THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Robert O'Neill - The Man Who Killed Bin Laden

Episode Date: June 20, 2018

Robert O’Neill is one of the most highly-decorated combat veterans of our time and the author of The New York Times best-selling memoir, "The Operator: Firing the Shots That Killed Osama bin Laden" and "My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior". O'Neill fired the headshots that killed Osama bin Laden during the raid on his Abbottabad compound on May 2, 2011. Having trained more than 800 special operations and tactical operators, O’Neill brings this unique expertise to organizations and translates his elite SEAL team training into high-impact, actionable insights on leadership, decision-making, operating in uncertain environments, and how to become the ‘best of the best.’ He is currently a contributor at Fox News. Since leaving active duty, O’Neill is a co-founder of Your Grateful Nation, which provides individualized transition support for Special Operations heroes and their families. They provide executive-level mentoring, transition services, and family stabilization support.

This is the Ed Milett Show. Complete lead and kick ass. Welcome back to Max Out everybody this is Ed Milett. Today is not a normal program. I have a true American hero sitting across the table from here today. So if you don't recognize this face, let me tell you who he is.

So this is Robert O'Neill. And we've had a lot of sports people on here, a lot of entertainers that in most people's minds are heroes, and then in life you meet a real hero. He doesn't consider himself one, but he is one. And so let me give him the proper introduction just so you know who this man is 52 decorations in the military two silver stars

Four bronze star medals with valor joint service combination metal with valor three presidential unit citations two Navy marine and Navy core combinations with valor service 400 different combat missions 400 if you've watched the movie Captain Phillips this is the first guy on to the boat when the Somali pirates had that boat if you've watched lone survivor with Marcus Lutrelle he was on that recovery mission and by the way he also killed Osama Bin Laden and so thank you for being here. I appreciate that. And like you mentioned too, it's not a hero thing. I was very fortunate to be with incredible teams. I know you mean. From all branches of

the service then everyone was there and the captain Phillips saying I wasn't one of the was not one of the shooters. I was the lead jumper for that and the snipers that were there with really no time. We're just watching to make sure nothing unsafe happened when they shot, which is incredible. And an amazing journey, all because of right place, right time. Right place, right time. And right man, which we're going to come with today.

And so also thank you for your service. It was an honor. Not just being here, so thank you. How's that for a hero, everybody? And so we're going to get into the mind of this man today. We're going to talk about team building, what he's up to today. And obviously, some of the great things that you've been a part of on the teams you were a part of. And so all great things happen.

It's being a part of the team, both you and I know that. But then there's blessing when we, when the opportunity arrives, we meet it with our preparation, which is what you do. That's exactly right. To meet it with your preparation, never the perfect plan because that's never going to happen. Like we'll get into a later tube with the bin-lawn rate. Which is what you do exactly right to meet it with your preparation never the perfect plan because that's never gonna happen Like we we'll get into a later to with the bin Laden raid. We have the perfect plan and nothing nothing came to fruition nothing worth The everything that the worst possible thing to happen happened wow, okay, let's get right into that

Okay, let's do that first. Let me ask you before we get to that. I'm just curious. Why'd you get in the military the first place? That's another one too. It was never a plan. I was going to... I was actually playing college basketball and I was going to work with my dad when I got out of college and I got dumped by a girl and wanted to leave buteman tannin. Come on. Yep. The first line in my book, The Operator, it says, I owe my career as a Navy SEAL to a girl. And that was an accident too because I didn't want to join the Navy. I wanted to join the Marines. Okay.

So I'm a hunter and I wanted to be sniper, and Marine snipers call us half cock, you know, just kick ass. The uniforms, Marines. So I went to join, and again, as luck would have it, the Marine Recruitment wasn't in there. The Navy guy was sitting there. And the only reason that I went to the Navy guy is because I had two friends I grew up with Ben and Jim, who were Marines, two years older. And they told me that the Marine Corps is actually part of the Department of the Navy. It's just the men's department. So I went to ask the Navy guy, where's the, when's he come back from lunch?

And he goes, why do you want the Marine? And I said, well, I want to be a sniper. And he's this clever recruiter. He was wearing a khaki, he's a Navy chief. Clever guys. And he goes, oh, we have to be a sniper. And he's this clever recruiter. He was wearing khakis, he's a Navy chief. Clever guys. And he goes, oh, we have snipers in the Navy looking a further. And he slowly said, or quickly said, you need to become a

Navy SEAL first, no big deal. Then we'll send you to sniper school. And I didn't know how to swim. Come on. And this guy talking me into it, because I remember being so dumb, I'm like, I'm naive, but this guy's a professional recruiter. Why would he lie to me?

Oh my god. And that's it. And then when I got in, he showed me the videos. I'm like, I'm naive, but this guy's a professional recruiter. Why would he lie to me? Oh my gosh, that's great. And that's it. And then when I got in, he showed me the videos. I'm like, holy crap. I mean, I don't know these straw. I can't swim. And I said, well, I'll be positive about it. I'll just, I'll go to San Diego.

I'll see this cool training. I probably won't make it. But then I'll go to the fleet and be in the Navy and have sea stories when I come back home to Melonies Bar in Buemont, Montana. But then I made it through. Are you made in a series? That's what happened. So you ended up because the other recruiter, no shows.

She went in there. We didn't always come in. I just went in the leaf town. Because of the girl. Yeah. Oh my God. And that story's kind of common. Well, both of them, that people went to join the Army,

but they went down, they joined the Marine Corps. And like it's so funny, like 80% of the all-volunteer military is there because someone dumped him. That's unbelievable. And you became a Navy SEAL but couldn't swim. Well, I learned, I had five months from the time I signed to tell you how I left. And I had a friend I went to high school with who was a Swam and Notre Dame. I ran into him by luck, two at the pool.

He was like, I've never seen you at the pool before. What's going on? And I said, I just joined the Navy. And I'm going to be a seal and he goes, oh, not like that, you're not. And he's taught me the breaststroke. Unbelievable. So you know the breaststroke. That's the size of the stroke.

Okay, that's incredible. So I have the stereotype of people all the time. I say that life doesn't happen for you, or to you, it happens for you, right? And these things all, it's amazing that the guy who ends up killing the most evil person of our time, of the modern time ends up killing the most evil person of our time of the modern time ends up in the seal program by mistake by the fall because of a girl. If you figure this

I a semi-decent shaped white kid that can't swim from but Montana It becomes a Navy seal and ends up in Binlon's bedroom just because of a positive attitude It doesn't matter what you look like or where you're from you can do anything just keep your head in it Oh avoid the negativity. Oh my god. Oh my god. And that's proof of attitude, it doesn't matter what you look like or where you're from, you can do anything. Just keep your head in it. Avoid the negativity. Oh my God. That's it. Oh my God.

And that's proof. I call my book the operator not because I'm calling myself the operator. I'm talking about the life of the operator. Every ranger, every green beret, every navy seal. And they all, the soarage are similar. And it's the two things, positive attitude, sense of humor. Sense of humor. I did know that about your right one when we met.

I'm going to say one thing about this book, the operator. Like if you have not read it, I have, but if you've not read it, this is like, this is something once you start reading it, it's just the truth, too. Thank you. Like you cannot stop reading this book. I mean, it's, because it's actual real stuff, I mean, it's you're just, I read the book in a day, and I'm telling you, like I was trying to get rid of other appointments. I had to finish reading this book, so get this book. I had a similar experience. My wife Jessica talked me into reading the audio book too. Yeah. Because she said no one can tell your stories. You have to do it. And as I'm in the booth with they can hear every Gurgle. Yeah. And I read this book. I remember thinking this is pretty good.

You know, it's your own life. It's my name. This is pretty good. Okay. So we now we know that life definitely happens for us. And that also the big things in our life never show up the way We envision never and like in other words when you were a 12-year-old boy This was your dream your picture of what was gonna be a defining moment of your life was not being in a room with Osama bin Laden, right? This is how amazing how when he just chased your dream Buster asked you have positive attitude even being at a seal team That could potentially get bin Laden when he was, we didn't know where the hell he was, and we were in Iraq fighting, and we would mess with people.

I was a battlefield interrogator, which means you take the house down, you get the men, and you question them, basically, whatever waterboarding and all that stuff. I remember messing with guys, and I would say, who's the man at the house, where's the mosque, and I would say, where's the song Ben Laden lot and we would both laugh like no one knows where he is So even as a member of that game, we're not gonna ever I'm never gonna get him. That's incredible Never gonna be there. It's gonna be the army guys to get him. That's incredible. Okay, but you do get him Yeah, so let's let's walk through that for a second. Okay, because you talk about preparation positive attitude preparation So you start to did you know when you were prepping,

that you were prepping for him? They told us about three weeks before we left that it was been long, and that was one of the coolest things, because at first, they started off with, they called us, we were all on, we just finished a deployment. I think it was my 12th combat deployment.

And we run a diving trip in Miami. And we were always good about that too. After deployment, after war, we would do a training trip, but it was always a good deal. Like diving in Miami, climbing in Vegas. Right. But the diving in Miami, by the way, the other thing we're being in here is you want to say,

you don't like sharks. I respect them now. I had to run in with one one time and that's enough. But no, I mean, anyone that's been in the ocean has had a positive encounter with a shark and don't realize that. They're out there. They don't mess with you.

They really do. It's usually by accident or a juvenile, they're a young, great white. The problem with the great white is he's curious and if they bite you, it's a, I hear the word devastating. It's unbelievable. Are you listening to this?

It's unbelievable. I've never been attacked by a shark. I've seen them. So you're prepping. But we're diving in Miami and they called the senior guys back. So that was one of them. My number two was, my boss was there. And we sat in a room and the first thing they said as well,

here's the deal. This isn't a drill. We found a thing and this thing is in a house. This house is in a bowl. It's a mountain near Lake in a country. And you guys are going to fly in there and you're going to get this thing and you're going to bring it back. That's it. And so it actually started off, okay, no problem.

What's the thing? Can't tell you, okay. Where's the bowl? Can't tell you. What country can't tell you? How are we getting there? Can't tell you. And then we're like, how much air support do we have?

And they said, well, none. And we're like, well, at least that's an answer. So we assumed it was Kadoffi because because the Arab Spring started, it's March 2011, not even go kill Kadoffi, but like recover him or whatever they want to do. But then eventually we started to put two and two together and they drove us down to, they gave us a day at home with our kids

and we drove down and then the commanding officer from my CO team, he walked in the room as calm as ever and said, all right guys, the reason you're here is this is as close as we've ever been to Osama bin Laden. What happened here, body when you heard that? A little bit of a little bit of goosebumps, but I've heard reports of chairs and high fives. I looked around and everyone is professional.

These are very professional Navy SEALs. And the first question was cool. Are we going right now? Let's do it. We're ready. And they said, well, no, you need to, we need to show you everything. And then there are like five options.

Are we going to bomb them this way, bomb them that way? And they actually said, are you going to do a multilateral mission with the Pakistani military? And everyone laughed like, seriously? Right, right. You tell them that we're going to get the modern heat. He's gone. You will never find them.

And then they wanted us to train as a unilateral option. So the powers that we wanted to see us train, just to get an understanding of that. We knew we could go. We've been doing it every night for years. So we just started training. They had a site there, and we're training on it, whatever. And we went there, we went to a place out west

that I'm not allowed to talk about. And then we forward launched to Jolalabat Airfield, just in case the president gave us the green light. And then we forward-launched to Jolala about airfield, just in case the president gave us the green light. And the president of Obama was really cool about it because there was one person that was sure, Ben Laden was there, and she was the famous three-liter agency woman. She was funny, and she was just that awesome,

because she would be like 100%. He's in this house on the third floor. Why aren't we going now? Really? He's there. Is she the same as he's searing the movie? third floor. Why aren't we going now? Really? He's there. Is she the same as he's searing the movie? Yeah, looks a little different. Attractive, but different.

Personality. Oh, total. Okay. Jessica Chastain nailed it. But, you have a President Obama was one, and he was just cool later, he said, look, after hearing about your training, I wasn't 100% sure he was there,

but I was 100% sure you guys could go in, find out, come back. Oh my gosh. And that's why we got the... How long was the training, the prep before you were? Two weeks. And so then you ultimately end up getting a phone call, do they gather you in a room and say we're going tomorrow or what?

Well, we trained in two different areas. We had a train on those stealth helicopters, the pilots who don't get nearly enough credit because they'd never flown those before Yeah, didn't know about those before. Yeah, but we knew we were gonna go over there I think it was on a Monday or a Tuesday Just to be there in case they call us were ready to launch from from Afghanistan the closest base to the border Okay, and so what we knew we were going we forward stage and and that you know that's when we say goodbye to the kids Which is hard because we didn't think we were coming back from that mission.

We thought it was, if we get the green light, it's a one-way mission. Let's talk about that for a second. You thought you were going to die. Yes. The effect you knew you were going to die. Why weren't coming back? And your teammates also know this as well, right? Yes, everyone was very...

Why did you know that? Because there's... Well, we don't know if the technology works works we don't know how good their air defenses are maybe the the the young kid that's very aggressive is on the radar that night there are no checkpoints people don't understand when you do a long range helicopter mission they're usually checkpoints to refuel they're there are none of those so we have to be exact with the pounds of weight that we have so we get shot down if anyone's gonna blow himself up in his entire family

when the team's in the house, Ben Laden will do it. Margar himself in his entire family. We run out of fuel and there's 23 guys in Pakistan. We invaded them, we have nowhere to go. We end our lives in a Pakistani prison. We don't know what's going to, but we accepted it and the way that I always explain it. Those are not great scenarios. And but we're going because we I had a guy on the team

that actually he ended up being the guy that was in front of me going up the stairs the last set of stairs that said um don't get me wrong I'm not I'm I'm going 100% going on the mission but I have to say this out loud to hear it if we know we we're going to die, why are we going? So we had a conversation, a bunch of us and what we decided was the best way to put it into perspective is we're not going after Bin Laden for fame, we're not going after Bin Laden for money. We are going for the single mom who dropped her kids off at elementary school on a brilliant Tuesday morning and 45 minutes later she jumped to her death out of a skyscraper because that was a better alternative than 2500 degrees

Fahrenheit inside her last gesture of human decency was to hold her skirt to her knees so that no one could see her underwear as she Killed herself and we said she wasn't supposed to do that. She's not supposed to be in the fight We're supposed to be in the fight and that's why we're going oh my god And then if you think about it too, it's almost like the Brave Heart speech. If I could give every day from being 34 to 90, if I lived in 90 and I looked back on that one day and I didn't go, I would give all those days to go on this mission. This is why we're here. This is what we're doing.

This is why we joined. This is not a movie though, you're real man. Oh yeah. And these are real decisions. And it was just, it wasn't fear on this one. It was, it was focused. And even when we launched it wasn't the the the no because we've been to war every single guy had hundreds of missions. Yeah. But before this one we all hugged each other. And it's just that. Did you

really? And you said earlier I was going to ask you about this because I say a good night to my children. Yes. But I'm going to see them again. You've literally said goodbye. Goodbye. Looking in the eyes. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time.

And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time.

And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time. And you're at the time to the seven-year-old. I wrote it to the 27-year-old. I'm really sorry I missed your wedding.

I know you were beautiful. Thank you for taking care of your sisters. What we did was no more. And one of my regrets in life is that when I get sooner, and when I finish these letters, I wrote them to everybody in my family. I had to hand them to, I had to find someone I could trust on the base.

Because the guy's going with you. They're not coming back either. They're dying too. Oh my gosh. And I, definite instructions, what to do when you'll he didn't even know what we're doing you couldn't tell him It's like you'll know you need to keep these as soon as I got back I shred it and I wish I would have kept them You wish you would have kept yeah, I just don't want to read him again It wasn't it wasn't happy. There's got to be an amazing

Experience even to this day to have been writing those letters thinking for a while. And tears were hitting the page. Is that right? Yeah. And this is something they're going to keep forever. Oh my gosh. Yeah, of course they are. And I'm writing, and this is the last communication with them.

And then, but then we're on. And it's just, I mean, it was, the feeling was so cool because when, when, when President George Bush addressed the world on 9-11, his quote, and I have a tattoo, it says, freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward and freedom will be defended. And when he said freedom will be defended, he meant everyone and that team represented everyone. Oh my gosh, brother.

Not crazy. Unbelievable. That's the intensity that we've, it wasn't, we weren't scared. We were fired up. You were going there to die, but you were fired up and fired. But we're going to kill him too. And he deserves it. Oh my gosh.

So you get the call. And now, as I understand it, there's this helicopter right over and we're gonna kill him too. And he deserves it. Oh my gosh. So you get the call and now as I understand it, there's this helicopter right over and it's not a short one. It's 90 minutes, right? And so there's all kinds of situations that could happen on the way over there as well. I'm curious. That's where the pilots come into

because they're flying very low. And they're flying technology. They're not, you know, they flown helicopters. They're the best four pilots in the world. And Army, I'll give Army a shout out, they have the best helicopter pilots in the world. That's what I love about the military, too.

The best Air Force in the world is a US Air Force, the second best Air Force is a US Navy. US Army itself. They're the smart guys, they're the guys that need to get us there. And we're in back, and what's really unique about this team, is guys have been in combat so much we realize realize you got to get rid of the noise. Get rid of the stuff that doesn't matter. Like getting shot down, you worrying about that will not stop it.

So knock it off. So guys fell asleep. Guys fell asleep on the ride to Ben Laden's house. My God. Oh my God. And you talk about focus and sleep. Sleep? Guys put their iPods in.

Shilling. I was counting. Zero to thousand, thousand, thousand. And now that I've read enough about military stuff, not being a military person, that that's actually something kind of the senior guys passed down sometimes to junior guys. Did you learn that from someone?

I learned it on my own as a sniper in Kosovo. Because right around 9-11, we were in Kosovo. There was obviously stuff going there in Bosnial and we Sniper's not really a great word, but we were observing different areas So basically you're hiding and you're looking through a scope for four hours on four hours off and as you're looking Four hours of looking. It's like I just count you count Yeah, okay, so and where did you not then eventually sort of repeat that phrase to yourself to well? I did when because that's how I remembered it was we were 80 minutes in and we back to the South

And I was just like you know for 56 for 57 for 58 freedom itself was attacked this morning by a face I don't know how I remembered it God bless you man and Yeah, so then that's what it's sort of sunk in it's like, I'm actually on this mission. You were. That's what it sunk in. Yeah, we're going after them. And then it got better because we open the door at two minutes out. They'll air crew. Yeah, and that's that's how other people that don't get credit. They put their butts in the seat too. Yeah, they air crew guys. We wouldn't have figured the doors out. These guys did it. So they don't open the door and then you see the city and there's lights. This is a resort town. There's a golf course. Is that right? and it sort of hit me and I was like

This is some serious Navy SEAL shit. We're about Like yeah, we're like and then everything was great and then it all hit the fan helicopter crash landed in the front yard Yes, and did you know that? No, no, no, that so the this beat everyone understand this so the helicopter in front of you Crash this was clearly not front of you crashed. This was clearly not part of the plan. It was a crash landing. Crash landing. He crashed on the wall or something.

Yeah, the pilot was so good that, unless in a second, he realized he couldn't hover. Then he realized if he tries to power up, he explained this to me, I'm not a pilot. Then if he tries to power up, it's gonna roll. And everyone dies. He knew if he spun it, he could put the tail on the wall and pin it to the ground.

That's unreal. That's unreal. Saved everyone's life. That's unreal. You know what's funny too, is we'd practice fast-rope, when he dies, he knew if he spun it, he could put the tail on the wall and pin it to the guy. That's unreal. That's unreal. Saved everyone's life. That's unreal. You know what's funny too, is we'd practice fast-rope and, which is, you know, to put the rope out in your slide down like a fireman's bolt. Yeah.

So much that, like, my tendons were done. Yeah. We practice fast-rope and more than I've ever trained, the only person that fast-rope on the bin Laden mission was the pilot. Because when he crashed it, he had to get the rope and he had to get the rope and he had to get it to the guy that's down. Oh my god. Yeah. But so that happened. And then our pilot saw that.

We didn't know. Yeah, you didn't know. We didn't know. And so our plan was they were going to put our snipers and our dog Kyro outside. And then they're going to put us up on the rooftop. Yes. And we knew our team would be coming from the bottom.

We're from the top. We're going to get them that way. He can't get out. That's the perfect plan. OK. Never happened. Our pilot saw that. And as we were going to let him put right back down.

And just because of the effective communication, nonverbal communication, I guess we're getting out here. I remember putting my right foot on the ground and saying, I guess we start the war from here. My gosh. And then we go to the Northeast corner. We knew the place inside of it. It was nice that we trained so much because we knew everything about it.

We knew there was a double door on the Northeast corner, so we went over that. Our breacher took a, I think, a seven-foot charge of C6, put it on the door, and he blew it in it open, like a tin can, but there's a brick wall behind it. So it's a fake door. Fake door. And the breacher actually said, failed breach.

This is bad. And I said, now this is good. That's a fake. He's in there. Oh, it's good because that means he is here. He's baking a door. He's there. And it was funny. We talked about, we talked about senses of humor.

We joked about crap like that. Like, what if we get in the house and the hall, I get smaller and smaller and smaller and also the doors this big. And like, I've been lotting you. Yeah. But you're, there's not a lot of that going on. So on the way over, there's no raw raw session on the way over. Everyone's getting in their focus.

They're sleeping. They're counting. I had one of my guys say, no, I'm not nervous, we do this every night. We fly some, what we fuck with some people, we fly back. He just goes, this is a longer flight. Okay, so this is the wrong thing. So then we, now when we got to this point,

we heard the helicopter saying, we thought they were saying dash one going around, dash one going around, meaning they came into hover, and this dash one were dash two, and they took fire, so we thought they were going around. Race track, re-attack, but what they were saying was dash one going down. Down, down, down.

So we said to them, because we thought they were flying, we're just, okay, there's another, there's a car port, is what we called it, another double door that we knew worked, because the imagery showed them driving in and out of it, and we said, all right, we're going to blow the car port now. Okay. And they said, don't blow it, we'll just open it. The other guys because they're inside. But we didn't know that. And it didn't make sense. And the door open and then the thumb comes out. Now, this is another point in life. It

didn't make sense why they're there, but that doesn't matter because they're there. We'll just we'll just let's deal with the problem. We'll talk about it later. We're worrying about how this happened. We're just here. So we should go in. None of it will bite in a couple other guys on the helicopter. We'll talk about it later. Worrying about how this happened. We're just here. So we started going in. Another one, well, Biden and a couple other guys on the helicopter. We didn't know they crashed, but they're in there. So we started, now my guys have been in gun fights. They already killed three of the terrorists before I got in there. And I was fortunate because of my position now. I'm in the back. I get, I have a front row seat to the coolest mission in modern history. Yes. So we could win and we're looking down a long haul of, we're in Binlon's house.

Yes. And we're looking around for bombs and looking down a long haul and we're in Bin Laden's house. Yes. And we're looking around for bombs and stuff, winds are going to blow up. Yes. But I was so impressed. My guys were so cool. No one cared about the bombs. They're doing their job.

And I remember thinking about how cool they are, and then just thinking slow as smooth, smooth as fast. Watch these guys work. And as I'm thinking this, I ducked into a room to look down the hallway, because don't stand in a hallway. They'll shoot down the hallway. The guy next to me said, I'm thinking this, I ducked into a room to look down the hallway, because don't stand on the hallway, they'll shoot down the hallway. The guy next to me said, helicopter crashed. And now I'm thinking, we had two big helicopters,

two shinnok 45 minutes behind us, full of other seals. In case we need to, whatever. So I'm assuming they crash, they got shot down, because they're not stealth helicopters. So I said, what helicopter crashed? And he goes, bro, our helicopter crashed in the front yard. You walked right past it.

Wow. And as I'm processing this, one of our snipers from my helicopter, he was running around the entire compound to keep a perimeter, have a dog with him and a dog handler. And he got to that famous spot where the tail was hanging over. Yes. And he came over the radio and he didn't know it crashed him. He said, guys, be on alert. They are definitely ready for us. They have a soup. They have a training mock-up of our super secret helicopter in the front You're and there's a pause no way and the boss goes no you jackass. That's ours. We crashed

No way and he comes over goes Yeah, that makes a lot more sense And I'm in the house like what are we talking about? That's great. So you're hearing this, you're looking down this hallway, probably at the end of that hallway somewhere, is Osama bin Laden, right? Well down the hallway is going to be a stairwell. A stairwell.

What's your heart rate right now? There's a fine, we're good. Are you serious? Yeah, we've been, because of your preparation. Well, yeah, we've been in so many fights before, it's like you didn't really get adrenaline. You're more aware, but it's just more exciting. It's not, I'm't really get adrenaline. You're more aware, but it's just more exciting. It's not scared.

At this point, there's a series of emotions that happen right here, because the female analyst who found Bin Laden said, I don't know what the inside of the house looks like, but you will find some stairs. And when you find the stairs, you will run into Khalid Bin Laden, who's 20 years old, his son. And here's how cool she was. She said, that will be the last line of defense.

If you eliminate that threat, you will get a shot at the big guy. That's awesome. So we got in through the door. They breached it. We're going up the stairs. And I'm about eight guys back. So I'm still in the back.

They sock-lead, he was armed, and he ducked behind a banister. Now it's dark. It's very quiet. We don't talk to each other, and there's a guy up for the point men. And normally in an urban environment, in a house, fighting upstairs, I'm going to grab all the guys back and let like two or three handeliks, because if they chuck a grenade, they come down, don't fight up. But now I'm like, I'm going to die anyway, and I got to watch this.

I got to see how it's going to pin the thing, was he going to run that And I gotta watch this. I gotta see how he, it's gonna pin the thing, was he gonna run that on, and we're just sitting there and he whispered to Khalid. He said, Khalid, come here, come here. In two different languages, he knew come here in Erdo and Erbick.

Is that why he was where he was? No, he just was that smart operator. And that confused Khalid, so Khalid leaned his head over to ask what? He shot him. Oh my gosh. I never would have thought of that. That was really cool. That was the coolest thing I'd ever seen in my life up until about a minute later. But what's about to happen, right?

So we go upstairs, stepped over Khalid, and then we got to the second floor, and then there's a final stairwell going up. The point man stayed there, you know, he's gonna keep point, keep security security and other guys are gonna clear the second floor because you don't want to move past it, clear that. And then that's everyone in front of me and on the last guy, I ended up what we call the two men. So the one man's there, I'm the two man. And that's when I put my hand on his shoulder because his job is to look forward, my job

is to look behind us. And when we have enough guys, I will squeeze you so you know without looking, it's time to go. But it's just us. We're out of guys We don't have enough guys in the house this big and he started talking. He's like, hey, we got to go We got to get up there because he's there's a curtain at the top of the stairs and he's seeing people moving behind it They've got to be suicide bombers. Maybe we can beat him Maybe we can beat him if so he's convincing me we got to go and finally and I don't know what he was thinking

He's just a complete badass, but I wasn't thinking bravery. I'm thinking all right We're gonna get blown up now man. I'm tired thinking about it. Let's get it over with and so I squeeze him We have the stairs. He just let's go. Let's go him and me Went up the stairs. He opened the curtain and there was two or three people that turned out to be women But when they're suicide bombers it doesn't matter so he jumped on them and he tackled them. He's dying. He's jumping on the bed. He thinks he's dying. He's still up in the open.

He's absorbing, absorbing as much of the blast as he can for the guy behind him. He didn't know it was me. So because, and this is simply how I got there, because he went that way, my job is to go that way, based on our tactics. I wasn't, I wasn't bravado. I just turned and there's some of the ones standing there.

And he's got his hands on his wife's shoulders, and he's sort of pushing her. I don't know what he's doing, but when I go through the rules of engagement, the levels, escalation of force, I can close my eyes and see it. He's taller than I thought. He's skinnier than I thought. That his beard is shorter and gray.

That's his nose, that has been laden. He's not surrendering. He's a threat. I need to kill him. And the way you hand, I've gotten a little criticism about, well you shot him in the face and what about recognition, people that say that and I've never dealt with a suicide bomber. I've dealt with suicide bombers very fast, very sudden, loud, scary, and permanent. So I shot him in the face twice, shot him again, and I've moved his wife. Why do you have his hands on her shoulders? I don't know. I don't know if he was using his shield. I don't know if he was using his gun. I don't know

but I move his his wife to the bed to sit her down and When I looked over his two-year-old son was standing there and as a father I remember thinking this poor kid has nothing to do with this and he shouldn't have seen that so I picked him up Oh my gosh, and I put him next to his mind, other Navy Seals are now coming in the room. And that's when it hit me. So I'm standing there and a buddy of mine saw me just, and it's kind of depicted in the movie. It's pretty funny. They came up to me and he said, are you good?

And I said, no, what do we do now? I'm not going to days and he said, he laughed, he smiled, this big smile, and he goes, now we go find the computers, we do this every night. And I went, yeah, you're right, I'm back, holy shit. And he goes, yeah, you just killed a somber lad, man, your life just changed. Oh, that was that, and then we get back to work. And it was just awesome because how cool the guys are, it's not like, hey, this guy killed a lot, no cares. We got him. But then the emotions were not brave, let's get it over with, to complete shock,

to now we might live. We might get to see our kids again. Oh my God. So yeah, that's the first time. That's the first chance. So we gathered this stuff. They had about three offices in the second floor. We're gathering everything from anything electronic,

smashing hard drives to get, smashing towers with hard drives, anything. And then we put him in a body bag, myself and three of the guys walked him out. You walked him out? Yeah, we carried him out. Can we go back for a second? I just want to ask you, when you shot him,

I'm just curious, there's this moment. So you, it's him. You've got your finger on a trigger, I suppose. Is there any, can you remember, can you process, was there any emotion at that time, any thought in your mind, or are you just executing what you've been prepared to do? I was, I had a feeling he was off to the right when I turned, and when I saw him, had he, like had no shirt on and surrendering, he's getting taken alive.

Yeah. But there's just, there is such a, suicide bombers have, but terrorists have less than a second to convince you not to kill them. Of course. And it's just, it's one of those things, it's a different dynamic.

You get into Russia at that point as you're adrenaline finally kicking in these moments or you just execute and you're afraid to do it. Yeah, we do, the emotions came, you know, 10 seconds later. Okay. So, yeah, so- So, you're, now you're like,

we might get out of here. Yeah, now let's find the stuff as quickly as we can seconds later. Okay. So, yeah. So, you're now, you're like, we might get out of here. Yeah, now let's find the stuff as quick as we can and leave. Okay. So, we find the stuff we brought him out. You carry him out of there. Yeah, we actually carried him out and put him at the feet of the sniper who initiated the fire

rescue in Richard Phillips, which is really cool. And then I remember actually running back in the house and saying, guys, it is time. We've got to leave. Forget about the women and children. Let's go. Because we had the guns with us. We took the guns that we found okay and then we get an helicopter and when we got out there there was a dude that was tweeting

a Pakistani dude he's outside live tweeting and you can I forget his name but you can still see it on the internet okay and he's saying stuff like why why are the Pakistan is doing military drills on a Sunday night no and I'm looking at this guy his face is lit up with his phone. And normally in a combat zone, I rack Afghanistan, if someone's outside of a target with a phone out, you shoot him because they're setting off a car bomb. But I looked at this guy and I'm like,

they have no idea over here. No way. Yeah, so then we get the helicopters and we fly out. It's not the same helicopter. No, it's different. The guys that I talked about that I thought got shot down came in to get us, which is awesome. Okay. Seals getting seals. Yeah. So we get on same helicopter, the other one. No, it's different. The guys that I talked about that I thought I shot down came in to get us, which is awesome. Seals getting seals.

Yeah. So we get on the helicopter, I'm sitting on top of the sniper with the Captain Phillips thing. Well, he was cool too, because he had a little a problem dealing with that, something that high profile after he killed, you know, and you know, there's jealousy in there with guys at that level, and I kept telling him, and you were a at that level and I kept telling him and you were a hero. Don't listen to the negativity, you're a hero and like I would always give him Copenhagen, I used to dip at the time. So now I'm laying on top of him and I'm still processing what just went down.

He hands me Copenhagen says, hey have one of mine now you know what it's like to be a hero. Sam! I did freaking it up. Leave him. And then the seal next to me from the other seal team that came to get us, I know him well, he's from Manhattan. And he asked me the first question that every day we see a last when they found out about the mission, he said,

who got him? And I said, I did. And he said on behalf of my family, thank you. Now we're flying out. And you realize we got 90 minutes. And you're still in there airspace. Well, we just took off, right? We have not 90 90 minutes and you're still in their airspace Well, we just took off right you're not 90 minutes. Yeah, you're a Pakistani airspace though We're flying out right but if we cross the border in 90 minutes, we have 50 years of life So we take off everyone starts to watch as no one's talking You just look at your watch Ten minutes it's been 20 minutes been 30 minutes spent 40 minutes and then you start to think it like the no-hitter You're watching,

get pitched at Yankee Stadium top of the six. I'm not going to say anything, but 50 minutes, 60, 70, 80. And then I love sports analogies. I was, it's like Miracle on ice when you can hear the crowd counting down when the Americans are beating the Russians. Lake Plasa 10, 9. And then the pilot came over the radio. Lake Placid 10, nine. And then the pilot came over the radio,

his coolest pilots already said, all right gentlemen, for the first time in your lives, you're gonna be happy to hear this. Welcome to Afghanistan. My god. So then we cheer, and then we get back. We land, the other guys came in, because they had to stop and refuel the other stealth bird.

They land, we're all there, no one's hurt. Oh my gosh. I had a brief talk with the, here's my one problem with the movie, the Zero Dark 30. At the end of the movie, they have the woman that found him go up to the body and she gets emotional and she cries and she leaves. That's not what happened.

We get back, I'm talking to the point man. We kind of debrief each other on what the hell happened on those stairs, because it's him and me. And then he goes, well, hey, there she is. He goes, you need to give her something because you own this. This is what he said. So we walk over and I pull the magazine out of my gun, holding the bullets and killing the law.

And I jacked the last one out and I said, do you have room for this in your backpack? And she looked up, cool, it's everything, she goes, yeah, I think so. Then we were the ones that walked her over to the body. And as we're walking over and starting to sink in, this woman gave her life for him. She, no husband, no kids, 20 hour days for years to find this guy. Then it's like, well, this is historic, too.

This is like you, or Jima. This is Norman. This is Washington Cross in the Delaware to fight the Hessians. So I got to say some cool. So we walked over and we looked down and all I said was, is that your guy? She looked down for a second and a half and said, well, I guess I'm out of a fucking job. And let's really say that. Yeah, that awesome.

Come on. That's how cool she was. This is the best story I've ever heard of you. No, no, that's the best story of all time. So we hear that story of all time. So here's the best story of all time. Thank you. Thank you. It's incredible what happened.

And what's cool is I just got to watch everything. The guys were working. I turned a corner shot three times, and we left. Well, brother, OK. You're going to let that nice drive. You should have seen those guys breaking those doors down. So cool. But one quick thing, just about the families,

because we got back to see the kids, we were a year to the day after the bin Laden raid. I had my kids at Great Wolf Lodge, which is a water park. And we have the news on. One year anniversary, we're all getting changed to go swim, have a great day, and they got beer there, so I'm excited. And the news is on, and they said, OK, it's the one year anniversary of the night bin Laden was killed. So we're taking viewer email right now,

the best story of where you were when you found out that the bomb was dead. Come on. Tell us, my daughter flipped out, she goes, oh my god, dad, you've got the email now. And tell them you were in a bedroom. I was in the bedroom. Oh my god.

I've just, it's, look, I've sat across from a lot of people and I've heard a lot of stories. I mean, even look at our guys, it's just unreal. And the way you tell it was such incredible humility is just beyond belief. And I understand clearly that this would not have happened just with you.

It was obviously all the preparation, the intelligence, the team building, all of those things. But it's hard even for me to process how humble you are about having. I mean, at first I want to thank you on behalf of all of these families who lost so many people. And it's just unreal to me that the caliber of man that's involved in this mission and how humble they are about it just absolutely blows my mind. I'm looking at even our folks.

It's just unreal. in this mission and how humble they are about it just absolutely blows my mind. I'm looking at even our photos. It's just unreal. And to this day that you still have this sense of humility about it. Yeah. I mean, it was obvious that the team, the people that found them, the pilots, like the guys that went in, we're smart enough to carry guns in a sledgehammer. And we got, I mean, obviously I'm down top of them. The guys there were just, the team was incredible.

Who thinks that this guy walks into a military recruiting office is gonna go into a different branch of the military? Can't swim, ends up becoming a seal, ends up doing 400 different combat missions. Probably the most significant of all of them is this one, and you end up being the man God called on, whoever called on to be the point man to, and this man's life is just unfriaking, believe it.

It's a crazy story. It's just to the point now too, it's like there's no way we did that. I just know the story. Yeah. Is that what it is for you? Yeah, but how did that happen? I can close my eyes and see it.

I can see or something on any time I want. I can close my eyes and smell the stairs. What it was like going up that last few steps of life. But then getting life after, I can close my eyes and smell the stairs. What it was like going up that last few steps of life. But then getting life after. When you squeeze this man, you're probably dying. Yes. Right. You're going to blow up. They're going to blow us up. They're waiting for us. They're baiting us in.

That's when they're setting off the house born improvise explosive device. That's, this is it. I'm done worrying about it. It's interesting for me. It's a bizarre takeaway of the things I'm listening to your story. And obviously I can't relate to any other because I'm not that caliber of a man. My emotions wouldn't be as calm. I don't have your preparation. I don't have your mindset. I don't have your background. It's interesting that the point that still gives me fear is I hear the story. I'm just saying that maybe no one's told you this before. Is this the regular guy, right? It's now he's dead, right? My fear level almost increased there, oddly.

So like, you were executing a plan prior. Now he's dead. The part that you said that, you know, we might really live. That was the part where just for me, my fear went up like, now we're in this house, clearly this event's taken place. Probably someone knows this has been happening. There's a clock ticking. I'd be afraid when I got on the helicopter.

Oh yeah, because I think I'm here right now. The unknown's happening too. I have heard stories and again, probably classified. I don't know the truth, but I have heard stories that they did have air support helping us get back. We didn't know that. I knew there were jets on the border, but that's not gonna help us back here.

But I think if an American and an FF 15 lights up a Pakistan again and F16, I think they'll turn around But I don't know but let's take away some lessons from all of us It's the best story I've ever heard and thank you for sharing it with me I feel blessed that I'm with you. Thank you. I mean that I want to ask you some hard things Oh, absolutely. Just just curious of you. That's the, absolutely. Just some just curious of your things. Oh, that's the best time. I'm a curious of your opinion of a few things. And I've just always wondered this. Are you, I did not know that you showed her his body.

That's fascinating to me. When I heard the whole story of what happened there, the part of me that went, that sounds odd to me. Was the fact that he was dumped in the ocean effort. Yeah. Can you confirm that? Yeah, I'm well. And do you, or do you not know?

We gave him, in Bogom, Airfield, to some of our army counterparts that brought out and put him to sea, and I've seen the coordinates. I wasn't there for the burial, but I have heard from people that it definitely happened. And you believe that stuff. Oh, yeah, 100% I believe it. It's just interesting why we would do that because they said they didn't want to shrine to bin Laden, but if you do a little research and realize he was a Wahhabists, they don't

do shrines. They don't do names on anything because you do not have a shrine to false idols, it's just a law. That's why you can't even draw a picture of Muhammad because he's not a law, he's a messenger. And that's, so that, I don't know. Now we do have pictures. There are a lot of pictures,

and they're in a file cabinet and language, and I really hope they get released. Is that right? Oh, there's a someday at some point. That will be classified stuff, and somebody will see it. Okay. Someone will need to get elected, or something.

And I'll show. But they'll definitely, and I've seen the pictures. I know people in Congress who have seen the pictures. The body thing, I just simply because I didn't see it, but I know what happened. Okay, you know what happened. And then the second thing, I'm just curious, but this is a hard question because, and I'm not going to debate you on it or anything like that, I'm just curious if you're opinion because you were not talking off camera about our political beliefs. We both have some really conservative beliefs and some pretty liberal beliefs both of us do right we're not one

where the other but I'm curious that the story that you hear is that there was probably some enhanced interrogation stuff that made it led to the intelligence a do you believe that's true I notice that is true and so how does that paint your feelings about those tactics going because Because right now, when this release will be a little bit after, but this is a pretty good, it's a prominent thing right now in the media right now with a lady heading into the CIA and her taking a lot of flack for those techniques that probably produced the story you just told me. How do you feel about that? Enhanced interrogation works. And it's administered by doctors. It's not like they have them in a cage

and someone's whipping them. They're stress-positioned sleep deprivation and waterboarding. That's a serious school for us. Survival of Asian resistance escape. They teach you what it's like. And the thing about waterboarding, not being torture, is that as soon as you decide it all ends and there's no damage, it just really, really sucks. But you figure out, if I just tell them stuff they're gonna not do it now torture doesn't work And I'll admit that because it's so but tortures power drills and blow torches you know and you're saying anything to make them stop with waterboarding is over and you're good and then you have tea That's it and and even guys like I know the doctor who who interrogated Khalid Sheikh Muhammad the master might have 9-11 And what Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and these leadersmind of 9-11, and what Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, and these leaders are not kind, they don't get me wrong, they're

very charismatic, and they're people love them, and they're true believers. They're doing it for religious reasons. And Khalid Sheikh Muhammad said to Dr. Mitchell, I don't know why you guys think he'd just come in here and bring cookies and win hearts and minds. He explained to them that this is what he cut off Daniel Pearl's head with these blessed hands is the way he said it. And because he's going to heaven. And it's a very selfish thing to do. And he even asked him to the point where why do you why do the senior leaders never blow themselves up? Why is it always good? The junior guys and he said he explained it in some sort of pyramid scheme.

Where if you can convince someone to do it, you get more of their heaven. Is that right? I started calling it Amway for Allah. Oh, my God. But he's like, we believe this is what, and actually believe this. Yes, but waterboarding works. And it led to been lunch. And have they captured you while you were there,

you probably weren't gonna just be waterboarding. No. Right? Well, we know me by just waterboarding, but there's probably something coming far more severe for you guys. We have a saying that in gunfight, save at least one bullet for yourself because you do not want to get captured.

I mean, just cutting your head off is a nice way out. They're sadistic. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, like thinking about it. Yeah. You're making me think about it as you say, which by the way makes the story more compelling when you squeeze him because there's all kinds of things that could happen.

You could have been blown up there, you could have been captured, it's unbelievable. So thank you so much. Now, I want to continue the conversation a little bit because you have a chance, this is team building. This is leadership. This is execution. So there's all kinds of people in the business space that can tell you some, it's sort of silly even to say right now. Some theories about how to build a team, and how to execute, and how to prep, and then there's like real-world business application, and then there's like real-world change the world team building, business preparation, and execution of a plan, which is what you've been a part

of. And so, talk a little bit for a second. First off, in your case, they can learn from you. In other words, you don't have to just watch this interview. They can get access to you. You can come and tell them the different venues just for a second. I want to make sure they know. One is your book, right?

That's a huge place. Second place, those you come speak. Yes. And when he speaks, just so you know, he's not only a great speaker, but like when you listen to him speak, you're going to write pages of stuff. It's not just like anecdotal stories like you've just heard.

Every story is related to a point of building a team. So how do they find you to speak number one? And where do they find you on social media as well? I work with leading authorities out of Washington DC. So that's leading authorities, I believe, or Lauthorities.com. leading authorities, Google Washington DC so that's leading authorities I believe duck or L authorities dot com leading authorities will search or do that uh... robert joneal dot com

because if it's not a keynote presentation and i you know i do stuff like i show for workshops or even dinners just to san around a talk of so robert joneal dot com okay is there um... and then uh... the social media is the funny one it's so it's m it's mcc h oA-H, and the reason it's Micuya is, tell me what happened. The reason it's Micuya is, because in sealed training,

people say, who ya? You stop saying it when you're done with training, just like shit mate, I love the word shit mate, but you say it all the time. But anyway, Micuya is the Irish who ya, O'Neil's Irish and Micuya is the Irish who ya. And so buddies of mine convinced me to get on Twitter, just because the seven of us couldn't mess with each other.

And tweet stuff out with seven followers, and then my name leaked, it's killing Ben Laden. I woke up with like 15,000 followers. That's so crazy. All right, I guess I'm keeping Mikuya. So that's why it's entertaining and from informative social media too, you need to follow him. Yeah, there's more entertainment than anything.

I'm not. I would agree with you. This is informative. That stuff's more entertaining. But it's awesome stuff. I use the long long flights to keep myself entertained. It's so good in your content. Like for me, you know, I've been in this space for a long time.

For me to honestly tell you, like I really learn things when someone speaks, I really learn things. Because I believe, like if I go to a gym, I wanna be trained by someone who's fit. I've always think it's funny when I go to a gym and the trainer there isn't in shape themselves. Or I wanna business mentor, but they're not successful or wealthy themselves. Like show me your results.

I think we can safely say that you understand leadership, team building, and execution of a plan in preparation. That's what's happening. Yeah, that was just because of my mentors that I had working places. Because I would, even the first few gun fights I was in watching my senior guys, senior Navy SEALs, how cool they were. And I was like, well, I want to be that cool. I want to do what he does.

I want to learn from him. What are his habits? And what is different about, be real firm. Sure. Second here. Take the humble hat off. Marcus Lutrell, yourself, the seal who was in front of you, any of the seals on this raid, any of them anywhere.

What? Because you meet, you know those guys, and then you know other guys. You went to high school, what they really good do. Yeah, I did. What's the difference? The difference is, I think to thought that every day, I get to go to work with people who are better than me,

and I'm not gonna undermine them. I'm gonna try to beat them. I mean, these are complete alpha guys, but they knew that it was important as a team to be nice to each other, be good to each other. I had bosses, two things one of my bosses would say is he'd say, please, and thank you. You don't need to say that in the military,

and he would always say, nobody ever worked for me, they worked with me. And just that's the mentality of a team, it's almost like, I mean, it's weird because guys do get credit for stuff, but as long as you don't care who gets credit, as long as the team succeeds, that's kind of the mentality. And I mean, guys show up on TimeStayLate and the gears are always right. They're just meticulous.

Oh, meticulous. I think that's a big difference. Well, I mean, too, with the Captain Phillips raid. Yeah. That team had never done a rescue. We were designed to rescue since 1980. So over 25 years it had never been done. And the snipers that took those shots three days prior were in their beds in Virginia Beach. And their guns didn't need to be sighted in for the most difficult shots of their lives, but their guns were sighted in for the most difficult shots of their lives because they were prepared. It might happen. I mean, it's a long weekend. It was my birthday when we left. I mean,

I'll just take a day off and take care of my gear on Tuesday, but we didn't do that because that's a shortcut. This is not about that for a second. I want you to picture this because these are humans. So you hear the story and it is a movie, but it wasn't a movie when it happened. It's like a real man. He has real family. He had a real upbringing.

He has real insecurities, real weaknesses and strengths, real, I mean, even fears, right? So there's a real person like you, right? And so he's been able to achieve extraordinary things in his life. I want to take this moment now for you just a picture of this for a second. Tell them the story and I love this about where you were and what you were doing. Because it humanizes this, you know, I think people see you. And I think they think I'm just not like him. And there are things about you that you've built that are muscles mentally and physically

you've built that are different than other people, many of which you're not even aware of. Because it's probably because who you are, right? But he's also a father, he's a husband, he makes mistakes in his life, right? He's all these different things. Tell him, just picture this. You guys have all probably seen the movie Captain Phillips, right? So he was a part of that. I just want you to picture this for a second.

Just think about it. You think a James Bond movie, and you think this stuff is sort of bizarre. It doesn't really work this way. And then just when you picture this, tell him where you were and what you were doing when you got the call to go do. It was my birthday, April 10 10th and it was good Friday. And I'm at my daughter's Easter Tea Party at her preschool. In line, in a buffet line with sailors and Marines who have kids in the class and we're giving we're getting cookies and cupcakes

for them and bringing them tea. And I was walking over to my daughter when I got the message that it didn't say it like this. We had a code, but that Captain Richard Phillips had been taken by Somali pirates and you guys are going right now. And we'd been selling this technology that like I said we never done it. We trained for it all the time, but from the time you get the message to the time wheels up and we're going, we sold it. We've been selling it for decades, four hours. We were wheels up in three hours and 59 minutes. Oh my gosh. We got to make it like this is it. And then 15 hours and 46 minutes after I got the message,

we're in the Indian Ocean with a full head count. 103 guys. And like, they're saying, but just to back up, there were guys out there that were mowing their lawns when they got the call. Like these are real guys that can't afford the mortgage. And they're mowing their own lawn, and then they're off.

Unreal. And you don't know what's gonna happen when you go over there. It's just like, the reason it's so inspiring for me, like mind blowing number one, you're carrying a little pink cupcake, 15 and a half hours later, here we go. We're in.

It's game on, right? And so for me, it's so inspiring because I do think you're a real person like I Don't think you're a regular guy. I did right and and so people that listen to this if he can come from where he came from This is crazy and it's not overstating and I know you hate hearing this but altered world history Yeah crazy altered world history world history. Yeah crazy. Altered world history. Right? From Montana, carried cupcakes that is daughters, elementary school, on his birthday. What could you do in your business? What could you do in your body? You can do

anything. There's a couple of sayings I love. I'm all about moving forward and one of my sayings is I'm as old as I've ever been, but I'm as young as I'll ever be, which means life starts now, right now it starts. I had an instructor before Hell Week. Hell Week is in training when you wake up on Sunday and you do Navy SEAL training until Friday. It's miserable. Like your body starts to bleed by Wednesday

because you're so saturated from the ocean, right here. Mother ocean, it's not kind. And he gave me advice to get through Hell Week, but it's just, it's great advice for life. He said, you were about to go to war for the first time and the enemy is all your doubts, all your fears and everyone you know back home that told you you weren't good enough to do this. Keep your head down, keep moving forward no matter what never quit you'll be fine. That's it.

And that's what he told me before Hell Week. And now that's life. Keep moving forward. You're going to make me say, we talked about failure. That's how you learn. And I've failed, I've fallen down, get up, dust off, look yourself in the mirror, be honest. Why did I do that?

What do I learn? I don't. But it's all good advice because it's like, you know, you're going to screw up. Tell me anyone that's not screwed up. Pretty much every day. So it's like, it's never a no fail mission, but it's like a no lose. Like you don't, you win or you learn.

Unreal, really. Like I, I mean, that's crazy. So let's talk about these guys who are mowing their lawns. I'll be honest with you, man. I've done a lot of interviews. I know a lot of people. I've interviewed a lot of successful people. Like, you don't catch me species very often.

So I want people to get access to you. I want, I think it's an amazing time in history, which hasn't existed before, where, I mean, honestly, they're people driving in their car right now, walking out of their gym, and they're getting access to a man who's altered world history for freaking free, and they can come here, you speak for pennies on the dollar,

and be in a room with you and meet you, and have their life altered and inspired and moved. There's never been a time in history where people who have achieved great things can say, hey, I'm just like you, I'm a goofball. I was at my daughter's elementary school. I make mistakes, I fall down. I didn't even mean to be in the Navy SEALs

in the first day. It's just unreal. It ought to give you such hope and such inspiration. But I want to talk for a second about some of the good work you do because I want people to know about this too. These guys that are mowing their lawns, and these men that are at their, and women, by the way, who are at their daughter's elementary school

and can't pay the mortgage, even sometimes active duty struggling, then leave the military. Now this man just so you know, and I'll just say this on your behalf, left short of his 20 years. And so I believe aren't health benefits that come your way. There's nothing that comes your way, which is sort of amazing to me,

and I just say this on your behalf that someone who's had 400 combat missions has been decorated with valor as many times as you have, changed the world on multiple missions. We don't have a way to give you some health insurance and to take care of you. And so because that's the way it is, and you don't need to comment on that,

I say that on your behalf, that's crazy. But because that is the way it is, you've got involved and started something charitably that helps people when they transition out to find her. So talk to them a little bit about your foundation. Yes, I started a foundation called your Grateful Nation, so that's your GratefulNation.org, and we transition the right now special operators because we're individualized, which is kind of a small group, transition them to their

next career. So we find out where they want to live, the industry they want to be a part of, we'll make the introduction to that company, and then we have a mentorship program seven and nine months, and then they're trained. And these employers now are saying that these guys don't realize what they're bringing to the table, even without a college degree, but they're bringing the stress management problem solving team building. The one more they use all the time is the loyalty, because they're not getting that from people with a degree right now, the colleges aren't teaching that kind of stuff. But they get them and they put them in charge of anything, like major projects. We have guys working from Merrill Lynch. We have a

guy that wanted to live in Phoenix and work for Fox Sports. He's doing that. And what's up in Green Berane's Ranger's TF160 pilots Navy seals. And so yeah, I started that because I didn't realize what I was capable of when I got out, but I learned through mentors that there's stuff out there people are interested in. So now, and it's even amazing to talk to the guys, even the guys that retire, they're like, well, what am I qualified for? It's like, they would almost rather go back to war than fill out a resume because war makes sense to them, but they don't realize the combat is solving problems.

Oh my gosh. And that's so, you're grateful nation would do that. The best email I get once, twice a week is when they, one tell me who they transitioned to where and then from one of the spouses saying, without your grateful nation, we wouldn't have gotten a second career. And they realize, the two funny things,

they realize what they're worth. Yeah. Then they also realize what they're fair share and taxes is. Yeah, right, now you're gonna learn that. Yeah, by the way. Now you're gonna learn about all this rich pay, all the taxes, thanks. So, the amazing thing're going to learn that. Yeah, right away. You're going to learn about all this, Rich Pay, all the taxes things. So, the amazing thing about thank you for doing that work.

The amazing thing about it is these are men who are and women who are part of the greatest team and then became some of the greatest on that team as special operators. Like, these are the most elite of the elite like this gentleman across from me. So let's finish with just a couple tips. Thank you so much for today. Oh, great. Thank you. I think, like, honestly, let's talk a little bit for a second about team building because these are things that you teach. So there's people out there that have companies,

they're watching you right now, they're going to come, have you come speak to their company. But give them a flavor for a second. What were some of the couple keys? Just give us a few. There's a million probably of building a team like the one you were part of. Is it just, it's interesting, but part of me thinks, man, like you certainly end up with pretty damn good talent by the time you get to seals and stepper operators. But what are some of the keys in building a team that people out there should know about you?

Um, morale, morale is key, that when people feel like they are part of the solution, they're gonna work harder. Effective communication. Because a lot of people disagree with this, but I always thought that if our people know what they're doing and why, a lot of people don't want to say why because they want to compartmentalize it. I think they should know why they're doing it.

When you're done saying what you're saying, stop saying it. The noise that comes with everything. Just get the message out there and we're good. One of my favorite quotes that I don't know where to give credit is never pass up the opportunity to shut up. For people that lead to, they realize that a lot of the work gets done because your team is there. Like sometimes with the boss to show up,

the work still gets done. But if the people don't show up, not a lot of work's gonna get done, stuff like that. Be good to each other. The emotional thing like try not to try to keep your emotions in check because your body always follows your mind and it's like the the say the nasty text message you want to send someone. Type it up because it's going to make you feel better. Do not hit send for 24 hours. And if you're still man 24 hours legit. You literally should have told me that like three years ago.

Hello, I believe you're on the big one. Yes, stop tweeting that. What do you do, this is like that. But yes, just the morale being high, the emotionless conversation that hopefully you can have, the realization that your plan, the plan's not gonna work, the way Murphy shows up, anything that you do can get you killed

including nothing. Like just like that. Yeah. And then then never quit. You know, um, is it really, are you having a bad day, are you having a bad moment, you're milking into a bad day? And the best advice I have people is get over it. Just get fix it and get over it.

This is so gold, brother. I don't know. You're like, like, it's interesting. You talk about the why and it's like, oh, well, where's that come from? Well, you end up with the guy at the point man in front of you or at least you're getting ready to go in the mission, say, no, tell me again, like, why are we doing this? Yeah, that's it. And you told him why and that visual of that mom. Yeah. Well, we had a certain. So we have these conversations. And that's it. That's why we're doing. Probably of all of this, it surprises me the most that you did have some of those conversations.

That and also the emotion lists, another point you just made, helicopter ride over. Yes. Where guys are sleeping and they're just getting in their state, they're getting focused, they're counting. Like that also has applications. Oh, that's it. And then all the meaning is, you're so right,

like even in business, I watch so a time, there's this book I read called Death by Media. It's like when you're done saying something, stop freaking saying it and go execute, right? All right, last question. Don't be humble for a second. Okay. Okay, be real with me here.

What's different about men like you? In other words, if I want to be a person like you, none of us, including myself, are victims. Nobody owes us anything. You can get it, but you got to go get it. And that was the key. When guys would say, stop in a victim. In your position, I assume your brothers all come from this victim thing, different socioeconomic background, right? Different ethnicities. Some had great families taking care of them. You know what I mean about ethnicities too,

is it didn't matter who you were, 85% of you are not gonna make it. That's it. 85% of the white guys, 85% of the black guys, you're not gonna make it. Oh my gosh, crazy. If the system just works that way. That's a pretty damn good equalizer to look past skin color, isn't it? Well,

none of us are going to make it. 85% of us aren't going to make it. And we're depending on each other if we're going to make it. So it really doesn't matter what you're religion, your faith, your political views are. It doesn't matter. When you have a common purpose and a common mission and a common thing you want to accomplish, years was 85% of us aren't going to make it. It's interesting how you come together. It's interesting how you gel. It's interesting how all your differences aren't differences. They're similarities. They don't care if you're gay or straight, black or white, Muslim or Christian. We come together in a mission. So that's

one of the great lessons for the country too, is that if we could unify in a common mission, a common dream, a common goal. Yes. Yes. Most of these things you see on the news every single night where the pitting us against each other would go away in about one second if we get a common goal. Common goal, even with, I've got a friend who's did 20 years as a Navy SEAL, one of the best seals ever. And then is, at Transgender.

Yes. And it's just funny the way people try to get a rise out of us. They're like, what do you say to your buddy that's trans as gender, you go, I don't know, say nice tits, bro. Exactly, right. Whatever. I just like to contribute to the mission. And I hope like, probably now, it's just move forward.

I didn't think I would get there. This is actually now my favorite part of the interview, because you can have one of the thoroughbred studs of all time. I'm one of these the things you'd say, a white successful businessman guy. And we're both telling you that we don't care about those things. We care about coming together, making a dream happen, making the mission happen.

I think there's a difference. Team in the mission. So, man, I love that. It's such a great lesson for you building a company, for our leaders and politics, for our people in the media, when we're chasing something in common, when there's a common mission, the differences go away, and that's the way I ought to be chasing.

My favorite conversation, literally. That's very cool. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Look, okay. It's mine too. All respect, thank you, brother. All respect to the people who have been on my show. I love all of them, and I hope one exceeds this someday.

I really do. I'm not leading that way just yet. But as of now, and I'm wonderful to hear that it's reciprocated, so brother, like really thank you so much. Oh, yeah. Thank you. God bless you and thank you for your service, and thanks for this with the audience. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Follow this man, Robert O'Neill on all of his social media. Book him to speak at your gigs. Go get his book. Title of the book again is the operator. The operator. I read it in a day.

One of my favorite books I've ever read. And again, I want to remind you all this too. All this comes to you for free. All I ask for is review the program, share it with people if you're on YouTube, give it a like, but if you're on iTunes, give it a review. And every day on Instagram, when I make a post, there's a two-minute drill called a max out, two-minute drill. If you make a comment, you get engaged with Hashtag, max out, I get you a winner every day.

That could be gear, it could be a coaching call with me. It might be access to one of my guests, but every day we surprise a guest with a win. So make a comment every day on my social media. Thank you everybody, thank you Robert and Matt Zow. You need a wake up call, you're in the right friggin' place. The Ed and My Let's Show. you