The Resilient Mind - I Survived an Assassination Attempt: But My Mind Nearly Beat Me - Dr. Jen Donahue

Episode Date: September 11, 2026

Jenn Donahue is a retired U.S. Navy captain, international keynote speaker, business coach, and engineer who helps people lead with courage and confidence. During her twenty-seven-year military career, she built a bridge across the Euphrates River in Iraq, commanded an eight-hundred-person battalion in Afghanistan, and led combat construction missions in hostile environments. In her debut book, Becoming the Warrior: Harnessing Your Inner Strength to Silence Self-Doubt, she shares a research-backed framework for overcoming imposter syndrome and strengthening self-leadership. Jenn holds a Ph.D. in engineering and lectures at universities including UC Berkeley, UCLA, Cal Poly, and Virginia Tech.Connect with Jenn Donahue: 🌐 Website: https://www.jenndonahue.com 📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamjenndonahue 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenndonahue-phd-peExplore tools from past guests of the podcast. Some links below are affiliate links, meaning we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you:💓 HeartMath: https://www.heartmath.com/resilient🧠 Muse: https://choosemuse.com/resilientmind🌿 Brain Ritual: https://www.brainritual.com/THERESILIENTMIND🌍 The Resilient Mind Podcast is a proud member of 1% for the Planet — building resilient minds and a resilient planet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If we never go and try anything, we might never know the pain of a future failure. We were getting rocket attacks. We were having people trying to blow up our base. Even having a bad boss or being in a bad environment presents a unique opportunity to practice either being mentally tough. I have to be tough. I have to be tough not only for myself, but for all of the people that I'm in charge of, you just find out that you might have been assassinated. And all of a sudden, the brain starts to go and compare yourself to other people and tell you that you're not a good enough leader.

How can a person who is comfortable right now relatively successful move forward to continue growing? Or is it a matter of like if you're comfortable, it's okay? Everything is an opportunity as long as you keep that type of mindset. Well, if you wait around until you're 100% ready, chances are that the environment has already changed. What does it take to actually lead 800 troops through a war zone and survive an assassination attempt while still battling the voice in your own head that says you're not good enough. My guest today knows that answer firsthand. Dr. Jen Donahey is a retired U.S. Navy captain, a PhD engineer, a combat veteran who's built bridges in Iraq

and commanded troops in Afghanistan, and the author of the brand new book, Becoming the Warrior, harnessing your inner strength to silence self-tout. Over 27 years in the military, Jen has led over 800 people through some of the world's most high, pressure, high-stakes environments. And what she discovered through war, through leadership, through her own deeply personal battles with self-doubt is that the enemy most of us are losing too isn't out there, it's inside. Today, she's here to talk about how to build what she calls the warrior mindset, not just for the battlefield, but for the boardroom, the team meetings, and the quiet moments that little voice tells you, you're not ready, not qualified, or not enough.

Again, welcome to the resilient mind. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited about the interview. We are super excited to have you here. So you have built bridges in war zones commanded hundreds of troops in Afghanistan and survived an assassination attempt. Most people listening to this

have never experienced anything close to that. But you say the hardest thing wasn't any of those moments. It was what was happening in your own mind. Can you take us back to a moment where that internal battle was the loudest? Absolutely. It was probably whenever I was in Afghanistan and I was really having a lot of self-doubt. There was a lot of pressure on me. I was a commanding officer in charge of 800 people. And really what that means is not just like, hey, you go to this, you go to that. It's basically you're in charge of making sure they all stay alive, you know, making sure that they're always safe, making sure that they have food, they have water, they have someplace to sleep. Oh, and at the same time, you have bad guys. All of that, in addition to the fact that I had a really, pretty horrible boss at the time that was just really trying to beat everybody down any chance that he got. And so over time, it got to the point almost where he felt like the enemy. And I know that sounds

absolutely crazy with everything going on. And honestly, we were getting rocket attacks. We were having people trying to blow up our base. But the thing that I dreaded most every day was having a conference call with him. I mean, how crazy is that? You know, but it's one of those things where it's just like, in your mind, you're like, I just don't know if I have the power to keep going. That's probably one of those times where you have that real, you had to find your mental toughness in order to keep going. And at that point, my mental toughness was it really wanted to take a vacation. And when you think about dealing, I guess, with your boss at that time, how did it make that

situation more complicated? Because I'm assuming as your boss, there were additional constraints in addition to what you expected to do. But how did you deal with those competing constraints? I realized that I had been sent there to lead people and I couldn't let him continue to degrade the way that I was thinking about myself. And so I would talk to a couple of my colleagues. I would talk to my assistant. He was my command master chief. So he followed me everywhere. And I would just sort of talk to him and we would talk through some of the things and he would say like, look, you know, you're better than this. You know, don't listen to what he has to say. You know he's just popping off and he's just yelling because that's

what he likes to do. Don't take it too seriously. We have a mission to do. You know, find that piece within yourself and go forward. And so really, it was realizing I have to be tough. I have to be tough not only for myself, but for all of the people that I'm in charge of. And so I put that mantle on myself to say, hey, you know what? This is the way that it has to be. I have to make it through the next five months. And then after that, then I can relax. And so once I had that mindset, that it's like, okay, I'm going to be here for my people. I'm going to get the mission done. And you know what?

He can yell and scream at me all that he wants. It's just I need to make sure that it bounces off. And when people think about being tough or being resilience, I think there's this perception that you don't feel any of the negative emotion. That's true. For much of saying is that you feel them, but in spite of that, you almost still have to perform. You do.

And so one of the things that I would always remind myself is that this, is temporal. This is not going to go on for the next, you know, five years. I just have to make it for the next five months. And so for me, that helped out a lot. I had a little countdown calendar as well, so I could mark off the days and figure out like how many days I had left to deal with all of that. But resilience is really about remembering this is temporal. It's also about, hey, finding the people who can help you remain resilient, those who are going to be behind you, those, you know, the people who are really just going to push on your bag and say, hey, you got this. That's really some of the main pieces of when you're in the middle of it, that's really what resist for resistance.

Resilience is all about. I did resist. But yeah, it's all about resilience. And so having spent 27 years in the Navy, right, is deeply structured, rank-driven institution. Yes. How did that environment shape, how you thought about leadership, and where did it get it right, and where did it fall short? The military is really interesting in the way that it is structured. It's very hierarchal. And so, you know exactly who's on your level, you know exactly who your boss is and their boss and their boss and their boss all the way up to the president of the United States. And you also have a really good idea of everybody that is below you and how they all are in rank and file. And so for me, that was, it's actually very comforting in a way because I've also worked out in industry.

And what I've noticed is that there's a lot of really flat organizations. And with those flat organizations, it's kind of hard to tell who's in charge. Maybe someone's in charge at one project, but then the next day somebody else is in charge on a separate project and trying to understand, you know, who's in charge? Who do I need to talk to? So for instance, the military, that's really nicely defined. And that's one of the things that's great about it. You know, some of the downsides of that is that, yeah, you might not have very good bosses.

But the way that I look at this is that, you know what? A lot of times you can learn more from a bad boss than a good boss. Look at what they're doing and start to internalize and start to think, how would I have handled this differently? If I was going through this exact same thing, this is how I would want to react instead of the way that the other person is. Because honestly, nothing is really new under the sun.

You're going to come into that same situation sometime else. And if you've already thought about how you want to respond, it's going to be a whole lot easier as opposed to making the wrong decisions. And also one of the nice things about the military is that leadership changes out about every two years, which is also nice. So you get kind of a wide range of different people that might be your leader and different

styles that they might have. And you can learn from all of those. And one of the thought that just came to me is that even having a bad boss or being in a bad environment presents a unique opportunity to practice either being mentally tough, being resilient. So I know like we are like, oh, we want to build that muscle, but sometimes you almost shy away or see those situations as being negative, but in a way, there's an opportunity for us to actually strengthen ourselves. It really is. You know, I always try to be, you know, a glass half full kind of person.

That I always try to look and just think, okay, there's something positive that is going to come out of this. You know, whether I'm learning something to, maybe I'm learning a new leadership technique, maybe I'm unlearning a leadership technique or whatever that might be. But everything is an opportunity. As long as you keep that, type of mindset that is that I will learn from this. And then also, I'm a little bit of a mama bear

as well. And so I don't like to see people, you know, under me or around me, maybe taking advantage and getting yelled at. And so that's also an opportunity to go to those other people and say, hey, maybe here's a better way and also helping them or maybe shielding them, you know, in some way from, you know, being, you know, bombarded by some type of bad leadership. In your book, you introduced two characters, the mean little voice and the sneaky little bastard. Yes. I love that framing. Can you introduce to our audience to both of them what they are, how they show up, and why do you think naming them matters?

Oh, this is a great question. So I call them the cousins because they have the same middle name, just like my cousins. We all have the same middle name. So we have the mean little voice and we have the sneaky little bastard. So the mean little voice, that's the one that's in your head always telling you, you know, you're really not good enough. You just got to your position by a fluke. You're a fraud.

People are going to see through you any moment now. You just wait. It's that bean voice that just tries to just keep us, you know, little and play small. Now, the sneaky little bastard, I call him that because he's sneaky. A lot of times, you know, he actually sounds like us. Maybe we have like a call we need to make to a client and like we're a little bit afraid. the stinky little bastard is one that says, hey, you know, maybe it's a good time

to go clean out the dishwasher. You know, and so it's like taking you in a different direction where you know you're supposed to call this person, but you're afraid. You're afraid they might say no or that something bad might happen or they might not think well of you if you call them. Even though you know deep in your heart,

I'm supposed to make this call. The sneaky little bastard is the one that tries to take you and steer you in a different direction. Think about perfectionism. Think about the people who are working, working, working on something, but they're afraid to give it away because people will judge them based on what they've done. That's also, that's a really graded, you don't want to give it away. You just want to keep it because you don't want other people to think bad about you.

And so with perfectionism, sneaky little master, he's right there telling you, nope, maybe you should revise it again. Ooh, revise it again. We'll change this word. So you never actually get it out there. You never do what you're really supposed to do. Where do you think these voices come from? I honestly believe that they grew out of instinct and intuition. These two are ones that we're pretty much born with or we developed early in life,

and they're meant to keep us safe. You know, instinct, you know, it's all about, I'm tired, I need to go to sleep. I'm hungry, I need to eat. You know, those are your instincts. And we listen to them so that we stay alive. You know, we go to sleep, we eat and things like that. Then we have intuition. Intuition is when we get a little bit older and start to gout.

are sights and sounds from the world around us. You know, if we look at the stove and we think, ooh, that looks too hot. I don't want to put my hand on it. That's intuition. It's meant to keep us safe. Well, these other two voices have grown out of that because they want to keep us safe as well. Because if we never go and try anything, we might never know the pain of a future failure.

You know, we don't want to go after that new job because what if somebody says, no, we don't want the pain that that goes through. So, hey, let's just stay where we are. We'll stick to the status quo. You know, it's the same thing, whatever we want to grow or when we try to do something new. You know, those voices are basically the one saying, no, something might happen. Let's stay in our status quo. Oh, you're not ready for that.

Stay in your status quo. I want to go try something new. Nope, let's go try something different that's safer. That's where those voices are coming from. Yeah, something that I think might surprise a lot of listeners. You talk about high achievers and top performers being more susceptible to imposter syndrome, not less. Why is it about success that makes it worse?

I think because we're always trying something new. We're trying to be our best. We're trying to go after that new job. We're trying to climb that next rung at the ladder. All the while, we're trying something that's outside of that comfort zone, outside of that voice that says, no, let's stay where we are because it's safe here. You're happy, right? You're happy?

Yeah, don't try that. Don't try that. That's scary. You know, so high achievers are the ones that are always trying to go outside that box trying to find something new. So ask yourself this question. At some point in your life, but maybe you're like,

you know, I'm happy. I'm not thinking about doing anything new. Did you have those little voices in your head telling you anything? No. No. So it's comfortable. Yeah, they're comfortable. They're like, yeah, they're hanging out.

They're sitting on the couch eating Cheetos. They don't have to do anything. Yeah. You know, but it's when you start to say, hey, I want to start to try something new. You know, I want to start a podcast. You know, I want to start this. Now all of a sudden they're starting to sit up a little bit and they're like,

hey, wait a minute. what are you doing? And so that's what's happening with high achievers is they're not just sitting back. They're not just sitting on their status quo. They're out there. They're trying to do something new. They're trying to stretch and grow. And those voices are telling him, I don't know, that's scary. I don't know. Maybe you shouldn't be doing that. And that really resonates because I think, yeah, once we get to a certain level in our life, we get the job that we want, we have the family that we want, we have the house. It's so easy for us to be like, okay, we've made it. I just want to enjoy where I'm at right now without having to, grow some more. And I'm just thinking of that, a fear of failure, because once you've succeeded

enough, you don't want to fail again, and that fear of embarrassment, that, okay, I've got this image of a person who's successful. If I try something new, I'm going to be, it might be embarrassing, and what would other people think? Right. Exactly. And then we start comparing ourselves to others, and that just makes it worse. Yes, definitely. And so how can a person who is comfortable right now, relatively successful, move forward to continue growing. Or is it a matter of like if you're comfortable, it's okay? What can make a person, I guess, maybe start stretching outside the comfort zone? You know, I think every once in a while, it's okay to be comfortable. You kind of sit and like, kind of catch your breath, maybe recharge a little bit, but then you want to strike out again.

You want to continue to grow. I say, go find something that you love, something that you've never done before. To start thinking about, what could my life be like if? And start asking those questions. You know, maybe it would be kind of need to get to the next rung of the ladder. Hey, you know what, there's this hobby that I've always been thinking about. I want to go try it. You know, so, you know, so start thinking about all those things, you know, and like I said, I think it's okay to, to sit and rest for a little bit, but don't sit too long. You know, don't get stuck in the sofa. You know, don't get, you know, get, don't get eaten by the sofa. But, you know, get up and try something new because that's where the excitement is. Whenever you start to grow is like, wow,

There's some amazing things that we can do. And I'm thinking it's connected to whatever level we're at, right? We kind of accept ourselves. We kind of find a place that feels right, right? We fit into whatever level we're at. And then for you, you have spent like most of your career in male-dominated fields, right? Engineering, military. And I'm assuming there's that need to or that desire to fit in to be accepted.

But that might also influence showing up. authentically as a leader. What did you learn from that experience? Wow, that's, it's so true. I was one of two women in my engineering class. There was only two of us. Okay, so there's very few women in engineering and very few women in engineering that decide to go into the military. And so there was only 9% women in what I did with the Navy. So pretty much my entire career, I was usually one of the only women in the room. And for years, you know, whatever I was in, in college, I was like, you know, they were all guys. And so it was like, okay, I just kind of be around all guys all the time. Then you get into the military and it's like all guys all the time. And I never really

felt like I could be myself, but I, because I didn't really know who that was. But I always felt like I'm not quite being who I really am. And it took some time to try to figure out who am I. And what do I believe in and what's important to me? And I stopped, I finally got to the point where I would stop trying to fit in and just try to be more of myself. And like I said, it took about six months. I had an amazing time in Alaska where I was on a tiny little island in charge of 14 people and we were doing drilling and blasting, which was really cool. But I had the opportunity to start thinking about like, how do I actually want to lead? How do I want to lead these people? What feels good to me? And whenever I started out, again, my assistant, my chief, he would look at me and he would be,

he would just, he would just shake his head. And he was like, I don't know what you're trying to do, but you're not doing a very good job. Well, thanks for that. And he's like, just, he's like, just relax a little bit. Like, try to figure out who you are because I can tell that you're uncomfortable with what you're doing. And he's like, basically he could see right through me. And he's like, you need to figure out who you are. And once I figured that out, like towards the end of my deployment to Alaska, I was like, was feeling pretty good and things were starting to click. And I felt refreshed every day and excited every day. And so you have to find who that is. And it might take some time to figure that out if you're

just trying to fit in all the time. Just start small and try to really look at yourself. What are your values? What are the things that are important to you? Start asking those questions. Then start making those small changes. And what gave you the courage to make those changes? Because I'm thinking, if I'm listening to this right now, maybe my context is my culture or my religion or my community that has got these expectations of me. But they don't feel right. They don't feel like me. So you talked about values. You talked about reflection. What gave you the courage in the face of maybe those expectations that allowed you to push through? Honestly, I think it was that chief because he was an he was an old crusty guy. He had already been in the moving for 20 years and he would just

cross his arms and scowl at me and be like, do better. You know, and I'm like, okay. And so I really had no choice to try to do better because he would just stare at me every day. And he would give me tips on things to do. And I was like, I felt like it was a safe enough environment that I could try to make a difference. And really it was. So I really have my time in Alaska as that defining moment. And so for those who are trying to figure out, I'm not comfortable, I know that I can do better, you know, start thinking about one small thing that you can do that makes you maybe better. So for instance, I know that I'm an empathetic person. I know that I don't like yelling at people. That was never who I was. I really love pulling teams together and understanding who they are, what their strengths are. You know, it took me a little while to figure that out because before then it was always like, you do this and you do this. that and you over there, you know, do something, you know, but, but I realize it's like, no, I actually like to listen to them. And if they have ideas, I want to get them incorporated. And so once I, then, you know, it's like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to try this and see how it works. And then

I would tweak it. And I think they were all also trying to figure out what I was doing. But once, once we got into the rhythm of it, like everybody was responding really, really well, because I was putting it on them that, hey, I'm trying to take care of you all. And everybody really responded really well to that. So I would say, try to be yourself because whenever I started that deployment, the way that people saw me was very different from the end. And in your book, you introduce what you call the warrior framework. Yes. Perceive, assess, ready, act. Can you walk us through that? Absolutely. So this is coming from the rules of engagement that we use in the military. And it's what we do when we have bad guys or potential allies. You never know what's the first. So the first part is

perceive. And this is in the military, we call it situational awareness. What's going on around us? You know, we might have convoys. We might have people. We have all kinds of things going on. We just have to make sure that we're paying attention. And what that means for us, for a warrior mindset, what that means is really paying attention to the voices in your head. You know, a lot of people like, I say this at first and they're like, oh, yeah, I guess you're right. That's what it's all about is starting to listen. Who's talking? And what are they saying? Okay, so then the next part is to assess. In the military, assess if somebody's a friend or a foe. So somebody's a friend, cool, it's great, this instinct telling you, you need to go have lunch, go have lunch.

But then if you start to realize, hey, this is a voice that's trying to, is actually mean, you know, it's saying, you know, horrible, you're telling yourself horrible things. That's more of a foe. And so we just need to think about, is this something that is helping us? Or is this some type of irrational voice that's saying, oh, you're horrible, like you're never going to do well. okay, that's definitely on the foe side. The next part is ready. And so in the military, if a foe is coming at you, we use all types of things to try to get the foe to back off.

You know, we can shoot flares. We can use hand signals. There's all kinds of things that we can do to say, hey, you know, back off. We don't want you here. The same thing is going on in our mind. And so I really believe that when we have this negative bias, when we're always talking about like how bad we are,

that we're not worthy and that we're not ready and all those other things, you know, what we need is something to stop that. And so I honestly believe there's another voice that's hanging out in our head and that's your warrior. And that's someone that's saying, hey, you know what, we can do this. I'm excited about this. I think we got this. That's that other voice. What we need to do is we need to train that other voice to be louder. And we do this through neuroscience. And what we do is we start to literally train the brain to go more in the positive direction when we need some kind of obstacle. And you can do this. through a series of exercise, I kind of line it all out in the book, I trying to make it as easy

as possible. But over about 28 days, you can actually retrain your brain to go more to the positive bias. And so that's what we need. We need to basically, that's our way of like shooting a flare, you know, at the foe and saying, hey, back off. Because we have that positive bias that's starting to speak up and say, no, we got this. We're going to go try it. This is going to be awesome. This is going to be fun. And then the final part is act. And so in the military, whatever means that we have in order to protect ourselves, that's what we do. In our brains, act is all about taking a first calculated step. That's all it is.

Making that first tiny little step in the direction that you know that you're supposed to go. And that can be really hard. You know, there's all kinds of things where you, should I go left? Should I go right? Should I afford? Do I have to go backwards? And you start to think about and people start to seize up and think, I don't know which way to go and they don't go anywhere.

Just move. Just make one calculated step. You know, don't worry. You're not surrounded by a minefield. You know, if you go left and it doesn't work. out, okay, you know, take another direction. But just start. Just make one small calculated step. And I'm thinking, like thinking about that, perceive the first step. A lot of people, my assumption, is that are living in complete autopilot, right, reacting to fear, self-doubt, really never

pausing to actually reflect on what's happening inside. Right. When we're talking about it, what does it actually look like when a person is perceiving, right? So is it just sitting down? Is it journaling? Especially if they're in a situation, let's say they are feeling so overwhelmed. Right. Journaling is a great way to do it. For me, whenever I start to think about something, I just pay attention to my thoughts.

Like, for instance, if I want to go try something absolutely new, I'll just sort of close my eyes at my desk and think about, okay, like, you know, like what's going on? And then all of a sudden, you'll start to hear the like, now you're not good enough for that. Now nobody's going to support you. And then it's like, aha, aha, I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you.

You know, you can kind of pull it out. But, you know, many people have different ways. A lot of it is just self-awareness and just listening. Start asking yourself questions. You know, why can't I do this? Like, ask yourself, why can't I go after that and see what your brain comes up with? Come up with all the different excuses. That's really part of it.

And I'm thinking of the saying, I don't believe everything you think. Because I think to some extent we just assume that. because we think this way it has to be accurate. Right, right. You know, but I tell everybody, hey, look at your track record. Look at the things that you've already done. What are your results? What are your accomplishments?

You know, what are the things that you've already, you know, left out? What are the hurdles that you've already leapt over? You know, start looking at all of those accomplishments that you've already had, all of those accolades and really start to think about, hey, how did I do that? You know, am I more resilient than I want to give myself credit for? Am I more courageous? Am I smarter? Am I better at communication?

Start thinking about how you did all of those things. And you can use those as you go forward and say, hey, you know what? I'm going to use that resilience to go do what I know I need to do. I love that. And I'm thinking about now going to that assess. When you're talking about assessing, I'll use the word quality of your thoughts, sometimes those disempowering thoughts feel so comfortable because we are so used to them. Yeah.

And I'm thinking someone might be saying to themselves, well, I need to prepare for the worst case scenario. Right. Right. Is it even worth it to try to think even positive? So for a person who's like, yeah, but I know I could be growing, but I'm comfortable here, right? It makes logical sense. What would you share with a person in that mindset?

I would ask him first, what is your life going to look like on the other side? Then once they answer that, then I really tried to break it down. And I like to talk more about risk than failure. And what risk is is the probability of failing and the consequence of that failure. And so this is getting into the weird engineering mind that I have because we talked about risk all the time in engineering. And so if you think about the probability of failing, what actually is the probability? Is it like actually pretty small, you know, but maybe it has big consequences? You know, but start to think about like what actually are the consequences?

You know, if you need to like write it down, try to figure it out. like what would the consequences be and what exactly is the probability of that? Because what you might find is you have a very low probability of failure, but you maybe have a medium consequence for that. You know what? If you know what the consequences are, then start to think about what your backup plans will be. Maybe you have a branch plan, maybe you have a backup plan,

maybe you have a secondary plan. If you know that there are consequences to that, then put in some safeguards and then go forward anyway. And for the ready part, Yes. Because I'm like, I love this framework. I'm like, I need to fully understand it. One of the things, right, for the ready, getting ready to take that step,

some people might say, but I don't feel ready or they might be waiting to feel ready. Right. Based on your own experience, was there by a time that you actually felt ready? Or was it a matter of like, okay, at some point I just need to act? There's always that hesitation a lot of times, where it's like, I don't know if I'm ready. Well, if you wait around until you're 100% ready, chances are that the environment has already changed. And so when I talk about being ready, what I want to do is I want to make sure that I'm mentally ready, that my brain is, it's trained, it's disciplined, and is basically ready to take

on whatever comes next, you know, and it's always going towards that positive bias, like always pushing towards how do we make sure that the brain is always ready to kick in the positive bias? And so with that, once you go through that kind of over and over for days and days, I know that sounds like a lot, but it's actually made me a lot happier. I'm actually a much happier person whenever I start to have these negative feelings because I start to recall all of my accolades and I'm like, oh, man, I got this. You know, so I'm actually a happier person because of it because I'm leaning towards a positive bias. So for me, that's really what Reddy is about is that it's the training every day,

make sure that we're going positive. it's a discipline to basically steer your mind away from the negative and say, no, I'm not going to look at that and start thinking about what is on the other side. And what I love about what you say is that being ready in your mind, as opposed to seeking that external readiness. And I think that's where a lot of us get stuck because we want to have everything. What's the expression? All our ducks in a row.

Yes. But the idea is that the readiness is more mental, even if the external environment, there is more that we could do. Right. Absolutely. Because you can always fix things along the way. You know, and have you ever, I mean, it takes a lot to get ducks in a row. I mean, you know, think of that poor mama duck, you know, what she's trying to do.

You know, how you get your ducks in a row is the mama duck starts to move, right? If they're not sitting in a row like by themselves, the mom's walking and all the little ducks are in a row as she's moving. So that's the way that I like to look at. You've got to be moving in order to get all the ducks in a row. You've got to be acting. And I think that answers the next question. And the group of us going to ask, okay, if someone is paralyzed by overthinking,

right, how can they leave that paralysis? But the analogy that you just shared for the mama ducks to get the ducks in a row, you've got to start moving. Right. You know, make it a small, small step. You know, I use the analogy of like, okay, I want to try skydiving. Okay, so that's pretty big. Okay, so what is the very first tiny little step?

It might just be going to your phone and Googling somebody that teaches skydiving. That's the first step. You know what? That's a super easy step. There's no ramifications if you get it wrong, but at least you're starting to move in the right direction. So just make it small. Make it so small and so easy that it seems silly not to take that step. And I'm thinking sometimes we worry about what if I take the wrong step or what if I make a mistake.

And based on your experience, right, you are leading people in a war zone, high stakes when you make a mistake. how did you deal with that fear that I might make the wrong decision? Whenever you have a really large high-state decision, if you have the time, bring in some experts, bring in some experts so that you can bounce your idea off all your subject matter experts before you make that decision. If it's something that you just have to make on the go, you need to decide now, make a firm decision and stand behind it,

go forward, especially if you just stand behind it. And, you know, people then all of a sudden look and say, okay, she has confidences, let's go. And if you find out that, hey, you know what, you can always start to divert along the way. If it's like, oh, this is, we're going, we're going too much to the, right. Okay, you know what?

There are things that you can usually do along the way to try to course correct. So if you have to make a decision in the moment, just make a decision, stand behind it, but also think about, okay, if we need a course correct, what are the things that I need to do in order to do so? And most people will not fault you. If you are making the decision,

based on the people that you know, what they can do, and that you have the mission and the people's best interest in mind. Most people will not fault you for that. And when you're talking about consult with an expert, how would we pick our experts? Because in the military, it's kind of pretty straightforward. But in our day-to-day life, we might tend to think experts are either our family members

or the neighbor who is like older, and we assume that those are experts. So how would we be able to identify the right people to give us that information so we can act with confidence? I would say find the people around you that you trust. Maybe that is family members. In the military, we have what we call battle buddies. And as somebody who is with you all the time, they know you, basically you go everywhere with this battle buddy. You know, I always, you know, if I'm going through something like I might call my battle buddy and say, hey, you know, what are your thoughts on this?

And as somebody who will answer you honestly, and there's usually no hidden agenda between the two of you. You know, there's always a little bit of a risk for, you know, if you want to ask your boss something. Because they have their agenda as well, that they want to probably keep the team together or they want to go in a certain direction. So maybe asking your boss may or may not be, you know, in your best interest based on what their agenda is. But find a colleague. Is there a colleague who has been through something like this before? There are little subject matter experts all over the place. if you just start asking the right questions.

I want to switch gears and talk about you survived in an assassination attempt in Afghanistan. I did. I want to ask about that, not just in the context of all, but what does that do to a person psychologically afterwards? I will tell you right after I found out, my brain took a left turn at Alpkirky. It did not go where it was supposed to go. It was too much of, I think, of a shock to the system that, On the most part, I'm very rational. I always think about, you know, how I'm going to answer all my questions.

I think this, because this came out of nowhere, my brain didn't know what to do. And I, it honestly, the imposter syndrome took over. And I started, instead of thinking rationally about, because the interpreter asked, hey, are you coming out? Because they said that they had caught the people who were trying to assassinate me and that I wouldn't have to worry about them anymore. But then all of a sudden, my brain started to think about, how can I answer the interpreter? like, am I even a good enough leader to answer the interpreter? And then I started to think, I don't know how to answer them.

And then my brain was like, well, I bet, you know, commander so-and-so would know the exact right answer to this problem. You know, and I started to compare myself to other people. I mean, like, how silly is this that you just find out that you might have been assassinated? And all of a sudden, the brain starts to go and compare yourself to other people and tell you that you're not a good enough leader. I mean, that's what can happen whenever our imposter syndrome hijacks your brain. You know, it's so fearful that it just, it's like, okay, well, we're going to go talk about

this instead of like what's actually important. And so it took me a few minutes to realize what was going on in my brain. And really what happened was I started to look at all of the people that were around me, everybody that had heard this conversation, and they were all looking to be like, hey, you need to make a decision. And luckily I didn't spazz out too long, you know, but it was like, okay. And I started to think very rationally after a certain point. So, yes, the brain went on its own direction.

I had to basically pull it back into line. We went out that day and we had a good discussion, you know, with the Afghans that we were with. And it was really important to have those conversations with them and understand that, hey, you know what? They did have our back. They were the ones who found out about them and had them taken care of. That's very powerful. And months later, after you've gone through the war, you had that experience happen to you,

how were you able to regulate your body? And maybe I should use that word loosely. Because we do know that a lot of people that go to war when they come back, it's a difficult time adjusting. It really is. You know, you're under so much pressure. so much stress for a very long period of time. And then you come back and it's like, you have nothing. You have no responsibilities except cleaning out the dishwasher. You know, and it's, it's almost,

you almost feel like too light. Like you almost feel like too light for your body. And also, when you're over there, you have this overwhelming sense that you're doing something that's bigger than yourself, that you're contributing to something that is really important. And then you come back to your job and you're told to do a bunch of calculations. And, you start to think about, why am I doing this? This has no real relevance. I'm not saving anybody's lives. And you just, you can get really depressed. You know, also when you're over in a war zone, you're around the same people all the time. It's the same people that are supporting you, the same people that you're having, you're having breakfast with, you're having lunch with, you're having

dinner with every single day and you're all supporting each other. And then you come back and everybody's gone to the winds. They're in different states or maybe, or, you know, they're doing their own thing now. They're in their own homes. And all of a sudden, it's like, where did all that camaraderie go? And you feel very, very alone. And so what many of us have to do is, yeah, we will be pretty depressed for several months afterwards as we're trying to readjust, you know, to what life is like, you know, normally. And the way that I tell people, it's like, you know, you need to find your new purpose.

Yeah. So what? You're doing calculations. But you're doing calculations for the seismic, you know, resilience. of a bridge. This matters. Like, what you're doing actually matters. And, you know, if you get this wrong, you know, that's not good. And so you have to refine what your purpose is. That's how we started to come back up. And that was actually going to be my next question. How do you refine a new sense of purpose? And from what I gathered, what you just said is it's kind of going back to, again,

assessing or perceiving, then assessing, okay, what's going on, and then reframe what's going on in your mind that, okay, this is also an important purpose. Right. I'm thinking of someone who feels like they do not have a purpose listening to this, thinking, how can I find my purpose? That's a big, deep question. And you have to really look inside yourself. Think about what you're doing and why you're doing it.

Do you enjoy it? Do you enjoy what you're doing? And, you know, really start to think about, you know, what would bring you joy? And why is it what you're doing is actually important? And sometimes you need somebody from the outside to come and tell you, somebody who might be your friend or maybe a colleague, you know, to actually tell you, hey, you know what, you've actually got something good going on here. You're doing a lot of good for the world, you know, through what you do. Sometimes you need that outside perspective. But if you don't feel like you have a purpose, go find something that you love and just start thinking about maybe just sit down in a park and start thinking about, you know, how can I find a purpose? What do I enjoy? You start going through that process, as opposed to just saying, I don't have a purpose. Mentally decide, I'm going to go find what my purpose is.

You're a PhD, engineered by training. Someone who loves solving problems systematically. How do you think that analytical background is shaped the way you approach your own inner work? And do you think that analytical thinkers may have a particular blind spot when it comes to emotional resilience? I would say for many of my colleagues, yes. Hopefully they're not listening to this. I would say yes. You know, a lot of engineers that I know are just, you know, gosh, many of us are

introverts and we don't talk about our feelings. We don't talk about anything like that. We just keep it all inside of us. And we just want math and we just want science. We don't want that fluffy, you know, stuff that talks about, you know, our brains. You know, it's like, now let's just talk about. in science. So a lot of people might be, maybe stymied a little bit on the engineering side where they're not really looking at the human side of themselves because a lot of times we're not good at

that. And it's like, it's just easier to just stuff it in a closet and not think about it and just, you know, just be a mathematician or a scientist. So yeah, it is a little hard for some of us to be humans. And how has, how have your experiences shaped you? So thinking about you, before the Army, before the PhD, how you saw the world versus today? You know, I do love to solve problems. I think that that's really important. I'm a problem solver. And so the way that I look at it is like, how can I break something down to the most elemental

pieces, start to put it back together, but then also explain it to others in a way that makes sense. Like, to me, that's the most important. Because I have a lot of colleagues who are like, man, they're doing some wild, wild math that I'm like, I don't even know if I can do that. You know, but it's like, okay, but can you teach it to somebody? And so I really believe that we have a lot of issues and problems and things like that. And so not just engineering problems or science problems, but that's what I love is like, I like, I like to think about what are, what is going on in our brain? What are those types of problems? And so that's why I started to, you know, look at neuroscience and a lot of other research that's been done on the brain to understand like what's going on in there. Like that's way more powerful than a computer. And sometimes it goes a little haywire and like, how do we, how do we start to break? down, you know, what our problems are. And that's kind of an engineering type of thing. And you have to be able to explain to others so that you could help others. And so that's why I love when I wrote

the book. I tried to make it like, hey, you know, do this. Here's a simple framework. Just try it, see what happens. And yeah, so that's the direction that, yeah, I'm very analytical. Yes, I'm an engineer at heart. For someone listening, who clearly recognizes that, they've got that mean little voice, but also simultaneously they're like, I'm feeling so overwhelmed with my life, my job, my kids, my family. What is one practical move they can live today with so that they can start acting and making that shift to build that warrior mindset? Here's something that's super easy. You know, you might be overwhelmed. You still have that mean little boys. I want you to write down one win from your day. So I don't care how overwhelmed you

are, you probably did something good that day. And I want you just write it down, write it down on a sticky, write it down on a piece of paper, but keep a little ledger and just write it down. The next day, the end of the day, start thinking it again, what is that one win from the day? And that might just be something like, hey, you know what, I gave myself the grace to work out or I made a really good dinner. Who knows? Maybe it's like, man, I made a killer sales call, whatever it might be, just write down one thing. And what will happen at the end of the week, look at that piece of paper. I mean, really look at it and realize all the things that you have accomplished and do it again for the next week. And what will happen as the weeks go by, your brain is going to start to move towards looking

for those wins on a day-to-day basis. And you're just going to have like maybe two, maybe three, maybe five, because your brain will start to look at this. It's starting to recognize patterns. And so if you're feeling overwhelmed and you're feeling like, hey, you know what, I don't, I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. Just write down just one. Just start with just one win per day.

And you've worked with leaders across different environments from the military to corporate to individual development. What is the most common mistake you see people make when they're trying to build resilience? A lot of times, I think they're trying too hard and they shut everybody else out. And they shut them out and only think about it. I just have to think about myself, which is okay. But why don't you start to let some people in that can actually. help you. And that's one of the things that I found that, you know, that most of the people that are having a resilience problem are not allowing others to help. Ask for help. Ask for help from a

loved one. Maybe it's a colleague, whatever it might be, but just ask those questions. And they can help you. It's abusing if you ask for help. All of the people that you trust will come out and actually give you a hand. I know for some people that like I have a difficult time asking for help. I'm one of them. Oh, I'm one too. Oh, yeah. I'm like high-fiving you. We got the I don't want to ask for help. Yes, absolutely. But that does make sense because I think, yeah, that misconception that to be strong, to be resilient means I can do it by myself, but that's further from the truth. We do need to have some people in our corner. We do. And it's hard for us to ask for help. I know that it's like I'm not good at it. You and me, we got that we understand.

each other. It's hard to ask for help. But, you know, what you do, typically people come out of the woodwork because they realize that you don't ask for help. And if you actually ask for help, they're like, oh, they mean it. They're like, yeah, you know, she means it. She needs a little help. And they'll help you out. And in the book, Becoming the Warrior, looking at the title, use the word becoming the warrior, which implies a process, not necessarily destination. For someone at the very beginning of their journey, what would you like them to know? I would like them to know. I would like them to know that they are capable of great things. You're really capable of amazing, amazing things. And you know what? We just have to get started. You just have to get started. You know,

there's so many things that stop us, all the obstacles that might really be in front of us, the ones that we put in our head to stop us. You know, but that's what becoming the warrior is all about. It's not be the warrior. It's about here's how we go about it. And just like warriors in real life, you continually train and you continually make yourself better. That's what it's all about. For the listeners, who want to learn more about your work, your book, where can they find you? More about the book can be found at the warrior framework.com. It has a bunch of information there. And if you ordered the book, I'm giving away a bunch of free stuff right now. So I'm giving away the first couple chapters for free. I'm giving you a workbook. So as you want, you can actually

work through the workbook at the same time as you're going through the book. There's the first couple chapters. Did I mention that? Okay, anyways, I'm giving a wait about your free stuff if they order through, well, you can go through Amazon, you go through Barnes & Noble, wherever you'd like to go, but just come back and get all your free stuff. So that's the warrior framework.com. But if you'd like more information on me, you can go to jennonoghue.com. And there's a link there for the book as well. But if you want to know about my speeches, if you want to know about coaching or anything like that, that's where you can find me. If you had 20 seconds to share a message with every single person on this planet. What will that message be? Go find what you love. Go find what

you love. You might be in a place right now where it's just like, I am not happy. I've definitely had those types of things. Don't be afraid to go find what you love. It makes all the difference in the world. Perfect. Thank you, Jen. It was such a pleasure hearing your story, hearing your perspective. Really appreciate you taking the time to share your message. Thank you. I've had such a great time. Thank you so much for having me.