Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Jason Redman on How You Confront the Dragon in Your Mind EP 427

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

https://passionstruck.com/passion-struck-book/ - Order a copy of my new book, "Passion Struck: Twelve Powerful Principles to Unlock Your Purpose and Ignite Your Most Intentional Life," today! Picked by the Next Big Idea Club as a must-read for 2024. In this episode, retired Navy SEAL Jason Redman shares his profound insights on overcoming extreme adversity and confronting the dragon in your mind. He delves into his journey of resilience, leadership, and triumph after facing life-changing injuries in Iraq. Jason emphasizes the importance of embracing hardships, failures, and trauma as opportunities for growth and transformation. Full show notes and resources can be found here:  Sponsors Brought to you by Nom Nom: Go Right Now for 50% off your no-risk two week trial at https://trynom.com/passionstruck. Brought to you by Cozy Earth. Cozy Earth provided an exclusive offer for my listeners. 35% off site-wide when you use the code “PASSIONSTRUCK” at https://cozyearth.com/ This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://www.betterhelp.com/PASSIONSTRUCK, and get on your way to being your best self. This episode is brought to you By Constant Contact:  Helping the Small Stand Tall. Just go to Constant Contact dot com right now. So get going, and start GROWING your business today with a free trial at Constant Contact dot com. --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/ Overcoming Adversity with Jason Redman Jason sheds light on his involvement in humanitarian efforts, such as Task Force Pineapple, to assist Afghan interpreters in the wake of the country's collapse. Through his Legacy Coaching Program, Jason aims to empower individuals to become the best versions of themselves by confronting the dragons in their minds and embracing positive change. Tune in to gain valuable insights on leadership, resilience, and personal growth from a true inspirational figure. All things Jason Redman: https://jasonredman.com/  Catch More of Passion Struck My solo episode on Why We All Crave To Matter: Exploring The Power Of Mattering: https://passionstruck.com/exploring-the-power-of-mattering/ Watch my interview with Todd Rogers On How You Communicate Better In The Real World. Listen to my interview with Charles Duhigg On The Hidden Power Of Supercommunicators. Catch my episode with Laura Numeroff On Creating A Story Of Resilience And Triumph. Listen to my interview with Robin Steinberg On Humanizing Justice Through Compassion Watch my interview with Katy Milkman on the science of understanding how to change. Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! How to Connect with John Connect with John on Twitter at @John_RMiles and on Instagram at @john_R_Miles. Subscribe to our main YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles Subscribe to our YouTube Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@passionstruckclips Want to uncover your profound sense of Mattering? I provide my master class on five simple steps to achieving it. Want to hear my best interviews? Check out my starter packs on intentional behavior change, women at the top of their game, longevity and well-being, and overcoming adversity. Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/   

Coming up next on PassionStruck. What I've come to find is that the most elite performers, they're always taking small incremental steps to be better. So I like using running as an example. If you're running eight minute miles and you want to get to a seven minute mile, you're not going to say, if I've been running consistent eight minute miles,

I'm not going to go out and run a seven minute mile tomorrow. Instead, maybe it's, hey, over the next three months, I'm going to cut 15 seconds off my mile time to get to 7.45. So we lay out a plan, maybe it's a six week plan, whatever it is, we're drawing this down. While we're doing it, we're getting up into the zone of discomfort.

But after a while, now that becomes the new comfort zone, your new comfort zone becomes 7.45. And now we push it just a little further. So that's how I do it. And that's worked for me in my life. And I think that's how you manage that fear, that anxiety, that change. Welcome to Passionstruck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turned their wisdom into practical advice

for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors,

CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become Passionstruck. Hello everyone and welcome back to episode 427 of Passionstruck, the number one alternative health podcast. Heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you for a turn of the show every week, eager to listen, learn and discover new ways to live better, be better and make a meaningful impact in the world. Are you curious to find out where you stand on the path

to becoming Passionstruck? Dive into our engaging Passionstruck quiz. Craft it to reflect the core principle shared in my latest book. This quiz offers you a dynamic way to gauge your progress on the Passionstruck continuum. Head over to Passionstruck.com to embark on this insightful journey. With just 20 questions in roughly 10 minutes of your time, don't miss this chance to gain

valuable insights into your Passionstruck journey. Take the quiz today. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you simply want to introduce this. To a friend or a family member, we have Episode Starter Packs, which are collections of our fans' favorite episodes that we organize into convenient topics. They give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. Either go to Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started. In case you missed it last week, I had two great guests. The first was Dan Harris, who, from global conflict zones to an unexpected on-air panic attack, embarked on a transformative journey of recovery. Discover how meditation turned his life around leading to the best-selling book, 10% Happier,

his popular podcast, The Meditation App. I also interviewed Matt Abrahams, who's a renowned organizational behavior lecturer at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business and author of Think Faster Talk Smarter. We dive into an interview designed to sharpen your communication skills and elevate your conversational prowess.

Join me as we explore the art and impactful dialogue with a master communicator. I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews and if you loved today's episode or either of those others we would so appreciate you giving it a five star review and sharing it with your friends and families. I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners. Today we dive into the heart of resilience and the power of the human spirit with my guest Jason Redmond who's a retired Navy SEAL and the New York Times bestselling author of The Trident and Overcome. Jason is a man who transformed unimaginable adversity into an exemplary story of triumph and leadership. In 2007, Jason faced a life-changing ambush in Iraq, sustaining severe injuries that altered the course of his life. Shot in the face

and arm at close range, his path to recovery was laden with over 40 surgeries, including extensive facial reconstruction. But Jason's story is not just about survival. It's about transcending limits and scars to achieve greatness. From this experience, Jason emerged with a renowned sense of purpose. He went on to launch successful businesses and became a national speaker, teaching others how to foster the overcome mindset. This philosophy, drawn from the experiences of America's most resilient warriors, provides a blueprint for tackling life's ambushes head-on. In our discussion, Jason shares profound strategies from enduring long-term trials to thriving in your life's purpose, leading teams to success in competing at the highest levels in

your field. His lessons are about moving from defense to offense, embodying the resilience and proactive tactics of SEAL teams. We also delve into Jason's book The Trident, an unforgettable tale of grit, determination, and the balance between humility and courage. Join us in this gripping episode as Jason Redmond takes us through the journey of overcoming extreme adversity and he shares how anyone can apply these principles to their own challenges and ambitions. Thank you for choosing Passionstruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now let that journey begin.

Man Passionstruck listeners, do I have a treat for you today? I am so honored to have someone that you have been asking me to have on the show for over a year. Jason Redman, so happy to see you today. John, honored to be on, man. Well, I have to thank our mutual friend, John Doolittle, for having you appear today and do want to meet a pass on to you that this past weekend, I was at the Frogman Swim where he swam in 48 degree weather. I think the water was in the high 50s, low 60s, and he said, for me to

tell you, it's a lot easier swimming in New York than it is here in Tampa during the cold weather here. That's why I don't do the Tampa swim. I checked the box on all that cold weather swimming. So my hats off to my teammates. It's still a lot of doing that cold weather swimming, but for me, man, I hated swimming. So I do the New York swim and that's my big swim check for the year.

Yeah, the interesting thing is, although there are a few seals who actually do the swim, I think it's just a handful. The nice thing about this is it's become such a community event of people supporting the Navy Seal Foundation, which is great. That's awesome. Well, do, thanks bro. Keep setting that example, man.

A lot of you guys are always like, come do the Tampa swim. So maybe one of these days. But to everybody out there that is supporting the Navy SEAL Foundation, thank you. It is a dangerous job. It's a hard job on our community. I'm sure a lot of people have seen.

When we are recording this just recently, we lost a couple of teammates conducting operations over in the Middle East. So it takes a toll on the families. And Navy SEAL Foundation does an amazing job supporting us. Yeah, that was something that they really highlighted at the ceremonies. Yes, prayers go out to those families

who were impacted by that. Speaking of veterans, Jason, I understand you and I have similar family backgrounds. My grandfather and my father are both backgrounds. My grandfather and my father are both veterans. My grandfather was part of the Army's 11th Airborne and my father is actually UDT Class of 16. He was part of two classes of Force Recon that at the time they didn't have a school, so they sent him through. So he's a Marine Corp. That as a backdrop, I understand your grandfather and father served as well.

How did their service impact your desire as a kid to want to serve? Yeah, I think it just set a tone of service. And I think some individuals, I think you just have that inside you from a young age. My parents talked about when I was three, I used to talk about I wanted to be a fireman because firemen are brave of heart. Somewhere along the lines as I got just a little bit older,

who knows, six, seven, I wanted to go in the military and I'm sure a lot of the stories from hearing about what my grandfather done, my great uncle, and my grandfather. I think all those things shaped me. My dad was a paratrooper airborne and was an airborne instructor. And I remember playing with, he had an old discarded parachute in the gear. And I remember playing with that as a kid thinking, man, how cool would it be to jump out of airplanes?

So I think all that shaped me. And it was a path that I went down and never really lost sight of. I always from a very young age wanted to go into the military. I kind of slid back and forth between wanting to be a pilot and go for a small period of time. I thought about being a Marine and I thought about Army and then ultimately I found out about the SEAL teams and I said that's what I want to do. Well, something I wanted to ask you is you might know Admiral Kerry Metz. I was talking to him and we were talking about do. And when you see John Doolittle, he is what I think people think about when they

think of a SEAL is two, six foot two, six foot three guy who swam across the English channel. However, I don't think what people realize is an actuality. Most seals are probably 5'9", 5'10", completely different than what most people think about. And I know that as I was growing up, people kept telling me I was too small to do this or too small to do that. And I think it's something you were faced with as well. How did you learn to overcome that and to push through it and to see it and not as a barrier to what you want to achieve? Yeah, it's a great question. I wish I could tell everyone that there was some catalyst, I'll be honest. I think it was just something genetically inside me because unfortunately my dad told me a lot. Hey, you're too small to do this or to do that.

I really caution parents now, if you tell something, especially younger individuals, something over and over again, it's going to seep into their subconscious and it becomes part of who they are. I'm 49 years old and I still hear that voice telling me today, you're too small. Oh, and I've done all these amazing things.

But something inside me said, I don't care about that. I don't care what you tell me. I don't care you tell me I'm too small or whatever it is. There was just a fire that said, that's what I want to do. And I'm going to do it. And I'll be honest, in some ways when you tell me, I can't do something that drives me even harder to want to do it.

There's pros and cons of that. I talk about that some later. I've talked about it in podcasts, but for me, when I was younger, it was a fire. Everybody told me I couldn't do it. I was the 95 pound weekly and I was a little runt. You'll never be an ABCL. And I was like, yeah, well, watch me. Jason, you and I overlapped for a number of years when we were both in the service in

the 90s. You probably didn't know this, but I did a tour with Naval Special War for Unit 10 in Rota. And then I did counter drug operations in South America during the mid to late 90s with several SEAL teams and was also assigned to JAD of South doing counter drug operations. So you and I had a couple things in common. You know, overlap in time down in South America. That was right during the time that I was down there. Yeah, I was in Columbia, Ecuador, Panama, some other places.

My old stomping grounds. So if I have it right, you spent 11 years as an enlisted Navy SEAL and then almost 10 years as a SEAL officer. Reflecting on your extensive career, how do you think your experiences, including both your successes and mistakes, helped you to shape your understanding and approach of leadership? There is no doubt that the military helped shape who I am today. And I'll be honest, frequently when individuals are successful, oftentimes they follow a path and they've laid out a plan and they've executed that plan.

And don't get me wrong, it's hard, but when we execute the plan and we achieve that plan and we achieve that success, we don't always stop to look back on, well, hey, what worked really well for me following and executing that plan, because we're already moving forward to the next steps in that plan. What I've come to find is failure is the greatest thing that forces you to stop and figure out, well, what went wrong? And how do I fix this? How do I recreate? How do I get to the goal I was trying to get to because failure

to stop me from doing that? Really for me, it was failure that shaped who I was as a leader and everything that on what I speak on today. And I feel at a pretty good level. I often tell people that ego and arrogance are dangerous combination, very much so on the battlefield. And I would say for in any aspect of your life, when you start to think that you're too good or that you're above others or that you don't need to, you've reached

the end of your learning curve, any of those things, that's really dangerous. And I had kind of reached that point as I was a mid, I was an E6, I'd really done well. I got recommended for commission. I really thought I was ranked number one in all these different things. And I came back as a young CEO leader, as an officer after I had picked up a commission thinking that I really had it all figured out. And not only did I not, the world changed. 9-11 happened right as I got commissioned.

Our tactics changed. We suddenly went from a peacetime military to a wartime military, fighting two fronts of a war that was very dynamic, very complex, very, very dynamic enemy. And all of those things led to my downfall. I made a series of poor leadership decisions that culminated with a bad call on a mission. And I stand and that really, that failure point and almost getting myself kicked out of the SEAL teams was

really the rock bottom moment I needed to reevaluate and say, okay, the current path you're walking is not working and you're about to get yourself kicked out of this amazing unit that you've worked so hard to be a part of and as a leader of an amazing unit. And that became the foundation of everything now that I teach and write on and share with others. So I would say all of these lessons came from the military, but they're reinforced throughout my life. I have had other failures and successes,

but oftentimes it's the harder points in our life that we go back to the foundational lessons that I'm like, okay, I know these things work. What I call life ambushes, those moments when you're on the X where you got to go back to the foundational things and how you lead yourself, how you lead others, how you lead always despite the adversity, despite the problems, despite whatever storm you're in. I've always gone back to that and said, okay, let's go. I love how you describe it as creative rehabilitation. I think are the words that you've used. And I think many of us, myself included, have made mistakes, have gotten fired from jobs, have had these things happen to us.

What's your advice to someone who's made mistakes and is worried that they might not be able to bounce back? That it's never too late. That's the reality. I don't care how old you are. I don't care how bad you messed up. When I failed as a leader, one of the creative rehabilitation things that they gave me was they sent me to US Army Ranger school. And when I went to Ranger school, I got inside my head.

I started telling myself it's too late. The special operations community, John, as you well know, we are a very driven, high level, type A group, and we don't necessarily tolerate failure or mistakes very well. But we have a tendency to really apply a lot of pressure on those individuals to either fix themselves or remove themselves. And that's just kind of how the organization works. And

that is a good thing in my opinion. And as I was trying to fix myself with a lot of guys who said, we don't want that guy back, he's dangerous, he made bad call, he's going to get us killed. I started to get inside my head and I was like, man, it's too late. There's no way I can win back these guys. There's no way I can overcome this. When I remember talking to one of our senior leaders, one of the most respected leaders in our community that had been a mentor of mine, he had been a commanding officer, and he said to me, Red, you need to understand something. He said, people will follow you if you give them a reason to. He said, that's all leadership is. He said, I don't care how bad you've messed up. It's human nature that if you are operating at an incredibly high level of sustained superior

performance over time and you have a winning formula and you're on the winning team, people are going to want to follow you. Now they may look back and say, man, that guy messed up and they may not jump on board immediately. They're gonna watch for a while and say, hey, is this guy still the same screw up I knew from years past? Or they're gonna say after a while,

wow, this guy or gal has really changed. And I want a part of that. Because man, they're exuding success at these high levels. So he said, that's what you need to do. You need to focus on just crushing it. He said, crush Ranger school, come back to the SEAL teams and give the guys reason to follow you.

He said, and that's how you overcome this. He was 100% right. That became the foundation of my formula for leadership. Lead yourself, lead others, lead always. And I truly believe that. I will say, you won't win everyone over. 80% of people will say, hey man, that guy's changed.

I want to follow on and be on that team. And then you may have 10, 20% or the haters who say, you know what, screw that person. I don't care how successful or how good they ever say they are. I remember when they messed up and they want to hold you, they want to pin you on that X. And you know what, screw those people. Be strong in yourself, know that you've made those changes, and keep driving forward and follow that formula. And I know, being an operator, you are really focused on the cohesive team decisions. And you guys are put into situations

where you're under a lot of pressure. But those circumstances aren't immune to people who are special operators. You can find them if you're a doctor, an attorney who's got a high exposure case, people in the corporate environment, professional athletes. I was hoping that you might be able to talk about this using

a story from your time and maybe showing how people can learn from that and to how they can trust their team decisions and knowing how to do the right thing when you're faced with pressure, when many of us want to take the easier path instead of the one that's often harder, but aligns to our core values. Yeah, I teach something at a lot of the one that's often harder, but aligns to our core values. Yeah, I teach something at a lot of the corporate keynotes and the workshops that I do called Learn to Lead. So Learn to Lead is acronym and it really is the foundation of everything that I teach based on many of the lessons that I learned

and the things that I incorporated into my life. I wanna take a step back for a second. Before we get into that, I think it's critical also that as leaders in John, you will appreciate this. I meet a lot of leaders as they get further along, especially in high pressure jobs. Any super high pressure job where there's lots of stress,

there's major decision making, whether it's life or death, or whether it's millions or billions of dollars in decision-making. And what tends to happen is we stop taking care of ourselves because we get so focused on the criticality of this job and the importance of this job and where we are. And I will say that one of the reasons why I think the military and special operations put such a premise on fitness is not just because it's a very physical job, but we also know that the human body responds so much better when we take care of it. Mentally, we make decisions better, we feel better, we handle stress better, we're more creative, we have more energy, all these different

things. So I really encourage people as leaders to understand the greatest thing you can do for yourself out there is to make sure you are taking time to take care of yourself. You are eating healthy. You are getting at least six to seven hours of sleep a night more if you can. You are working out. You're moving your body. All those things are going to make you a better leader and help you manage stress better. If you're doing that's the foundational level I talk about. And learn to lead. The first level, the L stands for follow the three rules of leadership. Lead yourself, lead others, lead always.

Number two, E is engage teams through trust. A lot of leaders in high pressure jobs have a tendency, and I was one of them, when things were going really hard and fast or maybe we've made a mistake or the stakes are really high, we suddenly have a tendency to start micromanaging the people around us and we're really trying to hang on to control the outcome and you're really doing the exact opposite of what you want to do. What you're saying as a leader to your team is I don't trust you, I don't trust you to do the

right thing so I'm going to try and control you. It's slowing down the process. It's creating massive inefficiencies. You're reducing creativity in your workforce. You're reducing any kind of initiative. You're creating a workforce of people who are afraid to make decisions because that's what you're saying. So engage teams through trust.

If we delegate down, we give them the tools they need following the three rules above, that now enables us to move faster. And especially if we're dealing with complicated things, it's going to enable it to occur faster. I mean, nothing is more complicated and chaotic than combat on a dynamic battlefield. And the SEAL teams, we try and push that leadership decision making to the lowest level. We create a culture of leadership. A stands for active communication. As a leader, you should be constantly communicating with your people and getting their input and not shooting the messenger. I meet a lot of leaders at high level, high stakes organizations who claim they have an open door policy, but whenever anybody comes to talk to them, oh, I'm busy, I can't talk right now, or they lay into them, you really need to have a culture of active communication if you want to

build high level teams and high stress demanding environments. Ours respect, respect for the position you hold as a leader. Understand that if you are a leader in any organization, that title doesn't make you a leader, that corner office salary you're making doesn't make you a leader. None of it does. It's your ability to lead and understand that decision making you are doing has an impact on the people you're leading and understanding that they're people. People are complicated. People put it bluntly. People can be a pain in the ass. They

have their own feelings and problems and all these things. We don't need robots. We need people. But you have to respect But bluntly, people can be a pain in the ass. They have their own feelings and problems and all these things. We don't lead robots, we lead people. But you have to respect the fact that these people are passionate. And sometimes because of the nuances of their own lives and what's going on, they may get a little bit off track. So be impatient and respectful and communicating with them

to get them back on track. And the last one, like you said, end stands for there are no shortcuts. I tried to take a shortcut as a young leader on the battlefield. I wanted to get into a fight and took it upon myself to move down into a valley to try and get into a fight with a Taliban force down below. And it was a terrible call. I'm very fortunate that no one was injured or killed because of my decision.

But it was a shortcut. I thought I'd be the hero of the story by doing this. And it did significant damage to my credibility and reputation. So don't take shortcuts. You're gonna learn far more by taking the longer road anyways. It's gonna make you better. It's gonna make you stronger. It's gonna give you the experience.

You'll be able to talk to people and say, hey, look, these are the things I learned taking the longer path. you'll be able to talk to people and say, hey, look, these are the things I learned taking the longer path. 99% of the time with the shortcut, you're not going to learn all the things that you're going to learn if you take the harder path. Okay, Jason, another thing I wanted to explore is a concept that I call the zone of optimal anxiety in my book. And in the chapter that I write about this concept, I featured a fellow Navy SEAL, Mark Devine, and how he ended up figuring out how to do this.

Can you share with the audience how you mastered the same skill set, which is really, if you've got too much anxiety, you're gonna perform poorly. If you've got too little, you're're going to perform poorly. If you've got too little, you're going to perform poorly. But how do you maximize so you get yourself into your peak performance zone? I talk about that in my book, Overcome, with something I call the pyramid of change. And the idea is there are different levels of change.

All of, most people, I don't want to say all of us, but most people aspire to be better at some point of their lives. The lowest level of the pyramid is the zone of no change, no results, and most people don't live there. The second zone is the comfort zone, and most people in this world live in their comfort zone. If you tell them this is where they need to be, or they do the minimum they need to get by, to achieve the status quo. Above the comfort zone is the zone of discomfort, and then at the very top of the pyramid is the burnout zone. Where we want to live is in the middle of the pyramid, between the comfort zone and the zone of discomfort.

If I'm setting a new goal and I want to go and drive forward, there's always going to be a level of fear, there's going to be a level of change, there's going to be a level of pressure, There's going to be a level of change. There's going to be a level of pressure. There's going to be a level of I'm having to change routines or introduce new equipment or hire new people or now my schedule's changed. Well, now you're in the zone of discomfort.

We can't live in that zone all the time because then we end up in that burnout zone, which is what I know Mark and you guys are coming at. Instead, what I've come to find is that the most elite performers, they're always taking small incremental steps to be better. So I like using running as an example. If you're running eight minute miles and you want to get to a seven minute mile, you're not going to say, hey, tomorrow if I've been running consistent eight minute miles, I'm not going to go out and run a seven minute mile, you're not going to say, hey, tomorrow if I've been running consistent eight minute miles, I'm not going to go out and run a seven minute mile tomorrow. Oh, maybe it's,

hey, over the next three months, I'm going to cut 15 seconds off my mile time to get to 745. So we lay out a plan, maybe it's a six week plan, whatever it is, we're drawing this down. But while we're doing it, we're getting up into the zone of discomfort. But after a while, now that becomes the new comfort zone, your new comfort zone becomes 745. And now we push it just a little further. So that's how I do it. And that's worked for me in my life. And I think that's how you manage that fear, that anxiety, that change. And so you showed your book overcome. We've been talking about things that are out of it and I'll show your other book here, Trident, and I'm going to now dive a little bit more deeply into which is your journey through adversity most of us will never have to face. And I just want to paint

this for the listeners. My understanding in 2007 is you were in Iraq and you were coming off My understanding in 2007 is you were in Iraq and you were coming off a deployment that is the type of deployment that seals die to have. You had action on an almost everyday basis. You're getting to do activities that you were always trained for. You're doing things that are really protecting your country and moving the needle. are really protecting your country and moving the needle. And you're nearing the end of your tour of duty when you're called out almost unexpectedly because I understand beforehand, you were so doubting that this mission might even happen,

that you went to the weight room and you end up being summoned and told that it's gonna go ahead. Can you kind of take us from that point and what ended up happening? So we were only one week from the end of that deployment, a very eventful, like you said, a deployment that every seal, I think dreams of.

I believe we conducted 80 direct action missions going after mid-level and high-level surgeon and al-Qaeda leaders. And we had been trying to capture or kill the senior leader for al-Qaeda in the Ambar province, a very wanted individual that we had come in contact with on the periphery a couple of times. On the very first mission of the deployment, he was responsible for wounding several of our guys and then our turnover team that we had that was getting ready to leave and they killed pity officer Clark Swedler on that mission. So on that night, September 12, we were told hey, you know, we think this guy is going to be in a specific location something called his time sensitive target.

We launched on that mission in the early morning hours of September 13th and took down the initial target, found a lot of activity but no enemy. And while targets are secure, we had found weapons and ID making components and things like that. We were going to blow that stuff in place and call it a night when our sniper saw some activity on another building about 150 yards away, some suspicious activity they watched individuals kind of run across the street and hide in some vegetation. My boss, the ground force commander said, hey, I want you to take your team, let's go walk these guys down, let's go find out who they are and question them. So I did, I took my team and to make a long story short,

we walked into a very well-executed ambush. Our leader happened to be in that house 150 yards away. It was the last part of a security detail that had led the house. They had a very well-established ambush line set up in the vegetation across the street and we walked right into it. So myself and multiple members of our team

were shot up in that engagement, very close range, a Sheen gun and AK-47 fire. And I was hit eight times between my body and body armor. I took rounds across my body armor. I took around two rounds in the left elbow, rounds off my gun, rounds off my right side plate, rounds off my helmet. I had my right side plate, rounds off my helmet. I had my left night vision tube shot off.

I turned to try and move back to where our guys were. And that's when I caught around in the face that hit me right in front of the ear, traveled through my face, took off my nose, blew out my right cheekbone, broke what was left of my cheek and kicked it out to the right. It vaporized my lower lip,

broke all the bones above my eye, shattered my jaw to my chin, broke all the bones above my eye, shattered my jaw to my chin, and it knocked me out. The guys saw me fall about 10, 15 yards in front of them, which then left me pinned down in the middle of this pretty vicious firefight that ended up lasting almost 40 minutes, which is a really long time to be in a very intense close range gunfight.

My teammates did an amazing job, fought back at one point, my team leader ran forward under fire and got me back on a tourniquet on my arm. We ended up calling a fire mission from the AC-130 gunship, which ended up being the closest fire mission ever executed in the Iraq war. We pretty much called rounds directly on our position and miraculously made it out by a combination of both the way my team leader called in those rounds and by the gunship crew and how they executed that mission. So yeah, amazing. Kind of we are outnumbered and outgun,

but we were able to overcome through phenomenal teamwork and guys working together and through the air assets overhead, which obviously started a whole new journey of getting put back together. Thank you for sharing that. And I can't even imagine waking up from the horror of that whole ordeal and then looking at yourself. And I recently interviewed Harry Budamagar.

I'm not sure if you know who Harry is, but he was a Gurkha who at about the same time you were in, he was at about his 15 year point. He went in Afghanistan and just on a routine mission and ended up stepping on a IED and he ended up losing both of his legs above his kneecaps. And I remember talking to him and he said he woke up. He remembered that one of his legs was still there before he passed out and they took him out. And he remembered

waking up and looking down and he could see the sheet over his legs and not wanting to even look because it didn't appear like his leg was there. And for him, he went through a period of kind of denial for a few years, and he looked into his son's eyes one day and just said, is this the legacy that I want to leave? You two were in similar situations with these wounds that you had. How, when you're in that situation, something that most of us will never have to experience, how did it shape your perspective on life and at that point, the life you thought you could lead and how did you muster this inner courage that you write about to face that and to realize

you weren't gonna let it stop you living this ideal life that you wanted to have? There were several things that came in. If one of the things, I tell people be thankful for the hardships, the failures, the crisis you go through because as long as you just don't quit and you navigated through it successfully it gives you the roadmap and really what I call an overcome mindset going through hard things flexes your

overcome muscles and build your overcome muscles and I'll tell you I think I was very uniquely positioned for success with these battlefield injuries because of the leadership failure that I had navigated several years prior. Rock Bottom told me we're going to kick you out of the SEAL teams, thought about leaving. Many guys did not want me to stay. And I navigated that path over two years, which often I tell people is actually the hardest thing I've ever done.

If I look back on my life, to be ostracized from a community that I loved, that was very hard. I mean, I was suicidal there for a while. So to get to the other side of that, and then to be injured, I had already created a roadmap. All the things that I talk about, all the leadership things, I kind of realized in that hospital bed, don't get me wrong, it wasn't instant.

I didn't know it would come out of the surgery and say, oh thank God I got shot in the face. This is so great. I know how to recognize this. It probably took about 10 days, I think for all of that to settle in and to think, hey man, this is no different thing, your leadership failure.

The circumstances are different, but the formula is the same. You can lead from any situation, including a hospital bed, and you need to apply that here. And not only that, I knew that I couldn't go back and change the past. I could not change what happened to me. I couldn't change anything. I often tell people, control what you can. And sometimes, the only thing you can control and really hard moments is you and your attitude and bringing some positivity to really negative hard situations. And that's what I did in that moment.

And don't get me wrong, it wasn't this linear rocket ship. I had setbacks along the way. I had hard moments along the way. I definitely went through a period in about three years after my injuries where I was drinking heavy and really struggling with some of the demons of war And thankfully my wife is pretty amazing. We tell this story in the new book We have coming out a relationship book We're releasing where she called me out and said hey you're pushing everybody away

And it's the exact opposite of how we agreed We were gonna roll on our marriage that we were gonna going to communicate with each other and you're not doing that. And you're jeopardizing our marriage and we've never ever, divorce is not a word that we ever entertain or the end of our marriage. We both agreed to death to us part. So that was my wake up call for me and I went and I sought out help through our command psychologists and chaplains and started seeking out different programs that could help me. One of the biggest things I try and tell people that have been through trauma and about getting off the X is A, no one can drag you off the X. If you're struggling, you have to make the decision to get for it.

Now lots of people can help you once you make that decision. And there is no easy button for getting off the X, especially when we're dealing with trauma of the mind. And what works for me may not work for you. So you owe it to yourself. All these wounded warriors and people that have been through trauma, whether it's sexual, emotional, physical, verbal, whatever it is, who are like, well, I tried this one thing and it didn't work for me.

So now I just went back to self-medicating with drugs, alcohol, whatever it is. And I'm like, you tried one thing. I've probably done at least six or seven different modalities for trauma and some worked and some didn't work at all. But you have to lead yourself forward just like anything else in this life.

Yeah, I know for me, I did CPT and I've done prolonged exposure therapy and a few others, and it sucks when you're doing it, especially PET because you keep reliving the same thing over and over again until it becomes not an issue, which is great once you're done with it. But the first few sessions aren't too good. But I think a lot of people don't want to put himself into that intentional position of having to feel those emotions. I'm not sure if Andrew or Adam Marr, Andrew's retired Green Beret, but he runs an organization called Warrior Angels Foundations.

And he's really connected with Amber and Marcus, who are doing vets, who I'm sure you're aware of. A few years ago, we were doing the 4x4x48 challenge out at Andrew's Ranch in Texas, and he had gotten a number of operators who were from every single community, including the Coast Guard who were there, and he had a F-18 pilot, Keegan Gill,

who had also bailed out at Mach 1 200 feet above the ocean and lived to tell about it. But it was so interesting for me, man, because it was like all these things that I thought were going on inside of me that I hadn't really talked with other people about. When we started to talk and share stories, there were probably 60 of us there. It was like 99% of us were feeling the same things. And even though a lot of us had recovered physically, it was more the mental and emotional toll that were really impacting us years beyond.

And I think that's really common in people. And do you find it the same way? Yeah, I do. I think that shared experiences, whether it's physical going through that adversity, and I think that our ability, like you said, to talk about and share with others, there's power in that. I think we're all afraid of that. That's the reality. We're afraid to talk about our failures. We're afraid to talk about, hey, this was really hard, especially coming from a Taipei community, the protector community. There's an inherent part of our job where we act

like some of the things that we've been exposed to don't bother us, whether that's physical hardship or whether that's emotional hardship. So sometimes if you've been through trauma, it's hard to say, wow, this really bothered me or this is an issue. Jimmy Hatch, James Hatch, I don't know if you're familiar with him, he's a teammate who wrote a great book called Touching the Dragon.

And it is about confronting that trauma head on. And I feel like Jimmy's definition is better than anybody else's in my opinion. And what he talked about is that trauma is like a dragon. Oh, and when you get exposed to it, suddenly this dragon lives in your mind. And most of us, we have this tendency, we don't wanna talk about the dragon. Oh, and when you get exposed to it, suddenly this dragon lives in your mind. And most of us, we have this tendency, we don't want to talk about the dragon, we got this big bad fire breathing dragon that lives inside of us, and we

don't want to talk about that. So what we do is we cage it up and we put it in a box and we stick it in the back of our mind. And we just hope that we can keep it contained. But it's a dragon, it breaks out of those chains and it will eat you in the wrong moments or when something triggers you. So until you learn how to touch the dragon, until you can't tame or get rid of the dragon, we'll always carry whatever trauma we've ever been through,

you're gonna carry with you. But it's learning how to live with that dragon and tame that dragon. And how we do that is you talk about it, you embrace it. And man, now there's tremendous power in that because like you just talked about, all of us have felt those things, maybe not exactly in the same way

when maybe our trauma isn't the same as your trauma, but there are similarities in it. Oh, there are similarities in battlefield trauma and sexual trauma and violent trauma or whatever it is in the way it impacts us. So for you to tell me, man, Jay, this is what I went through and these were the things I was afraid of and these were the things that were really bothering me.

And maybe I don't relate with every single thing, but I'm like, damn man, John, me too, me too. That bothered me and here's how I fixed it. And you're like, oh my God, I tried that, but it didn't work. But guess what? This is what I did. And somebody else sitting over there and they're like, holy s***, John. Yeah, man, that worked for me too.

I wanna take us into a different direction. As I was preparing for this, I talked to a couple of SEALs to do some background research. And one of them was retired Navy SEAL, Dan O'Shea. And specifically Dan whispered in my ears some things about Task Force Pineapple and some of the humanitarian efforts that you've been a part of.

And I was hoping you might be able to share the story behind Pineapple and what your role was in it and what this amazing group of individuals was able to do to get so many people out of Afghanistan. Dan's a good guy. Much loved, Dano. Yes, obviously we all saw the fall of Afghanistan and really unfortunate. I think this was a colossal failure at the highest levels of government.

I don't care what position you held. If you try and tell me we did the right thing, I don't really agree with it. Over 20 years of warfare trying to make a difference in that country, hundreds of thousands of Afghans who were willing to fight alongside us, who lost family members, who, you know, their freedom and security to try and support us, all on the premise that we were going to turn over a free Afghanistan, or at least a better Afghanistan, where we left. And that was not the case.

We turned the country back over the same clowns, dangerous terrorist clowns who, who we fought in the first place, who started the whole thing. So when that occurred, it was very troubling. I did not have any personal relationship with the interpreters that we worked with in Afghanistan, but a lot of my friends did.

I only did one tour in Afghanistan, but I had a lot of friends who had done tours. And all of a sudden when Afghanistan collapsed, there were so many interpreters who were reasoned out for help because they said the Taliban has put a bounty on all of us. They're threatening to come and kill us and kill our families. And they were doing it. And I'm friends with Scott Mann. Scott Mann is a retired Special Forces Green Beret Colonel. I had an individual reach out to me, a friend of mine,

and said, hey, Afghanistan's collapsing. I have a friend that's an interpreter. They're stuck in Afghanistan. Do you know anyone can help? And I knew Scott had started doing that. I reached out to him and he said, Jay, yes, but I could use your help. We're drowning.

We're getting so many calls. He said, we're just kind of leveraging the networks of everybody we know in the special operations, DOD, intelligence community. So I said, hey, man, absolutely. So I got involved. I became what's called a shepherd. And those were us who had some level of special operations

background or new individuals where we would try and ammoo people through connections. I was never on the ground in Afghanistan. There was a report out there that said I was and that's not true. Everything we did from the States, long, long hour. And I think one time I worked 48 hours straight trying to help a family get out with two small children.

So we made a difference. We got hundreds of people out. The family I was trying to help a family get out with two small children. So we made a difference. We got hundreds of people out. The family I was trying to get out was actually right at the Karzai gate when the bomb was detonated. Although God works in mysterious ways because what had happened is we were trying to get them through the gate that night and there was a stampede and there was a sewage canal right next to the car's eye gate

and there were thousands of people trying to get through and he was carrying his six-month-old daughter and I think a two or three-year-old son and they got trampled in the sewage canal and his daughter ingested sewage water. They picked her up and they ended up pulling back to take care of her. Well that action saved their lives because it was only a couple hours later that the bomb was detonated that killed all those people and our Marines. They were stuck there for a couple of years and then finally I heard they managed to get out through some of the other networks. That's how I was involved in it.

I wish we could have done more. I'm very saddened. I know that there's a lot of dead Afghans who dedicated their lives to support our country. And I feel like our government just turned our backs on them and said, hey, sorry, you're out of luck. Thanks for sharing that. And it was an incredible group of people.

I remember being involved with Dan and he was going 72 hours at a time without even sleeping because he was trying to get people out and he invited me to this group event that actually had the reporter, Lara Logan, at it. And that's when I met Scott Mann. I didn't realize until she started speaking just how influential the Afghanis were to also news reporters who were there and how much they also spent a role protecting them. So she was just as vocal and trying to get people out as the people who serve there were. And I want to give a shout out. There were a lot of, Task Force Pineapple got a lot of spotlight,

but there were a lot of groups. They kind of got, this umbrella got created called Task Force Pineapple or the Pineapple Express. When the reality is, there was probably at least a dozen groups that were doing this. So I know Tim Kennedy, former Green Beret and MMA fighter, Tim was heavily involved. Tim actually went to Afghanistan. Chad Robichaw was in Afghanistan. Man, if you want to read an absolutely mind-blowing book, read the book, Saving His Ease by Chad Robichaw, it is about him going, risking his life to get his interpreter out,

who he had spent so much time with, he had become like a brother to him. So really some amazing stories. My part in it was a tiny little blip on the radar compared to some of the other people that are out there and what they were doing. So shout out to Scott Mann and his leadership, Tim Kennedy and Chad Robichaux and Dana.

Dana was heavily involved too. Well, thank you for that. And I wanted to end our talk by talking about a couple of programs that you've got going on. The first I thought was pretty intriguing. It's called the Legacy Coaching Program, where you're pairing yourself with an entrepreneur and a real seasoned CEO to help do coaching. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Yeah, it's interesting, John. My new mission post-military is

how do I help everybody be a better version of themselves? And I'll be honest, I'm beginning to realize not everybody thinks like we do. Frequently people ask me, what's wrong with being content and happy where you are? And I think there's happiness in the moment, being thankful for where you are, but at the same time, I don't operate that way. I always wanna be better.

I wanna be better physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, financially, spiritually. And the Legacy Tribe is about that. It is about individuals who want to aspire to be better. They want to make more money. They want to be better leaders of their families, themselves, in their communities. They want to have a mindset of protection.

They're not afraid of hard work. Right now, we're living in a day and age that everything's about comfort. It should be about your comfort. If anything offends you, then you should go hide in a safe space and you shouldn't have to deal with that. Well, the real world doesn't work that way and success definitely does not happen

by living in your comfort zone or never confronting the hardship that really occurs in this life. So the Legacy Tribe is all about that. Myself, amazing entrepreneur, Bedros Kulian, Bryce Henson, Fortune 500, Fitbody Boot Camp CEO, we want to help people be the better version of themselves. Bedros invested in this company, it's called Fuel Hunt. Amazing group of guys, and I love the premise behind it. And really in my opinion is the culture of the Legacy Tribe,

our members that are in it and those who wanna be in it. And the idea is this, very few people are willing to go out and hunt today. Now we can take this literally to go out in the woods and actually hunt an animal so that you have food on the table, but it goes much deeper than that. It's the willingness to go out there and hunt for success, to grind, to put

in the physical work to have the body and the fitness and the mental level that you need to study all these things. That's what LegacyTribe is about. I want to try and make as many successful people as we can. Right now, everybody talks about the downfall of America. I think the greatness of America is still there. It's still built on the foundation of what made America great, great, resilience, leadership, sacrifice, all these things. And there's a whole bunch of people, the few who still believe that.

And I wanna empower them and give them the resources to just crush it, man, to just take this country back through massive wealth, through massive leadership and through massive impact. And I'm trying to do the same exact thing because I'm sick of seeing so many people settle for less than the dreams that they aspire to achieve. And so many people are gonna end up living their life

and looking back and having this humongous regret that they didn't give this life they aspire to lead a shot. And it's just so heart wrenching to watch so many people stuck and not willing to take the steps to do it. It's mindset that somebody's going to come save me. And that somebody is becoming more and more government or maybe big business. Oh, I'm like, no one's going to save you with the level that you'd like to see. That's the reality. The only person that's going to take you from here, the government may take you from here to here. That's it. That's the best you're

ever going to see or reality. They're going to maintain the lifestyle that you're living in or maybe even a little less. The only one who's going to take you beyond that is you. Your ability to lead, your ability to create something amazing and that's what you're doing. That's what I want to do. That's what I'm doing in my own life with my own family, with my tribe. That's what we want to do in legacy tribes. Man, I can't tell people enough.

Get off your own X. It is about action. It's not about sitting there hoping that somebody is going to come along. Calvary ain't coming. Absolutely. And the last thing I wanna talk to you about is your workshop overcome and survive. What are the core elements of this program

and what would someone benefit from attending it? So that's the last component of my passion. So I pray that this amazing nation we live in continues to grow and flourish and that the few, those of us out there who still believe in making an impact and having businesses that we can hire and all these things that will continue to grow. Reality is it's a dangerous world we live in and crime is growing, problems are growing, lack of accountability and so many of our cities, our criminal justice system is having issues.

I believe strongly in Second Amendment rights, I believe every American should own a firearm and you should know how to use that firearm. Safely understand the laws around it. I also believe that you should know how to survive. You should have basic survival skills. You should have at least three months of some level of food that God forbid if the grid suddenly failed, what are you going to do and how are you going to take care of your family if you don't have the ability to go to the grocery store and get food because that God forbid if the grid suddenly failed, what are you gonna do and how are you gonna take care of your family if you don't have the ability to go to the grocery store and get food

because there's been a collapse. I believe that you should understand basic first aid and trauma medicine because guess what? If things happen, fire department, the first responders and police may not show up within hours, days, could be weeks. Look at what happened down in with Katrina. Man, law enforcement, that city,

they were overwhelmed by the impact. And then the last thing, understanding situational awareness. So having an awareness of situations you're in, how to hopefully avoid dangerous situations because you have that mindset of situational awareness, how to mentally prepare, how to physically prepare for those things,

how to potentially talk yourself out of those situations. Those are all the things we're teaching in the Overcome and Survive Workshop. It is not special operations training. I get all these people that right in there like, are you gonna kick my ass? And I'm like, no, it is not physical. I don't care how many push-ups you can do.

You do need to have a little bit of physical ability for the things that we do in the course, but it's not designed to be this hard training. It's designed to give you the average everyday American the skills that God forbid the worst happens, you can protect yourself and your family. Yeah, I love it. And I gave my kids a copy of Michael Lover's book prepared because I think it's a great

manual for people to understand that when you least expect it is when something can happen and having that awareness as you talk about is so key to understanding how you have to deal with the repercussions that come from it. It's much better to start preparing than it is to face this and have nothing set up to deal with the situation. 100%. We tell people in the course that in a dangerous,

violent, or totally unknown, chaotic situation, you will always revert to the lowest level of training you've ever received. If that's nothing, your brain's gonna turn to mush and you're not gonna know what to do. So if you only went through our course or Tim Kennedy's course or Mike Lover's course, there's quite a few courses across the country

that are doing great work. If you only go through one of those, you are going to be better prepared than 90% of the people out there who live by this idea of, oh, that'll never happen until it does. And Jason, I want to end on this question. If you could give one piece of advice to our listeners who might be facing their own life ambushes, what would it be? Get off the X.

We all get stuck on this X in this life and we spend so much time focusing on the negativity. We focus on the past and what we've lost. We focus on the future and what we're not going to achieve because of whatever crisis or whatever failure end has occurred. And we focus on the pain and then we waste a whole bunch of time blaming others, blaming the economy, business, whatever it is. None of that matters. None of that is going to help you drive forward.

What's going to help you drive forward is to get up and get off that X. Start moving forward beyond that trauma. Understand this, driving forward off that X is not going to fix what's broken and oftentimes it's not going to recover what's lost. But so often when we get off that X and we start driving forward and you start getting momentum, that's when we are able to start doing more and it starts to make a greater impact. Momentum, action loves more action, you're able to drive that momentum.

So often what I've come to find is people when they have that the end moment where they were on the X and they finally start making momentum, it becomes a new beginning. And for many people, myself included, it was an even bigger course than I ever thought about before coming out of that tragedy or trauma.

So get off the X. I love it, you're absolutely right. Action leads to action. And it's something that everyone needs to understand. It's those small micro choices that we make every single day that compound into the greatness that we want in our life. Jason, so amazing to have you on the show. Thank you so much. It was such an incredible honor to have you here today. John, I'm honored. Thank you, man. Passionstruck. Let's go.

What an amazing interview that was with Jason Redmond. I wanted to thank Jason and my buddy, John Doolittle, for the honor and privilege of having her appear on today's show. Links to all things Jason Redman will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links to purchase either of Jason's books. All proceeds go to supporting the show. Videos are on YouTube at both John R. Miles and our Clips channel at Passionstruck Clips. Please go check it out and subscribe. Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com

slash deals. You can find me on all the social platforms, John R. Miles for our post daily. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter on passionstruck.com, where we have tidbits of information as well as weekly challenges to help you on your journey to becoming passion struck. If you want to know how to unlock the secrets, optimal health, and longevity, I have got a phenomenal episode coming up for you with the one and only Dr. Casey Means, the leading voice in this movement to create more personalized health. In her interview, Dr. Means brings her personal expertise in functional medicine to the forefront, discussing innovative ways to decode your body

signals, transform your health, and master your metabolism. All of these different things are just fascinating ways that really show us that our genetic code, the three billion base pairs that make up our DNA, are one piece of the puzzle. But a huge, I would say even bigger part of the puzzle is how we activate them, how we turn them on, how we turn them off, how we fold it. And that is all through our choices. We share, I think we share between 96 or 99% of our genome is like shared with dogs and almost every other land animal we see. So it's not just about the actual sequence,

it's a lot about how it's expressed. And so I focus a lot on the fact that is where we should really focus our energy because that is totally in our control. The fee for this show is that you share it with family or friends. When you find something useful or interesting, if you know someone who could really use the advice

that Jason gave on today's show, then definitely share this episode with them. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you love and care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen to. Until next time, go out there yourself

and become Ash and Strong.