The Rich Roll Podcast - Chadd Wright: Don’t Give Pain A Voice

Episode Date: January 6, 2020

Meet Chadd Wright. Reared in the mountains of rural northwest Georgia, Chadd grew up obsessed with becoming a SEAL. But when the Navy discovered a rare but asymptomatic cyst on his heart, he was disqualified from entering BUDS. Undaunted, Chadd refused to give up, ultimately tracking down a surgeon willing to perform a procedure deemed too risky by every cardiologist he previously petitioned. Cyst successfully removed, Chadd went on to realize his SEAL dream, serving over the next decade as a Team Leader on multiple deployments to conflict zones across the world. He became a SEAL instructor. A Master Training Specialist. Chadd even served a stint as President Obama’s bodyguard. Along the way, he battled PTSD and traumatic brain injury. He faced his wife’s substance abuse issues. And he found God -- a faith in part born from a paranormal experience he shares in riveting detail today. Now retired from the military, Chadd has found new life as an elite ultramarathoner -- a spiritual quest for self-knowledge and mind-body mastery that has compelled him to tackle some of the world’s most insane endurance slogs like The Revenant -- a 118-mile footrace across south New Zealand with over 52,000 feet of elevation gain that not one person has ever successfully completed. This conversation begins with Chad's unique upbringing. His SEAL dream. And the heart condition that nearly derailed it. We discuss the day-to-day reality of the elite warrior. The supernatural experience and visions that embolden his faith. And the role Christianity plays in his spiritual equation. We talk about the perils of civilian re-entry. The allure of ultrarunning. His training regimen. The mental strategies deployed to venture beyond his limits. And a project he launched with his brother called 3-of-7. Chadd shares his perspective on the importance of breaking down big goals into bite size chunks. Why some people quit their dreams. Why others don’t. And what exactly separates the two. Finally, we talk about why the “stay hard’ mantra isn’t a sustainable life philosophy. The incredible power of spoken word. Disengaging from negativity. And the importance of channeling our limited energy into that which we love. Chadd's mantra is simple: Never give pain a voice. And never, ever die in the chair. As a hardened warrior turned ultra-athlete, Chadd exudes a familiar energy I'd characterize as Goggins-adjacent. But Chadd is anything but a Goggins stand-in. He's warmer. A bit more inviting. Perhaps it's his personable, laconic southern drawl. Or maybe it's his grounded faith in Christ. If Goggins and Josh LaJaunie had a son, his name just might be Chadd Wright. One thing is for certain -- this guy is extremely authentic. Deeply soulful. And wise well beyond his 31 years. Packed with mindset tactics, powerful takeaways and inspiration for miles, Chadd's tale of toil, perseverance and redemption will leave you riveted. Rethinking the ceiling on your own perceived limits. And prepared to tackle any dream you've set for the new year ahead. You can also watch it all go down on YouTube.  I fell in love with this man. And this conversation has stayed with me. I sincerely hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Peace + Plants, Rich

Don't be afraid to put yourself in adverse situations because that's where you're going to grow as a human being. The decisions you make in times of adversity, self-inflicted or totally out of your control, those decisions define who you are as a human. But don't fear inflicting that adversity on yourself because it's going to help you grow as a human being. Go put yourself through a little adversity. It may be only running for five minutes to start with. It may not be running. It may be

something completely different than that. But don't fear it because I feel like it's essential for us as humans to experience that in life. By no means am I trying to sound super tough. I subscribe to this saying, it's be hard when it gets hard. Have a place inside of you that you can go to when it gets hard and you can get the job done. So adversity is a tool, man. That's all it is. That's Chad Wright, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Happy New Year, people. 2020, it's here.

We made it. How are you feeling? I feel good. I'm ready for all of it. Did I mention this is Rich Roll, your host? I'm here. I'm ready for all of it. Did I mention this is Rich Roll, your host? I'm here. Welcome to the first podcast of 2020. So we sort of have a little bit of a tradition here. It started off two years ago by kicking off the new year with some hard truths, some solid motivation, courtesy of a little known former Navy SEAL you might have heard of called David Goggins, aka the hardest man alive. And people seem to enjoy that, a little kick in the

pants to put your holiday excess in the rear view and calibrate the mind for a new horizon. So continuing on this theme, our first guest for 2020 is a guy born and bred in the backwoods mountains of Northwest Georgia who grew up with one dream, to become a Navy SEAL. His name is Chad Wright, and this guy wanted it so badly that when a rare but totally asymptomatic cyst on his heart basically disqualified him from entering buds. It was a growth deemed too risky to remove by most doctors. Chad, this guy, just refused to give up and ultimately tracked down a surgeon willing to perform the procedure. Cyst successfully removed. Chad went on to realize that dream of becoming a Navy SEAL, a decade-plus career that entailed serving as a team leader on multiple deployments to conflict zones across the world.

He became a SEAL instructor, a master training specialist, and along the way even served a stint as President Obama's bodyguard. He's battled PTSD and traumatic brain injury. He's faced his wife's substance abuse issues and also found God, in part the result of a paranormal experience he's going to share with us today in quite riveting detail. as an elite ultramarathoner tackling some of the world's most insane endurance slogs, like this race called the Revenant in South New Zealand, which is a 118 mile foot race with over 105,000 feet

of elevation gain that not one single person has ever successfully completed. It's an incredible story. It's a conversation packed with applicable takeaways. And it's coming up right after a few words from our great sponsors that make this show possible.

We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices.

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everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem, Thank you. to support and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders,

including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com

and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Chad. So over the course of the next two hours, you're gonna be absolutely glued to Chad's inspirational story. And I think armed with some powerful takeaways to deploy along your own path.

We talk about his seal dream and the heart condition with some powerful takeaways to deploy along your own path. We talk about his SEAL dream and the heart condition that threatened to derail it, the day-to-day experience of being a member of such an elite squad of soldiers, the role of faith in his life, re-entry into civilian life, what drew him into the world of ultra running, and a project he launched called Three of Seven. We discuss visions and paranormal experiences, which is awesome. We talk about why some people quit and others don't and why, the power of the spoken word and never giving pain a voice, the importance of breaking down big goals into bite-sized

chunks, why the stay hard mantra isn't a sustainable life philosophy, and why Chad will never, ever die in the chair. As fellow SEALs, there's of course, a fair amount of Goggins energy in Chad. Both of these guys are hardened, highly trained warriors turned ultra athletes. But Chad is also very different from David. I think it's fair to say he's a bit more personable and perhaps a little bit more relatable than David. Maybe it's his laconic Southern drawl or his deep faith in Christ

that grounds him a little bit more. But one thing is for sure, he is extremely authentic, deeply soulful, and very much wise well beyond his 31 years. So this is me having a conversation with Chad Wright. Well, it's a pleasure and an honor to meet you. I'm super excited to talk to you. Our mutual friend, Jesse, hit me up recently.

He's like, you got to meet this guy, Chad, man. His story's crazy. You're gonna love him. And he was kind of describing you as, he's like, how old are you, like 32? 31. He's like, he's only like 31, but he's like my go-to guy for advice.

He's like, he's my Tuesdays with Maury guy. He's like this incredible ultra athlete and badass Navy SEAL, but he's also sort of this Obi-Wan Kenobi type character who's deeply wise. And that's like right in my wheelhouse, man. So I'm excited to talk to you. Yeah, man.

Now it's a blessing to be here, brother. Thank you. So let's, why don't we start with the whole like Navy SEAL thing, man. You know, it's interesting because you don't necessarily cut the figure of what somebody would expect. Never have.

I mean, the beard might be a little bit long. I mean, the beard goes with it, I guess. Yeah, yeah. And more, I guess we're seeing more and more military dudes embracing the ultra running lifestyle. But I mean, you did the whole deal, man, buds and the whole thing. And the story leading up to it is pretty crazy.

Getting what you had to endure and undergo to kind of achieve your dream. So talk about that a little bit. Yeah, and I guess I never really fit the mold, Rich, because I was born and raised in North Georgia. I never played sports. I had never swam in a swimming pool. Right.

Never ran on purpose. Never was in a pool until you were in the military, right? Until I went to, yeah, take the PST to get a SEAL contract. But your mom is a triathlete, right? Yeah. She didn't bring you down to the pool ever? No, she would bring me out on the trail when I was young, you know, and allow me to hike around and kind of follow her.

But water was, I mean, growing up in North Georgia, man, like, you know, we didn't, we lived out in the country, so we didn't have a swimming pool close. And, like, the most swimming you would do would be like to swim out across the pond to unhook your fishing lure that was hung on a log. You know what I mean? So like dog paddle was my limit. So yeah, you know, but I worked through that. You know, when I went to take that physical standards testing, it was a run, swim, push-up, pull-up, sit-up. I failed that thing probably a dozen times, dude,

but I kept coming back. Every week I would take it and improve a little bit and a little bit, finally pass with minimum standards. But where does the dream to become a SEAL come from? Well, and I think for everyone it's different. For me personally, I had just graduated high school. And of course, you know, this small town that I was living in, there's not a whole lot of, especially back then,

there wasn't a whole lot of economic opportunities there. And I didn't like school. It just wasn't for me. So I went to work in the construction industry. And I did that for a few months. And I just had this moment one day where I'm sitting in this environment that I wasn't enjoying.

And I realized that if I wanted more out of life, if I wanted financially, spiritually, and everything as a whole package, I was going to have to step out of that environment. package, I was going to have to step out of that environment. And I realized that if I didn't make that move, that this that I was surrounded with was just, that was going to be my lot in life. And no like mentors or anybody like that? No, no really prior military service in my family. It wasn't about me being a patriot at the time, nothing like that. It was just me wanting more out of life. And I'm always hesitant when I tell that story because I don't ever want to sound like I deserve more or that I'm better than anyone else because there were a lot of guys

that I worked alongside in that industry and they were happy with that life. And that's awesome. But I wasn't happy with it. You know, at the time. You just had a little bit more ambition. Yeah, just maybe a little more ambition. But I tell people all the time, some of the greatest men that I've ever met in my life have wore overalls every day of their lives and worked the fields. And they've raised a beautiful family and they have this really happy, wholesome, complete lifestyle. But for me, I just wanted to kind of step out. So that's where the decision, I guess, was born. But you could have done a lot of different things in the military.

Like what was it about SEAL training? Man, I just saw this. Especially since you weren't, it's not like you were a football player. Dude, I just saw this thing online. I was sitting, like I said, I was looking on my computer and researching jobs within the military. And this thing just pops up talking about Navy SEALs. And I didn't really even know what Navy SEALs did, but it said, this is the hardest military training in the free world. And it was like, for something clicked in my head, like, boom, this is what I'm going to go do. And I can't really explain why it was that one single thing. Right.

But yeah, from that point forward, that became my mission. That became my entire dream in life is to get on the start line and at least get a shot to reach this goal that I had set for myself. So you sign up for the military, you head off, but it doesn't exactly go to plan. No, it didn't quite go as I planned. And so basically what happened, Rich, is you have to go through Navy boot camp before you go to SEAL training. While you're in boot camp, they run you through a series of medical evaluations to make sure that your body is physically perfect. They're not going to send you off to this super arduous training unless they know you're good to go. So I make it all the way through boot camp. And the last day, we have our big final training exercise. And that is wrapping up and everybody's

heading off to graduation. And my drill instructor comes to me and says, Chad, you need to go see medical. They found something that they need to talk to you about. So in that last moment, as everybody's going off to chase their dream and their goals, I'm walking over to medical as I'm just just a young kid and thinking what in the world is this all about and I walk in to this office and the dive medical officer standing there and he says Chad um we found a pericardial cyst on your heart and he said this is totally asymptomatic he said it was never going to bother you your whole life, but we're afraid when you go down to depth, when you're diving as a seal,

that the pressure change could potentially burst that cyst on your heart. And he said, we can't let you be a seal. So all my dreams and aspirations were taken from me in that one definitive moment. I was given this, you can't do this. Right. So how did that feel? It crushed me, man. It crushed me. It crushed me, but the strange thing is that when he told me that, even though this was the guy in charge telling me that I couldn't do the things that I wanted to do, I never going to find some way over, under, around this condition, you know?

Even though there's basically, I mean, short of heart surgery, there's no way around this, right? So what do they, do they just reassign you at that point? So they try, that's what they tried. The Navy tried to just send me out to the fleet, which is the big Navy, which is awesome. That's an awesome place to be, but it's not where I had set my goals. So how do you finagle out of that? So I reached back to my family. They made some phone calls and I was able to get an administrative discharge from the Navy. It was basically because they had essentially breached the contract that I had with them because my contract was to go to SEAL training. So I got out of the Navy. Like I say, I still had aspirations to be a SEAL, and the only avenue, like you said, Rich, was I got to have heart surgery.

Right. So I start going to all these heart surgeons, Aaron Atlanta, and every surgeon I went to told me the same thing that the dive medical officer told me. This is a rare condition. It's asymptomatic. We're not willing to accept the risk of performing this surgery. Even if you waived all of it? Even if I waived all of it. They didn't want to touch it, man. You just live your whole life with this thing.

It's no problemo. They didn't want to touch it, man. So I finally find a surgeon in Atlanta named Dr. Cooper, and he had served in the Army as a combat surgeon downrange. And he understood what I wanted to go do, I think more so than somebody that hasn't served in that capacity. How many doctors did you go to before him? I was turned down by three doctors. To the best of my memory, it was three doctors before I finally found Dr. Cooper. And he's like, I'll do it? He was like, I'll do it. He was a runner, dude. Awesome. I mean,

I remember my first appointment, like every appointment I had with this dude would be early in the morning and he would come into the office in his running clothes, like still sweating. And I'm like, this is my guy right here, man. This is the dude for you, right? That's it, brother. How risky was this procedure? You know, and I get asked that a lot, Rich, but back then, I was a kid, dude. I wasn't asking these questions. I had a singular focus. I never asked the question, how risky is this?

I knew that it had to be done for me to move forward with my dream. I think the riskiest part of the surgery is that the condition was so rare. So Dr. Cooper, for instance, is a well-known surgeon in Atlanta. He had never removed a pericardial cyst. So I remember him pretty much telling me, okay, we've got a general plan, but I, we've never done this surgery before. So we're going to have to open you up and we're going to figure it out, you know, when we get in there. Right. So the best way to take this off. Crack your sternum open that way, like open heart? They actually detached my

pec muscle, moved it up and then went in through my rib cage to get to my heart. Wow. Was there a moment beforehand where you thought, like, this is insane? There was one distinct moment. And it was actually the morning of the surgery, man. I was riding to the hospital with my dad at like 5 a.m. And I look over at my dad. I had this moment of doubt. And I look over at my dad and I said, Dad, do you think I should really go through with this? And he looked back at me. And without

stuttering, he says, Son, if you want to be a SEAL, you have no choice. And that resonated with me. That's the way my mind ticks. We'll talk about that. I simplify things. That resonated with me. And I just said, Roger that. That was the truth. I had no other choice. Right. Fueled perhaps by maybe a little bit of naivete that comes with youth and that sense of being impervious and immortal when you're young. Totally, brother. Totally. So you get through it and then what? You go back and just show up and say, I'm ready to go now? Well, it wasn't that easy. I get through it. The surgery was successful. through it. The surgery was successful, but it was still a gamble because I still had to get waivers. I still had to get signed off. The Navy had to review the civilian medical documents

from the surgery and basically sign off on it. So this whole time, I'm just gambling, man. How long did that take? I can tell you I was back in the Navy standing before the same dive medical officer that had disqualified me less than a year after surgery. So I walk back in his office, Rich, and he looks at me and he says, what are you doing back here man uh-huh he remembered me yeah because it was it was so so rare and and all this is written this is a public information if you just google navy seal pericardial cyst you can read how rare it was in a medical

journal that that doctor wrote uh-huh and so i hand him over the documents, and he looks them over, and I think that he really respected what I had done, the risk that I had taken. Right, like this is the kind of crazy we need here. That's right, and he understood it. The doctor understood it more than anyone else could have understood because he knew what was involved with the surgery. Right. Well, in the history of SEALs, had anybody else?

You must be the first person to have ever done that. That was the first one. That was the first case of a pericardial cyst in a SEAL candidate that's ever existed. Until now, people hear this. Yeah, until now. You know, right? All right, so you're back in. And then what?

You just go from there into Bud's? Like, how does it work? Yeah, so luckily the Navy blessed me off, gave me the waiver I needed, and they did not make me go through boot camp again. I had got far enough along that they didn't make me go back through that process. far enough along that they didn't make me go back through that process. So I'm in a holding pattern for a few months waiting for the BUDS class to kind of class up. But yeah, pretty much, essentially, I'm right back in and I finally get to toe the line there at my biggest dream and aspiration that I've ever had. And brother, nothing was going to stop me.

And there's like, what, like 300 people in a Bud's class? Back in those days, yeah. I mean, that was a big influx. That was 2007. The war was going pretty hard. Right. So all those kids in high school that were there for 9-11 were kind of aging up into that right around that time. That's it, yeah. So we started with about 300 guys,

yeah. Well, my only frame of reference for wrapping my head around what goes on at Bud's is David Goggins and the stories that he's told on this podcast and what he wrote in his book. I mean, what was your experience like? You know, BUDS is a weird thing, Rich. It's a crazy thing about it is nothing about BUDS. No singular evolution is really all that hard, man. What do you mean by that? Like the timed evolutions, the things that you have to do in BUDS, it's like a four-mile timed run. You get like 32 minutes to do that. You've got to swim two miles. You get ample time to do that.

So nothing in BUDS is really all that hard. Meaning like in isolation. In isolation. Each individual task. It's just the accumulation of them. The hardest thing is when you look at the total picture, it's the grind, man. And that's why dudes quit. Essentially, I would say that's the number one reason that people quit.

It's just like running an ultra. You know how to break an ultra down. Well, Bud's is like that, but magnify it into like a six-month long ultra, you know? Right, right. So this is kind of part of your core philosophy, right? Like breaking things down into their sort of smallest components so that you can digest them one by one. I think it's essential, Rich.

For me in my life, yeah, it's, it's breaking, not only breaking, say, a race, breaking it down from, you know, a tree to tree or rock to rock perspective, but even breaking down the outcomes. never feel any pressure and I never really get nervous, man, because in my mind, I've broken that race down into two outcomes. I'm either going to break my body or I'm going to achieve victory or cross the finish line. That simplifies it so much for me. And is that philosophy advisable? Well, I don't know. I think that's a choice for every individual to make. But for me, I look at these races as missions, almost like missions in my life. And I'm willing to accept the fact that I could potentially break myself to accomplish this mission. Right. Well, the other option is to quit.

The other option is to quit. Yeah. But you just don't put that on the table. I don't put it on the table, man. And I'm not, by no means am I trying to sound super tough. I subscribe to this saying, it's be hard when it gets hard. And in an ultra, it gets hard. So that's when I like to hunker down. Yeah, there's this ethos out there. I saw you kind of speaking about this on Instagram out there, like, stay hard, you got to be hard 24-7. And I think people in general need a kick in the pants. And that's a worthy message that I think is helpful to a lot

of people who have gotten a little too cushy or comfortable in their lives. But staying hard all the time is not a sustainable lifestyle philosophy, is it? It's not sustainable, Rich. And I really feel like, for me personally, it's a dangerous philosophy because if you think as a man or a woman that you have to be hard all the time, we said it's not sustainable. So you're going to fall short of that mark. And when you fall short of that mark, you're going to beat yourself up about it. And it just causes problems, I feel like, for me personally. And it causes problems in relationships, man. When I was active duty, I could be out on the road or be on deployment. Well, when you come back, you got to be able to love your family and love the other people around you

and show compassion and emotion. And those aren't components of being hard all the time, but they're components that are necessary to living a healthy lifestyle. What's the point otherwise, right? But they're not teaching that to you in Bud's. No, that's something that I had to learn. Yeah. I mean, they turn you into this, I don't want to say monster, but they turn you into what I guess society would call an alpha male in buds. Right. So stay hard when it's appropriate to be hard or when you need to be hard. Have a place inside of you that you can go to when it gets hard and you can get the job done. But couldn't you make an argument that setting yourself up with these two options,

either victory or completely going until your body breaks down, that could be considered an unsustainable model too, right? That could be. That could be, but I mean, I'm younger. Pick your moments or pick your battles, I suppose. And that's why I say, is that specific philosophy advisable? I think it's called risk calculation. You calculate what you're willing to accept to accomplish this mission. For me, I'm willing to accept that. Right. You know, but everybody's not me. I like this idea of breaking things down into tiny little nuggets to achieve your goals. I think people, you know, this is going to go up in the new year. People are thinking about their new year's resolutions.

Everybody set this kind of like aspiration for themselves. And as you know, most people, you know, fall off the wagon and don't end up self-actualizing whatever it is that they're looking to do in their lives. And I think, you know, that message is really important because we get caught up in the sexy idea of what it's going to be like and feel like and look like when we achieve that goal, but we're just not willing to do those little things every day that keep us moving in that trajectory in kind of a relentless way, because it's not sexy, because those little things are tiny little things.

They're not things that are gonna get anybody excited. They're just stuff you gotta do relentlessly to create that kind of momentum that creates like a self-perpetuating machine. Totally, brother. Yeah. I agree 100%. You understand it, Rich. All right, so you're in BUDS.

Is it what you thought it would be, expected it to be? Yeah. Harder, easier? I would say SEAL training is probably like the one thing in life that surpassed its reputation. In terms of difficulty. In terms of difficulty. Intensity. For sure.

And there again, I'm talking about the whole picture right now. What is the main thing that you take away from that experience? experience? You know, there's so many things that we could talk about that were born in that experience. I'd say the one thing that I utilize the most right now is the lessons that we learned that revolve around, I call it the power of the spoken word, the things that we say, how the things that we say impact our direction in life and the outcome of our situations. And one of the earliest times I remember seeing this work was in first phase, my best friend came to me one day and he said, Chad, I don't think I'm good enough to make it through this training anymore.

And I had known prior to that statement that he had been having some thoughts of doubt. But when he kept those thoughts within his own head, he was able to continue from day to day. But as soon as he came to me that morning and spoke it out loud, that statement, he created that reality. It became real. It crushed him, man. He was crushed by that single statement, I don't think I'm good enough. And shortly after he made that statement, he went and quit. And I thought, you know, this guy, my buddy, you know, he was completely physically capable of doing everything that we had to do that day and every single day until graduation.

But those words crushed him, man. It was like the Rubicon. Once he crossed that, there's no return. Once you give voice to whatever it is, whatever demon is swimming around in your head, it gives it a power that you can't take back. There's something about when it's something about the spoken word, man. And I think the written word has similar and equal power, but a lot of my stuff, lessons revolve around that spoken word. And now that's transferred, that lesson has transferred into ultra running. And, you know, I've seen that power of the spoken word push people beyond their conceived limits. So give me an example of practicing that.

So I can give you an example of how we practiced it at a race a few months ago. We were doing a last man standing race. Right. Is this the one with Jesse? No, this was one that I didn't do the one with Jesse. I had done one a few months before. So I became acquainted with a young man named Thomas. Thomas had never ran more than a 10K race before, so it's about six miles.

And me and Thomas kind of partnered up, and I thought, I'm going to mentor Thomas. And it starts to get, you know, we had made it to like 15 hours. So is it one of those where you do a loop and you get a break and you have to do it in a certain amount of time? You just keep going until there's only one person left. Yeah, so it's 4.16 miles every hour on the hour until one man's left. Is this the race that you created? We actually hosted a race that was a similar format,

but this was one I was actually competing in. Okay. format. But this was one I was actually competing in. So Thomas, the sun starts to set and I look in his eyes and I can tell he's hurting bad, man. He's almost done. And I told Thomas, I said, Thomas, I want you to do something for me. I said, I want you to just say, I will never quit. And Thomas looks over at me and he says, I'll never quit. And I'm like, no, man, I want you to yell it out loud. Let everyone around here know that you will never quit. And I think Thomas kind of thought that it was cocky, but it wasn't about being cocky. It was about us creating this confidence and this reality for ourselves through the words that we spoke. So Thomas yelled,

I will never quit. And then throughout the rest of that night, every time I'd see Thomas, we'd yell back and forth to each other, I'll never quit. Thomas ran over 100 miles that day. So from a 10K, he ran over 100 miles. Do you know what his goal was going into it? 100 miles. Oh, it was to run 100 miles. It was 100 miles. But we had also made a pact with each other that,

and I had made this for myself, but I brought Thomas on board that we wouldn't die in the chair during that race, that we would die out on the race course when our time came, battling for every step. So on Thomas's last lap, he reached his goal, and he said, he's sitting in his chair. He said, Brother Chad, he said, I got my 100 miles, man. I'm good. And I said, no, Thomas, we said we're not dying in the chair, brother. So Thomas rose up out of the chair, man, out of that... But he did speak those words out loud. He did. Now you gotta overcome that. Yeah, he overcame it.

But he had reached his goal, essentially. He had every right to be there, but he had just had a little, he forgot about don't die in the chair. So Thomas rises up and comes back out, toes the line again, and he's running with me and essentially waiting for my permission to end. Right. And, yeah, we get out about 300 yards from the start line. And I say, all right, Thomas, you did it, brother.

And then he can do it in the chair. Thomas back to the start line, man. You could have withheld that permission. Could have. Just see how much further this guy's going to go. I was so proud of him though, man. It was amazing. So what do you make of that?

Like, what is that about? Like, how is it that the spoken word can carry that kind of power? and word can carry that kind of power. It's, you know, and I don't know, I don't know what, for me, something in your, a thought that's in your head, it's just a thought. It's not tangible to anyone else except for you. But when you speak something out loud, it actually becomes something real, something that can be measured. So it becomes something that's part of this reality that we live in. And I feel like that's what gives it the power of the spoken word. I feel like

that's why it's so powerful because as a thought, it's essentially it's not part of this reality that we're living in, but as soon as you speak it, it becomes real. Right. That's where I find the power at, man. So the practical application of that or the practice of it is to be very measured or judicious in what comes out of your mouth and to be careful that, to be mindful of the words that you speak such that

whatever is coming out of your mouth is, you know, a positive affirmation that underscores the goal that you're trying to achieve. I think you have to be constantly conscious of it, man. And that's something I practice in my own life. And obviously, I take it kind of, some people would think to the extreme, I don't curse. I'm a Christian, but that's not a Christian thing. It's because none of those words in and of themselves have a positive meaning. because none of those words in and of themselves have a positive meaning. So I try to stay constantly in control of my rudder. I look at my tongue as my rudder. Do you ever fuck that up? Oh, yeah. I mean, everybody's going to make mistakes, man, for sure. But a big thing,

Rich, is to be especially aware of your rudder during times of adversity. Right. Because that's when it really matters when you're in the struggle, when you're in the furnace of adversity. That's when you have to be really conscious of the things that you're saying, in my opinion. Back to buds, was there ever a breaking moment for you? And was this kind of perspective taught to you, or this was an intuitive thing that you stumbled upon as a survival mechanism to get through this? So it wasn't taught. I think it was an intuitive thing, but I think that it's also developed now.

As I get older and I continue to see it work, and I teach these skills to other people, and then I hear their testimonies, when they come back and say, oh my gosh, I was in this terrible situation or this terrible moment, and I just spoke life into my situation, and it changed the direction. It changed the outcome. Those things all strengthened my faith in these actual tools that we have. Right. In Bud's, there was no breaking point for me, though. There was never a time that I thought about quitting, never a single moment. I never looked toward the bell.

And again, that's not because I'm any tougher than anyone else, man, but it's because I had been through a furnace of adversity prior to even towing the line. So I had quite a bit invested. Right. So you get through that, and then what was your deployment like? What was the experience of actually being a Navy SEAL? So I did multiple deployments over the course of the 12 years that I was active duty. As far as the experience of being a Navy SEAL, man, it's not as sexy as you would think. I'll tell you the best part about being a Navy SEAL is you get to go to work with heroes every single day. You get to go to work with these men that are just, you know, have integrity. These men that just will not quit. And you get to be surrounded by those people every day. That was the best part for me of actually being in the SEAL teams. As far as the day-to-day job,

it's a job, man. You know, you have a mission every day, whether it's training or actual mission, and you're a professional. You're an operator, and you get the job done. And nobody there is doing it for glory, at least not... There may be your oddball every now and then that's why they do it, but your real operators are just there to get a job done that needs to be done, man. Yeah. We're in an interesting time now where kind of prior to maybe a decade or so ago, nobody who was a Navy SEAL or a Special Forces soldier really talked about that experience publicly. But then somebody cracked the seal on that and wrote a book. And then there's been kind of this tremendous amount of interest in what that experience is like. Lots of books, lots of people who have become public speakers,

and these things turn into movies and television shows. I don't know how much you're allowed to talk about your actual missions or deployment, but there is kind of a public lens on this life that didn't exist probably when you began all of this. So how do you think about that as somebody who is an alumnus of that experience? I'll tell you, Rich, that's a really interesting question. I'll tell you, Rich, that's a really interesting question. I think that the times that we're in, the times we're living in right now, the more complicating life becomes, the more complicating our society becomes, the more we have these devices, we have social media, where we have these devices, we have social media,

the more complicating life becomes, the more people are hungry for the lessons that we've learned, not only as SEALs, but in ultra running. I think that's why ultra running is making this huge jump right now. I think we're living in a time, man, that people are hungry for these lessons and for this pure mentality. And, you know, I could be just as happy, Rich, if I moved to the mountains in North Georgia and lived in a cabin and never spoke to anyone other than my friends again. But I feel like I would be doing a disservice to my brothers and sisters, everyone within our community, everyone that listens to this,

if I didn't at least come and share with you the things that I've learned and the things that have worked for me. Yeah. So do you consider that a call to service? Yeah. It's almost, it's like for me, it's like continued service. It's like I've, this is how I continue my mission is by sharing the things that I've been given, man. Right. Well, I think we are in a moment where we've never seen people as lonely and kind of mentally discontent as they are. And yet we're more prosperous than we ever have been before.

It's not about like, I can't buy the television. It's about this social contract that we've created that prioritizes comfort and luxury and ease above the things that actually make us happy, which is connection with other humans and experience and living outside of your comfort zone and tackling obstacles and challenges. And also, you know, I think it's sort of not socially acceptable to kind of tell people the hard truth, you know, in polite conversation. And here comes all these Navy SEALs who are like, that's bullshit, man. If you want this, then you're going to have to do that. Like, they're just, they're just,

they're not mincing words. They're just telling you what you actually really need to hear if you feel like you're in a rut or you're trying to, you know, kind of, you know, achieve a better life for yourself. That's right, Rich. And, Rich, there's a lot of days that go by that I never talk about being a SEAL. Like, when I come on these podcasts to talk about SEALs, like Navy SEAL stuff, there is a aspect of it that makes me uncomfortable, to be honest with you. Really? Because why?

Because we were trained to be silent professionals. And that's what we are the whole time we're active duty. You are a silent professional. And now, I think the important thing for me now is to remember the fact that I'm not sharing these things with you because for my own glory or to put myself on a pedestal, I'm sharing these things with you because I love you and I want you to have everything that you want. I want you to be able to achieve your goals. And you may be able to do that without me, but if I can help you in any way, shape, or form, that's my mission, man. I get that. I believe you too. Does it feel a little bit like a betrayal then to talk about it, given that you were trained to kind of zip it?

I don't feel like it's a betrayal because here's the thing, Rich. We're not sitting here talking about the missions that we did. We're not sitting here talking about the bad things, the war and the things that happened there. We're talking about tools that we can apply in our day-to-day life. If I was sitting here talking to you about some mission overseas and the intricacy and the details of that, that would be a betrayal. But we're not talking about tactics, man. I'm not telling you anything right now that an enemy could listen to at some day and get an advantage over the guys that are still

in the fight right now do you understand that? yeah I get that completely so I don't feel that's why I don't feel like I'm betraying anyone yeah I get it so other than don't die in the chair and break things down into what's,

you know, immediately in front of you to do, like, what are the other, and the spoken word thing, like, what are the other, like, big lessons that you want people to understand? I'd say another essential message that people might take the wrong way. I use this now in ultra running, and we used it back in training. Don't give a voice to your pain or suffer in silence. That was a mantra we had in the teams, and that is not at all related to mental or emotional pain. I'm talking about physical pain that you feel during times of self-inflicted adversity. And it's helped me tremendously in ultra running. When you're deep

into a race, man, and everything hurts, and you look over at your buddy, and when you look over at your buddy and when you look over at your buddy remember that your buddy feels the same pain that you're feeling so what use what's what service are you doing to him or to yourself if you say gosh man this hurts so bad like he already knows it hurts man and that was how we operated you know going through buds. You never looked at, you looked over at your buddy and you said, man, that guy's just as cold as I am. There's no reason for me to talk about how cold I am right now. Right. So it kind of where, you know, an example of how I utilize it in ultra running or seen at work was I did a race last May called Cruel Jewel. It was 106 miler in North Georgia, had 33,000 feet of elevation gain and loss. So super difficult course. And this was actually

my first hundred miler. It was two years ago, actually. And so I'm running this race. I'm doing good up into about mile 70. And I tore my hamstring right down here where it connects to the back of my knee and man you won't talk about hurting brother it hurt something terrible and it's got swollen up and red and but I didn't so I still had 30 miles left. I never said a word to anyone about it. Never told an aid station worker, never told my crew, like, oh, my gosh, I tore my hamstring. It hurts like crazy. So I carry on through this race, and I'm still able to make ground. And I hadn't gave a voice to that pain until I had five miles left.

I came to the last aid station and I lost control of my rudder man. And I told the aid station worker how bad my hamstring had been hurting for the last four or five hours. And when I gave a voice to that physical pain that I was feeling, gave a voice to that physical pain that I was feeling. There again, it gave power to that pain and that injury. And it almost took control of me from a mental standpoint when I gave it a voice. And I had like five miles left. It took me three hours to cover that last five miles, man. So it crushed me. Well, so you finished. I finished. You finished. I finished. There is an argument that maybe that wasn't the wisest thing to do, right? Like there's a difference between physical pain and the pain that emanates from like damaging yourself in a

really bad way. Like if you ripped your hamstring, like I don't think anybody would, first of all, no one would give a shit if you stopped. And it might've, like if you ripped your hamstring like i don't think anybody would first of all no one would give a shit if you stopped and it might like if you had finished that race with that torn hamstring and then you were out for like a year because you just screwed yourself up so badly there again it's it's it's it's operational risk management it's your decision man yeah I didn't care what anybody else thought. This is all, these missions are mine, dude. I got it. You know what I mean? I got it. All right, so how long were you a SEAL for then? 12 years. 12 years. Yeah, I actually just got out this past January. Right, right. One of the things Jesse told me that you did is you were, you like bodyguarded for Obama. Can you talk about that? Or is that like off the record?

Yeah, I worked, I worked with Obama a few times. Did you? Yeah. Yeah. It was a good time. That must have been cool. Yeah. Oh, I enjoyed it. Yeah. He's a good dude. Enjoyed spending time with him. It was a cool experience for sure. Right. So just one of many though, man.

Spoken like a CEO. Like I could tell you don't want to talk too much about this. That's okay. Totally, man. So 12 years, and then you get kind of what's the equivalent of, like, an honorable discharge, right? Like, you had some injuries as a result. Like, there's a brain injury involved and I think some PTSD. Could you talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, it was multiple, It was kind of looking at the whole picture of me and then especially looking at the brain injury stuff. I was a breacher, which means we deal with explosives. deal with explosives. We were like the explosives expert within the platoon. And I had been exposed to multiple, no telling how many blasts. And I noticed that it was affecting me in different ways, both mentally and physically. And finally, I had to go and talk to a doctor about it. It was impacting my performance out in the field. And they basically said, yeah, this is what's going on. You don't need to be exposed to this anymore because we risk really diminishing your quality of life if we continue to expose you to this. And I was

medically retired. Got it. So basically exposure to ordinance blasts over however long period of time, like time and time again, like the repetitive nature of that, being exposed to that. Yeah. Yeah. That was essentially the big one. And then, of course, you know, you have joint injuries. They look at the whole picture when they start thinking about the medical retirement. Right. So when you're now faced with having to return to civilian life, like, is that hard? Yeah, yeah. It's tough, Rich.

Yeah, yeah, it's tough, Rich. I think the toughest thing about it, man, is when you – it's the same as a professional athlete or a musician. When you have your entire identity wrapped around this one thing, when you lose that one thing, whether it's a professional athlete, a SEAL, a musician, whatever, it can be a crushing blow. Yeah. So, you know, I was blessed in a way that I had found ultra running. That helped me diversify my identity.

It helped me. You found that when you were a SEAL? About a year before. So when they started talking about the whole medical retirement thing, I started ultra running because that was a really stressful time for me, man. I don't like going to the doctor. I was going to the doctor like three times a day, and it was driving me crazy. So I started ultra running. Right off the bat, or just like, I'm going to run, like most people start running, you know, I'm going to go run around the base or something like that. Like, they're not like, I'm going to be an ultra runner. Was it, was it that baked in from the beginning? Like, I'm going to do ultras? that baked in from the beginning? Like I'm going to do ultras?

Yeah. I mean, I had never ran a marathon. I've never ran a 10K. I signed up for a 50 mile race. The first race you signed up for. Yeah. The first race. It was the Iron Mountain Ultra Marathon in Damascus, Virginia. So yeah, I signed up for that race and went out there and it completely obliterated me. But I saw the community there. Like, I really loved the community, like that grassroots feel. It's almost like family, dude. Like, when I'm out on the trail, I'm calling guys like brother or sister because I legitimately view them as my brother or sister.

It's like family. I loved it, and I loved how that event crushed me. It broke down all these barriers that we have built up between each other. Man, when you're out there and you just crush yourself, all these barriers just crumble and like an ultra is the one place that i can truly like let my emotions just flow man i can cry if i want to cry i can laugh i can get angry it doesn't matter those and that was something that It doesn't matter.

And that was something that as an operator, you didn't really show emotion. You were kind of trained that way not to show emotion. So you have this opportunity to express that in a different way. Yeah, it brings you back to like a pure form of humanity. Yeah, it's almost like that's what you needed in order to be integrated once again, and you found a way to figure that out through this vehicle of running. That's it, yeah. Wow. But yeah, it was still, when I finally was separated from the Navy, it was still tough, man, because I was still, in a sense, when I got out of the Navy, I was still trying to hang on to all those things that I had done as a SEAL. And I was trying to depend upon those things to move me forward into my future life.

Right. But I had a vision one night, man, and I was able to let go of all that old stuff because a ship doesn't sail on yesterday's wind, right? And when I had that vision and I was able to let go, it allowed me to then propel myself into the life I'm living now. Right. Well, if you think we're just going to blow by the fact that you have this vision without me asking you about it, you're insane. So tell me about this vision. Yeah, man. I'll tell you about it. And this is probably the first time i've talked about this publicly but i'm late so i'm in that place where like we talked about i'm depending on i'm hanging on to all this old stuff thinking that this is going to move me forward in life from a career

standpoint from a social standpoint you know still kind of hanging on to that identity. And I'm laying in bed one night, and I'm just frustrated, Rich. And in my mind's eye, as I'm laying in bed, I'm awake, and I see a scroll appear in front of me in the center of my vision. And on that scroll was written everything that I was hanging on to. It was like a resume, essentially. And as I'm looking at this scroll, I'm like, what in the world? Like an ancient papyrus scroll or something? Totally, man.

Yeah, it was like an old scroll. Like an ancient scroll or something? Totally, man. Yeah, it was like an old scroll. And so I'm reading, okay, this is basically my resume, all this cool stuff I've done. So around that scroll, these clouds, dark clouds, started to build. And as those clouds were building, that scroll began to shrink. those clouds were building, that scroll began to shrink. Well, what those clouds, it came to me in that moment, those clouds represented the presence of my God. And as the presence of God built around

this scroll, it shrunk and it continued to shrink and the presence of God continued to build. And the scroll got so tiny that I could no longer read the words written on the scroll. So what do you make of that? I have some ideas, but tell me how you interpreted that was my God was telling me in that moment that, Chad, I can do so much more than what you have done, but you've got to let go of these things that you're hanging on to. If you want to let me work within your life and propel you forward into your new mission, you've got to let go of these. And when I had that revelation, when that was revealed to me, the message of that vision, I no longer looked at that scroll as a resume. looked at that scroll as a resume. I looked at it as a tomb. They were actually things that I thought that could propel me forward, but they were actually things that in reality were going to

hold me back. So I gave it all. I was able in that moment, when I figured out the message here, I was able to let it all go and move forward now into my future with just this clean and pure perspective and just let go. and just let go. And I'm also able now to really see the design within my life, things that are orchestrated obviously by something larger than me. More powerful than you. More powerful than me. But I couldn't see that before, man,

because I was depending upon myself for everything. Right, I mean, that's a beautiful spiritual experience. What I see in that is somebody who was holding on very tightly to this story, this identity, who you tell yourself you are, and like kind of hanging your ego on these pegs based on these experiences that you've had and the journey forward to wholeness to this next chapter

was to surrender all of that, to like lay it down at the feet of God, right? Come on, man. Basically to set aside your ego and just be open to possibilities and kind of wipe that chalkboard clean. Totally. That's a hard thing to do.

It is. You know, I mean, like when I was in rehab, I kind of had my own version of that, like learning how to, you know, really surrender. And I think for somebody who is a type A personality or somebody who like, look, clearly you had this dream of becoming a SEAL and nothing was going to get in the way of that. And the only person that was going to make it happen was you. So you were somebody who was kind of crafted, sort of born out of this willfulness, like self-will, right? And I'm

sure you have a million things that you can point to in your memory and experiences to say, I would have died had I not done that, or I took care of that, and it's all me, me, me. But in order to broaden your life experience, ultimately you have to realize the limitations of self-will and that really, in reality, self-will is your biggest limiter.

But that's something that's very difficult to let go of for somebody who is accomplished or somebody who, you know, knows how to set a goal and achieve it. Yeah, yeah. And it was essential for me to be able to let, I'm not saying, you know, I had to, it was essential in that moment because I had, you know, that part of my identity had ended and I had to move forward, you know? Right. But you hit the nail on the head, Rich. I mean, that is the perfect interpretation of that vision. You speak it so much more eloquently than I do. I like your version. I want to talk about your faith more because I think it's super interesting.

I mean, first of all, you have this wild story, one of the catalysts that brought you into your spiritual perspective. Can you share that? You know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. Yeah, man. Yeah. So, yeah.

I mean, you weren't born and bred reading the Bible every day, right? This is a newer thing. It is, Rich, and I'll talk to you about my faith, but I want to preface it with this. By no means am I telling anyone what they should do. All I can do is tell you what has worked for me and why I can tell you the stories of why I believe how I believe. That's all there is to it, brother. I appreciate it. So yeah, when I essentially, and I'll use some Jesus talk now. Okay. When I had my come to Jesus moment was actually while I was overseas and I had no, you know, spiritual spirituality. That was just wasn't a part of my life, man. Had no connection to a God. Didn't grow up with it. You know, it was it was I have to say it was on and off as we were coming up as children.

But, you know, I at that point I had branched off and I was living my own life, man. I had me personally, I had no personal relationship to a God. Yeah. So we're staying in this place overseas and there was four of us. One of the four guys was a Christian and we're staying in this building and the one that was a Christian, he started reading his Bible every evening. Sounds crazy, bro.

But when he started doing that, these weird things started happening within this place we were staying. And they were, I call them now, it was really an evil thing. So the things that were happening were causing fear and discontent and discomfort within our group. So he starts reading his Bible. He obviously aggravates this spiritual presence, this other spiritual presence that is dwelling in this place. Right. You're talking about paranormal. Paranormal activity. So yeah, I remember the first thing, like, I'm laying in bed one night, and something hits my door, and I hear, like, singing up and down the hallways of this place where we were staying. And I get up, and everybody's passed out, and it scared me. What kind of singing?

It didn't—I don't remember it as sound. It was not words. It was more just, like, tones. Uh- like tones, tones flowing up and down the hallway. And it didn't have an evil sound to it, but the event had fear attached to it. Right. And you're in some kind of, not like a house, but like a building. You're on a mission, basically. Yeah, we're on deployment.

like a build you're on a mission yeah yeah we're yeah we're on we're on deployment and and so as as the days progress these this paranormal activity continues to happen and also our moods as like as as teammates this spiritual presence was bearing down on our moods. And it got to the point where it was affecting our interactions with each other and the way we felt about each other and just really just getting us in a rut, man. So you're not the only one who's experiencing this. So eventually after a week or so, you got four Navy SEALs sleeping in the same room together because they're freaked out about what's going on. Right. These super badasses now all have left their respective rooms, and you're all sleeping in the same room. That's it, my man.

All right. Hold on a second. So what was that like the first time? Hold on a second. So what was that like the first time? Like when this happens to you, you must think either I'm imagining something or I'm the only one who's having this experience, right? So at some point, you have to have a conversation with someone else like, hey, I heard this thing. Did you hear it too? Like, how did that go? Yeah. Oh, man. Dude, I mean, we were so close. I mean, it was like, you know, we- Did you hear that?

Yeah, exactly. Hey, what happened in your room last night? And we, you know, we would talk about these things and it wasn't necessarily at night. I mean, this place, you could walk into this, it got to a point where you could walk into this place. And like, I remember there was a stairwell walk into this place. And I remember there was a stairwell, and the stairwell went up, and then it cut back. So as I was walking up the first portion of the stairwell, I could feel a presence of something up and behind me, watching me and bearing down on me as I enter this place. And when I would make that turn, I would fully expect to see something evil standing there, but I never did. So we're talking about it, man. And it's obvious that this crazy stuff is going on. And it was obviously initiated by the spiritual side of our one teammate that had that as a part of his life.

Right. He opened up this Pandora's box of evil spirits raining down upon you. This sounds so crazy, but I'm telling you, bro, it's so real. I dig it. I'm into it. We're in this crazy battle of good and evil, and finally I get sick of it, dude, and I call my brother back home in the States, and I knew that my brother was a Christian. He had made that decision long ago, and I knew about that.

And I said, look, Blake, I don't know what's going on here, man, but I'm tired of this. I can't rest. We can't work together as teammates. This is just getting out of hand. Do you have any advice? What can we do here? Because I'm sick of it. And he said, well, let me put you in touch with my pastor.

He puts me in touch with the pastor of his local church there. That gentleman calls me back overseas and says, hey, I got an idea of what's going on here. Will you put me on speakerphone and allow me to walk around this building, and will you allow me to pray over this space? Essentially, he's going to perform an exorcism, right? Hopefully, man. Yeah, all right. Totally. So I'm like, I actually, when this went down,

I waited for everyone else to leave because I thought that even though this was so real to all of us, like I'm taking it one, like a step too far, man. Right, and you're like all of two days into Bible study at this point. That's it, far, man. Right, and you're like all of two days into Bible study at this point, right? That's it, man, yeah. So I walk around this building with this guy that I don't know, never met before, praying over this area.

And then he says, hey, go get some olive oil and we're gonna anoint the door. And I'm like, all right, bro. Come on, man. Get some olive oil, pour it in a little cup. He continues to pray, and I just take my finger and anoint the door of the place we were staying in. Like the outside door. The outside door. And also the door to the room that we were staying in. And so after I did this, man, complete and total peace returned to this place and to our mood, our relationships within our team. It was like, I can breathe again. That's bananas.

I can breathe again. That's bananas. And so it blew me away, and I was like, okay, there is some power here. Maybe I should look into this because of this experience that I just had. It was so real. So I went out and bought me a Bible, and I started digging into the teachings of this guy named Jesus. And throughout the rest of that deployment, there were things that happened that really set my faith into concrete. Give me an example of that. I'll give you one single example.

We were out playing one day, and we were in this waterway that was filled with trash and dead bodies. And I was water skiing on a spine board for fun. And I fell off and fell into this water with literally with decaying human beings around me. It's just the terribleness of the place that we were in. And I get a gut full of this water. and I get up back up on our vessel, and I shouldn't have been doing what I was doing in the first place, but our medic starts freaking out. He's like, dude, this is bad.

This is not good. And I had remembered I had been studying the Bible for about a month prior to this event, and I remembered when the Bible said, if you'll speak my words out loud, if you'll remember the Scripture and use it, it'll work for you. That's essentially a simple message of the Bible, and I had remembered a scripture that said, no pestilence or plague shall come near unto me. And when this happened, I told my group, I said, I'm good, bro. No pestilence or plague shall come near unto me. And I used that scripture in front of a group of unbelievers, and I was totally fine from that point forward. Never had any sickness or issues.

Now, that could potentially be coincidence, but that's just one example. And so these things continue to happen throughout deployment. Then I get home and my wife was dying from a disease called addiction. And I had this newfound faith. And I started to learn about addiction, obviously, because I was about to lose her. But I realized that there was nothing that I could say to change her mind. So all I did was I was using this new tool that I had now called prayer. And I prayed.

I would march circles around my house, pray over the place in bed where she slept. And after about a month of that, she came to me one day and she said, hey, I want to get clean. There was no reason for it. I wasn't having this discussion with her about, hey, you need to get clean. You need to get in rehab. I knew how helpless I was, so I just shut my mouth, man. And so there again, I take that as my prayers. An affirmation of your faith. An affirmation of the prayers that I had said. And of course, there's going to be 10,000 people listen to this and just say, that's all coincidence.

It doesn't matter. This is your experience. Yeah, it's just my experience, man. And that's what I'm saying. All I can tell you is the design that I've seen within my life. And then, you know, so that event in and of itself, you know, was another thing that really just set my faith in concrete and made me say, well, oh, my gosh, you know,

here is this loving God that has actually honored my prayers because I have chose to serve Him. Yeah. I'm sorry to hear about your wife. So you come back after deployment, and she's struggling with this thing. I mean, that's a very powerless place to find yourself. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But it was there again, Rich, I mean, it's one of those things that, first of all, I didn't know anything about addiction. And I always looked down on addicts. But walking through this, when I was, as I walked through this with my wife, I realized that addicts are some of the best people on earth if they can just get clean. So it changed my whole perspective on addiction. So thankful for that, man. When I see somebody struggling with that drug addiction or alcohol, never do I look down upon them because I know

they're just bound up with these chains, man. And if they can break these chains, they're going to be some of the best people on earth. Sometimes. Most of the time, brother. I would second that. Yeah. I think there's a lot of people that suffer from addiction and alcoholism that are, in a certain respect, spiritual seekers. They're just seeking their answers in an unhealthy way, and they fall prey to this thing that becomes very difficult to claw out of.

But when you – and I believe strongly that a huge part of the solution is spiritual. Like you have to find a spiritual connection. You have to weather a version of what you experienced with the scroll, right? Like you have to surrender yourself. You have to understand that there's a power greater than yourself that you can avail yourself of to help you confront this thing.

And it's about relinquishing the ego and self-will. That's a big part of it, I think. So she's okay now, though? Yeah. Oh, yeah. She's doing awesome. And I'll tell you, Rich, there again, we went through that furnace of adversity together as a married couple. And, of course, her portion of that was a lot more painful than my portion. My pain came just through watching the pain that she was going through. I can only tell my side of that journey. Of course.

But, you know, we went through that together, Rich, That journey. Of course. But, you know, we went through that together, Rich, and we came out the other end, brother, and we got the best marriage on earth. Like she's my best friend in the world, and everything is just wonderful, but it's because we can really appreciate the time

that we have together now. Yeah. So adversity is a tool, man. Yeah. That's all it is. Well, one of the things that you've talked about that I love and I agree with completely is this idea that the intensity of adversity

tends to ratchet up or increase the closer you get to accomplishing the goal, right? It's almost like the closer that you got to becoming a SE goal, right? It's almost like, you know, the closer that you got to becoming a SEAL, you got thrown this thing that seemed like it was an impossible obstacle that you had to overcome. Or the closer you get to the finish line of an ultra, that's when, you know, it becomes the hardest. And I look at that and I see it getting played out time and time again, and no matter what people are trying to accomplish or achieve. And I think of it as like a spiritual test.

Like, okay, this is the thing that you want. We're going to work towards that. But before I let you have it, let's just make sure that you're actually ready for it. Well, not only is it a test, but it's the laws of nature. Okay. Did you know, Rich, that we can look at these things around us, this nature that we live in, and that you can take principles from nature and see the application in life so what you just said did you know that this is a fact that the darkest and coldest part of every single night is right before the dawn breaks that is the darkest and coldest part of of a night and you know that from ultra running, man. Yeah. Man, when you get to those

hours that are like three, four, five, right there before the dawn is about to break, oh my gosh, if it's wintertime race, that's the coldest part of the night, man. Right. And so that's a law of nature. And all that stuff transfers into life, in my opinion. I look at the lessons within nature and see the parallels in life. Right. So what is the relationship between your faith and ultra running? What does that interplay look like for you? I think a big part of, talk about faith. Faith in and of itself, Rich, is all that word means to me is that I believe in something bigger than myself that I can't see or put my hands on. I think the better question that I might could answer is how does ultra running is how does ultra running help me from a spiritual, physical, and emotional aspect?

So from a body, soul, spirit aspect. So I don't feel like ultra running in any way impacts my faith. It doesn't make me believe any more or less in a God, but it does help me from a body, soul, spirit standpoint, which then in turn brings me closer to God, but it allows me to listen to Him and be in tune with Him more so than I could without ultra running. So ultra running, Rich, essentially when you're ultra running, So ultra running, Rich, essentially when you're ultra running, it is a body and soul exercise.

And for a lot of people, it's also a spiritual thing. But when you're ultra running, you are mastering, you're bringing your flesh into subjection. You're making your flesh, your body do what you want it to do. So you're training the body, you're making it stronger, you're building that discipline. And from a soul perspective, the soul being the mind, will, and emotions, that's what our soul is. It's what do we want to do or not want to do? How do we feel about a certain activity? You're disciplining your mind, will, and emotions,

and you're bringing those, the aspects of your soul, also into subjection. And then from a spiritual standpoint, for me, just being in nature, what I would call God's creation is how it nurtures me from a spiritual standpoint. All these trees and plants and stuff, man, all this stuff's alive. Yeah, man. It's all alive, man. Yeah. So I love that.

That was beautifully put. I would imagine that you didn't expect to have that kind of broad perspective when you signed up for that first 50 miler, right? Like how did you come into this love affair with this sport? Well, there again, for me, Rich, it was that first one. That was it? That was it. It lit you up?

It was that. It just broke me down. It broke these walls down. It was that body, soul, spirit type thing, and I was able to identify how ultra running was helping me master, nourish, and maintain those three aspects of me as a human. And also the community. I loved the community.

That was another big one, man. Well, I would imagine a big part of having to kind of weather the transition into civilian life is that you don't have these guys that you have such an intimate relationship with. Like these teammates, like the brotherhood and all of that is sort of gone and you have to figure out another way to build that into your life, right? So that community, I'm sure played a part in that. And there is something very specific about ultra running that when you're trying to answer

these big questions for yourself, like, okay, well, what am I gonna do now with my life? All that solitude and that connection with nature is a great way to kind of wrestle with those questions to try to find the answers for yourself. It is. It is, yeah. Yeah, and you talk about that solitude and that connection with nature. I get so much energy from the living things within nature. It's happened to me only twice, but I can distinctly remember two times I was leaning

against a tree for a long period of time, and I actually was able to feel the life and almost personality of this tree pass through me or into me i could feel it um right right in here where my where my heart is and uh like you're having a psychedelic experience like yeah but i've never i mean i've never done drugs before man but it was i think your brain is dripping dmt and your sister or something like that. You have all these visions. And I realized that this, dang, this stuff is alive, man. Like we can get energy. We can get perspective.

We can get that from nature and the things that are living in nature. So that's a big. To see it, like there's something about ultra running that strips away, you know, everything, you know everything you know that gets in the way of being able to have that connection yeah totally man yeah so i think that's a big part of those walls you know tearing those walls down but there's a difference between hey you know i like this ultra running thing and like winning races and just like doing these super crazy race like you've you've created quite a career for yourself as an ultra runner.

You've been super successful. I want to talk about this Revenant race. Can we talk about that? Yeah, we can talk about the Revenant. Yeah. Was that last year? When did you do that? Yeah, that was last year, and then we'll be going,

or I'm going back this year, obviously to give it another go um but the revenant is a very unique event held on the south island of new zealand and the basic format of the race it's um 450 kilometer loops but it's all off trail and you have to navigate the course with map and compass. Uh-huh. So it's very similar. I'm sure you've heard of the Barkley Marathons. Yeah, of course. Barkley gets all the press, but this Revenant one sounds even harder. Yeah. Yeah. It's, well, I mean, every race is, it's hard to say which race is harder than the other because they all have their specific, you know, difficulties. But, yeah, the terrain on the South Island, New Zealand,

is very, very hard to get through. It's a very harsh environment. And then also, too, you have weather. I would say, you know, the weather in New Zealand is just as extreme, if not more extreme, as the weather you would experience in Tennessee. We went out and I gave it the first shot last year and made it around one loop. Hold on a second. First of all, this race, it also has like 105,000 feet of vertical gain too, right?

Yeah, it's got a lot of climbing. Bushwhacking. And prior to your involvement with this race, not a single person had ever completed one loop, let alone four. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So- And how long, how many years has the race been around for? Well, actually, so the thing is last year was the inaugural year of the race. Yeah. So this was something that the race director, Scott Worthington, he has went out and designed this course, and he has done this course under perfect conditions. So he knows it can be completed. But there's so many things when you're doing a race like this that are out of your control, environmental factors.

Right. You know what I mean? Right. So, you know, that's what makes it different than a normal 100-miler is if you have an inversion layer move in and it's so foggy you can't see the ground you're standing on, you can't navigate in that type of environment. Right. Whereas a normal race, you're just on a trail with your head down, you can turn everything off and rock and roll. So you show up for this thing, there's crazy unprecedented weather,

but you're able to do a loop, right? You're the only person who's done a loop? There were, I think, three people that did, that finished one loop last year. No one finished a second loop. So that one loop is the most that's been done on the course. Yeah. I mean, we got through it, man. It wasn't pretty. My favorite thing are these races that no one has ever actually completed. Yeah. Or these last man standing races, My favorite thing are these races that no one has ever actually completed. Yeah, yeah. Or these last man standing races, you know,

which is just a different way to compete with yourself. Yeah, I love them too, man. Yeah. So how did you get connected with Jesse? Jesse was training for a last man standing event. Uh-huh. And he actually hit me up on Instagram. I just had created this newfangled Instagram account last May.

So yeah, he hit me up and said, hey, man. You can't be on Instagram when you're a Navy SEAL. No, totally, man, totally. Yeah, my buddy was like, you got to do this instagram thing and i so i got on there and jesse hit me up it's been it's been a blessing to that's been an awesome platform to share the message you know on now but he just invited me to come out and run with him and my brother mark brown and uh we spent a day we ran 50 miles that day. There were a few rules that I had set in place for our group that day, and we hit it off. What were the rules?

What do you mean you set rules? So the rules for the day were we had to run until I said stop. I didn't want them to know where the finish line was because we were really trying to replicate the environment that they were going to experience at the Last Man Standing event. We had to share one thing every hour that we were thankful for with each other. That's cool. Three grown men. Yeah. It might sound silly, right?

No, I don't think that's – I think that's cool. Yeah, it was. It was. It was so cool because when Jesse or Mark would share something that they were thankful for, it might have been something that by no means applies to my life, but just them expressing that thankfulness gave me a boost of energy. So that was the point in that exercise was to really keep our speech revolving around things that we were thankful for and things that positivity. Right. Last rule, no cussing.

Uh-huh. Same stuff, spoken word, man. So, yeah, we ran 50 miles together. You know the bonds that form in those times. And that was it. And that was it. And that was it. I mean, how could you not like being around Jesse? And you don't know Mark yet, but both of them.

For those that are listening, we got the two guys here sitting like right off camera. I mean, and Jesse is such an amazing person. He is. He's such a beautiful and also charismatic natural leader and he's just all about the group you know what i mean you spend 15 minutes around jesse you're gonna feel like you can conquer the world man i know i know he's very gifted i'm so thankful for his friendship and you know he's taught me so much you know you talked about jesse Jesse saying I was his go-to guy. Well, Jesse's also my go-to

guy. It's a friendship. We just share with each other the lessons that have worked for us. So do you live around Atlanta now, or where do you call home? We just moved back to Atlanta, my wife and I, about three or four weeks ago. Oh, okay. Yeah, so we just left Virginia Beach, and we're loving life, man. Nice. North Georgia's awesome. What's a typical day look like for you, training-wise?

So typical day, Rich, I wake up in the morning around 6 o'clock. I give the first fruits of my day to God. So maybe that's five minutes, maybe that's 45 minutes, either studying His Word or prayer. Move on from there, I French press a little coffee, get a cup of coffee in, and then I'm training from seven or eight in the morning until noon. So I'm taking a four, I'm blocking out four to five hours a day usually to train. That is all dependent on what I'm training for or where I'm at within that training cycle. So it could be a four-hour hike. It could be a 30-mile run. It could be intervals. It could be be interval it could be a long run plus strength

training it's different depending on obviously what i'm training for do you work with a coach or are you doing this yourself yeah i don't i don't work with a coach and you know i've been we've been doing i've been doing kind of hard stuff running running, endurance-type stuff for so long. I mean, all that stuff was born in the SEAL teams, you know, that I just have reached a point that I can listen to my body and kind of know when I need to push hard and when I need to back off. So I haven't really got to the point that I need a coach yet. Right. And what are you currently training for?

Like what's the big race that you're keying on right now? So the Revenant in January, that's a big one. And then I'll probably do Cruel Jewel again in May, that race in North Georgia where I tore my hamstring. I actually finished eighth place out there two years ago. So I'm thinking I can go back now with a little more knowledge and a stronger body and hopefully, you know, do much better. And what about Barkley? I got a crack to revving it first, man. I mean, yeah, we'll talk about Barkley after that, man. Well, let's pivot a little bit to talking about, like, I'm interested in hearing more about,

you know, your wisdom that could be helpful to people that are listening out there. We're embarking on a new year. And like I said at the outset, people are trying to wrap their heads around how to achieve these goals that they've set for themselves. And what do you think are some of the biggest obstacles that people put in front of themselves unnecessarily? obstacles that people put in front of themselves unnecessarily. So one of the big ones for me personally is overthinking stuff, man. And that just, I mean, it just goes back to simplifying a situation. So if you set a goal for yourself or you might be trying to establish a goal, for me, there's only two questions. Is this something that you want? And are you going to have fun along the journey, along the way. So whatever that goal may be, instead of sitting

there thinking about it and stressing about it and thinking about everything that could potentially stop you or hinder you, just make sure it's what you want. Make sure you're going to have fun on the journey to accomplishing that goal, and then just rock and roll with it. Get started. Start surrounding yourself with the people that are going to help you, the people that might have the knowledge that you need to accomplish that goal. Start utilizing your time better to accomplish your goal or to reach the point that you're trying to.

It's utilizing all those tools, the universal tools that we all have. We have people. We have time. All of us have these things. Some of us may have a little more than others, but that doesn't matter. What about the guy who sends you a DM on Instagram and says, man, I'm so inspired by all these things that you've done. I'd love to run an ultra one day, but my life's too busy for that.

Oh, man. You have time for what you make time for, man. Your life, that to me is not a valid excuse, dude. Here's the thing, that specific question, I just did two, no, a month ago, I did two back-to-back 100-mile races. I did a 100-miler called the Georgia Jewel. I placed second place there. The week after that, I did another 100-miler with Jesse. So back-to-back, prior Jesse. So back to back, prior to those races, the three months prior to those races, I had only averaged about 20 miles per week of training. Wow.

So the time commitment, people just blow up the training cycle that they think has to precede these races, man. You know, the time commitment is not that significant. In other words, the idea that before you're going to run a 100-miler, you got to put in two years of consistent 100-mile weeks. Exactly, man. I just, I don't subscribe to that. Exactly, man. I just, I don't, I don't subscribe to that. There again, I think somebody that, that doesn't have much running background, if they, if they surround themselves with people that can kind of give them the right, the right advice from a mindset standpoint, and also just from a how to take care of yourself standpoint, that the training commitment is not that great.

It's all, for me, it's all about just having a strong, healthy body and spending time on your feet, man. Yeah. So what is the mental routine that you utilize to get your head right for these things? I mean, I guess it's baked into you at this point. head right for these things. I mean, I guess it's baked into you at this point, but if you were coaching somebody who, you know, isn't skilled at, you know, measuring their spoken words or, you know, doesn't quite have the ability to kind of master their emotional state because they're, you know, have some mental weaknesses, like how do you get that person to the next level? you know, have some mental weaknesses, like how do you get that person to the next level?

I would tell them after we talked about the spoken word, we talked about all those tools, when the pain gets, when this self-inflicted pain, when it gets to be significant and you think that you just cannot handle it, the biggest thing that I do is I stop fighting against it. And I come to this realization that I reach this steady state, I call it the steady state, to where, yeah, it hurts, but I understand that it's not going to hurt any worse because it already hurts as bad, you know, as bad as it can. And then I, I stopped fighting against the pain because when you fight, like when you're using your, your energy, like emotionally to like battle against this pain and you're hating it, you know, you're just hating this feeling that you're having. It actually gives that pain more power over you.

And I learned this in Bud's, man, with the cold when they'd put us in a surf zone and freeze us to death. It's like when you would fight against the cold, you just got colder and you were just more miserable. But when you just accepted the fact that, all right, I'm cold, and you just let that feeling just pass through you, it's like freeing. You free up this well of energy that you can then use to carry on with your mission. Right. And how does that play out in other areas of your life outside of running? How does that?

Outside of running. So I'll tell you, Rich, how that plays out is we talk about not fighting against the things that we hate. Like, I hate the cold, so I stop fighting against the cold. In my life, or in all of our lives, we only have a certain amount of energy every single day. So we choose how we want to use our energy. Every interaction that we have, every post we make, every email we respond to, every word we say is a withdrawal from our tank of energy. I try to remain constantly aware of how I'm using that precious energy. And I use that energy never to fight against the things that I might not agree with,

the things that I might hate. But I try to use that energy to foster and promote the things that have worked for me, that I believe and have found to be true and pure, and the message that I've been delivered. So using that energy, not fighting against the things that you might hate, because that's just going to grind you down, man. No matter what the issue is, if it's a political or a social issue, you're wasting your time. And usually... It's not effective anyway. It's not... Usually, you can make the biggest impact on the things that you hate by promoting the things that you love. And it's so much easier to promote the things that you love.

I think that's very wise. And we could all use a little bit more of that, particularly in our public discourse and on social media. And there's a significant portion of the population that exerts a huge amount of energy trying to tear other people down or just getting into arguments and fighting with people. And it's not effective. And I think it wears on your soul. And I think there's a sense of, like, weirdly, there's a sense of accomplishment that people have when they do, like, they think that they've actually, like, if you feel strongly about something, and you criticize somebody else, because they see the world differently, there's a sense that you actually are advancing your cause by doing that. And I think that that's an illusion. And I think it's,

it really does kind of, there's an erosion on yourself when you participate in that. And I'm always challenged though, because I think it is important to speak up for what you believe in, right? And there's a lot of dissonance out there right now. And there's a challenge, though, because I think it is important to speak up for what you believe in, right? And there's a lot of dissonance out there right now, and there's a lot of problems in the world and a lot of, you know, things that we could be doing better that we're not doing. But what is the best way to accomplish those things? Yeah. You know? Totally.

And it's, like I said, Rich, this is just my perspective, man. This is just what works for me. I think you saying that, yeah, you should stand up for the things that you believe in, like, yes, that has validity. But to put this in practical terms, if there's an issue in today's society that I don't agree with, you're not going to find me in town holding a poster board that I don't agree with. You're not going to find me in town holding a poster board marching against this cause. You're not going to find me posting things out into social media

that are warring against this cause. You're going to find me marching for the things that I believe in and to be pure and true. It's so much easier to do that, man. That's the way I live my life, man. Better for you too, right? No kidding, brother. You know?

No kidding. So what is the big... We're gonna wrap this up in a minute, but what is the thing that you're still struggling with? Like when you look at yourself or where you know, where you want to do better and be better, like talk to me about the obstacles that you're grappling with now and how you're trying to overcome them. I would say one of the biggest obstacles that I'm grappling with right now, and I hate even calling it an obstacle, man, because it's just something that I need to be. An opportunity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just something that I'm aware of right now is that kind of as things,

as my life starts rolling now, and as things kind of grow and get bigger with three of seven and the stuff that we have going on, the biggest thing that I try to remain aware of is I never want all this, all the stuff, like all the social media and all the the phone calls and the emails i never want that to get in the way of or tarnish the purity of myself or the things that i that that i my message you know what i mean so that's something that I'm so aware. I just try to stay aware of that, man. And not that I'm famous or anything on any, stuff. And I have to say, okay, this four or five hour block in the morning, this is non-negotiable. This is my time to go spend in the woods doing what I love to do because if I don't keep my own ship in order, I can't do anything

for anybody else. So maybe that sums it up, keeping my own ship in order so I can carry on. Be the best advocate that you can be. That's exactly right, brother. I feel you, man. And it gets, you know, it gets hard too. I couldn't imagine you, brother.

Well, basically people dangle in front of you like, you know, shiny things, like cool opportunities to go to cool places and do cool stuff. Yeah. And sometimes that you like, you know, shiny things, like cool opportunities to go to cool places and do cool stuff. And sometimes that's great, you know, but also it can be at the cost of making sure that you have boundaries around those things. So I've been on both sides of that and it gets, it's hard, but I think your head's in the right place with trying to make sure that you protect that because without that, there's nothing. There's nothing, man. There's nothing. And also being the best husband that

I can be, that's another thing. That's part of my ship. As I say, keeping my own ship in order, that's my wife and I, our family. I view that as a whole. So that's all part of that, man. Cool. All right. Well, let's end this with a man cool all right well let's end this um with a final thought for the person who's who's out there who feels stuck they're in a rut maybe they're not happy with their job or they're trying to get off the couch and move their body for the first time in a long time like how do we how do we cattle prod that that that that dude or that young lady to get after it a little bit more come on man oh my god bring us home man i am not much of a i like i'm going to hire you as my life coach bro i am not

much of a cattle prodder that that's that's the thing rich i mean like i say i just i'm so hesitant to give advice or to try to tell someone what to do. I mean, I guess I could just keep it super simple and go over the things we talked about. Simplify things. Don't be afraid to put yourself in adverse situations because that's where you're going to grow as a human being. The decisions you make in times of adversity, self-inflicted or totally out of your control, those decisions define who you are as a human. But don't fear inflicting that adversity on yourself because it's going to help you grow as a human being.

So I would say go put yourself through a little adversity. It may be only running for five minutes to start with. It may not be running. It may be something completely different than that. But don't fear it because I feel like it's essential for us as humans to experience that in life. And the last thing that I would say is if you're struggling emotionally from that kind of aspect is take a look at your body, soul, and spirit. Look at those three aspects of your humanity, each as a single lane. And think about what are you doing on a day-to-day basis to master, nourish, and maintain your body, your soul, and spirit. And usually, that can be used as a diagnostic to see, okay, I am lacking here. I'm lacking, and I need to get some help with my emotional side, my will, what I want and

don't want to do. Do I want to get out of bed in the morning? Do I not want to get out of the, you know, that type of stuff. And then the spiritual side, you know, that can be, it doesn't matter what it is. It could be spending time in nature. For me, it's spending time in God's Word. It could be anything, you know. Right. Well, for somebody who is very reluctant to provide a little, I guess I called it a cattle prod, but a little wisdom and advice, I think that's very beautifully said, man.

Thank you, Rich. I appreciate it, brother. Thank you for coming here today. I appreciate it. And thank you for your service. And please come back and talk to me some more, man. Roger that. I dig it. Next time, we gotta go running though. Oh, yeah. You went running in Beverly Hills today, right? LA, LA, dude. I know.

I like, dude, I was about to have a panic attack running down. It was crazy, man. That's pretty good. So I'm thankful to be out here in the country today, man. Next time, yeah, this is, I joked with you ahead of time. This is the North Georgia of Los Angeles. That's it, my man. Next time, you know where to hang out and stay. Thank you, man. Next time, yeah, this is, I joked with you ahead of time, this is the North Georgia of Los Angeles. That's it, my man. Next time you know

where to hang out and stay. Thank you, Rich. Peace. So if people want to connect with you, Instagram's the best place for them to find you? Yeah, Instagram,

it's, you can put it in the show notes. It's C-H-A-D-W-R-I-G-H-T-2-7-8 is my Instagram handle. And then also, if you're interested in more about 3of7project,

that's just 3of7project.com. Right. And you can find that on Apple Podcasts and all that kind of stuff? So the podcast portion is 3of7podcast. And yeah, that's on Apple.

But the blog and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, you can find the podcast on the website, 3of7project. of stuff. Yeah, you can find the podcast on the website, threeofsevenproject.com. So yeah, you can find it. If you're meant to find it, you'll find it. It's easy. Cool.

All right, man. Thank you, brother. Thank you, Rhys. Peace. God bless you both. So that happened. We did that. I think that should get you in the right mindset,

frame of mind to tackle 2020. What do you guys think? I really enjoyed it. Hope you dug Chad. Please check the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com for more information to immerse yourself in his world and let Chad know how this one landed for you by sharing your thoughts with him directly. You can find him on Instagram at ChadWright278 with one D. Interestingly, he's Chad with two Ds, but on Instagram, it's only one D, C-H-A-D-W-R-I-G-H-T 278. And also you can learn more about his three of seven project at threeofsevenproject.com. If you'd like to support the work we do here on the show, subscribe, rate, and comment on it on Apple podcasts. Tell your friends about your favorite episode, share the show on social

media, hit that subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Google. And you can also support us on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate. I appreciate my team for helping me put on the show week in, week out. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for videoing the podcast and editing it. Jessica Miranda for graphics. Ellie Rogers for portraits. DK for advertiser relationships

and theme music by Analema. Thanks for the love, you guys. Hope you're enjoying this introduction to 2020. And I will see you back here in a couple days with health psychologist Kelly McGonigal to talk about stress, anxiety, and the joy of movement. Here's a clip. Until then, remember, do not, under any circumstances, give your pain a voice. Don't do it. Peace.

Nams. Namaste. Movement is how your brain knows you are alive and engaged in life. And when you move on a regular basis, your brain basically says, I guess we have to be the best version of ourselves because we're in this thing called life. And so I think this is how we should frame movement, that it's something you can choose to do to really powerfully influence your mental health and your resilience. And every time you move, you're doing that. I believe that there's a form of movement meant for everyone. And no matter what body you're in, or no matter what your past experience is, there's probably a way that moving your body will give you access to something that you want,

whether it's social connection or hope, a different sense of yourself. I think people shouldn't believe that there are these tricks to behavior change that are beyond what your intuition can lead you to. If you are clear about what you care about and you're willing to experiment and not give up the first time it doesn't go as planned. Thank you.