How Navy SEAL Jason Redman Learned to Live Greatly After Trauma!

Key Takeaway

Navy SEAL Jason Redmond survived being shot 8 times and developed the 'Overcome Mindset'—built on three principles: awareness (things can go wrong), preparation (mental and physical readiness), and action (moving forward despite fear). His powerful hospital room sign declared: 'If you're coming with sadness or sorrow, don't bother. This is a room of fun, optimism, and intense rapid regrowth.' The key to living greatly isn't avoiding failure—it's refusing to reach life's end saying 'what if?' Jump off the ramp, even if you fail, because action enables greatness.

Episode Overview

This episode features Jason Redmond, a 21-year Navy SEAL veteran who survived being shot 8 times in a firefight. Jason shares his journey from hitting rock bottom—nearly getting kicked out of the SEALs due to arrogance and poor leadership—to developing an 'Overcome Mindset' that helped him recover from catastrophic injuries. The conversation explores leadership principles, trauma recovery, living without fear, and how to honor lost loved ones by becoming the best version of yourself. Jason emphasizes that there are 'no bad days' (only schedule disruptions), explains why past adversity prepares you for future challenges, and shares his powerful philosophy of 'living greatly'—taking action despite fear to avoid reaching life's end with regrets.

Full Transcript

Transcript of How Navy SEAL Jason Redman Learned to Live Greatly After Trauma! from The Ed Mylett Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

you've now been shot. It's eight times. A lot of people think that the day that I was wounded was probably the worst thing that ever happened to me. It's not. And I'll be honest, so many people get confused in this life and they define things that happened to them as a bad day. Have a slogan, there are no bad days. If you woke up this morning, it's still a good day. I survived a vicious enemy ambush. I almost got myself kicked out of the SEAL teams.

I had my brothers totally ostracized me. I ended up in a chair in Afghanistan with a gun in my mouth and almost took my life. Thankfully, God kind of slapped me in the back of the head and said, "What are you doing?" What message do you send to your wife and kids if you were to take your life in Afghanistan? You need to navigate through this. How did you not find yourself living in fear fear fear after the injuries? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So often we stand on the ramp of life and we have these hopes and goals and dreams and we're afraid.

We're afraid of failing again. What if people make fun of me or whatever it is? Jump. Jump. Cuz I tell you what, it is that action. It is that step off the end of the ramp that enables greatness. And even if you fail, so what? You have to live greatly. Don't get to the end of your life and be like, "What if I was too afraid to go after it?" Jump. Living greatly, baby. Welcome back to the show, everybody. This week's an honor for me because I've known of this man for probably a decade and we've sort of circled each other.

I've wanted him to be on the show. I had him come in and speak to one of my companies and he did so well we end up bringing him back every single year. He's just he's really an incredible man with a remarkable story. So just imagine this 21 years as a Navy Seal. Just take that right away. So I know I got your attention early. His insights into leadership, mindset, overcoming trauma. It's just there's so many topics that we can go with today. But if you're watching on YouTube, you can see that Jason had an injury to his face.

And so, one of the reasons that he came on my radar is he was shot, I believe it's eight times in a firefight. And that obviously is not something that you just wake up the next day and have breakfast. It's a life-changing event. And so, we're going to talk all things trauma. We're going to talk about relationships, believe it or not, with a Navy Seal. He's got a new book out right now called Mission Invincible Marriage. It's out right now. You can get it. and it's a really a book that he's done with his wife and so we got a lot of things to cover here in about 55 minutes.

So Jason Redmond, welcome to the show. Dad, honored honored to be on. I've wanted to talk to you for a long time because I think a lot of times in our life like we think we're going through tough stuff and in our own world we are. Right. Like maybe someone listening to this just went through a breakup or they've had a financial setback. And I've sort of said this to my kids over the years. You're having a bad day compared to what? Right. Right. Right. Right.

You had a bad day compared to anything. Would you mind just for my own edification audience taking us back to the day where really your life I guess had to change the most dramatically was that day or is that not the day that that happened? that happened? that happened? That is not the day. And often times a lot of people think that that you know the day that I was wounded was probably the worst thing that ever happened to me. It's not. And I'll be honest, I want to unpack even a little more.

Let's step back for a second. So many people get confused in this life and they define things that happen to them as a bad day. And I I have a slogan, there are no bad days. If you woke up this morning, it's still a good day. Because that means you have the ability to deal with whatever problem or challenge you're facing. I you know, real bad days leave permanent scars, physical, mental, emotional, financial, and sometimes they'll they'll cost people their lives. They are opportunities though to grow.

Most people who use that very trit phrase, oh, I'm having a bad day. It's merely a schedule disruption. That's all it is. Their day did not unfold in the manner that they thought it was going to, but they allow those negative thoughts to just carry with them. And then they project it on the people around them. And it impacts their business. It impacts their family and most importantly, it impacts their mindset. A mindset. A mindset. A and they're just schedule disruptions. Welcome to life. Things don't always go according to plan.

our ability to flex and and be positive and drive forward. For me, once again, going back to the day that I was wounded, um God prepared me for that day. And I often try and tell people, be thankful for the true bad days that come along. I call them life ambushes. I survived a vicious enemy ambush, but everybody gets ambushed in life. You talked about people define bad days. You know, the endings of relationships, financial crisis, life-threatening illness or injury, u all these different things can be bad days.

But when you go through them and you're successfully when you navigate to the other side, that is where we build our overcome muscles and it prepares you for future ones. Um, when we wrote my book, Overcome, we interviewed a bunch of people and we came up that the average human will go through about six six bad days in their lifetime. True bad days. Things that will forever leave physical, mental, emotional, or deep financial scars. If you navigate through them though, they make you better. I failed as a young leader.

I was a enlisted SEAL who did really well and unfortunately grew arrogant and uh and it led to my downfall through a whole bunch of different things. It was a slow erosion of my credibility as a leader that was culminated with a bad call on a mission in Afghanistan. And even that might not have been totally my downfall if I had owned it. When my leadership said this was a terrible decision, if I had owned it and said, "Wow, you're right. This was a terrible decision." But I didn't.

and I fought against it and said, you know, I did the right thing. You're just throwing me under the bus. I took this victim mindset, which is frequently what happens in life when we mess up. And uh it led me God took me on a journey to rock bottom. I almost got myself kicked out of the SEAL teams. I had my brothers totally ostracized me and say, "That guy's dangerous. We we don't want him here." I ended up in a chair in Afghanistan with a gun in my mouth and almost took my life.

Thankfully, God kind of slapped me in the back of the head and said, "What are you doing?" You know, what message do you send to your wife and kids if you were to take your life in Afghanistan? You know, you need to navigate through this. this. this. And I met um I went and sought help. I met a chaplain and I'll never forget he said to me, you know, I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, if they're going to kick you out or not, but right now this is the end.

And he said, so often in life, we're going to hit these the end moments. So often true bad days in in humans lives are the end of something. They may be the end of a business. They may be the end of a relationship. They may be the end of our health, health, health, but it also becomes a new beginning. He said, "No matter what happens, whether you get kicked out or not, tomorrow's a new beginning. you're either going to have to figure out your path forward because they're going to call upon you.

If they do keep you, it will be a journey for you. And he was absolutely right. The next day, thankfully, my commanding officer believed in me. He said, "I've seen you do some good things." He said, "You, we need to help you grow up. We need to humble you." And that started a journey for me um to truly grow up, to humble myself, to understand that I wasn't as great as I thought I was, wasn't even close, that I wasn't wasn't wasn't living as a leader should.

Um and it became the foundation of everything I teach today. It's everything I write about my book. It became the way I tried to lead myself and carry myself and deal with adversity and positivity. So much so over that that multi-year journey that fast forward to that day that I was wounded. Don't get me wrong, in the beginning it was very hard. Sure. Sure. Sure. But I looked back on that and I was like, you know what, man? You have already walked the hardest path you've ever walked.

You climbed out of the deep, deepest, darkest hole from a chair in Afghanistan with a gun in your mouth to where you are today. You know what you need to do. You know, all the tools that you had to build within yourself to to overcome that are the same tools you're going to need for this. You're going to lead yourself. You're going to lead others. You're going to lead always. You're going to you're going to have you're going to have this overcome mindset. We're going to continue to grind.

We're going to get off the X and not feel sorry for ourselves. All these things that I had built and that God walked me through that path. That's a lot of the things that I'm going to talk about today. So often when bad things happen, when we have true bad days, we're like, "Why, God, why would you allow this to happen to me?" to me?" to me?" Well, I think it's because God's pushing us to become the next elite version of ourselves. And you need that.

What you just said is so profound. What's the I always think when someone's talking, what's the application for someone listening? And one of the applications is if you're going through one of those hard times, and if you're not, you're going to you have six of them evidently at least, right? Yeah. So why not when that's happening have some approach like this is building me for something better or I have been prepared for this. I want to ask you something about that time where you kind of lost your way as a seal.

You said you got a little arrogant. There's a really unique nuance. I've only asked a few people this question but there's this unique nuance of leaders that I respect and that I love. Also just really good friends of mine have this very unique thing that I think I see in you now that I've met you in person. And here's what it is. And I want you to talk about this if you could. It's not in your book. I just want I want your opinion about it.

It's that they have a lot of confidence combined with a large amount of humility. They tow this very unique nuance between I am a confident person, but I also have humility where I'm learning. I'm humble. I don't have all the answers. Cuz in life, if you have somebody really close to you that's a leader that has a ton of confidence, but no humility. They eventually flame out. They make a mistake. They think they're special. On the other side of the coin, even if you have a friend like this, they just have tons of humility, but no confidence.

You're dragging them through life all the time, right? They're always having to pick them up. You're always pouring into them. Do you see that in leaders that you've admired and respected to? Like, and how do you find that? Like, how do you find that balance of I'm confident, I know what I'm doing, I know the direction I'm heading, but humility to know that really God's in charge. He's laughing at some of our biggest plans. I'm just curious your thoughts on that. So, a lot of people bring that up to me.

They're like, "Man, you've had so many successes, but when we meet you in person, you're so humble." Number one, first and foremost, that rock bottom moment for me in Afghanistan taught me no one is ever as great as we think we are. And not only that, it can all be gone in a second. I live my life. I'm so thankful for the life that God has given me, the gifts he's given me, the the successes he's given me. But I also recognize they all could be gone tomorrow in a second.

In the blink of an eye, something could happen and they could be gone. Um, so I'm confident in my ability because I've had successes. I've been through hard things. I've learned through this amazing journey of life. I I think where it becomes arrogance is people who think it'll never go away and they actually start to o almost o almost o almost you're right you're right you're right look down on other people like hey why would you ever question me or why would you think I can't do this or you're not at the same level I am that's arrogance and if you honestly think that think that think that bad things happen to good people every single day on this planet people who have the most perfect plan in life get knocked down and and fail crash and burn fail fail fail And I I live my life this way.

I'm thankful. I I feel like I'll pick myself back up and I'll drive forward. Will I get back? I often talk about the overcome mindset driving forward and having that confidence. It doesn't mean you're going to fix what's broken and it doesn't mean that you will be able to replace what's lost. So what does it mean? So let's talk about this. So I think the I I love a lot of your work but the overcome mindset to me like when I think of you that's actually the work I think of probably because it was like the foundational stuff where you came on my radar right so what does it mean let's unpack this a little bit because you know it's easy saying but it there's strategy to this as well so blend these two things together you you've now been shot okay it's eight times it is a it it's not a good day it might not have been your worst day I think everybody driving in their car on the treadmill right now would prefer they don't get shot eight times in the face.

I don't recommend it. Yeah. Anybody looking for a path to build and overcome mindset, getting shot in the face by a machine gun is not it. You're probably not it, right? And so what is what did that recovery look like? If you could take us through a little bit of it and how did that morph into this which you had already been developing this overcome mindset? If you could give us like the the actual practical things that happen and then the application of the thought process.

So an overcome mindset is an idea that bad things are going to happen. Bad things happen to good people. I don't care how well you plan and a lot of this is built in the the culture of the SEAL teams. I think out of any special operation unit, we are probably some of the best and and not to knock I mean all of our soft forces, our Green Berets, our Rangers, Mars, Air Force, all of these great people. They do an amazing job training and they are some of our most elite out there.

But there's something about SEAL training. I've witnessed it. I've been a part of it. I went through Ranger School. I worked with Green Beretss. I've worked with all of them. We're almost sadistic in how we come up with the way we train and try and decide like what is the worst case scenario we can come up with and then we'll try and 10x it to make it even more painful and miserable. Thinking that way gives you this this appreciation for most of the time when we conduct operations things go according to plan or at least according to plan how we train and it's kind of rare.

it's only a 10% thing where they really go off course where you know we're getting all shot up or obviously things get shot down. So I I've applied that mindset to life and it's built on three principles. I tell people the overcome mindset is built on these three things and getting wounded. There were three things that I already knew. So it was hard in those moments but number one awareness. Awareness that things can go wrong. If you think you're never going to be knocked off your pedestal.

If you think that, you know, maybe you're running a billion-dollar business or maybe everything's perfect in your family and you think that nothing's ever going to go wrong. You're living in La La Land. La Land. La Land. There is the chance that things can always go wrong. There are just things that we cannot plan for. So, number one's awareness. Number two is preparation. And this can be all the way to the level of we're physically training or we're putting financial safeguards in place or we're doing whatever we can to prepare for the awareness that this could go wrong.

And the last component is action. Often times when catastrophic true bad days happen, no different than a gunfight ambush, people are so overwhelmed by the pain and the misery, bullets and bombs of life that are occurring, people freeze up and they're not able to function. So if you haven't developed a level of awareness and done it at least some level of preparation, you're un unable to take action. I often give the example of for all of you out there that have teenage kids when we put them on the road.

How terrifying is that? Every single day in America, young 16-year-old drivers get in fatal accidents because they're driving outside of their capabilities. And I knew that. I've put three teenagers, my kids, on the road. And and I was aware that this is a true statistic. And I tried to do everything I could to teach them and and give them the tools when I taught them to drive and like, hey, you can get killed in this vehicle. this vehicle. this vehicle. Um, then became the mental preparation.

There wasn't a whole lot of physical preparation I could do. Often times it's merely mental preparation. Like, god forbid this happened, if a law enforcement officer shows up at my door when my kid is out, like, I need to be mentally prepared for this because I need to take action. I need to be Now, it goes back to the leadership principles I live by. I need to lead my family. I have a amazing spouse. I have two other kids if I was to lose one. And guess what?

I need to take action and lead them through this crisis that is coming. coming. coming. Thank God it didn't happen. Yeah. But that is the overcome mindset at work. And and when I got wounded, there was no I actually it's kind of a funny story. Several weeks prior to me being wounded, we had a night off and we were all sitting around um playing poker because that's what we like to do in our night offs. And I uh you know I like to give my money away to the guys.

The guys say that I was a bad poker player, but that's not true. I'm a giver. So anyways, we're uh we're playing and somehow we came up on the conversation of if you were going to be shot, where would you want to be shot? And um I'm not a big guy. So I remember saying and most of us all agreed lower leg uh if you were to lose a lower extremity. Prosthetics are so amazing now. Gosh, the conversation, you know, you could continue to function. We all like, yeah, and I definitely I I said it in this meeting.

I was like, I sure don't want to get shot in your arms. I got these little toothpick arms. I don't want to be shot in the arm. Definitely lower leg, leg fine with me. Oh my god. None of us said I don't want to be shot in the head, you know? I mean, no one's going to say that. But I also was aware this is a dangerous job. I had lost friends. I did not live in this false reality thinking I could never be shot or never be injured.

So when I was wounded, I was aware. I was prepared. I had not gotten as deep into the level of injuries that I had, but still I was mentally prepared. And everything that happened to me before, I tell people your past life ambushes, your past bad days prepare you for the future. And that enabled me to take action because I said, "Hey man, you've been through this before. Wow. Now let's go. It's time to put your money where your mouth is. you you have built this uh framework of leadership and this this resilience and overcome mindset.

Now's the time. Let's go. Wow. How do you when you've gone through trauma and and obviously yours is was severe. You but people listening this have had trauma. They've lost a loved one like we've said relationship setback. They've just even done something was just embarrassing, right? Or something in their childhood. How do you or maybe you didn't. How do you not how did you not find yourself living in fear? Like I think had I been through what you had been through I would have lived as a very fearful person a after the injuries.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So uh So uh So uh well just in life in general like not you go through something and thinking well I'm due for another one. This is just what's going to happen. Yeah. It's funny. Humans were like this and and I don't I'm guess I'm a pretty pragmatic person. Like I built frameworks. We did in the SEAL teams. We had standard operating procedures and I I built those things into my own life and how I live my life and how I try and coach other people and and so there were things that I noticed.

I have a principle called living greatly. It is how do we become the elite and best version of ourselves despite the fears and doubts that we have in this life because we all have them. them. them. We used to so when I ran my nonprofit we used to take wounded warriors and we did all these different things. We ran different events. One of the events we ran was called Jumping for a Purpose. And we would take wounded warriors and families of the fallen and we would throw them out of perfectly good airplanes.

And people would be like, "Oh my god, why would you do this?" And and and often times, I mean, these are individuals that have been wounded or they've lost a loved one in in in training or combat. Those are our gold star families. star families. star families. And there's a lot of fear when we've been through something. So many people live their lives like, "Hey, if I failed in business, I'm never doing that again. I'm never going to start my own a business again. That was too painful uh emotionally, mentally, financially.

You know, we we end a marriage. We're like, "Oh, I'm never doing that again because that was too painful. I don't want to take that chance." Um whatever it is, it's a natural human thing, like you said, to well, I'm not going to put myself out there. But you're limiting yourself, right? You're you're you're you're constraining yourself from being the best person and truly living your life to the highest level. And as a guy who faced death in the end, in those final moments when I thought I was bleeding out, I wasn't going to come home.

I I had regrets. I had like I wish I had done these things. I wish I had spent more time with my family. I wish I had gone and gotten my degree. Uh you know, or whatever it was, you know, the things that I thought about. I wish I had done these different things. things. things. And it made me realize that so often we live our lives in fear and doubt. And I think God wants you to be like the highest best version of yourself. He wants you to overcome that fear.

So, so come back to us getting these individuals to jump. You have to face fear when you jump out of the back of an airplane. I don't care who you are. If you no longer have fear, you probably shouldn't be jumping anymore because fear makes you make sure you check your gear, you do everything possible. And we would send these individuals out and oh my god, the joy and elation they would have. And I think it reminded them that they're still alive. Every Jumping for a Purpose event we did, it never failed.

We would always have at least one person that would get up and they'd look out the back of that plane before they'd connect to the tandem mash and they'd go, "Uh-uh. I can't do it." And I'd be like, "Are you sure you don't want to jump?" And they'd say, "No, I can't do it." And I'd say, "No big deal. Just sit back down like ride it back to the ground." You know, I wouldn't try and push them on the plane or anything like that. And we jump out.

And I never gave much thought to this. We stopped running that event maybe in 2017, I think. Mh. In the seven years around Virginia Beach, I have run into four individuals who did not jump, who who stood in that door and were afraid to jump. Every single person came up to me and said, "I wish I had jumped." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's life. So often we stand on the ramp of life and we have these hopes and goals and dreams and we're afraid. We're afraid of failing again.

We're afraid of what is somebody going to say? We're afraid of what if this business doesn't go well or what if people make fun of me or whatever it is. Jump. Yeah, jump. Because I tell you what, it is that action. It is that step off the end of the ramp that enables greatness. And even if you fail, so what? Because I'll tell you, you'll get to the end of your life like I did when you face those moments. And you'll be like, you know what?

I went after every hope and goal and dream. And and even if I didn't make it, at least I know. So you don't get to the end and you're like like I was where I was like, what if? What if I had done this? What if I had spent more time with my kids and family? So God gave me a second chance. You have to live greatly. God wants you to be the best version of yourself. Don't get to the end of your life and be like, "What if?

I was too afraid to go after it." Jump. Dude, that was outstanding. Living greatly, baby. That was one of my favorite things we've said on the show in a long time, actually. Right there. Okay, that was so good. C good. C good. C can I add one last thing because there's one additional part of this that I see a lot. lot. lot. An additional part of of living in fear or doubt or pain. We lose people in this life. It is an unfortunate part of this life.

All of us are going to die someday. And we're going to lose mom and dad and friends. Um the greatest husbands and wives, greatest life ambush I see is a loss of a child. And there is this tendency. I've witnessed this so often in the military community. I've buried over 50 friends since 911, including my best friend who took his life. A and I meet so many individuals who have lost someone like this. and they're afraid to live. Not only are they afraid to live, they feel guilty to live.

live. live. So, they live their life in this sadness. And I'm like, I feel like God gave me a second. I can't explain why God allowed me to come home and so many of my friends who are far better seals than I was. But I feel like it's my duty to be like the best version of myself, to not be afraid, to go after it because I hope that, and I would say this to anyone that's out there, that is how you honor your parents who are no longer here.

If you lose a friend or a child or a husband or a wife, honor them by being the best version of yourself. So that when they look down, they're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so proud of them despite this pain and loss. Look at who they are." are. And I think that's how we honor the people that that are lost while we're on this earth. It's amazing you're saying that. It's part of a talk that I give at the event that you and I are recording at right now.

I'm about to say that sentence on stage. By the way, I didn't come to it through as traumatic of an event as you did, nor am I the caliber of man you are for what you you've gone through in your life. But I I do completely share that sentiment because I'm about to say it in about 40 minutes on stage. So, I totally agree with that. We got to talk about the sign on the door. Yeah. This is a story that I know and it's resonated with me, but I just want to like throw that at you and get you give it to them and just go because this is you guys will you'll remember a lot of things from podcast, but I think there are certain stories that people go boom.

I think sign on the door is probably going to be one of an all-time. So, So, So, you know, the first week or 10 days in the hospital, I won't lie, it was it was tough. I mean, here I am. I'm I'm I am blown apart. I took two rounds in the left elbow. So, eight bullets total. Um, crossed the body armor, two rounds in the left elbow, rounds off, helmet, gun, left night vision tube shot off, right side plate, and then I caught that round in the face that blew out the right side of my face.

Um, I was wired shot. I was traced. Um, my vision was messed up. I was, um, they were feeding me through a stomach tube and I had no use of my left hand, the nerve damage. And the doctor's initial plan was to amputate my arm above the elbow. And um so I'm facing all of this really struggling. And I think when people go through really traumatic events, I I I tell people it's it's common. I don't know as humans why we do this, but we'll place him in the victim box like, "Oh, this so ter oh Ed, it's terrible that you lost your company or it's terrible that you know you got in a divorce or whatever it is." and and we feel sorry for people and and wrongly in my opin opinion almost give them an excuse to feel sorry for themselves and justify justify justify um not getting off that X and driving forward.

And that's what happened to me. I had some individuals that came in the room and they were overwhelmed by being in the military hospital. And it's a hard place to be during a time of war. Um and I know I was very Um and I know I was very overwhelming to look at in the beginning. A nurse came in and they stepped off to the side of the room and they started talking to, "Oh, what a what a what a shame. What a what? This is so sad.

All these wounded warriors that are blown apart like what a waste." You could hear this. Yes, I could hear it. And they were talking off to themselves, but I could hear it while this nurse worked on me and they said, "What a waste. Like we we we sent all these young men and women to war and they're never going to be the same." It was like this broken veteran narrative that they had. And they left. And I remember laying in that bed like thinking to myself like, "Is that me?

Is that who I'm going to be?" And I was like, "No, that is not me. I will not be that." As a matter of fact, I said, "From this moment forward, I refuse to feel sorry for myself." And when my wife came back in, I told her, I said, "Um, no one's allowed to come in this room feeling sorry for me again." You said that. Yeah. I wrote it to her because I couldn't talk. All I could do is write. And I wrote out that sign and it wasn't um literally there that that period of time was maybe 15 minutes.

There wasn't a whole lot of thought. It literally was a stream of consciousness and it said, "Attention to all who enter here. If you're coming in this room with sadness or sorrow, don't bother. The wounds I received, I got in a job that I love, doing it for people that I love, defending the freedom of a country that I deeply love. I will make a full recovery." What is full? That's the absolute utmost physically I have the ability to recover. And I'm gonna push that about 20% further through sheer mental tenacity.

This room you're about to enter is a room of fun, optimism, and intense rapid regrowth. If you are not prepared for that, go elsewhere. And uh we jokingly signed it, the management. And uh and I told my wife to put it on the door. And as amazing, supportive wives, her initial response was, "Are you serious?" you serious?" you serious?" Of course. Of course. Of course. And I was like, "Yes, put this on the door. Make sure everybody reads it." Can we go to something he said there?

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I want to ask you and then we'll talk about the relationship piece for the book too, but with you and Erica. But so hey guys, when you're in that level up mindset for your business, it's wild how much the basic stuff matters like how you talk to customers, how you communicate, how your team interacts, how you follow up with leads. Look, we're in an AI era and if you don't have a system that's helping you communicate to compete with the competition, you're going to be in a tough spot.

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And I think maybe that's important that I think some people think need to get back to who I was before. Why don't you talk about that for a second? second? second? Yeah. In my book, Overcome, I write about this and I think it's normal. all of us. I I did it, too. Even though I wrote it on the sign, I wanted to get back to the Jason Redmond who I physically was prior to my injuries. But the reality is when you've been through trauma, physical, mental, emotional, the parts that are part of the human spirit, you will never be back to the same as you were because you have been forever altered.

altered. altered. Period. Period. Period. But what you can be is the new 100%. and that I realized that as I started to work out. Originally, I thought I could get back operational. I I sought out doctors to put me back together so that I could continue to be an operational seal. And and the damage to my arm was too great. Even today, I can't bend any further than this. I'm limited to this and I can't extend any further than this. And I still have nerve damage.

Um I have to use straps when I'm deadlifting because I can't hold more than about 55 pounds for a very short period of time. Um, and I wanted that back. Like all of us in life, I want back where I was, you know, physically, mentally, emotionally. It's never going to happen. Emotional trauma in our mind, I had to deal with that. Also, I I carried a lot of demons and it took me years to come to grips with that. And I think people think that they'll just overcome and the trauma will just go away and they heal it.

It's really not true. You learn to live with it. You learn to tame it. You learn, it's still in your mind. You just learn the tools to deal with it. and and so you own it and it doesn't own you. Mhm. But in many ways, you come back better in certain areas. Like I imagine your ability even to I mean I'm picking little things when I'm watching you. Obviously this dude was a complete stud, a seal for 21 years. There's this version of you. But now there's this version of me in front of you who's like this exemplary communicator.

I would bet that that part of you that even the day before you were wounded, you couldn't communicate like you do now. In other words, you came back different than you. But sometimes that sounds like, well, I'm limited. You're actually in many ways your faith, everything about you has exponentially changed since that time. So you can come back better just in different versions of you and in different facets of yourself that didn't exist before. Do you agree with that? Uh a thousand%. The end moments become new beginnings.

And so often if we're willing to embrace that new beginning for a lot of people, including me, yes, what I've been through is hard, but God gave me an every time it's been an opportunity to level up in my life. And I think for many people you will meet that go through some horrendous thing, some traumatic life ambush as I call them. The ones that embrace it and embrace the new beginning frequently be they become a better version of who they were. And so often pe people always like to ask me, you know, oh, if you could go back and and that day would never happen, would you?

And I think the answer is no. As hard as it was, God gave me a new path, a new beginning that I'm impacting millions of people now. I There are amazing young SEAL officers who are killing it. They're incredible. They are the future of our nation, and they're probably doing it much better than I ever would have. But instead, God gave me this new path and this new beginning. And I tell people like, hey, be thankful and and and navigate through that hardship because it will make you better.

You don't know what that new beginning is going to be until you start to walk that path. You're a remarkable guy, bro. Well, blessed. I've lived it. Everything that I speak on isn't Well, that's what's special about you. There's nothing theoretical about you. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, you've lived it. And so, this isn't some philosophy you came up with when you went to a seminar. You've lived it. And I think there's some authenticity there that you can't replace with just, you know, scholastic understanding. You've lived it.

There's something else that stood out. And then we're going to talk about the relationship stuff at the end. But there's a term I believe I'll get right. And you know, like sometimes I'll be reading something, I go, gosh, I wish that was mine cuz it's so good. And and I want you to elaborate on this concept. I I also like to pull things out for the podcast where people go, I remember this phrase and then this man talked about it, which is suffering productively. Never heard that before.

Yeah. I think it comes back to seal training and it it is it is part of the overcome mindset that I try to talk to people about. You cannot build an overcome mindset or overcome muscles as I like to say or grit or resilience by doing easy things and by constantly embracing uh comfort. It's a problem we're having in America. I mean, if you look at the foundations of our country, if you go back to the beginning, we were really a country that was built on sacrifice and grit.

I mean, people spread out all across the country and, you know, they had to down forest to build houses and it was very hard, grueling work. And you get into the industrial revolution and often that times it was very hard uh uh backbreaking work and and I think that built just a natural grit and resiliency in our people. Well, now we're into the information age where people aren't having to do hard things. We can we can live our entire lives without doing that. And if you don't play sports or if you don't do something that forces you to do these hard things when you are finally hit with something traumatic and very hard, there isn't some magic switch that you turn on and do it.

You have to have done hard things before. So suffering productively means the greatest desire in in a human being is to reduce pain and suffering that they're going through and discomfort. It's why SEAL training has an 80% attrition rate. It's because they do everything they can to make us as as uncomfortable and cold and miserable. And what enables guys to make it through training is the ability to suffer through that, but still be able to function, to still be able to motivate and do the things that need to be done despite that pain, despite that cold, despite that suffering.

What that builds is this overcome mindset is the core of the SEAL teams. You don't have to be a SEAL to do that. There are many things in life you can do. Get, you know, working out is probably one of the biggest things that you can do that pushes you to have to get out of your comfort zone. Do things that you're afraid of. do things that you don't like. If you're afraid of heights, go climb. Go jump out of a plane. If you're afraid of speaking, join Toast Masters and start speaking in front of people because that that fear and that discomfort makes you stronger and better.

better. better. Let me ask you about time frames on this stuff. I want to be granular for a minute. I was going to quit business that ended up making me a pretty wealthy guy at one time. And I had every reason to quit it. I sucked at it. I was suffering. I was broke. I was making tons of mistakes. And I went to my dad who had uh you know that you know the story but in case someone said and my dad ended up getting sober and my dad his my dad when he got sober I said dad are you never going to drink again.

He said I can't tell you that Eddie. What I'll tell you is I'm not going to drink for one more day at a time. And my dad stacked up those one more days the rest of his life for 35 years. One day at a time my dad didn't drink. So I was going to quit the business and my dad says to me, "Why don't you just do this? By the way, maybe you should. I don't know. Just don't quit for one more day. Just don't quit for one more day.

See how you feel tomorrow." And I would get up the next day and still wanted to quit, but not quite as much. And those one days stacked and all of a sudden at some point I didn't want to anymore. At least not as much. I've asked other seals this Rob O'Neal's a friend and he said, "Bro, like I'm paraphrasing, but he goes, I shrunk my time frames down." Meaning, I was just trying to get to like to the next meal, the next hour, the next thing.

is part of when you're really going through suffering, do you think one of the strategies is you can have a big vision for your life, but maybe just shrinking the time frame, get through the hour, get through the day. Is that is that part of what you did to put yourself back together both emotionally and physically? and physically? and physically? Absolutely. No, it is a key strategy they teach you in SEAL training. I've applied it to my life going through surgeries. It would be get through the surgery recovery and now we get to the next one.

Now it starts over. I got really sick in 2020 and it was I just I need to keep driving forward and push, you know, let's go for the next couple of weeks. Let's get to I I couldn't even speak now. Thank God in Thank God co happened and it actually gave me time to recover but I had to figure out what was wrong with me. The doctors that took a while to do that when I messed up as a young leader. leader. leader. Yeah. You talk about taking it evolution by evolution.

Many of the guys when I was assigned to a new troop did not want me there. I heard that on a regular basis. Like, yeah, my nickname was Rambo Red, which was not a compliment. And I had to take every evolution at a time and and hear the naysayers say it's only a matter of time before he screws up again. again. again. And I just focused on, okay, just try and crush this evolution. And it doesn't mean that you're you're not going to waver and you're not going to stumble.

Um, I a lot of people, if they've never read my book, don't know I quit in Ranger School. True story. I quit in Ranger School. I got into uh one I hadn't quite hit rock bottom navigating through the journey of becoming a better leader and I failed the land nav course and I still had a chip on my shoulder. I still had that victim mindset and I got into the Ranger instructors were giving me grief about failing and I let them I told them exactly what I thought and where they could take that course and they said, "Are you quitting?" And I said, "Yes." We feed ourselves lies when we're struggling.

And I'm sure in those moments in business, you were like, I suck at this. I'm never going to be good at this. at this. at this. I tell people, it's never too late. If you're still alive, that means it's not too late. too late. too late. And and I I fell victim to this when I was in Ranger school. I was like, it's too late. The guys will never follow me again. again. again. And thankfully, I had the Ranger Colonel KK Chin. Huge shout out to you.

He retired a two-star general. I'm still friends with him to this day. He happened to be friends with one of of our most senior respected SEALs. And he said, "I got a young guy in here. He's really struggling." He's like, "I think we need to talk to him." They got on the phone and um and and this very respected CE leader. I said to him, "It's too late. I'm never going to be able to recover. The guys will never follow me again." And he said, "Red, people will follow if you give them a reason to.

That's all leadership is." He said, "I don't care how bad you messed up." He said, "Go crush this course and then come back and give the guys a reason to follow you." And and and that's what I did. He motivated me and gave me a second chance. chance. chance. Wow. Wow. Wow. Um so I tell people that it's so easy to listen to the lies. It's too late. I'm no good. I can never do this. Uh my family is better off without this. One of the lies that takes you down the deepest, darkest holes.

And I'm like, that's not true, man. Just as you said, you take it one day at a time. keep pushing. And that's what I had to do to rebuild my credibility. And it's what I had to do to rebuild my body uh both times, you know, once wounded, once sick. It's what I had to do when I had to rebuild our business when I got sued and accused of something I didn't do. I just had to keep driving forward. Ignore the naysayers. Focus on that tight group of people you have around you and and and God above and it will be amazing what you owe.

Oh, you're so good. I want to finish with something. So, I was thinking, get this guy's a seal. He's obviously one of the baddest men in the world. He's been shot, you know, was 21 years. I'm like, is that the guy I want to take marriage advice from? You know, and then I read the book and I was like, actually, it might be perfect because you are bringing bags into a relationship theoretically, right? Like we all bring our bags into the relationship. And what you've gone through several traumatic events, you're bringing some real bags with you with you and Erica.

By the way, the name of the book, by the way, is Mission Invincible Marriage. Let's just talk about this just for a second. What was harder to heal like your relationship like with Erica with the trauma that you'd been through? And I assume you know there's one way that you speak to fellow SEALs and that's probably not the same way that we would interact with our spouse all the time. Like what made you write this book? And like how did you end up rebuilding an even stronger relationship with Erica that it sounds to me from reading wasn't always perfect all the time?

It wasn't always perfect, but we had a good marriage. We had a strong marriage. It got tested to the highest level with my injuries. And I think, you know, there were a lot of things that led us to write this book. I told one of the things when I wrote The Trident, my first book, um, I wanted to share the story of what our spouses went through because of what Erica had gone through. I mean, our military spouses, such a huge shout out, and I'll even take that further to our law enforcement and fire spouses to to have to marry someone who is a natural protector.

We are mission driven. We have this tendency. We're the individuals that want to write to where we want to run to where everything's burning down, where everybody else runs away. And to be married to someone like that is difficult because we want to help people sometimes even even at a sacrifice to our own families. and and finding someone strong enough to understand that is is really difficult. In America, we're at over a 50% divorce rate now. rate now. rate now. And you said seals are 90.

Is that we're 90? We're the winners. We're the winners. In the military at 60 to 70%, that's pretty common with law enforcement and fire. Special operation gets up to about 80% across soft about 90%. My goodness. Um it's just a a really hard job and I don't know if we always do such a we also are not our our courting period is very short frequently because we met we meet women in bars no different than I did with Erica and and sometimes we're just constantly on the go so you're not able to build a strong foundation and now you're continuing a job that's dangerous and hard you're gone all the time.

Eric and I were able to build a strong foundation. Once again I'm about frameworks. I'm about like what are the systems I can put in place to make this work. work. work. And um there were things Erica and I did. One, building the strong foundation. There were also several other things that occurred. Eric and I both came out of bad relationships when we met. We also both came from broken homes. Both our parents were divorced and a little bit of divisiveness between our parents that we witnessed all the time.

We both came out of these bad relationships. So when we met and we decided we were going to get married, we were like, "This is it forever. death. That's the only way out of this. Um, so that was kind of the initial thing and it was also understanding where we wanted to go both in my marriage and marriage and marriage and how do you do that? Do you guys talk about it? about it? about it? Oh, 100%. You have to communicate. Throughout the book, you will see communication is number one thing.

You must be constantly communicating because you will change. Years will go by and you will change. The Ed Mlet today is different from the Ed Mylet 10 years ago who's different from the Ed Mlet 20 years ago. Yes. No different for me and my wife. Would you also say, I just want to jump in. Would you also say because the people that listen to this type of work, my show, are typically growing people, meaning meaning meaning they're embracing growth. And I think when you're in in a relationship with someone who is a grower, not everybody is, everyone changes, but is a real grower, you got to even be more vigilant about this stuff because this person is changing year to year, month to month, decade to decade.

You got to really have it together in relationships when you're with a grower because their life and personality is going to adjust and change over time. That's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah. And so that's why the communication is critical. No different in business. I mean, we must be communicating to our team where, hey, our strategy and vision and where we're going to go. We broke the book into three parts. It was built on a foundation of mission and values. Most critical thing. Your mission for Erica and I, it was uh we we wanted kids.

We wanted a level of success uh for me in the 20 in that period. I had been in for eight years. So I told her I'm doing 20 years no matter what. Like you're you have to be on board with this because this is my mission and part of my values. Her mission was um she wanted to level up. She was always a natural entrepreneur. So there were some entrepreneur goals she had and it was also to be a mom and have kids and do these things.

It gets down into vacations and and how we spend money and how we save. All these things are part of your mission. The second component becomes training. No different in the SEAL teams. We're constantly training to do different missions and the and the training changes over time based on what's happening in the world around us and what we see. You need to be doing the same in your marriage. How are you training? Well, it's you're going out and you're talking and you're doing things and you're going through the finances together and you're understanding what's happening in your spouse's life and what's happening in your life and you're you're communicating through these things and navigating through them.

That's training. training. training. Wow. Wow. Wow. And then the last one is under fire. How do you deal with crisis and adversity? And how do you fight? Eric and I have rules of engagement, no different than in a no different than a military unit. Eric and I from a very early phase said, "Hey, uh there's no ultimatums. There's no name calling. You can't bring up the past." And um well, you don't do it. So that's I think that was it. Yeah. So uh those are our rules of engagement.

That being said, by having those things when you listen better. So, coming full circle to you asking me about how did you guys heal yourself emotionally, I I kind of went off a cliff like many wounded warriors about three years after I was wounded, maybe four years, and started pushing everybody away. I wanted to fix it myself, but I was breaking. I was that the the mental demons, that dragon in my head was eating me. And and like many protectors and types, I didn't want to admit I was the sign on the door guy.

I'm the overcome guy. Like I I I don't have these problems, but I was. And I started nursing it with alcohol and and really spiraling down. And one day Eric and I were driving to an event and she shocked me because we had our rules, we had our training, we had our framework. and she said to me, you know, uh, this the way we're going, this could be the beginning of the end, a warning of an ultimatum. And it was so shocking to me because we had never, we had agreed we never bring this up.

this up. this up. It was like a punch in the face. And I said, "What are you talking about?" And she said, "If you do not get help, help, help, we are not communicating. We are not following the rules and the framework we laid out in our marriage. if you cannot do this, we are moving down a path to the beginning of the end. Wow. Wow. Wow. And um it was a shock to me. And it was enough for me to recognize it jolted me out of the the depression and being on that X to say I got to go get help once again in life.

So often you don't you don't have to do it alone, man. man. man. And I did same thing I did when I was sitting in that chair. I went and found a chaplain. I went to our command where we had chaplain, the psyches, and that started me on this path of all these different modalities that we can do to heal trauma. heal trauma. heal trauma. You uh impressed me with your vulnerability. I think it's one of the signs of a strong man is that he's uh willing to reveal his imperfections, you know, and I watch.

Well, so do I. Right. And and I appreciate someone who's willing to share that. I want to finish with one question with you. By the way, I've enjoyed today. enjoyed today. enjoyed today. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like this is like a conversation, you know? I'd prefer we had a cigar and a little, you know, I would agree tasty beverage, little little beverage, but but that's what I feel like this conversation's been and everyone's got everyone's got everyone's got We'll take a rain shack for another time. time.

time. I would I would really love that. Yeah, me too. I don't want to get out of the interview, but I ask you because you've mentioned chaplain a couple times and you and I are actually sitting right now backstage while we're recording this at a a faith-based event. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That we're both going to be speaking at here, me in about 8 minutes. And um I just want to know how all of this journey of your life has affected or made an impact on your faith.

One of the things that I see on you is like God's given you a lot of grace in your life. You not only have other people, but you're blessed. You've got a beautiful family. family. family. You know, you you've got a career that's flourishing. You've got success. You're jacked. You seem to really have a self-awareness about you that very few people reach in their life. So when I see that on a man, also a man that's strong but has a gentleness to him, I usually think that's the Holy Spirit.

There's there's something on this dude that that I want more of and that I really admire and appreciate. So anything you wanted to add on your faith is kind of a final question. Yeah, I'm a walking miracle. Um that night on the battlefield, I was bleeding out and dying. There's no doubt in my mind. And I called out to God and I suddenly had energy and I went from not being able to move a muscle to getting up and walking 75 yards and getting on that helicopter under my own power.

The doctor said it's a miracle. They said, "You lost almost half of your blood supply. Like you should not have survived." God enabled that. And I'd love to tell you that I'm like the strongest Christian that I'm so convicted and I never have doubts. And that's not true. I'm very analytical. Faith is a hard thing. There are times where I'm like, "God, where are you?" Like when my best friend died and took his life, I was like, "Why?" And I'm going to talk about that today.

And that's okay. I sometimes feel bad like maybe I'm a terrible Christian because I doubt you. You gave me this gift, this miracle miracle miracle and I and I doubt you sometimes, but where I have solace is the fact that Jesus's own disciples who walked with him, right? him, right? him, right? Were like, you know, he was like Oprah, like throwing out miracles like you get a miracle and you know what? You want to walk, you can walk and have some sight. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. And like, you know, when he was uh when he was captured and taken to the cross and then died, all those dudes doubted.

You know, he even told Peter like, "You're going to deny me. You're going to die deny me three times." And and he did. And and Thomas, so I have have have there's a Roman um guard. There's a story, I think it's in Matthew, where the guard comes up to Jesus and says, "Please help my my son or daughter." I can't remember which it is. And Jesus says, "All you need to do is believe." And the guard says, "Please help me with my unbelief." my unbelief." my unbelief." So I live this and and I and I talk about it because I think sometimes in churches, they're afraid to talk about this.

Like, "Oh, no. We're never going to talk about doubt." But I I'm okay with this. Like I'm man, walk in miracle. I still have doubts. It doesn't make me a bad Christian. I just I pray the Lord I pray that prayer a lot. Lord, help me with my unbelief. unbelief. unbelief. Brother, I love that answer. We have a relationship with God and relationships go through their es and flows. I was thinking earlier about what you said by the way. Thank you. What a great answer by the way.

But I have to tell you about what you said in your relationship with Erica that there's training and training for me is reading my scriptures. And then there's rules of engagement which is what those scriptures teach me. And so that is a relationship. There are ups and downs. I think when you have doubts and those questions get answered, your faith deepens. And if you don't have any ever, ever, ever, where are the opportunities to deepen your faith? So, uh, my relationship with you is deepened today.

I've really enjoyed this, brother. Yeah, very much. So, I want you guys to go get the book because we didn't get a chance to cover as much and this was actually really good for you cuz you did this killer podcast, but that the book hasn't been covered. So, they got to go get it. So, Mission Invincible Marriage, go get it. It's by Jason Redmond. Jason, this was a great combo, bro. This was outstanding. Yeah. I'm so glad we finally did it. Glad we finally got together.

And I would love to take that rain check for that cigar. Oh, we're doing the cigar. We're doing that for sure. All right, you guys. God bless you. Max out your life.