guy is going to be. is horrible the situation is and the wounds that he suffered are horrible but he's going to be here and this permanence of what you you know that's what that's what that's what I was thinking about when I was reading about you saying when you walk through that door the line between life and death is like it's like you can't even you can't even identify it's so so slender and it falls on one side of the other. Yeah, you know, I've, I, you know, you go through that initial phase of shock,

but I remember thinking like, why couldn't he just been like, why couldn't we be flying to Germany right now, you know? And I've even had dreams about like Travis being there, but, but he's like super wounded, you know, he's missing both his legs, but I'm like, who cares? It's Travis, you know, I, I, of course, you take him in. any form if they're alive, you know? And it's just that idea. And I think for me, you know, when my mom opened the door, it's, I don't write about it in the book, but like it was super volatile time when he was there.

And my mom had gotten an email a week before from the major's wife on the MIT team. And she had, you know, said, I can't speak to it now because she was kind of the, the liaison to all the families. I can't speak to it now, but I just want you to know that something happened last week that was very significant and your, you know, your husbands and sons, what they did is, you know, was incredible. And, you know, all a mother thinks is, well, you know, bad stuff is going down. And so she leading up to that knock, She was on edge. She was on edge that entire deployment, but even more so after that email came.

And, you know, I think that is she tried to, every morning when she woke up, she sent him an email. He didn't email back, but she sent him an email. Every day she was sending another care package that probably wasn't getting to him. It was getting to, you know, Fallujah, but where he was, he wasn't having care packages dropped at his door. but it was like those were the things she had to do to like process while he was there. Like this is what's going to get me through. And that Sunday, I think there's something about the fact that, you know, she woke up that morning and just said, I want to have people over.

Like it was, there was no plan around it. And she was a planner. So, but that morning she woke up and said, Tom, let's have people over. So you imagine all these different scenarios, all these different knocks that people get. And, you know, you see mine. You're going to see Heather's and Amy's in the book as well. But imagine a scenario where the mother and father opening the door and there's 30 people in the house, you know, there to have a family barbecue. And I remember when I walked in that door, I could see smoke coming off the grill because my dad had walked to answer the door and left all the meat on the grill.

and it's out there like on fire. And it was like, it was pure pandemonium. Like my people, nobody knows what to do. And people are just literally running around a house like screaming. All the women are just like screaming. Like there is no sanity in this room. And I think that's why my dad's just like, I'm going to stand out in this driveway, you know, with Colonel Gardner

because he's just like, and then the rest is like all these women and people are coming up like, what do you need? I'm like, what do I, like, what kind of question is that? I don't know. I don't even know what is up right now, you know? But that chaotic scene is something that plays out a lot in my mind over and over, you know. What time of day was it? It was like 1 o'clock in the afternoon, you know.

It was like, come up for a Sunday barbecue and, you know, aunts and uncles are there. my mom my dad siblings you know some of my dad's siblings all my mom's siblings my grandmother it was my cousins you know it was just that and my mom was always like kind of the person like coming to my home you know let's do something um but just to have those people there when that moment took place it's i remember turning as i turned to walk in the door i turned and it was my my little cousins and It's my dad's sister, my aunt Susan. She was standing there with my godson and her two other kids. And they were standing on like the step going to the back of the house.

And she's just trying to console these little kids who grew up with Travis. I mean, literally grew up with him. And she's just trying. And I'm just like, you can't even play that scene out in a movie. You know, I mean, you can't even capture. what it was. You talk about that scene. And then you say this.

In all the chaos and furious movement, I locked eyes with my grandmother who was seated alone in a wheelchair in the dining room, tears streaming down her cheeks. She was receiving neither comfort nor attention from anyone. My heart broke in that instant. I'll never forget that image. The rest of the day is a blur.

I floated between feelings of painful shock and dark emptiness. When I woke the next morning, I remembered what it felt like coming out of anesthesia from an operation I'd had in college. First, one eyelid opened cautiously, then the next, but my body remained frozen.

My mind was already churning, going over the details of the previous day, and coming to terms with the unalterable fact that my best friend and brother was dead. This marked the first of what turned out to be many anxiety-ridden morning, that would follow. Every day I would slowly and warily transition from sleep to consciousness, hoping that my overwhelming anxiety wouldn't make another appearance, but it always did.

Did you ever have the, did you ever wake up in the morning and forget for like three seconds what had happened? No. I didn't. It was actually more like as soon, as soon as I opened my eyes, tears, I would be crying. Like, if I was awake, I was either, like, non-functional, just like, you know, or I was crying. And I would say for a good month, I woke up and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I think so every day, for the rest of my life, I'm going to wake up crying. You know, you're like, you go through these phases, like, okay, this is the new normal. I will wake up crying every day. And I honestly could not wait every night to fall asleep.

because the only time I wasn't in pain was when I was sleeping. So it was just like how quickly can my body? And in those moments, it's not easy to sleep, right? So sleep didn't come very easily. So I was so thankful when my body would let me sleep. And, you know, that was the only time I was necessarily forgetting. I've experienced like when something really bad happens, like when I've lost friends and,

I wake up in the morning and for like three, literally three seconds, you know, the alarm clock goes off and I, you know, shut off the alarm clock and I, and I, and everything's like totally normal for like three seconds. And then I take two steps out of my bed and boom, I get hit. Oh. Now you all go to meet Travis as he is flown home. and we're going to the book, the greeting at Dover was gut-wrenching. My parents and I were plagued by questions in those early days that were difficult to ignore. Who was Travis with when he died? What happened?

Was it instant? Slowly the answers started to unfold. We learned that Travis wasn't actually scheduled to be out on the mission the day that he was killed. Instead, a fellow Marine was slated for the patrol, but he wasn't feeling up to it. Travis, who had been assigned to do some humanitarian work at a local Iraqi school offered to take his place. During the course of the patrol, Travis and his team of Marines were ambushed. A firefight erupted, and they were quickly pinned down, taking fire from three sides. Travis, seeing his Navy corpsman shot and lying wounded in the middle of the road,

immediately ran out to the line of fire to carry his colleague to safety. As the ambush intensified, Travis again entered the line of fire to pull another wounded Marine back to safety in a covered position. Then Travis moved out to take on the ambush that was now overwhelming his patrol. undaunted by the onslaught he fired his M-203 grenade launcher taking out an enemy position and then expended a firestorm of rounds at the other positions before running out of ammunition his efforts pushed the enemy back and changed the entire momentum of the ambush ultimately saving the lives of his entire patrol it was then that Travis was shot by a sniper

and immediately the enemy began to pull back his teammates quickly grabbed them and provided what emergency medical care they could. He was rushed back to Camp Fallujah, where he was pronounced dead by the medical staff that had worked feverishly to try and save him. There's no part of that story that doesn't sound just like my brother. Offering to take the worst assignment

to help a friend in need, that was Travis. Thinking about the safety of others before ever considering his own, that was Travis too. Seeing the dismal odds that didn't bode well for him and choosing to grit his teeth and answer a fire with more fire anyway. Also, Travis. My brother was a protector and a warrior in every sense of those terms. I certainly felt it as his sister,

and I'm proud to know that his fellow Marines got to experience it too. When I learned that he'd been killed by a bullet, I was nervous I wouldn't be able to stomach the sight of him in an open casket. My mind imagined the worst. I was shocked then when the lid of the casket was raised, at the viewing to see my brother looking as though he were sleeping peacefully. Just as I'd remembered him,

I approached the coffin and rubbed his head as I'd done a hundred times before. From the time he was a child, Travis had always sported a buzz cut. And as I felt the surface of his freshly cut hair with my fingertips, I thought, yep, that's Travis's head.

That was Travis. Yeah. And it's like his whole, life was leading to this moment where he needed to do something beyond what is expected of a human being to do. I think, you know, when you look back at his childhood, I think he was doing things that were beyond what a 10-year-old child was supposed to do or what a 15-year-old kid was supposed to do. You know, it was like, and they were small moments, right, in the whole scheme of things, but they ultimately prepared him for that last day. I was, after Mikey Montstor got killed and we came home and I was talking to Mikey's sister

and he was, she was just, she just said, yeah, she said when I found out what happened, I wasn't even remotely surprised at all. Yeah. She's like, oh, he jumped on a grenade and saved three of his. friends. She's like, that's exactly, she's like, I don't want to say that I knew that this would happen, but she said, this is no surprise at all. Yeah. Book, I stood by his side all day, greeting friends and family who had taken the time to pay their respects. One of Travis's best friends and roommate at the Naval Academy, Brendan Looney, was unable to make the funeral. He was in San Diego attending the basic underwater demolition seal school. The training program required four.

Navy SEALs leaving to attend the services on the East Coast would have surely meant relinquishing his chance to become a SEAL officer But Brendan's girlfriend at the time Amy who had also been close to Travis did come to say her final goodbye I remember Amy walking up to the casket and bursting into tears I knew the loss cut her deeply as well It was a physically and mentally exhausting day and as much as I could hardly bear the idea of standing by that casket one minute longer after hours of doing so. I also didn't want to imagine that time coming to an end. I knew that.

After the last person knelt down to say a prayer in front of Travis, the funeral director was going to close that casket forever, and that would be it. I'd never seen my brother's face again. I rubbed his head one last time and felt my heart sinking as my father gently pulled me away. After the funeral, the burial and the celebration of his life that followed, I remember sitting on the back stairs outside my parents' home, the same place where I had sought solace and the chaos after first hearing of his death. The winter had melted away, and a beautiful spring day had sprung up in its place. In the weeks and months that followed, I often found myself outside,

crouched on that stair, in those stairs in that same position. Time was passing. Life was moving on. I was watching it happen, but I was not participating in it. I felt bitterness towards the people who could return to their normal lives, jobs, and families, while I sat on the same stair in the same red sweatshirt, terrified of what might come next. You know, when you were talking about like saying, oh, this is just the way it's going to be from now on. I'm just going to be crying all the time.

and I had somebody asked me about, you know, when is this, when does this end? This, like, how do you get through this? And the way I tried to explain it is by saying when you first experience something devastating like this, you're going to get hit with these waves. And the waves are going to be really powerful, really strong, and they're going to come really often. and what's scary about them is by the time you're 28 years old or 20 years old or whatever however old you are you've learned to control your emotions and all of a sudden you're in a situation where you don't have control anymore and it seems like like you said that's just the way it's going to be from now on and then what I've noticed is over time those waves they start to lose some strength they're just not just not

as strong as they were and over time those waves they separate and they get further and further apart and what happens and this is what I thought of when I read this this part that you wrote is you know the closer you are to the person the stronger those waves are and the longer it takes for that calm to approach so when you see other people that are already kind of have found some calm again and they're moving on, it makes you, it can make you mad. Totally. I, you know, they have that, the 12 stages of grief. I couldn't, I couldn't name all 12 stages.

I didn't follow it, but like, I know anger's up there and I felt anger, you know, and it was just like, and it was anger at everyone else. Like, screw you guys, you know. We're, we're just, we're here. We're living it. and you're living their lives. On the flip side, you know, having some perspective, like, thank you for being there for us. Thank you for doing what you did.

Thank you for leaving your job for a week to support my family. You know, you don't have that mindset when you're in it. You're like, oh, you're going back to work? You're flying back? Like, what do you mean? Like, no, you're all supposed to be here. And, you know, we're all going to live together in this house. and support each other.

You think yourself life is not going to go on the way it was ever. Yeah. And that was the scariest part. So it was this idea of like, it was that initial walk through the door. And then everything takes over. You know, you go into this autopilot of like, we've got to plan for everything. So it's the anticipation of being at Dover. But that anticipation comes with,

a level of excitement isn't the right word, but like, I can't wait till that coffin comes off the plane. There he is. He's now with us. You know, and it's these small steps. And it's like, okay, next is the viewing. I can't wait to be able to see my brother. And then it's like, we're closing that casket. And it's like another thing, you know, you walk through that door, the casket's closing.

the funeral mass happens, everyone comes back, you've got hundreds and hundreds of people at a reception, and then it's like that last bag of trash is taken out by the neighbor, and they say bye, and you're like, oh, crap. Now we actually really have to think about what this means, you know, because you're just kind of going through this process. By the way, I failed to mention this so far. I'm not reading the whole book. and so if there's some things that are jumping around or whatever,

that's why, because I'm not here to do an audio version of this book. But that's why I'm reading chunks of it, but you've got all kinds of detail in there that I'm not going over and connecting these chunks that I'm reading. So that's why people should just buy the book. So I haven't said that yet, but if there's anything that seems jumpy,

that's why it is jumping because I'm jumping around from section to section. You continue on here It was hard to believe that only weeks before I'd been so happy Blissfully ignorant of how my life would be Cruely abruptly and permanently changed I remember sitting in my kitchen two weeks before Travis died I was watching my baby girl all nine and a half months old pull herself up to stand On uncertain and wobbly legs she stood with her chubby hands on the screen door

She stood next to our dog pup and giggled excitedly as she peered outside and watched a bunny rabbit hop around the backyard. Life is so completely perfect. I remember thinking at that moment. I was a happy new mom. I had a fantastic relationship with my husband. Business was good and Travis would be back in time for the grand opening of my second store. I felt wholly in control and at peace.

To this day, that peaceful feeling sometimes comes back to me for a moment. When life feels effortless, my mind is at ease. And all seems right in the world. But now it dissolves in an instant. In fact, as soon as I experience that kind of serenity, I become terrified. What terrible tragedy is going to shatter this picture of perfect peace? I ask myself. I still wonder if the sense of calm I experienced that day

had been a harbidger of the doom to come. I worry that I was foolish for not having recognized it for what it was. All the signs of catastrophe will right in front of me. How could I have been so blind? this train of thought is of course completely paranoid and insane. So do you feel that now to this day? Yeah. You know, I do.

I don't have many times where life feels effortless anymore. But, you know, I remember that feeling I had that day in my house. I remember that feeling so vividly. just, it was this wave that came over me where I was like, oh my gosh, like, this is, what a great life I have, you know, I'm like looking at my new daughter and I'm just, and I think I'd just gotten off the phone with Travis like a day or two prior. And our conversations had nothing to do with what he was doing in Iraq. He's like talking to me about, you know, what kind of men's brands did you get for the store, you know? Is there cool stuff? And, and so it was,

was just like this super peaceful feeling. And I lived up into that point, not really fearful of anything. And, you know, I certainly, today, I'm certainly afraid of, I'm afraid when I get a random call. I'm afraid when my husband calls me twice in a row. You know, those things can set me into a different place. They can certainly, you know, I, my favorite show was, my favorite show was Big Love. That was an HBO series on like polygamy. And it was really popular when scripted series when around that time. And I loved the show was, God, who was the guy who was in it?

He's since passed away. But anyway, great show. Bill Paxton? It was Bill Paxton, yeah. Echo with a win right there. Yeah, there you go. That's what he's here for. Yeah, it was a great show.

And I remember watching that show, and these are the things that you don't realize are going to happen. So I'm watching the show, and it's like the series finale. And it was those little things where I was like, this is post-travis's death. And I'm like, well, you know, big loves on. That's something I can enjoy. I'm going to watch this season finale. And I'm watching the finale, and on the finale, like, the head, polis. head polygamist get shot and he gets shot on the street. And watching him get shot, it sent me into a

full-blown panic attack. It was such a visceral reaction that I wasn't expecting that it stunned me. And I was like, oh my God, I can't see that. I mean, my five-year-old walks around. He's got a little pistol that was Dave's, my husband's. And he brought it, my mother-in-law found it, and she brought it back about a month ago. And it's the cutest little thing with the holster. And I can't be around Travis holding it. My little Travis holding it. I'm like, David, there's something about like guns now, you know, seeing them pointed, being shot. Like, it sends me in a bad place. You know, and it's, those sort of things that you don't, you don't realize until a little bit after the fact that, okay, these are the residual effects. And some of them go away. And some of them go away. And some of

them don't you know um and some of them just are a part of who you are now and i've i'm i'm definitely a a jumpier person you know like i hear something i'm like what what happened you know where before i was not like that i was kind of like oh you heard something you know you talk a little bit about that more here you say the fear and paranoia that follow in the wake of grief can create a tremendous roadblock it stunts our personal growth and darkens are over all sense of well-being. Some people respond to unexpected and trying situations with passive acquiescence and others with fire and fury. I responded by heightening my vigilance. After Travis's death, I found myself compelled to be wary. I was always on the lookout for the next great tragedy

to befall me. This hurled me down some very dark and troublesome paths from panic attacks to self-destructive behaviors, but also led me to some amazing gifts, like recovering my sense of humor and living with intention. What self-destructive behaviors did you pick up? I mean, I think, you know, self-destructive in a way that, you know, I stopped kind of taking care of myself. You know, I go into the next place where I'm talking about, you know, I decide to run a marathon. But I'm running a marathon. But I'm running a marathon. on smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. And, you know, I'm drinking a lot.

And I'm just kind of like, I'm going to do this, but on the same token, you know, this is kind of who I am now, you know. And, you know, with the, with that hyper sense of paranoia, you know, I really went into some these ideas of, and I know what, I know the reasoning behind it, if I can look back and like psychoanalyze myself, when Travis was in Iraq, I was not worried about him. And when he was there the first time, when he was there the second time, even though I knew the second deployment was different, I was aware of that because my husband told me, he's like, hey, this is going to be different, you know, I've had conversations with your brother. But I had no fear of my brother

being in Iraq. It was this notion of more than anything, you think about like these crazy stories, right? You know, ice burr or like, you know, an icicle falling off a garage and like impaling a woman on her head, right? And it's like these totally crazy stories and you're like, that's so crazy. Well, I mean, it's never going to happen to you, right? It's like the plane crash theory. Like we all fly on planes, but, you know, you tell your kids, planes aren't, planes don't crash, you know, you're not going to mean a play in the crashes. So you don't think about that happening to you. And that, maybe it was a defense mechanism, but that's how I got through Travis being in Iraq. I wasn't, you know, I didn't show any fear. I didn't show any, and I didn't even

have any fear. It wasn't that I didn't show it. I really didn't have it. I let those emotions all go. So then when it did happen, it was like, I guess when you do this idea of like preparing, right, where you're, it's almost like, I knew this was coming. Like, you hear people like, I knew it. I knew it, right? Like, I had no idea. And so to have something shock your system that much, I think it kind of rewires you, where you're kind of waiting for that next shock to the system.

And, you know, you lead on throughout the book, and I've had other things that have happened since where I know, like, no one is void of having something happen, you know, whether it's random in nature, I've had a lot of random crappy things happen to me, you know, over the last several years. I guess it's similar. Again, this is something I just talked about with Jim Sersley, who was on the last podcast, who was in Vietnam, and the range of level of fear that guys have going into combat, there's some people that are scared. They're like, they think they're going to die. Right. And there's some people that

are kind of like that will actually not happen to me. Like I'm, I'm, I'm not going to die. And that was kind of his attitude was you're, you're thinking, oh, that's, yeah, like he volunteered to go to Vietnam. He wasn't like, I'm volunteering to go to Vietnam and I might die. He was like, I'm volunteering to go to go to Vietnam. And I'm going to go do my job. And so I guess it's no surprise for some people on the family side to think, well, yeah, that's not going to happen to my loved one. Yeah. I've never really asked my parents this. I don't think my parents ever thought anything would ever happen to me ever. I thought, I think they just thought I was just overdoing and just whatever. Part of that is because I, I kind of inculcated them to just never knowing what I was doing

ever. And I was in for a long time. And before the war started, I had already been in for 13 years. So they never knew that I was Jumping out of airplanes or doing whatever I was doing And so when the war started I was still going on deployments Like I'd always gone I'd been I'd gone on deployments I'd gone on five deployments before I went to Iraq So that to them they were saying oh he's going on another deployment We'll hear from him in six months whatever

My wife may be the same thing But until like when when I was in Ramadi And my wife was at home and she was going to my guy's funerals And when that happens every single family member that's there is thinking that the person that was killed could easily be my husband, my brother, my son. Now you talk a little bit about just this idea of grief. The fact is grief will transform you.

And you've got will italicized, which I think is important. Because you're saying, listen, like you, because I think that's what we're, I think that's the discovery that you made in that statement is you're thinking, hey, I can get through this and everything. I'll be back to the way things were. And you're saying, no, the fact is grief will transform you. Whether you are grieving the loss of an identity that you once had or the loss of a loved one, at some point you will look in the mirror and see someone you simply don't recognize staring back at you. It is inevitable. Maybe you should, maybe you'll be proud of what you see and maybe you'll be ashamed.

At some point, I bet you be both. I bet you will be both. The most important thing you can tell yourself is that you get the last word. Only you can determine how your experiences will change you. And only you can be held accountable for that transformation. So these are these are powerful things. I wrote a book and I guess I talk about an, an attitude of extreme ownership, of taking ownership of what's going on.

And, you know, there's always someone that wants to make different points or try and I'll be positive about it. There's people that want to, people that want to test the theory, right, of taking ownership. And so one of the things that can happen is, you know, hey, I got cancer. That's not my fault. How do I take ownership of that? And it's like, well, you're right. You can't take ownership of the fact that you got cancer.

You take ownership of how you respond to it. Right. And I just was out with working with a group of people, and one of the guys had cancer. And he was like, hey, I started listening to the podcast. And he's like, I listened to your podcast for seven hours a day, every day, the whole time I was in the hospital. Oh, my gosh.

Which makes me feel good about having 500 hours worth of podcasts. But that's what he did. He took ownership of how he responded. Right. and that's what you're saying here look you're gonna something's gonna happen there's going to be changes but you do have what do you say the you get the last word right well i think you know one of the things that i have people still to this day say you know and and and i'm 12 years out from the loss of my brother um seven years out from the loss of my mom and nine years out from

the loss of Brendan, right? And people will say, you know, when does, when do you stop grieving? And I'll even have people that have newly lost someone, like explain this grief process, like, when is it going to end? And I'm very clear to tell them, it doesn't. It never ends. I'm not going to say, don't worry, you know, in a year, it's over. Because everybody's journey is their own. But the fact of the matter is that I entered into my, if you want to call it, grief journey in a way that wasn't best for me, right? I wasn't, it was a process. And now when you look at like talking about looking in the mirror and are you the person you want to be,

like when I look in the mirror today, I'm the person that I wish Travis saw when he was alive. Like that's and so that for me is like that was my wake up. I'm like, okay, so this is what the grief of my brother has done to me. It's actually allowed me to become the person I should have been when he was here. I was, I had a guy on the podcast. His name was Tom Fife. He was, he was in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. and he was a Purple Heart recipient from all those wars.

And he was a battalion commander in Vietnam. And I was talking to him about it. And like I asked him, you know, basically, you know, I think I asked him how many casualties did you take or how many guys did you lose as a battalion commander? And so this is, I don't know, 50 or 60 years later. and he got choked up. And when that happened, I thought to myself,

oh, the emotions that I have, they're never going to go away. Yeah. And that's just the way it is. And there's nothing wrong with that. You know, the waves get more separation between them over time, but those waves can hit you at any time. And I think, you know, what I find now is,

the further you get out, the waves actually come at like really inopportune times. So I'm not an incredibly emotional person to begin with. That bout of the first month after Travis's death was probably the most crying I've ever done in my entire life. But it was like it was an involuntary response. Like I could there was not, that's just what it was. And I, if I was out in public, I had on the biggest sunglasses you could possibly find because I did not, I get uncomfortable when people see me emotional. And so I was, I had to try to cover it. And but now today, you know, the way those waves come, it's, it could be something so small that someone says or something I see. And it doesn't matter where I am. And it's just like, oh my God. And it kind of like takes your breath away. you back to that place. And, you know, I do a lot of public speaking and, and I share Travis's story. And everyone's like, I don't know how you do that without breaking down. And I'm like,

listen, that's not the time for me to break down. Like, I'm, I'm there to do a job. I'm there to share that story and make sure that you hear that story. But if you think for one second that there aren't times I'm driving in the car and a song comes on or I'm out on a run or I'm sitting there looking at my kids and, you know, yeah, that still happens. And it, And it doesn't come as often, but like you said, you know, 50, 60 years out, a service member talking about his friends, like, that's never going to go away. And nor would I want it to. Exactly. Exactly.

You continue on here, like anyone who has received a jarring knock at the door, literal or a figurative. And that's what's important. And you, again, since I'm jumping around this book, you know, there's the metaphorical knock at the door that a service member's family can receive. But that knock in the door can be anything. Sure. Right. Anything that is unexpected in your life and everyone's going to get them in your life. You're going to get a knock at the door that you want to do what your mom did,

which is slam the door and don't let it come in, but it's coming. Yeah. I've been to the darkest, deepest, and ugliest corners of my mind, and I've learned a thing or two. I don't hope to spare you the hurt or pain that comes with a knock. I'll read that again. I don't hope to spare you. the hurt or pain that comes with the knock.

I don't think that I could. I only hope to share the lessons I learned in the process, the ones that have the power to transform you in all the right ways and remind you that you are not alone. So yeah, you're not saying that you can make the pain go away. It's going to hurt. But there's steps you can take to move through that hurt that make more sense, like you said, looking back.

Yeah. Yeah, this book is all built on perspective. I'll tell you that. For sure. I mean, I couldn't have written this book even five years ago. You know, I mean, it took 12 years to be able to say, okay, I'm ready to put pen to paper. And listen, I'm no expert, but I've got a lot of experience and grief, you know. So I'm going to kind of share my thoughts on that.

Well, it helps any time you can have, anytime you can see something unfold for someone else. It makes you able to better handle it yourself. That's 100%. That's why I read war books all the time. So I was able to try and figure out what was happening in combat, even if I'd never seen it before. I'd seen it before. You say this. In the early days after Travis was killed, my decision making was more impulsive than rational.

Impulsive decisions can be catastrophic, and a few of mine have been. but they've also been a great way for me to channel my nervous energy. I think subconsciously I believed that as long as I was doing something, anything, then I wouldn't have to acknowledge the intense pain that was overtaking my spirit and fighting to get out. Two weeks before Travis was killed, he called home from Iraq. I want to run the Marine Corps Marathon, he told my dad. That's great, Trav.

My dad responded, and I want you to run it with me, he finished. My father was then in his early 50s and in solid shape, but this was no sense. small request after running the Marine Corps marathon a couple times when he was younger my dad had retired his marathon shoes forever he thought but he wasn't about to say no to his son fighting a war thousands of miles away let's do it he replied in mid-May when the funeral services were over and my parents extended family and friends were gathered in the living room my dad remembered his promise to Travis I'm still going to run that marathon he proclaimed to the quiet gathering of distraught dumbstruck family members all run too

Tom, said Chris, my dad's youngest brother. I'm in, echoed his wife, my aunt Susan. One by one, people picked up their heads, hardened to their gazes, and joined him. Pretty soon, every single person in that room had committed to 26.2 miles in honor of Travis. I was conveniently engrossed in the thread on the carpet when I felt a dozen pairs of eyes landing intently on my face. I looked up. Now, I had been an athlete in college, but that was almost five years earlier.

I'd given birth to Maggie only 10 months before, and I hadn't run. So much as a 5K in ages, but those stairs were burning a hole right through my skin and Thankfully my bullheadedness kicked in all right. I'll do it. I said I mean how hard could it be And then you you get done with your first training run at the end of that first one mile run Weezing forcefully and doubled over in pain I gave myself a little pat on the back Good job, Ryan, you did today's run you're done now go home drink some water and chill But make damn sure you show up for tomorrow's run and that's how it went every day for four and a half months.

No matter how slow, ugly, or painful the run might have been, I completed it. There was no 26.2 mile run ahead of me. There was no 26.2 mile ahead of me. There was only today. As the proverb says, there's only one way to eat an elephant, one bite at a time.

So you talk about your training. I thought it was cool. You got Travis' iPod. Yeah. How awesome was that? It was awesome. Yeah, came back in his foot locker, and I'm like, all right.

And he was so into music. And we both shared like a deep love of music. We went to concerts together all the time. And so that was like exciting. I didn't have an iPod at the time. So it came back and it was, and I'm like, gosh, I hope I can get this thing working and, you know, plugged it in.

And I was like, all right, there we go. It's so crazy to think that these digital memories of people, I mean, and even, I mean, today, today the digital memories of people are going to be crazy. Yeah. I mean, it's just, you're going to have all these images and videos and writing and posts and all this stuff for people. Yeah. And like even just something like that, what is it, 12 years ago, you know, this iPod, you know, you fast, you could rewind another 20 years behind that. There's no iPod.

There's no, there's, you might have had a mixtape, I guess. Well, I look at too. It's interesting. Like, I remember talking to Travis on his first deployment. I'm like, let me set you up a MySpace profile. I'm not doing that. I'm like, come on. And, you know, so he had no imprint on social media at all.

But just a few years later, you know, when Brendan was killed, I was Facebook friends with Brendan. Brendan had a Facebook page, you know, and it was just that small time. But to have that iPod, the coolest thing about it for me is that it wasn't just like it was Travis's iPod. I'm like, this is what he was taking in when he was in Iraq. Yeah, for sure. You know, so like I'm listening to it.

And I just felt, it felt like such a deep connection with where he had been. And you know what's so cool about that? What you just said, you didn't even realize how right you are because, like, I had my iPod in Iraq, my last deployment, which was 2006. And those songs, like however many songs were on my iPad at the time, like whatever, 215 songs or whatever it was. Whenever I hear those songs right now, I'm right back. I mean, I was 100% listening to this.

the same songs over and over and over and over again. Yeah. And I'm now brought back. I hear any of those songs, I'm brought back to training for that marathon. That's where they bring me back to. So you talk about the training and then here we go. As the big date approached, this is for the marathon. My family and I headed to Washington through which the marathon course runs.

The night before the race, we held a dinner for our team, which by now had grown to nearly 100 people. Aunt's uncles, cousins, friends, neighbors, lacrosse and wrestling buddies, fellow Marines and Naval Academy grads. of them were participating to honor my brother. At dinner at a hotel, we invited a few people, including Brendan Looney, who was to say a few words. Brendan stood solemnly at the microphone. He stared. He started in about how Travis had been a brother to him and how he couldn't believe he was gone. He was a great friend, Brendan said, I'll never forget him and I miss him.

He'd been choking back tears and finally his voice broke. I have to get out of this room, I thought. I simply couldn't watch this tough Navy SEAL break down as he remembered my brother. It was too much. I slipped out of the hotel and found myself gulping in the cold fall air outside. My head was spinning and I couldn't help but feel that I was learning for the first time that Travis was gone forever. I lit a cigarette. It had been on and off habit of mine over the years, one that Travis had always chastised me about. Maybe one day I'll write a book about what not to do when running a marathon.

Chain smoking the night before the race would certainly make the list. but it's not even the worst transgression I've committed. Fortunately for you, this isn't a book about endurance training. It's a book about grief, which perhaps isn't so different. The key to navigating grief I've found is to have the courage to allow it to transform you. Same theme, like accepting the fact that it's going to make you different. I've had to remind myself time and time again, we're only human. We can only take so much.

Don't be so hard on yourself when you take one step forward and several steps, back. You made it this far. You got up today and put one foot in front of the other. You completed today's run. Go home, relax, and get ready for tomorrow's. Now you get into the marathon, which is a great story. I'm jumping ahead a little bit here, but got to mile 19 and I still had 7.2 miles to complete. At this point, the wheels had all but come off. My brain was no longer able to bully my body into behaving. My knees, my ankles, my arches, everything was rebelling. I had slowed to a walk and began to debate with myself, began the debate with myself that any distance runner knows well. 18 miles is great.

You should be proud of yourself. There's no shame in stopping here. You just lost your brother for God's sake. Did anyone really expect you to get this far? Call it now and leave with your dignity and your joints intact. So you're having that. The quitter's conversation. Totally.

The quitter's conversation. You're having it, but you're not a quitter. So I made one last ditch effort in an, I reached into my fanny pack and rifled through my unused power gels and energy beans until my fingers rested on the mask card with Travis's face on it, November 19th, 1980 to April 29th, 2007, 26 years old. I gripped it tightly and offered a silent prayer. This is it, Travis. The Marine Corps marathon course ends at the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial, a statue based on the iconic picture of six Marines struggling to raise a flagpole on the island of UOGMA during World War. It's an incredibly powerful sight, and when you come upon it, you feel every bit as tired and as strong as those men huddled together appear to be as they raised the American flag.

I didn't care if my leg fell off in that very moment. I was not walking up that hill. I hustled into a full sprint, bounded over crushed plastic cups and past exhausted runners. Somehow I felt my legs were fresh. In reality, I was probably every bit the Frankenstein I had appeared to be at Mile 9. just an hour older. What I actually looked like, I can't say for sure, and I'd rather not imagine,

but I pushed forward and grabbed Aunt Susan's hand, as together we crossed the finish line, then I collapsed. I can honestly say that I'm a different person because of that race, pushing myself through that training and navigating the emotional strain and physical stress taught me a lot about myself and even more about grief. It took me years to process my brother's death and years more to organize my thoughts around what wisdom

I could possibly gain from it. It's only after more than a decade of reflection that I can share what I now know. And here you kind of lay some of these out. First, what you don't know can't hurt you, can't hurt you, which is an interesting concept. What you don't know can't hurt you. Wait, hear me out. I know this advice is usually given sarcastically, and that can be for good reason. But consider for a moment the wisdom in that phrase.

Sometimes being naive is a blessing. If I had known the physical, mental, and emotional told that the race would have taken on me, I wouldn't run it. I would have become paralyzed with fear and self-doubt and my eyes would have remained forever fixed on that thread in the carpet. But fear and self-doubt often keep us from knowing our own strength. And that's something we simply can't risk. If I had never run that race, I would never have discovered what I was capable of achieving. Preparation and training are great tools. They provide us with confidence to dream as big as we want to.

but without a healthy dose of fearless ignorance, we might never bother dreaming at all. It's interesting advice. Yeah. I like it. It's advice I still follow to this day. I mean, it's kind of, I'm, I will say, you know, pre-travis didn't really live with fear, right?

But I didn't really do anything to be fearful of. And today I definitely have those like, I say, you know, I'm on edge. I'm always on edge. But I'm also on edge in a way that I'm like, what's next? Like, I'm like hungry for what's next. And I, the things that I have done over the last 12 years, I don't even know if I could pick five of them that I would have done pre-2007 or, frankly, had any interest in.

I mean, had Travis come home, nobody, you see, Travis placed a call from Iraq to my dad to say run the marathon. He wasn't calling me to say run the marathon. That wasn't even a thought in his head because he knew that there was no way I would even consider running a marathon. And I've just kind of approached things as like, I'm just going to do it. You know, what's the worst that can happen? And you do. You have this like, what's the, my brain. brother is dead. What's the worst that can happen? You know, I don't make it. I don't make, I don't

finish the race. And, you know, and that was 12 years ago. And that was my, I remember saying, I'm going to do, finish this marathon. And then I'm going to be able to say, I ran a marathon. And I'm, and people like, oh, you're going to get the bug once you run one. And I was like, I never got the bug. I'm like, nope, I have my checkmark. I can say, when people say, oh, I'm going to compare. I'm like, yeah, I ran it. know. But I don't know what changed, but, you know, here I am again, like 12 years later, and I'm rucking the Marine Corps marathon in a week. What, 40 pounds?

Oh, God, no, 20 pounds. 20 pounds? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And this is a person who's never rucked before. So I go, well, I, we have a fantastic partnership with Go Ruck.

the Go Ruck community. And so I get to meet the founder of Go Ruck. Have you ever met Jason McCarthy? I have not. He's a great guy, West Point grad. And he just has this fabulous community. I didn't understand it, but I knew that the people connected with the Travis Manning Foundation loved Rucking, so I'm like, all for it.

So they asked me to do this promotional video with Jason and to highlight our partnership. And we're in Georgia and they're filming us and we're walking around. to Lake and he's like, let's get Ryan a rucksack. And so I put this rucksack on. He had this set up pre-planned big time. I mean, the rucksack had like newspaper in it. So I'm just like, okay. So I'm like, oh, this is fun. And he's explaining the theory of rucking is like, the nice thing about it is like your pace is always at a conversational pace. And, you know, and I'm like, I like that. Like, I like that I can sit here and talk to you and we're exercising. And he's talking about the benefits of it from a child perspective. Like, you bring your kids out.

because they're going to be walking slow, but you just put more weight on and you're getting a workout. So conceptually, I'm like, okay, I like it. Well, later that night, we were at a summit. We had like 100 veterans through the Trivus Manning Foundation we had brought for like leadership training. And later that night, everybody's by the bonfire

and we're a few drinks in. And everybody's talking about, oh, I'm rucking the marathon. And it was like another one of those scenes. Instead of in my parents' living room, I'm behind, you know, around a bonfire with a bunch of veterans. And they're like, it's like, I'm going to, I'm going to rock the marathon. And it was like, came to me and I'm like, I'm rocking the marathon. And I woke up the next day and I was like, yeah, I don't know if I'm rucking the marathon.

But then I get back to Philadelphia and a rucksack shows up at my front door. And I was like, oh, crap. You're ruck in the marathon. I guess I'm rucking a marathon. So. Yeah, it's, I was, I was talking. to Travis Mills. Yeah, I love Travis.

And Travis is awesome. Yeah, he's great. We were talking about, you know, I was talking to him about like, why didn't you, and he was a total stud in high school football, he set records. Like he's, and he's just like a beast of a human and athlete. And, you know, I said to him, well, why didn't you go to like special forces or why didn't you go to Ranger School? He's like, I didn't know if I could make it.

And I was like, oh, that's funny. Because I, as a young 18 year old kid when I joined the Navy, I had enough of this right here. I had enough of, what do you say, ignorance. Fearless ignorance. You know, I was, I was, like, an average athlete. And I was like, oh, seal training, I'll make it through, whatever, you know, and here's a total stud that was, he was like, I didn't know if I could make it. I was like, I mean, you didn't have enough fearless ignorance. Yeah. But, yeah, so it's same thing. And I, and I find that a lot with these young kids that, there's some kids that want to be seals, but I meet, I have people come to my gym here and they're like, I really wanted to go to Seals, but I didn't know if I could make it.

I'm always thinking, man, you're in better shape than I ever was. Yeah, right. But you've got to have a little bit of fearless ignorance. Yeah. Just a little bit. Yeah. I mean, hey, I'm using my fearless ignorance again to ruck this marathon. I'm just, you know, but that also comes coupled with knowing how hard a marathon is.

So Krista, who's in a lot of this. book, you know, she's, I've convinced her to ruck the marathon with me. She's never done a marathon before. And we did 18 miles last week. And she's like, I feel great. Like, this feels great. I feel like I could keep going. And I'm like, you don't understand. It's that last 7.2 miles that puts you over the edge. I'm like, she has the fearless ignorant. She has no idea. You got her right where you want. Yeah. I'm like, I know. So I'm like, I'd rather be in your shoes right now. Here's your next piece of advice from this section. Second, embrace your support system relationships are everything friends family and loved ones can get us

through our darkest and saddest moments we just need to let them our friends and families feed our wild ambitions they gently and lovingly protect us from our own self-destructive habits they list lift us up when we can't go another step with a loving support system we can afford to be a little naive be bold be fearless but don't do it alone you are human and you are one person allow yourself to be carried forward by those who love you and then your last piece of advice in this section And finally, don't wait. I beg you, please don't wait.

I had no idea how tough I was. Why did I wait until my brother was dead to find out? My only regret of that marathon in 2007 was that it didn't take place in 2006. You know who would have loved to run and train with me? Travis, something like that, which required focus and discipline, was far more up his alley than mine. He would have been so proud and we would have had a ball together. There are so many things I wish I could have done together, wish we could have done together. I'm not the same woman he knew when he was alive.

I'm better. I'm stronger. Why did I wait for him to disappear before I became the woman I wanted to be? Don't wait. Don't wait. In 2007, if you were to graph my emotions for that year, you would produce an interesting line, a fairly stable, horizontal line of contentment for the beginning of the year, a drastic drop in April. When Travis died, then a gradual climb back up toward happiness until the marathon six months later.

I was so grateful to have something to focus on that helped me put the pieces of my life back together after the loss of my brother. It was precisely the medicine I needed. But by winter, my line was dropping again. The decline in my happiness and well-being was persistent, steady, and interestingly, almost undetectable. I, of course, knew that my life had been far better when Travis was in it, but I was managing, wasn't I? After all, I was getting up, going to work, being a mom. I was running errands and knocking out personal goals. I was socializing and even laughing and finding joy here and there. By any external barometer, I was improving. I was wounded, no doubt, but I was happy. But grief is very much

an internal battle. It's not kind enough to play by the rules. And it certainly doesn't register on any emotional barometer. It can be deceptive. And believe it or not, so can you. In fact, I would wager that no one can deceive you as effectively as you can deceive yourself. Grief, pain, sadness, these feel like disadvantages. They threaten our survival so naturally we shed them. We convince ourselves that they've gone away. This is precisely what I did. And it's amazing what I managed to hide from myself and for how long.

My emotional slope continued to creep stealthily downward for several. For several years, it continued right under my nose until Christmas night of 2012 when I reached rock bottom. But the seeds of my deterioration had been planted several years before. Now, we've talked about your brother and obviously had your dad on the podcast. We're going to talk about your mom a little bit. And this is how you describe your mom, Janet. Janet Mannion was a tough, optimistic, and focused. She made every decision with self-assurance, as if despite any concerns or doubts,

that she may have been harboring. The anxieties, the worries, they were there. Of course, they had to be. She simply would not allow them to triumph over her. She had Herculean willpower. For years after Travis's death, my mother continued to be the picture of stalwart strength. She ached in a way that only a mother who has buried her son can, but she never let it keep her down. It was especially disorienting for me than.

When I learned a few years later that my mother, this penant of courage for our family, had only eight months to live. We got the news in 2011, four years after Travis's death. A surgery revealed that stage four lung cancer had spread throughout her body. Eight months after, eight months later, a few days before the fifth anniversary of Travis' death, my mother joined him in heaven. In only five years my only sibling and my mother had died. My family of four had been reduced to two.

I was devastated. No marathon was going to make this loss any easier to bear. I had no idea where to turn for help. I simply couldn't stomach the thought of picking up the pieces once again. I hadn't even collected them all the first time. In the months after my mother's death on April 24, 2012, I turned to the methods of coping that had become familiar to me. me. I threw myself into my work and into my family's busy schedule. I set small goals,

losing weight, reading, running, anything to keep waking up every day and moving. It had worked before, hadn't it? It could work again, I figured. I was wrong. You know, I think when I look at the the five-year span between Travis and my mom, I kind of, I'll say, I peaked in terms of, like, with that marathon, it was like, I'm going to do this, you know? And then from there, it just became this idea, like I talk now, like when people ask me, does grief end? Like, no, it doesn't. But at that time, I didn't know that. And so I thought, grief was over for me. Did you have any,

was there any indication of what was going to happen with your mom? No. I mean, if you looked at my family dynamic after Travis was killed, she was the Sparta woman that had taken over and was leading the charge. And it was kind of my dad and I, following behind her. I mean, I can't put into words the strength that she displayed. And now with three kids of my own, I can't even fathom it.

And so, you know, I was doing things between those five years. She had started the Travis Mannion Foundation. And at first, my dad and I looked at it as almost a labor of love. It was like, okay, well, this is good. like this small memorial fund. It'll keep her distracted. Yeah. I mean,

seriously, we had those conversations. Like, great way for her to channel her grief, to work through things. She can help people locally. I mean, that's how we saw it.

That is so funny because you're sitting there going, oh, that's fine. And she's like got a master plan going on. Yeah. Oh, it was like, it couldn't,

looking back, it couldn't have been more short-sighted on our parts to think that she was just going to la-di-da around town, you know, and be like, I've got a memorial fund. Like, no. I mean, she right away was like, we're going to be one of the,

I mean, she would say things like our 9-11 Heroes Run. This was like a 5K run that we had the year after Travis was killed. 9-11 Heroes Run, it was 300 people in Doyles Town, Pennsylvania, you know, a small suburban town outside of Philadelphia. And I was like, this is so cool. Like, great, Ron, great to have the community. community out. And my mom comes up and she's like, I want this to be the Susan G. Komen race for the cure for our military community. We need one of these in every city and state

across the country. And I'm like, and, you know, my dad and I would be like, okay, Janet. Like, eye roll. Like, why don't we just try to get like a thousand people at the run next year? You know, that would be like a cool goal. But, you know, you look at where we are today. We've got, we just finished our race series, 90 runs across the world. We brought out 60,000 people. Janet wasn't playing. We are the Susan G. Comen race for the cure for the military community, you know, bringing awareness to our military and first responders. And so, you know, I'm watching her do that. And I joined the foundation in early 2010. And I'm just, just kind of, I mean, my title was executive director.

My real title was Janet Mannion's assistant. You know, I mean, I was her assistant. And I was happy to be that and to play that role because, frankly, I had no idea what I was doing. And I'm following behind her and just kind of, it was like, you know, she was teaching me, you know. I was watching everything that she did. I was trying to emulate how she was doing it. She was so bold and fearless. Like she had no problem asking anyone for anything.

And I was just like, God, if I can just hang around her enough to gain some of that experience. And so our time was so limited that I was able to do that with her until the time she was diagnosed with cancer. And it was another one of those just like gut punches. But it came in like a different form as opposed to like knock gone, right? It comes as my arm hurts. Your kid was, you know, being a pain in the butt. And when I tried to pick her up, she wiggled out of my arm and we're down at the beach and,

oh, mom, throw some ice on it, you know. And we get back home. And she's like, God, my arm still hurts. It's not incredibly swollen or anything. Like, you don't think anything of it. And so it's like a couple days later. I think I'm going to go to get my arm checked out. All right, I'll go with you.

Go down to our, she calls our friend who's an orthopedic. Hey, can you run an x-ray on me? I think I might have broke my arm. Yeah, come on in. You know, we left the foundation office. We go in. They give her an x-ray, and he comes out. And I just, you knew.

And he comes out. And he goes, um, so you have. have a little break there, but I want to send you down to my friend at Penn to take a look at it. Because there's, you know, just to get another look and, you know, get another opinion. Well, all right, you just told me I broke my arm. You're not going to cast it. And I'm like, this is weird. So I'll make you an appointment.

Let's get you down there tomorrow. And we show up at the office. And it was my mom, my dad and I. And I remember we walk up. And it's like, doctor, someone's. so orthopedic oncologist. And we were like, you know, I'm like, and I'm like, my mom has bone cancer, you know, that's all I'm thinking, like, what?

And so she goes into surgery the next day. And, you know, you don't know what a diagnosis looks like. It's like she's got a tumor in her arm. Okay, that's the most random thing I've ever heard in my life. And they're like, well, she had a tumor. our arm, we removed it, but the tumor didn't start there. So now we have to figure out where it came from, but that also means that wherever it came from, it has spread. And so it's like another, and that night, my parents are slated, my mom's in a bed at University of Pennsylvania

Hospital, and my parents are supposed to be getting the Commodore Berry Citizen of the Year award presented to them by General Dumford. And so my dad and I, head to the event. We come back and we get back to the room and the doctor's like, yeah, it's started in her lung. It's in her brain. It's in her back. I mean, it was everywhere. And not one symptom at all. Like, not one symptom. She was not smoking cigarettes while training for a marathon, you know. I mean, it was, it was crazy. It was like, how does this happen, you know? And I've read, a lot of studies on like grief manifestation with stress and how like your body sometimes can let go of certain cells when you're experiencing trauma. And I think there's, I mean, I have to

believe there's something to say to that. You know, Brendan Looney's mom died three years after he was killed from cancer. So, I mean, the coincidences are, are, a lot. But, you know, the doctors tell us, like, you've got eight months to live with treatment. If you decide to go the treatment route, it's just going to help prolong you. We're going to give you about eight months. My mom never really took that and was like, she didn't do one of these, I've got eight months to live. This is what I'm going to do. She was just like, okay, I'm going to start my treatments and I'm going to keep working. So, you know, she's diagnosed with stage four cancer and she's back in the office the next day. And she's standing there with a, you know,

a wrap around her arm where she had just had surgery. But like it was, it was a little off-putting because nothing changed. It wasn't like, okay, everything changes now. She was like, no, we've got a, we've got a job to do. And it wasn't until the very end when her health started to take a bit of a decline that I took on more of a caretaker role. with her. But this was like, it was like eight months and six and a half of those months were just, you would have never known anything was different. So, you know, she's going to chemo treatments. Maybe she's sick for a day. She's back in the office the next day. Very, you know, she's serving, she had an appointment, an official appointment at Arlington. She served on the Arlington committee.

and, you know, she's taking calls and doing meetings from her bedside, you know. And so she kind of kept focus on, she didn't focus on what her illness. She focused on everything else. And it just got to the point at the end where her body wouldn't allow her to keep going like that. But it was, you know, two weeks where she was really, where you're like, oh, you're sick. but the rest of the time you would have really never known. You know, people look at pictures of my mom, and I'm like, yeah, that's just a couple weeks before she died.

And they're like, what? Because you have, you know, the image in your head of someone with dying of stage four cancer. Like, she just, she didn't look like that. And what were you thinking this whole time? I was very pragmatic. I was like, my mom's dying in eight months. I did not, my dad on the other side was, like, I'm not listening to that.

Like, there's miracles happen every day. We just got to, you know, stay the course. Things will see if there's trials. You know, they're trying all sorts of different holistic diets. And I was very much supportive of that. Let's try everything and anything. But I almost felt so jaded at that point in life a little bit that I was like, yeah. I mean, we got eight months.

Let's see what these eight months look like. You say here, grief is a savage and shrewd beast that isn't easily tamed. As soon as I found a method of fending off my grief that worked for me, it caught on and found a new mode of attack. Staying goal-oriented and tough-minded got me only so far. Then the year my mother died on Christmas night of 2012, it came to find me in my home. and so your mom dies and you again this is all stuff that you talk about in the book these big parties that you guys have these big Christmas parties and they kind of go they've gone from generation to generation and your grandparents had them then your parents had them and and so now it's your turn

and so you have this big party and you know the the pandemonium or whatever of a party and the planning and all that stuff and then the party's over and after the after the party you lay down you know you're really tired from doing all the work of getting it ready and you're tired But here we go back to the book but sleep didn't come Something much nastier arrived in its place. I felt like I received a direct punch to the gut and my eyes immediately Sprained open I started hyperventilating I couldn't breathe pressure was quickly building inside my chest and my mind was on fire with anxiety It was the most terrifying panic attack I had ever experienced Dave you have to get me to the hospital I managed to get out I think I'm dying I will forever be grateful for what my husband said next.

No, you're not. Stop, Ryan. Just relax and go to bed. Then you say you might think I'm kidding, but I'm serious. And I did think you were kidding, and you are serious. My husband always knows what to say to me when my emotions reach a fever pitch. If I had sensed even the slightest bit of concern in his voice, I know the situation would have only escalated.

At the time, however, as you may imagine, I did not appreciate it. I immediately set off into a flurry of accusations. Thankfully, I can no longer remember. Dave, the peaceful warrior that he is, remained unfazed. Instead, he continued to speak rationally and firmly. There was probably only a few minutes, but they felt like my last. When the intense feelings of anxiety disappeared and my breathing slowed into a natural rhythm, I had an internal come to Jesus with myself.

Clearly, I was not okay. I had dealt with some minor anxiety before, initially when Travis was deployed, and then immediately after his death. nothing like this. This was positively debilitating. For several, for the next several months, I was a ghost of my former self. The identity I'd painstakingly built for myself after Travis died had shattered. On December 24th, 2012, I identified as a tough, capable, resilient woman. I was a marathon runner. I was a dedicated mom and supportive wife. I had taken over as executive director of the Travis Mannion Foundation, the organizer, the organization my mother had formed to honor my

brother. I led a talented team and people looked to me for guidance and leadership, and I gave it to them but December 25th was a different ballgame I was gasping for air and cursing my cursing my exceedingly calm husband I was smoking again I crying in the shower and regularly feeling seized by anxiety that I simply couldn't shake off if this is what life is like going to be if this is what life is going to be like from now on I thought to myself one day I'm done I can't live like this then you talk about communicating with some of your friends commiserating with Amy, this is Brendan's, Brendan's wife, was deeply helpful in putting me back on the path to recovery.

Two years earlier, she had lost her husband, Brendan. If there was anyone with whom I felt I could be completely vulnerable, it was her. One day I called her overwhelmed and furious. My therapist diagnosed me with post-traumatic stress disorder today. I shouted into the receiver. Can you believe that shit? I don't have PTSD. And then you go on and she says,

It's okay, Ryan, she told me, my therapist told me the same thing. At that point, we both chuckled and it dawned on me that there was likely some truth to the diagnosis. Naming my problem didn't do much for me, but sharing it with someone else did. During the following six months, I started to regain my confidence, humor, and peace. I slowly reclaimed myself. Life slowed down. I focused on my mental health. That did not mean I threw physical challenges out the window.

Quite the opposite. I began to understand what my dad meant when he told me to go. for a run when I wasn't feeling myself. Exercise has a tremendous positive effect on the mind. I was using simple exercise as a tool to help with my mental state. And you, again, you go into some pretty good detail about this idea of not just exercise, but setting these kind of little goals and doing things that sort of give you an immediate short-term gratification. And you get sort of on this treadmill of.

You're looking for these short-term gratification things to really Propel you for the next 10 minutes whatever next hour and you know whether it's a run or whether it's a goal or whether it's some party or You're just you're looking for you're looking for like happiness. Yeah gratification temporary joy But you realize it that's not giving you the profound happiness that you're looking for. So you say this, to break away from that unforgiving pattern of searching for unmatched joy, you need to do one very important thing.

You have to be honest with yourself. No more self-deception. For a long time, I had lied to myself about how happy and fulfilled I felt. Frankly, it was easier that way. I even lied about things that made me feel happy and fulfilled. If I just stay busy, I would think. Maybe the story you tell yourself is a little different if I just lose a few more pounds if I just earn a few more thousand dollars this year If I can just get that guy to notice me then I'll be happy then I'll be okay

When we shed those deceptive stories we tell ourselves we create a space where we're able to see what actually does make us Authentically happy I bet you'll find you weren't totally off as I said we all seek some the same things Love acceptance purpose we just look for them in the wrong places. When I talked with Amy, I knew that I had found them. A sense of community, friendship, growth. They were all right there laid out in front of me. And it was because I took a moment of quiet,

away from the activity and the chaos that I got to experience and appreciate it in an intentional and meaningful way. Intention was the key that I'd been missing. I was so caught up in goals and milestones and challenges and ambitions that I'd missed the simple but profound element that makes everything worthwhile. And the fact is, I'm still hungry. I'm still ambitious. I'm still a fighter.

I like to push my body and do things I may not quite be ready for. And hell yes, I've still got goals and dreams. But now I also have something else. I believe that the single greatest key to resilience is setting intentional goals. Achieving a goal for the sake of vain glory and sheer accomplishment will bring satisfaction. But that satisfaction will prove to be short-lived. Achieving goals that have deep meaning to us will bring us far more happiness. When we set goals that have meaning outside of our own selfish ends, we discover it's not about the destination.

It's about the journey. That's powerful. And for me, that part right there at the end, when we set goals that have meaning outside of our own selfish ends. and that's the lesson that when I hear Travis's story, it's like, oh, what made his life so meaningful is that what he was doing was not for himself. Right. Everything he was doing was so that he could be a leader

so he could be a warrior so he could protect so he could defend. Yeah. Yeah. That, you know, you talk about April 29, 2007, is the worst day of my life. But if you try to find the worst time of my life, it would be after my mom passed away. It was one of those things where, you know,

you kind of do this. Oh, when I thought I was the, when I thought Travis being killed was the woman being hit with the icicle falling off the garage. Like, this is like, let me tell you, about the craziest story I've ever heard. You know, I'm like, how could my mom and my brother both not be here?

And through that five years, I was led by my parents, largely, in terms of things I was doing to honor my brother. But it was, I don't want to say robotic, but it was these small little things. It was like, okay, run a marathon, and it was like, go to this ceremony. And five years out from a loss, there's still a lot of attention that's brought to that loss, and the loss of a service member. I mean, you're going to have, you know, you're going to have the local schools that want to honor them at Memorial Day. The families want to be brought in on Veterans Day. It's those things.

And they kind of like, they lead you through the years. And I'll tell you what, they're meaningful. and they mean something, and they're very much appreciated. But then after my mom was killed or passed away, I just felt lost. I was like, oh my gosh. Like, I don't know what you do from here. And I just handled it the same way. Well, okay, you know, Travis Manning Foundation, board of directors, three weeks after her death holds a board meeting and they're like, you're up, you know, you're the president. Oh, well, and when I joined my mom as executive director, I joined my mom as a, you know, it was

still a small organization. But she takes in five years and turns it into one of the top leading nonprofits for veterans in the country. And they're like, okay, Ryan, go. And I'm like, oh, crap. Like, I don't know how to do this. I have no idea. And I always tell my husband, he's going to hate, that I say this.

I told him this was going to be the title of my next book. He's like, no, it's not. But I said, like, I did a little, like, fake it until you make it. So I was like, okay, I'm the president, and I know what I'm doing. And, you know, this is how it's going to be. And the first thing I did, I just started, like, hiring really smart people. I'm like, okay, who are the... The smartest people I can find, and I'm going to get them, and they're going to be the team of leadership that's going to make sure that we drive this forward.

But then there was also this tremendous weight, because here you had this organization that was named after my brother that had become, like, people at this point, like you say Travis Mannion, and they know that name. So there's a heavy burden to make sure you uphold the responsibility of what that name represents. And then on top of it, you uphold the responsibility of the woman that created it that's no longer here. So I felt pressure like I had never felt before. And I didn't take any steps to say, okay, intentional steps to say, how do I move forward? doing this. It was just became the same rat race that I had been doing for the five years prior. I was like, okay, got to keep going. And that felt really tough to me. I was like, you know, I remember sitting there the day before my mom's funeral and there was all these people around,

much different scene than the chaos around Travis's death. I'm sitting there and I'm like, I need you to do this. This is my eulogy. I want you to go home, go back and make these revisions on the computer, print it back. Like, I was running. running the show. I'm like, I'm in charge. I'm taking over. I'm going to make sure all this is getting done. And we do the most beautiful tribute to this woman. And after that, I kept going just with that same like, do, do, do, like grind every single day, whatever it may be. And then it was that Christmas party where, and my husband, again, you know, he's, he has some insight. And he said, I don't think you throwing a Christmas party this year for a hundred people is smart. Like,

we are, we've got so much going on. We are so incredibly overwhelmed. You're so busy. Like, let's just give it a rest. I mean, I think he was even like dangling, you know, a trip to the islands for Christmas in my face. And I'm like, no way, you know. It's all about the memories. We have to have it. And the idea that the year after my mom passes away, we wouldn't have this. Like, that's just unheard of. Like, there's no way. And so I continued in that robot, robot mode. Like, this is what I got to do. I have to execute. This is what needs to be done. And it was, once I hit that wall after it was done, it was like that was the mecca. I'd hit it and everything just came kind of crashing down.

And, you know, that panic attack that night, it was, I've had anxiety a little bit, you know, growing up in my teens, like, you know, what I should say, what I thought was anxiety. this was literally I thought I was dying I was like I'm I'm dying here on Christmas night and and it was my husband being like and you know he's like shut up you're not dying I'm tired and it was hearing those words like I'm tired I'm like all right well clearly if I'm dying my husband's not going to tell me he's tired and to be quiet you know and it brought me down but you know after that

it was waking up every day. That was one thing. You know, a panic attack a year over something. And I could understand that. I got that. It was like, well, yeah, you had a panic attack because you've had such an adrenaline rush for the last five months,

building up to everything you've been doing, culminating with this event that your mom used to host. Like, I could justify a panic. It made sense. Like your body was just having that let down and it went into an anxious, response. It was that idea that I was waking up every day and I woke up and upon eyes opening, I wasn't crying. I was like shaking and I'm like, what is going on? And I hit it for a while.

I didn't tell my husband. I didn't tell my friend. Like I told no one because I'm just like, so, you know, I was. Well, you don't want your husband to say shut up. I'm tired. Yeah, exactly. Which is what he said last time. Yeah. These are not good words. Yeah. In most cases. Yeah, and I'm just... Husbands beware. Yeah. Don't, you know.

And to this, he's like, you know, here I am. Who am I in the book? The guy that tells you to shut up when you're having a bad time. And I'm like, no, babe. No, you spelled it out well. But it was that each and every day. And I got to the point where I'm like, like, I'm having mental health issues right now. Like, this is not just a isolated event.

Like, something's happening here. and to have me go sit on a couch with a therapist was like for me that was that was a big deal a big deal because you thought you're too you're too strong for this you don't need it it's just like not who I was I mean I think when I opened up the first time to my dad about this it was my dad and my husband and we were in the kitchen and I said hey I'm I'm struggling I don't know what going on with me, but I'm not feeling right. I'm living in a perpetual state of anxiety, and I don't know how to get out of it. And, you know, at that time, I had larazepam. It's like a low dosage Xanax that I had because I would take it when I flew, you know,

and, oh, here's something just to cut the edge when you fly. And next thing you know, like, I'm taking these every day, and they're not even doing anything. And I'm like, okay, so I finally break down. I tell my dad and Dave and my dad's first response is, well, I mean, I haven't seen you working out in a while, Ryan. So I mean, that's how I was raised. And he was like, you know, I mean, you got to go out and run. And I'm like, and I knew that was going to be the response. And so for a while I was like, well, I'm not going to say anything.

But from there was, you know, and in my. dad's defense, you know, I think after he said that, I broke down in tears. I'm like, it's not that, you know, and he was like, oh, crap, something serious is going on here. And so, you know, I got into therapy and, and therapy helps. Yeah, so this is something that I've realized. So I used to not really understand what therapy was or what a psychologist did or any of that. Yeah. And to me, it just seemed like voodoo, whatever kind of things, right? And it wasn't until a friend of mine, Jordan Peterson, who's a psychologist, came on here and he was,

he explained to me like two things that he solved for people. And that's when I realized, and I coined a term of my own called either a mind mechanic or like brain mechanic. Because when your car, when your car isn't running, right, you don't just keep driving it. You go, oh, this isn't running right. I'm going to take it to a mechanic.

And the mechanic actually every day sees different cars with different problems and knows how to fix them. So a psychologist or a therapist, they deal with people that have been through all these different things. And they have little solutions for them to tell you, to things to do, to get your mind in the right space so you can carry on. That's what they're doing. They're not doing any voodoo. They're just doing some mind mechanic adjustments. Yeah. And you can't imagine how, I know for me, I think my first therapy session I went in and she's asking me questions.

And, you know, it's like I'm having a conversation with a friend. And then she's like, okay, time's up. I'm like, well, when are we going to start therapy? She's like, I was therapy. And I'm like, oh. Did she give you, did she give you like techniques? Totally. Yeah.

Can you give me an example of just one? So, you know, there's like the breathing techniques, of course. Like for me, a lot of it was like the breathing because I would get to like these peaked peak feelings of anxiety where, you know, it was like fight or flight. And it was like breathing exercises to help get me back down. So she says, okay, when you start feeling like that, here's what you're going to do. Yeah. Well, tell me.

What would you do? Like, you know, it was, you know, I think one of them was like you're going to take a deep breath in. you're going to hold it for three seconds, and then you're going to let it out for 10 seconds while holding your diaphragm. So you can actually, like, feel the breast coming out. I developed my own techniques, too. Like, I have, to this day, I've developed my own techniques to help when I'm feeling anxious. Can you give me an example of one?

Oh, they're so girly. But, yeah, my examples are like... I'm not saying I'm going to use it. I'm not going to say I'll listen to. Okay. Well, so one of them. my examples is most of the time, and I actually don't, most of the time I keep my nails polished, okay? And I can get, and I'll like peel the nail polish off if I'm feeling super anxious.

But what it is more than that. Wait, so that's a sign that you're getting anxious? No, no, no. That's like if I'm super anxious. So if you're super anxious, you start picking at your fingernails. Yeah, taking the nail polish off. And I put the nail polish on because I don't want to pick the skin off my fingers. So that's a technique is to... Well, it's my technique.

It's not a... Okay, but it's something that calms you somehow? Yeah, you know what it is, though? I'll say it's not so much the peeling, the nail polish off the here. It's finding something that you have to concentrate on. Got it. So once I pick a piece of nail polish off my finger, I'm not going to let my hands look like that. So I have to get every last piece of nail polish off without nail polish remover with my fingers.

and that takes time and effort, and I just become focused on that. And so it's like that sort of thing can kind of bring you into, for me, it brings me into a place of like, I'm concentrating on this. So one thing that I realize that I do is when you're in the military,

when you talk on the radio, you don't want to sound like you're panicking, ever, right? And so like, if I was going to key that radio, I'd be like, no matter what was going on, you know, whether I'm just, exerting physical energy or there's chaos going on, it'd always be like, oh, I'm going to talk on the radio and I just put it on the calm voice.

You know, and I think that's, when you say, hey, we need 14 more guys to come over to this building now. And when everyone hears you, and you hear yourself, you're like, okay, things aren't that bad. We're good. So I always, for me, we're trying to keep my voice in check. And I think that leads to a sense of calmness, even not just outwardly but inwardly as well.

And I never really realized that until I started having conversations with people about this very thing. Because people would say, well, how did you remain calm? And I would think about it. Like, oh, just stay calm. And then I thought, well, let's think about it. What actually. And the other thing is, I would tell guys, you know, that I was training. I'd be like, hey, man, don't.

You know, I'd hear a guy on the radio. We need more guys over here now during a training operation. And I'd say, bro, you need to calm down. Don't sound like that. I'm ready. Freaking everyone out. Yeah. And they're freaking out.

Yeah. And so when I go, bro, don't talk like that. Say it again. Say it calm. And they'd be like, hey, we need six more guys moving forward. And you could see them visibly. I'd watch them. They would get calmer.

Yeah. Because you have to get control. So those are the kind of things that the mind mechanic will give you these tools. Totally. And, and you know, but for me, it was less about staying calm. It was about like I was afraid of that Christian. where literally it's that fight or flight and you don't want to go off that edge. And so it was like when I get to that point, what do I do?

Because I don't know if you've ever had an actual panic attack. I have not. You feel like you're dying. It is the craziest feeling in the world. The thing that makes me really, which must make this hard, right, is if you, like, let's say you're starting to have a panic attack. Yeah. Isn't it like a snowball because you're like, I'm having me.

one. Oh my God, it's coming. It's coming. Oh, God. This is going to be it. This is going to be a bad one. So it actually, it's a, it's like self, it propels itself. Totally. It makes itself worse. Well, you know, I, so I was saying, I used to take like Larazepam when I flew, you know, and it was just like, hey, it was like my fear of, you know, flying, right? I fly so much now. I'm over it. But people who say, were you scared of the plane crashing? And I was like, no, I was scared of getting too scared on the plane. You know, like, I don't want to be on the plane and start getting scared. So I'm going to, I mean, it's like, your, your head does crazy things, you know.

But yeah, I worked through that and, you know, I was very intentional about, even when I felt like, okay, I'm coming out of this, I'm feeling better. It wasn't like, I'm going to stop. I was like, okay, I got to keep going. and I'm going to keep going until she tells me it's, you know. How long did that take? It was about six months of like intensive therapy where I'm talking like I was. How many times a week?

Two to three times a week. And exercise. So after you. So exercise becomes again a big part of it. But it's not exercise where I'm going to run a marathon or I'm going to, it was like, I'm going to go out for. run every day, every other day because it's what my mind needs, not necessarily what my body needs. I was talking to my friend Joe Rogan on his podcast right after Chris Cornell killed himself. He killed himself that day or the day before.

And so we started this podcast and look, I mean, obviously I'm no psychologist and we were just talking. We weren't trying to give out advice, but, you know, both of us was like, oh, you know, Got to get some exercise. And a million people said, you have no idea what you're talking about. I'm like, I know. I'm just saying that, you know, it feels good to work out. But then what was interesting was my other friend, Tim Ferriss, who actually went through

like a suicidal episode in his life. And he's like, no, you have to like get outside and exercise. It will make you feel better. I don't subscribe to anybody that thinks that your physical. health is not 100% tied to your mental health. Like, you know, I used to think my dad was incredibly insensitive when I would try to talk to him about like, you know, ailments of the mind and he would tie it all back to like, you know, well, if you ran more.

But, you know what? Like, he was right. Yeah. He was right. And is it all that? Is it like, hey, I'm suffering from depression. Go run. No.

That's not. But it is 100% a component. My husband runs every single day. Every day he runs. And people are like, oh, are you going to run the marathon? He's like, I'll never run a marathon again. He's like, I run to live my life. Like, it's all for.

It's maintenance. It's all maintenance for him. It's just about, like, in order for me to be clearheaded to be a good husband and to be a good father and to be good at my job, I have to run every day. So what's cool about this, you know, for folks that are listening right now that are running into whatever difficulties they're going through, like, hey, cool, the initial whatever, the initial prescription is, hey, get outside. And then, like you said, if it goes beyond that, then what do we need?

Well, then you need to go and see a brain mechanic. Yeah. Which is what you said to your dad. Hey, dad, it's not more running. Yeah, yeah. It's not more running. Right. Which I probably had some conversations with like that about with my kids, you know, where, you know, my daughters, they'll say like, I just don't feel like doing anything right now.

And it's like, well, that means you need to do something. Right. Yeah. And I'm sure at some time, at some points they're like, oh, God, my dad's an idiot. Yeah. But I want to say that you just said that your dad, which kind of supports my position, your dad was right. He was right. So get some exercise.

But then if it goes beyond that and you still feel the issues, then you've got to get some help. Yeah, for sure. A couple more things to wrap this up. Along the road to intention, I came across countless bumps and pitfalls, but I also learned a few valuable truths. First, don't use a jackhammer when a chisel will do. When I saw a problem in front of me, I went at it with a jackhammer. I was convinced that if I applied enough force to it, I could make it go away. But some problems, even big ones, need only a well-deployed chisel.

Intention is the chisel. I was introduced to intention when my mom received her eight-month prognosis. Travis's young life had been ripped from mine violently and quickly, but in the case of my mom, I was given the opportunity to say my goodbyes. I asked her questions about her life and wrote down her responses. We spent every day together and she held my girls every chance she got. After she died, all that disappeared. I believed for a time that I had been robbed.

I was heartbroken and right back where I had started. But then I re-learned a lesson on intentionality. I was crudely reminded of how short, sweet, and precious our lives are. I know the cost of not having the opportunity to say what or do what matters most and I refuse to squander the blessings that I have been given. I choose to live life with intention. Your next piece of advice. Second, it's not either or it's both and. Let me be clear, intention is not meant to replace goals and ambitions.

It's meant to color them. Committing to vigorous feats, physical, mental, or otherwise is often good in its own right. Maybe you want to pass those boards or crush that personal best time or compete for that promotion. These are all good things. These aims are fueled by discipline and focus, but they are nourished by intention. Difficult to attain goals and accomplishments are what keep our heart rates up and our blood pumping. They give us life. But intention is what gives our lives.

meaning. It's what makes life worth living. And this is your last piece of advice that I'm going to cover from the book. It says failure is a bruise, not a tattoo. Before Travis died, I never bothered to think much about failure. That's not because I was wildly successful at everything I tried my hand at. Believe me, I failed at plenty of things. Rather, it was because I didn't care enough about anything to give it much effort. I was sometimes apathetic. Travis was ambitious, Travis was the ambitious goal-oriented one.

I was just coasting through life. After he died, and then my mom died, I had a major wake-up call. Now I feel compelled to take advantage of the time I have left on this earth to lead a life they both can be proud of. and I think that's a good place to stop on my readings from this book to lead a life that they can be proud of because that message right there is just a powerful message and it's one that I know that I think about every single day

every single day I think about that and mind you we've only covered like a third of this book right here right there are stories and lessons from Heather and from Amy and like I said hopefully I can have them on

and we can go through their lessons learned and their experiences and I look forward to doing that but in the meantime for folks out there get this book and what's awesome is those stories in this book, the stories,

the book comes to an end and we're going to end this, but the story doesn't end there. Because Travis and Brendan and Robert are still having a huge impact. And we've been talking about this, the foundation that your mom started, the Travis Manion Foundation, in which you are now the president of the president of?

Yes. And Amy's one of the vice presidents? Amy's vice president. And then Heather is a manager of... Program manager. here in San Diego. The West region. Yeah, that's right.

So, I mean, the lessons that you're putting out in this book are awesome. Tell us a little bit before we stop. Tell us a little bit about the Travis Manning Foundation. First of all, like what's the mission? What's the goal? I mean, really at the Travis Manning Foundation, we are creating a community. And we want to make sure that we are giving. returning veterans and families of the fallen, the opportunity to continue to serve,

and more importantly, to be able to empower them post-military life. I think, you know, when you look at today 55% of men and women who are taking off the uniform, when you ask them what their greatest challenge is, it's that loss of purpose. You know, they don't have that sense of purpose in their life anymore. and we have no shortage of ways at TMF to give you purpose again. And one of our biggest drivers, and a lot of it is, you know, it speaks to, I talk about Travis as a young kid, and I say, like, you know, there was something different about him. But it didn't come without having incredible mentors.

You know, my uncle Chris, my dad, some of his teachers growing up, the coaches, Joel Sherrod at the Naval Academy as wrestling coach. These were the mentors that helped frame him into who he became. And so we know the importance of that, and we know the opportunity we have with a group of men and women who basically were taught leadership. And so it's like, okay, so let's take this group of men and women who were taught to lead and serve and just say, thanks for your service. no, how about like, okay, you're back here, you're out? Well, can you teach these kids how to lead and serve?

So we train veterans to go out and mentor youth, and they're out across the country, taking them through both physical and experiential learning challenges to build their own service and leadership. And not in a way to indoctrinate the next generation to all join the military. But in a way to say, hey, listen, as men and women like you and Travis and Brendan and Rob, like, they were called to serve this country in military. But as Americans, each and every one of us is called to serve. Like, we have a responsibility to do that. And if we're not passing that down to the next generation, then we're failing. And so that's kind of our drive at the foundation.

So we just want to create a community. that wants to pass that down. And we've got eight offices across the country. We've got a membership base of about 120,000 people. And, you know, we call ourselves the Spartans. And we're largely made up of civilians, believe it or not. But these are people that feel that sense of pride for men and women like you. And they want to be able to eat that up and be a part of it and be servant leaders right in their own backyards. And our organization does not exist if we don't have veterans

leading the charge and Gold Star families. Like they run our programs. So we're not a veteran service organization in the way where we're saying this is what we offer to you. We're a veteran service organization that says, hey, we really want to do good stuff

in the community, so we need you guys to help us out. Yeah. No, it's an awesome program that you guys made a video that I'm in. And I went to L.A. But what's awesome is they're just they're getting to kids, you know? And the same idea that I had, which is, hey, there's a bunch of kids in the world.

And what they need is to learn about life and learn about the word that you guys use, which I will use as well, because it's the right word, it's character. Yeah. And how do you teach these young kids character? Well, that's, you know, I've written a bunch of kids books that, that try to teach kids about character and the values that will, the values that will give them a better life. Right. That will give them a better life and will give everyone around them a better life as well. So that's awesome.

The other thing that's awesome is what you just said, you know how many, you know how many times a day I get a message from someone that says, hey, I'm 52 years old and I never served and I feel like I regret it. it and I wish I could have. What should I do? It's like, this is what you do. Yeah. This is what you do. You help propel the message and the messages of character back to the veterans, from the veterans, back to the youth.

That's what you do. There's so many different ways to serve. You don't have to put on a uniform to serve. There's so many different ways to serve. And what you guys are doing is offering people the opportunity to find other ways to serve that are just as impactful. I'll tell you right now. You go out there and you help three kids get on the right path in their life.

That is the biggest service you can make to the country. That's it. That's it. Go do that. That has such a massive impact and you guys are enabling that. You guys are at, so if people want to get on board. Yeah. We go to Travis Manion.org.

Travis Manion. Yep, you can join the mission right there. We have it and I mean, it walks you through everything. Like, this is everything we do. What do you want to be a part of? You know, and yeah, join the mission and learn more. You're a social media because Echo is really in a social media. So it's on Twitter, it's TM Foundation.

Correct. On Instagram, which Echo calls the Graham. The Graham, yeah. It's Travis Manion Foundation. on Facebook it's Travis Mannion Foundation and you guys have a YouTube channel as well We do, we've got great videos There's a couple of you up there actually

Is there more than one? Yeah well they broke down Some of your outtakes and just did like It's like a minute long like wait is it bloopers? It's not bloopers it's like thoughts from Jock Like no it was cool I was gonna say I don't know how many bloopers Because they had a big chunk of time Like hours and hours and I was like how long it's gonna take They're like well we got five hours set aside

And I was like, okay, that's a long video. Yeah. But it didn't take that long. Well, it was funny because I was with Pat Chapman, who was the one that filmed you. He was the producer of the piece, and he's a good friend of mine. He lives in L.A. And he said, I said, oh, I'm doing Jocko's podcast on Friday. And he said, oh, my gosh, I have to tell you.

He said, you know, I got in the car with like, I guess, like the grips or whatever. And he said, yeah, you know, we're doing a shoot today. This guy's name is Jock. And they were like, are you kidding me? And he's like, and these, you know, he's like, they weren't in the military. So I didn't, he's like, I thought it was really like heavily focused on the military. He's like, these are like my key grips. And they were like, oh my God, Jocko.

They were thrilled. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting. The, the demographics of people that listen to the podcast, it's everyone. Yeah. It's really cool. And, and, you know, like they find, well, this is a great opportunity for them to find a way to serve because everyone feels that.

If you feel that somewhere in their system. Yeah. If you go through your life. looking out for yourself without helping other people, you'll look up one day and you'll say, I want to help other people. That's just the way it is. Yeah, so those are the ways to help to join the mission.

Join the mission. I like the way you said that. I kind of got, I got a bit of that's good psychology that you just used on me. As soon as I hear that, I'm like, what? Oh, we got a mission to joy. See, I'm real easy when it comes to things like that. You start throwing those words around and all of a sudden, I'm breaking out the knives getting ready to go to battle.

Yeah, you say that, like new mission or whatever. Yeah. I use that too now. Yeah. Very effective. Yeah, well, that's something that I say all the time to vets. Like when you get done with your military service, you need a new mission. Totally.

And the people that don't get a new mission, they wander around not knowing what to do. So here's a good way, whether you're civilian, whether in your military, to get on board and go execute the mission. Do you got anything else? I mean, obviously, I'm going to encourage everyone to go. Get the book. Yes. Get the book. The knock at the door.

It's out right now. If you order this right now, you'll get a first edition, which, so I'm really into first editions. Yeah. You got to get the first edition. So if you guys want first a dish

of knock on the door, and then you'll be able to, people always say, how come you don't tell us what books you're going to do on the podcast? It's because I don't know what books I'm going to do on the podcast until like a couple,

couple days before I do it. Yeah. But with this one, since I'll have hopefully Heather and Amy on at some point, you'll be able to have the book in your possession and have already read it. I love that. Yeah. Take through third parts. Yeah.

So knock at the door and then you can, you can follow me, R. Mannion at, you know, on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter just to, you know, because I put up, foundation's not putting up a terrible amount about the book. Okay. But, you know, I'm pushing out everything where we're going to be. Oh, okay. Different events. So you're doing events and stuff for the book.

Yeah. Promoting the book. Getting the book out there. That's right. Spreading the message. Book signings, you know. So, yeah, all that sort of stuff. Getting after it.

Yeah. Speaking of a mission. Yes. You're on a mission. I'm on a mission. Well, you know, thank you so much for coming. I mean, it's awesome. And I know we have some mutual friends, you know, that's, which is cool.

Yeah. And Jamie. who works on the front, her husband Flynn, who was awesome friends. He was awesome friends with Brendan. And as a matter of fact, they have a son named Brendan. Yeah, I mean, you know,

Jamie and Flynn, a lot of the stories that are in the book, a lot of stories that aren't in the book, you know, they were a part of them. Yeah. They were there, you know. I mean, especially in Amy section. You know, Flynn and Jamie were a really integral part of that time.

Yeah. Well, thank you for the three of you for writing this book, for sharing the challenges that you've gone through, the triumphs. I know, like I said, that the stories in this book are going to help. They're going to help people that are struggling when their knock at the door, whatever that knock at the door is. When it comes their way, this book will help them get through it. And even more important than that, thank you for the service and sacrifice of your family that you guys have made. It's obviously something that I will never forget and nor will our great nation ever forget that. And thanks for what you're doing with the Travis Mannion Foundation to keep his legacy and his spirit and his character alive.

in order to make the world a better place, which you are doing. Thank you. Well, thanks for continuing to have the platform to share these stories. You know, it's important. So we appreciate it. It's an honor to be able to do it. Thank you for coming on. Thanks.

And with that, Ryan Mannion has left the building. Awesome conversation and some good advice. actual pragmatic advice on what to do, how to help yourself, how to help yourself through those moments. And part of it was, part of it was goals, right? Goals with intention to keep yourself on the path. Going out for runs. I thought that was interesting.

Because every time how she would say how Tom, her dad would say, yeah, just go off for a run or whatever. Right. We kind of say that about Jiu-Jitsu a lot of time. We do say that about Jiu-Soo. And it's true. It's true. Here's a thing for, I'm not going to just, I mean, we just talked about it where it's true, but it's not like the antidote.

Right. You know, it is for some stuff. You know, I wish I would have thought of this. It is a little bit more of an antidote than running, in my opinion. I think so too. But. It's like a couple measures of a, effectiveness because there's a mental aspect to it that completely covers all the mental

aspects of running and then gives additional bonuses yeah and then I would imagine obviously I'm not an expert but I would imagine that it would just depend this varies from person to person you know some people they'll maybe go lift weights I remember when I was young when I'd be mad at something and keep in mind I'm on Kauai mad at something so whatever that means we are wondering about very very mild madness sessions. I would want to go workout, like going to work out and getting under the bench. That would help.

That would be very therapeutic. And I used to run on treadmill too back, not, you know, before, not anymore. But I used to run on the treble two. Same thing. Very therapeutic. I thought the lifting was more therapeutic. And then jiu-jitsu is like magnitudes. Top of the therapeutic pyramid in terms of physical activity.

By far, too. Like by far, like more than one level, like two levels. So you're definitely recommending jiu-jitsu is where I'm here. Recommending jiu-tzu, yes, for many reasons. And we've talked about it. And we're going to continue to talk about jih T. But when you do jih T you will need a uniform. You will.

A ghee, if you're doing ghee, which we do recommend, as always. What gear are you going to get? I have not been getting the question, what geese should I get anymore. I have not been getting out there. The word is getting out. And we're going to continue to put it out. Origin, geese. Get one of our geese.

And by our geese. I mean us all of us the group you know because because we are part of this thing oh yeah part of this gang and we're all using we're all supporting we're all on board with the program origin made in America yeah materials because sometimes people they say made in America technically assembled in America is what they really mean yeah or you know made in America oh yeah sewn and manufactured Grown all the way to the raw materials all American made stuff with that compromise We can get geese you can get rash cards you can get t-shirts and you can get jeans

That's right American jeans jeans made in America and BAA boots oh that's right did you get yours yet yes sir how are you feeling I feel very good about Here's it when are you wearing boots though I don't wear boots so all of a sudden you just have boots When are you gonna wear the good I don't know but here's the interesting thing, and this goes for pretty much anything. We need to make slippers at origin, apparently. Flip flops.

Yeah. But like anything, you know, when you're excited about a new... Oh, that's right. I forgot that in the mainland, you guys call them flip flops. Yeah, it's slippers. Yeah, yeah. You know, like when you get an exciting new piece of apparel,

you more, you actively look for opportunities to wear them. So, you know, these boots, they're going to get worn. A fish. I put them on, of course, but I'm going to actually. wear them in the field, whatever that means in my case, you know, in some capacity very soon. That means you're going to the grocery store. But what's cool about the boots is they're not for wearing a grocery store. I mean, you can, but they're legit, awesome work boots made in Farmington made.

Aesthetically, please. I don't like to use the word pleasing, but. You like the way they look. They have legitimate aesthetics to them. More important, their functionality is good. Yes. And they're not overboard aesthetically, which would get them disapproved by me. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, they are the perfect boot.

Yeah. Actually, when you think about it, they are a boot. If you looked in the dictionary, boot, you'd see a pair of origin boots. Like, that's what you expect a pair of boots to look like. Yes. Why? Because that's how boots have been honed over centuries to get to a point where you go, okay, this is what a boot is. Yeah, the most

The most boot a boot can be Is a boot from origin main So yeah, you can get that Boom Also What? Supplements Oh yeah

No I was gonna say when you're on the path Supplements they help They supplement the path Discourse Yes Fully 100% But yeah

So look I slipped off the train Of well not the mobile train But Because you're right on that All man all day All day I had like An incorrect

My wife made me an incredible dinner yesterday flank steak just all just good to go a nice little Caesar salad these are like my two things but the flank steak was just perfect and I got done with it and I was like yeah that was so good and I was like but I want some something so I just got a little I got a little scoop and a half hitter yeah I guess so that's like a deal And a half is one scoop, right? Or is two scoop? No, one scoop is a, you can have a one scoop hood.

I mean, you can have a two scoop hitter for sure. Oh, yeah, yeah. But that's not really, it's a little bit more. Well, what is one serving? One scoop, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it wasn't a hitter. So mulk, what it is is it's additional protein, but you're not going to know what you're

going to think is you just got an additional dessert. Yep. Exactly right. Boom. Also, the joint warfare and krill oil. This is important. I slipped off krill oil. Here's the thing, right?

I didn't like forget to, I ran out. I forgot to get more before I ran out. It's one of those situations again. So, man, it's weird how this is what Jade called it. It's a typing induced tennis elbow. Okay. That makes sense. Right.

Being on the computer, whatever, and I got tennis elbow over here. Wow. Right when I run. It was maybe like a. It was like a, fuck. It wasn't really, yeah. It was like four-ish days after I got off the krill oil. still joint warfare.

I'm still into that, you know, elbow cured, by the way. But, yeah, that's, that's, the situation.

I feel bad because people will ask me which one A or B, you know, should I be on joint warfare or krill oil? Which one should it be? And I'm like, I hate answering that question

because as far as I'm concerned, it's both. It's like peanut butter and jelly. Right. You're not just going to go peanut butter. You're not just going to go jelly. You're going to peanut butter and jelly.

You know, go joint warfare and super krill. Yeah. That's what you want to do. Yeah. And it, and I'm on like a pro the program where it's like lifting like hard in the face. I'm a little bit more old school now. Like I'm not as young as ECB.

None of us are technically. Wait. Oh, you're old. Not just old school, but actually old. You say tomato. You know. So yeah. So this, it's saying a lot when I don't have the elbow thing anymore.

And that was a common thing. When I was lifting with no joint supplements before you did your whole thing. It was a big, I just endured, just endured. Every once in a while I'll take like ibuprofen or something like that. It got real bad. Not good for that. Yeah, but otherwise I just warm up more. Now, no fact, they're gone aside from my tennis elbow.

But anyway. Typing elbow. Typing induced tennis elbow. Yeah, I was not playing tennis, unfortunately. Check. Nonetheless, yes. So, yes, joint work for acrylic oil, monk, discipline. Mm.

So we got the, we got the jaco Palmer flavor, which is. a 50% iced tea 50% lemonade flavor. It's the greatest thing ever. It tastes so good. Oh, yeah, it's out. It's out. I said, as soon, I told, I told B little, I'm like, as soon, because I had tried the, you know, we went through all the trials to get the right taste when we got the right taste and I was like, run this, make it. And I said, as soon as the factory gets done making it, federal express it to my house. Yeah, yeah. Because it tastes so good.

Better than Tropic Thunder, you think? Are you like currently? Yeah, it goes in. Yeah, yeah. So my opinion is, is yes. Right now, right now, the, uh, the powdered discipline in Jaco Palmer flavor is my favorite flavor at this time. I'm not saying I won't occasionally do a little lemon lime hitter.

Yeah. Or a tropic thunder. And don't, don't forget that we also have the cans. of this one go. And that's what I'm saying. Like the cans, to me, I like lemon and lime, fine. But the tropic thunder is like, there's no way I would ever, under any circumstances, grab the lemon lime one, the tropic thunder is right there.

Interesting. No way. Well, I mean, you know, I think that might be from your upbringing. It's possible. Oh, yeah, it's very tropical. Yeah, Hawaii. Oh, yeah, sure. I'm sure that.

You know what we used to be like over there. Yeah. And then you got jocco white tea as well. Organic white tea. Certified. It's the only organic consumable that is guaranteed to give you an 8,000 pound deadlift so you're after it.

Typically proven, by the way. Double blind. Placinbo. Also, if you or when you get your copy of the knock at the door by Ryan Mannion, Heather Kelly, and Amy Looney Heffernan. No worries, I got you. You don't have to go searching,

even though I'm sure that'd be easy to find regardless, but put it on joccopodcast.com under the book section. And here's another good way to support the podcast if you want to. Click there. Click through there. It'll take you to Amazon. On that Amazon landing to where it lands, just save that to your favorites. If you've done this before August 1st, sorry, we've got to do it again for various reasons that we're not going to go into.

But nonetheless, if you do that, then shop and do your Amazon shopping through that link, that's a good way to support this podcast. Very good way, if you want. But yeah, so yeah, it'll be on there and, yeah, get it there. So we can not only support yourself, but, you know, get the whole book so you can get all the details and whatnot. Also, Jocko is a store. It's called Jocko store. Anyway, that's where you can.

Did you see the guy that wrote on Twitter? His wife said, what do you want for your birthday? And he said, Jocko has a store. It's called Jocco's store. Boom. There you go. That's all she needed to know. Because everything that you can get there, he's down with.

Yeah. He's like, just order something from there. You can order a rash card. You can order a T-shirt. You can order a trucker's hat. I guess if you are feeling like maybe you don't feel as cool as you want to be, you could order a flex-fit hat. Sure.

Oh, yeah. Or a lightweight hoodie. Yeah. You know, right, admit it. When you see people wearing the lightweight hood. literally you're kind of getting one over, right? Not one over, but like it's winning over.

And I'll say probably not right now. A little bit. A little bit though. It looks good this way, is what I'm saying. Functional, lightly functional and as slightly aesthetic. I dig it.

Unless, yeah, if you want to represent while you're on the path, jocco store.com, that's where you get the stuff. You can also subscribe to this podcast, which is a good idea if you haven't yet, which Echo doesn't think you have.

Maybe that's because Echo is the type of person that is listening to something for years and doesn't hit subscribe. And so he doesn't think you will. You can be like echo and hit subscribe now. Or maybe if you're like me, you already hit subscribe. So you know what's interesting about that? This is obviously not the first time you said that echo doesn't think that you subscribe. Because technically that's not true.

That's not how it went down. I was not aware of that. I believed my own propaganda. Yeah, exactly. So you probably just misremembered it. And then again, I could be wrong right now, too. And maybe I missed, didn't remember correctly. But what it was was, I was saying you don't have to tell people to subscribe because they're

either going to subscribe if they want to or not. You don't be like, hey, subscribe. And they'll be like, oh, my gosh, I totally forgot to subscribe. It's kind of like an obvious thing. That was my contention anyway. So that's more accurate. But additionally, today, you put a lot of things on me. What would you say that?

I called it the gram, that whole life. of whatever you're saying. Echo this, that was interesting. You're saying I'm not taking ownership of things. Oh, yeah, that's true too. Yeah. Which is interesting. Yeah.

But I'm just, I'm actually, it's nothing to take ownership. I'm not blaming you for calling it the gram. I'm just stating that you call it the gram. Even though I don't. Yeah. It's almost time for me to read some reviews. Allowed again. Done that before.

But yeah, so leave some reviews. If you leave a review that's shockingly creative and good, then, you know, maybe I'll just retweet it or something or read it. And I also want to do the, I also want to read YouTube comments aloud at some point. We should do like what? There's a show. Like, I don't know. I forget if it's like Conan over Brian or someone.

Read mean tweets or something. Yeah, yeah. You should do that with the, with the, and not necessarily mean ones because people can be lame. Well, yeah, I'm not going to be like, and this guy said that, you know. But here's this. People cry during mean tweets or I've seen some people crying when they're reading mean tweets. Like really crying? Yeah, yeah, yeah, like legitimately.

Like, like, you know, like to show the power of internet bullying or whatever. Oh, okay. So you're not going to get me there. Yeah. But what I would wonder is obviously, yeah, you're not going to start crying. But if you say, yeah, I'm going to read it, then people would be like, ooh, let me make a mean one. And then sometimes if someone's intention, I have this conversation.

If you're going to try and be mean to me through comments because you don't have a negative impact on me, I hate to break the news to you. You're not executing well because I don't care. Yeah, yeah. If you want to write something cool and you want me to see it and be like, oh, awesome.

Then that, then you're being effective. Yes. No, well, but this, though, is what you're saying.

Like, if we, if we decide for you to read mean comments. Uh-huh. people someone might be motivated to be like oh let me see if I can get a zinger in there and then it's just sort of whack because so for a mean comment to be funny it has to be funny first then mean second here's the here's the really here's the really kind of just thing that shuts that idea down to to to read a mean like a truly mean comment it's not even it's

not funny you know what I mean you make a funny right like the person that got a picture of me and it says uh feeling cute might go to feed ice or whatever like hey man that's just funny yeah full credit to that one yeah because it's a model that was evil echo charles that pictured that oh yeah evil echo charles posted that but yes so that picture was taken about three seconds before because this photographer this is a legit photographer was taking pictures of me and they're like photoshoot you were modeling you're modeling No, they were taking pictures of me. Okay, that wasn't my own.

But anyways, they're like, I'm like just, they're like, we'll just walk around and act natural. And so I'm like walking around and I'm like looking, I'm looking in this, in this pit, right, where that fence is. And then I look at them and then they're like taking a much pictures. And then they started giving me direction. Yeah, that's modeling by the way. They're like, wait, can you look over there and then look at us real quick?

Give me attitude. And then I was like, no, I'm not doing that. This is not me and I'm not doing it. But that picture was the one picture that they got right before they started giving me directions. And I told them negative not happening. But even that picture looks lame. Hey, man, that's debatable, you know? Maybe, you know, it looked cute.

Might delete it later. Hey, bottom line, leave some reviews. You know, we have fun with them. We appreciate cool reviews. So that'd be awesome. And don't forget about the Warrior Kid podcast. Which I know I owe more of. This is starting to sound really bad.

Yeah. A little bit. I guess. Maybe we should release that one in the bank. Sure. Okay. Yeah, so Warrior Kid podcast, and don't forget about the Warrior Kid Soap from Irish Oaks Ranch.com,

where Young Aiden is making soap so that you and we all can stately. Stakely, of course. Also, YouTube channel, we have a YouTube channel, video version of this podcast and excerpts. A lot of excerpts on there. It's a little, you know, chopped up. Here's the thing about YouTube is what I heard when I learned. people now

people now are going to YouTube more for a little bit longer videos than before remember the trend was like oh yeah a minute and a half it's like you got to keep their attention on the internet and stuff that was kind of the thing right apparently the new emergent status is the people we like the longer form stuff

we're beginning to like the longer form stuff you're just catching on to that over there isn't this like we've been making three hour podcast for years, bro. Yes, but remember with the three-hour podcast. Well, no, no, no. Okay, three-hour podcast, that's audio.

Right, we're talking to audio long form. Okay. But yes, there is video. We have a five-hour and 25-minute long podcast with Sean Parnell. Yes. But as far as the trend goes, people like it, generally speaking more now. So people outside of the people that listen to this podcast are starting to like, okay. Just, yeah, in general.

And I don't know what the details of this. So some of the excerpts are kind of long. five minutes, eight minutes, sometimes 12 minutes. Right, right. So the times that I was telling you, can you please make an excerpt that's not 27 minutes long? You're saying I was wrong. Well, not to split hairs. I'm not saying you were wrong then.

I'm saying that no longer applies as far as like what you might want. Nonetheless, there's some excerpts on their YouTube channel. If you want something shorter than that, you can go to psychological warfare, which is available. on iTunes and all MP3 platforms, which is me giving some short, maybe minute, minute and a half, maybe two minutes at the longest, audio advice of how to stay on the path. Yes. And it's not just advice. It's actual mechanical tool that will keep you on the path.

Very effective, too. It's like you could go to a therapist to try and get you to not eat a donut or you can just press play. Yeah. Boom. Therapism is a donut. The sugarcoated line. Flipside canvas if you need some visual representation of the path

you go to flipside canvas.com owned by my brother Dakota Meyer. You can get discipline equals freedom. You can get good. You can get whatever you want actually let Dakota know what you think would be cool and he'll make it. Flipside canvas.com. Dakota Meyer has a helicopter. Yes he does. Did you say that you did write in that? No, I'm not. You're not, yeah, okay. Yeah, I was going to make a video of, like, myself or you

and be like, hey, like, Dakota, I see Dakota Myers helicopter. It's like so cool. So we decided to get our own. And then we'd get it. And then we'd either like, or you'd get in there and you'd take off and then you'd, like, crash it or something. Or before you get in and catches on fire or something, you know, kind of like, you want to copy people, but you're, you know, you failed at it or something. So are we having a meeting right now about creative ideas about what's going on right now? Actually, technically, I wanted to say it out loud just to see your reaction to see where I need to spin this idea, you know?

Why don't you spend that idea into the dirt? Right along with the helicopter. All right, so that's that. Also, we got some books. Obviously, the book, The Knock at the Door, right here, Ryan Mannion, Heather Kelly, Amy Luna, Heffernan, and get the book. It comes out November 5th. But order it right now.

It'll ship and you'll get it early. Also, leadership strategy and tactics field manual just got approval from the Department of the Defense, Department of Defense, which took a long time, but they just gave me approval to publish it, made it through the declassification process. So we're good to go.

Pre-order that now. It will be out. in January. And believe me, when I tell you, you want that first a dish. And we got the Warrior Kid books. There's three of them where there's a will, Mark's Mission, and the first one way the Warrior Kid,

get those. Don't forget about Mikey and the Dragons. For every kid that you know between the ages of zero and 100, get a Mikey and the Dragons. You know how many people have told me they cried when they read the letter? Yes.

Or no, I don't know how many, but that doesn't surprise me. Because remember, I think I told you this. I think I told you this. Yeah, when I played the video, that part for some reason, when it's like, you're like, to my son. And it, you know, and especially if you have kids, you're like, oh, man, you know, you're sending your kid off into the crazy world, you know, kind of on his own. It's like, man, it kind of like, yeah, I dig it, man.

I understand. So get that book for everybody that, you know, don't forget about the discipline equals freedom field manual. If you want to know my personal operating system for mental and physical health, that's it. The discipline equals freedom field manual. The audio version is available as an MP3, wherever you get your MP3s. And also, we have extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership, which I wrote with my brother, Laf Babin, which you can take the lessons that we learned in combat and apply them to your business, your family, and your life.

Echelon Front, that's my leadership consultancy, and what we do is solve problems through leadership. No matter what problems you have in an organization, the problems guaranteed are leadership problems. Go to echelonfront.com for details. And if you want to get someone from Eschelon Front to come and speak to your organization, don't go through a speaker's agency.

Just go to echelonfront.com. That's what you do. Otherwise, there's a middleman, and the middleman will make things annoying. So just go to echelonfront.com. We have EF online, where you can receive leadership training without us actually being there. I was working with a company. When I got done talking with his executives, he came up to me and said, I want you to talk to and teach and train every employee have at this company. I said, cool. How many employees do you have?

167,000, I think was the number. There was one that was 87,000. The biggest one was 167. Anyways, global company. And I said, okay, let me get back to you on that. So anyways, how do you do that? Obviously, we can't clone our instructors at Eschelonfront, but we can put them on interactive, high speed online leadership training.

That's what EFonline.com is. So check that out. If you do want to come and see us live, go to Extreme Ownership.com to find out when we do our leadership training event, which is called The Muster. The next one is in December 4th and 5th in Sydney, Australia. We will not be going back to Sydney, Australia for a long, long, long, long time. We're not going to Brisbane. We're not going to Perth. We're going to Sydney.

If you're in Australia, come see us in Sydney. I apologize, but that's just we're not a rock and roll band. We're not on tour. We actually have a bunch of work to do outside of the muster. So we can't do musters all the time. So yeah, if you want to come, go to Extreme Ownership.com. Check for the dates for America in 2020. We'll be coming out soon if you want to come and check us out.

Go to Extreme Ownership.com. And EF. Overwatch right now, we are taking trained leadership experts from special operations, from combat aviation and we are placing them into companies that need leadership inside their organization. The type of leadership that understands the principles of combat leadership that we teach inside of our company, Escalon Front. The things, the principles from extreme ownership, the principles from the dichotomy of leadership. So go to eFoverwatch.com if you need leaders in your company. And if you want to continue to

communicate with us, we're on the interwebs. We're on Twitter, Instagram, and we are on that old Facebook for the Travis Mannion Foundation. They are on the interwebs at Travis Manion.org.

They're on Twitter at TM Foundation. Instagram is Travis Manning Foundation and Facebook is at Travis Mannion Foundation. They also have a YouTube channel, which is called Travis Mannion Foundation. There's videos. I guess there's two of me on there.

I know I did one, but there's two. There's a bunch of other really great stories on there to hear and to watch. And if you want to talk to, well, us, Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jocco Willinkin. Thanks once again to Ryan Mannion for everything that she has done and is doing

and to her co-authors and her friends, Amy Looney Hefferman and Heather Kelly for writing this book. The Knock on the Door, which I know is going to help so many people. And of course, thank you to the true heroes that they knew and they loved. Travis Mannion, Brendan Looney, Robert Kelly,

who willingly went forward into harm's way and laid down their lives on the altar of freedom giving us this precious gift that we must never take for granted we must live to make them proud follow their example and be grateful for their service and sacrifice

just as we must be thankful to all of our armed services for what they do every day and the efforts they put forth to protect our freedoms and to our police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and border patrol and secret service and all the first responders.

You also make sacrifices every day to protect our way of life. So thank you to you all as well and to everyone else out there. Just remember that life is short and life is precious. and it will come to an end. You are not guaranteed tomorrow. So don't wait.

Don't wait to do the things you want to do and don't wait to become the person you want to become. Don't wait. Go out there today and get after it. Until next time. This is Echo and Jocko. Out.