Living The Red Life - How a Paralyzed Marine Built a Thriving Business

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

What happens when a U.S. Marine survives war, multiple brain surgeries, a life-changing diagnosis, and the loss of his ability to walk?In this episode of Living The Red Life, John Patricio shares the mindset, leadership principles, and relentless resilience that helped him build Patricio Systems into a successful government contracting company while navigating challenges that would stop most people in their tracks.From serving in Desert Storm and leading Marines in combat to becoming a paraplegic and launching a thriving veteran-owned business, John reveals how the Marine Corps philosophy of "Improvise, Adapt, Overcome" became the foundation for both his personal and professional success. He breaks down the realities of leadership, government contracting, project management, overcoming failure, and building a mission-driven company that delivers results.This episode is a masterclass in resilience, accountability, entrepreneurship, and turning adversity into opportunity.Key Takeaways• Why successful people become solution-driven instead of problem-focused• How military leadership principles translate into business growth• The mindset shift that helped John overcome becoming paraplegic• Why celebrating small wins creates momentum for long-term success• How "Improvise, Adapt, Overcome" can be applied to entrepreneurship and lifeNotable Quotes• "You are not a result of what happens to you. You're a result of how you respond to what happens to you."• "Since you can control your response, you can control your result."• "Every person who's successful wasn't just successful and it wasn't easy."• "I focus on what I can control and what I can do to make this world a better place."• "The difference between those who succeed and those who don't is how they respond to failure."Connect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

You got to be solution driven. So when I started my company, I learned a long time ago that every person who's successful wasn't just successful and it wasn't easy. It was because they responded to their failures in a positive solution-driven manner. They improvised, they adapt, they overcame to get over those issues. John Patricio is a resilient, disciplined, and mission-driven entrepreneur, U.S. Marine veteran, and the founder of Patricio Systems. Through his experience in military service and business leadership,

he champions accountability, adaptability, and results-driven success. I love my country. I serve for my country. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I'm a Marine from day one to the day I die. Yes, sir. I'm going to be the Marine for the rest of my life. I focus on what I could control, and I focus on what I can do to make this world a better place.

My name is Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life. your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Welcome back to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast, the Red Life edition and Friday edition and Operation CEO edition. Oh, these are my favorite episodes. Joining me today's John Petruchio. Man, what a journey. How was your Friday, sir? Oh my goodness. We were here last night. We got here and we came in late, had quick dinner, went straight to bed. And here you are. And here

I am. Wow. So where are you coming from, my friend? I'm from California. Right on. El Dorado Hills. Oh, beautiful. How are things back in California? It was a little bit cloudy. And so I think it might be raining, but other than that, it's not that bad. It's beautiful weather. Right on, John. What are we going to learn about you in your episode of Operation CEO, my friend? Sure. You're going to learn about me, my history, how I'm a disabled veteran and how I started my company. what my company does, and you're also going to learn about my next adventure. Oh, nice. All right. So where do you want to begin your adventure? I just picked up a couple of keywords off your story script. I saw Philippines. I've worked with amazing people for the

Philippines. Beautiful culture. Apparently Gutierrez is, are a common last name there. This is new to me. Is that true, sir? Yeah, the Philippines was conquered by Spain. Ah, there for is. They were conquered by Spain, so what they did is they had a lot of Filipinos assume Spanish names. Ah, so we could be long lost distant cousins, my friend? Could be, right? I got a joke. I got a laugh in the back.

You're coming with a tribe here, my friend. Who's joining us here in the audience? Yeah, the person that's in the audience is my really good close friend, Jay Gavara. Right on. He's like a brother. He's closer than a brother. Oh, right on, dude, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah.

You almost sound like a street fighter character. Or do you all-e-Gever. Yeah, it's almost like Vega. Here comes Jake. Yeah, exactly. So let's talk about these street fighter characters. Let's talk about your journey. Like, where do you begin, sir?

I begin. First started on a U.S. Marine. Right on. I was going to be a lifer Marine. I served in the Corps, and I served. When I signed for the Corps, I became, I was excited. I know for sure. I told my recruiter, I didn't want to be support.

I want to be the core element. So I went in guaranteed infantry. Wow. I came in as a little kid, and I graduated as a man. Wow. Oh, man. What a great recruiting video. Yeah.

What was it about the experience? A lot of folks don't quite understand like the allure and almost the romance of like coming of age story of like serving a greater good. It's in books, it's in journals, as a movies. As a Marine,

it's almost like a knight. Like you are like, sir, there's like video games about you. Like how does it feel to be like, I'm a Marine man. There's America. Like what is that energy?

What does that soul like? So the Marines, it's just not the military. Yeah. It's a cult. If you ever talk with a Marine in boot camp, they tell you where was the Marine, I'm founded?

It was founded in 1775. It's older than the United States in a bar. In Tun Tavern, Pennsylvania. Right on. November 10, 1775. Right on. When a Marine sees each other, it's a small organization. So we all know what we've been through.

Wow. And I told my recruiter, I didn't want to go in and be a cook. I didn't want to be a motor tea. I wanted to go in and I wanted to go in, guaranteed of a tree and that's what I did. Wow. So when I went in, I was in charge of myself, and then I got promoted to squad leader eventually, and I was a charge of the lives of 10 men. Wow. I grew up, school of hard dogs. What was that like knowing that it's not just your spirit, but the spirit of nine others are 10 men in total? I'm sorry. The 10 men, the synergy that's there

between Marines, we were greater than the sum of our parts. Of course. We know that we're not just 10 men. our Marine Corps squad. And we learned in the Corps, if you have a mission, you've got to improvise, adapt, overcome to accomplish that mission. If you don't, then you're just doing your job. You're living the life, you're doing what you need to do, and it's the Ura spirit.

And it's kind of like, you know that movie 300? Oh, I was just going to bring that up, yes, sir. That's exactly what it is. Of course, yeah. The energy's there. And it's like Marines, let's go get that job done. and you get that job done. Being the Marine Corps, it's just like so visually, it's so visceral.

It's just like in your face, which is why it's sort of romanticized in movies. Well, even though that happened in real life. But Zach Snyder just took it and elevated it. And it's just like Michael Bay loves the Marines, loves the Army, loves these giant billion dollar toys, these toys of destruction. But it's like at the end of the, of that dopamine is the other word, destruction. What is it like being designed for destruction? That's a good question.

In the Marine Corps, what you learn is kill, kill, kill. Enemy is bad. You're good. You sound like me this morning in traffic. I am not lying. What is that like, sorry for interrupting, because it was just like, wow, it's just like a rhythm.

It is. You're pounding the heart of the human soul going, be fruitful and enjoy and speak to animals, and you're going, no, no, no, kill, kill, kill. What's that like? It's what makes the Marine Corps successful. it's like that one cop it's like we we shot that dude 64 times why'd you stop we ran out of bullets wow when he said that but what but what he did was he slaughtered like officers he really went for he

really went for the pain of the police officer so what is it like messing with a marine like like these giant ships and this like this aura of like womb but it's protect And you just feel it in the frequency of like being around a Marine like being around you sir You are optimized I see Robocop I see like the future you're in a wheelchair You can just I can load you into a tank now Like you're the future my friend have you even thought about that an ascension of what you can do now? I did Hell yeah, made me who I am Yeah for sure but when you see when you're in combat and you see a fallen enemy oh yeah

Initially you thought he was evil. That's a human being. And then you're humbled. Yes, sir. That's what changed me. It made me realize what I wanted to do is, it just made me realize that that's somebody's son. Yeah.

Maybe somebody's husband. Yeah. I never had a beef with that person. That person, if I saw that person on the streets, I would have nod, shook his hand, said, Hey, how are you doing, buddy? But his people had an issue with my people, and therefore we got in contact.

And it really, there was a time where I was thinking I was a bad person. Yeah. Until I met a gentleman named Marvin Finden changed my life. And I was telling him that I felt like I was a bad person for what I did when I was over there. Of course.

And people were saying, you were following orders. That didn't help me. It still felt like a bad person. But he said, John, stop. Stop. Just stop. Just stop. Think about this.

Because you feel the way you did when you were over there, and you have remorse, that means you're good. Yeah. I stopped, bride, gave him big hug, and I said, thank you. And I realized that my eight-year-old self and my hundred eight-year-old self are proud of me again. Yeah, isn't that beautiful?

And I said from this day forward, I'm going to live the best life I can't. That's beautiful. It's funny, because what you just said is essentially entering into Eden into euphoria, whereas it's like the euphoria where everyone, like there's monks right now sitting on some hill going, for like 30 years just to change their frequency of their heart rhythm so they can get closer to God.

So what you just experienced was kind of like, they're still good in him. You hear that little message in movies. Darth Vader, they're still good in him. And it's just like, you understand like the adversary, there's a protagonist as an antagonist to every story. And like you're kind of indoctrinated to understand. Are you the protagonist of the antagonist of this reality?

With that heart of the soul of a human being, that the exterior still needs to operate, you're red, I'm blue, we have to. oppose each other because it's in our nature to do the tribal thing. You're a Maya, you're an Aztec, you're a Martian, you're an Earthling, and so what happened? Now we're all alone and we won all the battles and look up at the stars and go, wow, we've been on this earth cycling around and we used to look up at the stars and go, remember when we used to travel to Mars and there was another city there millennia ago? And now we're here on Earth going, a marine designed by stars, by power, by art, by

literature and you're like, whof, what is that for you today? For me today, after I got out of the Corps, well, while I was still in the core, I had a fungal infection in my brain, fungal meningitis, and I had to go through six brain surgeries. Wow. And almost didn't make it. While I was in the Corps and I had fungal meningitis, I got onto antifungals and I got better. The Marine Corps said, you're non-deployable because fungal meningitis is, you know, because fungal meningitis is chronic, you're going to have it for the rest of your life. And if you relapse,

when you relapse, and you're in a combat zone, you're going to put yourself and your Marines in danger. Yep. So we're going to process you out for medical board. Just like that. I had to think, okay, what am I going to do with my life? So I got out and I was healthy, but I was a disabled vet with a chronic infection. Yes, sir. Marine Corps was right. In 1995, I relapse and had six brain surgeries. There's a year again. Keeps popping up in stories 95 keeps popping up the last couple weeks. 1998. 98 too. Had a spinal cord surgery. Wow. And after that, I lived a normal, healthy life for 20 years. I was healthy. I studied in jiu-jitsu. I did Prab Maga. Well, I made it up half dome. And I kept myself in shape. I ran. But then in 2018, I had issues walking.

Wow. I relapsed again and found. out that there was scar tissue that blocked that shunt and I downgraded and eventually in October 2021 I became a paraplegent. Wow. First year was very tough. I was this close to being a veteran suicide statistic. Did a lot of reading. I said I got to get out of this rut. I needed to improvise, adapt and overcome not the mission of the Marine Corps but the mission of life. And that's what I did. So I came up with a quote to myself that helped me get out of this rut, and it goes like this. You are not a result of what happens to you. You're a result of how you respond to what happens to you.

Since you could control your response, you could control your result. So that's what I'm doing. And that's what I did. I controlled my result and I said, you know what? Let me figure this out. So I started my company, Patricio Systems LLC. Right on. And what we do is we do project management, information, technology, staffing.

and staff augmentation. We've been very successful. We're disabled veteran-owned company and we're a government contractor. Beautiful. But we know that the government is changing. We know that the world's changing and with this new AI world,

we're looking to pivot and change our strategy. Yes, sir. So we could help our agencies do better things by offering information technology and AI solutions. Yes, sir. I went on this rant at this AI meetup about folks that are,

disabled. It's interesting. I almost feel like it's rude. You're not disabled to me. You're just magnified. Like, it's just a little bizarre. I'm like, I'm sorry to have to use these terms. I'm like, dude, to me, you're just John.

What's up, John? How about, though. But I went on this rant going, now John can do whatever you want. He can be a rock god. He can fly in a ship because he can just prompt it. And since we live in the world of optics because social media, it's essentially we're walking around this storybook

and we're flipping through the pages of social media. And we lined on John, John can be now sitting at some amazing office desk in Mars. No one needs to do any of this. It doesn't matter. And it's just like because of AI. Like you can create these marketing tools and all these fun videos just to create your funnels and your sales. And like without the using the D-Word, it's just an enhancement.

But back to what you're doing. It's like it's just a good, it's a great story for Operation CEO because there's so many peaks and valleys. And the reason why we lean so hard into Operation CEO, because it's just a good, it's a great story for Operation CEO, because of the core of what it takes to be an entrepreneur and CEO is something that is magnified daily in the culture of a Marine. Exactly. And like, folks are paying tremendous amounts of money to sit in a room with like-minded folks and then be like zapped with the truth and then walk on coals and then they somehow have to go,

now I'm a Marine and I have to run a company. I'm like, yeah, dude, this is the way it works. You should have been a Marine back when you were 14 because you kind of, this is now. Roll reverse. Hello. So, like, how do you use that energy now? And like, gosh, because it's such, you're priceless, sir. Like, you have gone up and down and you, you and you and I are survivors, you know.

And but now we're empowered. We're sitting in the red life. And now you are ascending. Yeah. How do you use that frequency now and how are you helping your tribe ascend? Sure. The frequency, you've got to be solution driven. So when I started my company, I learned a long time ago that every person who's successful

wasn't just successful and it wasn't easy. It was because they responded to their failures in a positive solution-driven manner. They improvised, they adapt, they overcame to get over those issues. So with Patricio Systems, there was times where I wanted to fail. No, excuse me, with Patricio Systems, there was times where I could have failed. Sure. And there was times where I did fail. But I didn't let that stop me.

I was looking for what's the mission, what I need to do to accomplish the mission, and that's what I did. So Patricio Systems is a very successful company. We've hired friends. I hired a good buddy of mine. He's helping take the company. But with that, in the middle of that, I started having issues with the walking. Then I went to the VA.

Before that, I didn't go to the VA that much. And when I went to the VA, I realized how well the VA took care of my brothers and sisters. The VA does so much good, but only the bad is remembered. Let's say you're at home and the lights go off for five minutes. They're annoyed. Then two days later, they go off for 10 minutes, you're more annoyed.

Then three weeks later, they go off for half an hour. What do you think in your head? Lights are always off. You do the math, they're always on. You just remember when they were off. Of course. Same thing with the VA.

The VA is not doing a good job. The VA does so much good. So when my legs were quitting on me, I went to the spinal cord injury clinic in Palo Alto, and I saw so many veterans that were happy being taken care of. That didn't make news. But when the VA does something wrong, that makes news.

And I said, I want to pay it forward. I ran into the spinal cord injury clinic. I ran into the paralyzed veterans of America. Those guys changed my life. So I'm taking it forward and I started a nonprofit called Improvise, Adapt, Overcome. Wow. Foundation.

Wow. I wrote a book on the story of my life called Improvise Adapt Overcome. It talks about my PTSD from Desert Storm. I served in Desert Storm. And it also talks about my issues with my brain surgeries. It talks about me surviving and becoming a paraplegic, inferringing, adapting, and overcoming to being the better person than what I am. So I'm really proud of the book, and I'm really proud of the foundation,

and I'm looking to make a big impact on this world. That's amazing. I'm just like, glossed over like, wow. Because when you mentioned Desert Storm, Desert Storm was the war that I watched on television. It was like, oh, that was my first televised war. Little did I know that I was going to prepare me photo was about to see on television September 11th. It was just like, this like, all right, kid, here are the 90s, but we're going to start

soft with Desert Storm and here's a cool hip-hop song. Desert, Deserts Desert Storm. I was like, do you remember that, Jam? Yeah, it was this really bad. The 90s were fun in Miami. And then here you are, sir, I'm just like, you said those words like, Desert Storm, like that's the first war I saw on television. Clearly, it has evolved and has become far more visceral, and we've had different

presidents. We are in Florida, sir, but I was born and raised in Miami, and I always liked to pound my chest and go, well, my life didn't quite really start until I moved to the Bay Area, where, like, I may have been born in Miami, but the soul was like, ding, in the Bay Area. So when you said Palo Alto and veterans, I'm like, well, of course. There's genius at work there. There's something beyond happening. There's, the water tastes a little different there. And so the weather's fantastic. How do you talk, how do you talk to folks today that are looking on television, and then they're going, well, you feel it in the air, there's war among us. We need a wartime president.

Like, as a Marine, what is your perspective of what's happening on the feedback? With what's going on today? Yes, sir. In the political world? Yeah, as it's just like, you pick up the phone, it's just this negativity of energy. Like, it's just like, Team America, yeah, but it's like, really, dude? Like, can we just kumbaya a little bit? You know, there's a thing here.

So in the Marine Corps, and I've served in the war, I was with weapons company 1-181's platoon where basically the sacrificial lamb that was supposed to go in and get annihilated, but we didn't. We did a bang-up job. When I looked at the flag and I see it, I say that's my flag.

But then when I see all the negative stuff and all the things that are going on and I see that flag on a truck and I go, you know, that's my flag too. That's not their flag, it's my flag. It's our flag. I love my country. I serve for my country.

I would do it again in a heartbeat. I'm a Marine from day one to the day I die. Yes, sir. I'm going to be the Marine for the rest of my life. When I see all the negativity and all the things that are going on, I don't focus on that. I focus on what I could control and I focus on what I can do to make this world a better place.

Improvise Adaptover comes going to make this world a better place. And I'm going to do that. by helping veterans, showing veterans, and other people with mobility issues, what's available to them? When I became a para, I thought life was over. I didn't realize life just began. There are so many things you can do.

Oh, yeah. I went to the VA, I went to the VA, and they introduced me to a occupational therapist. We know what those do. They introduced me to a physical therapist. We know what they do. And then they introduced me to a recreational therapist. Right on.

And that person showed me how to get outside, do things with other veterans. I went to Aspen in snowmass, and I skied downhill in a modified chair. Nice. I went to the golf clinic, and I golfed in a stand-up chair. Yeah, they loaded you in. I went into a 23-year-old Marine named Brittany. Her back was blown up in Afghanistan, and she was walking. She was a paraplegic, but she was walking in an exoskeleton.

And I said, what the hell is that? How are I getting one of those? Yeah, I don't get one of those. She told me what I needed to do. I'm going to graduate that program next month. Nice, dude. And I'm going to walk. Nice.

Oh, dude, I better see you here for the sequel, man. That's my plan, basically. Right on, brother. Dude, it was such a pleasure to serve you, my friend. Thank you, thank you, then, man. You're going to have such a joy working with Lolo, and it's been such a joy and a pleasure working with you today. Awesome.

The least what we can do is to be here for you, man. We are in your reality. You are the main character. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, my friend, this is Operation CEO. Let me make sure. John Patricio, Ray Gutierrez. and we are Inside Success.

Happy Friday.